Gazetteer of Mount Longhu龙虎山志

Also known as

Gazetteer of Mount Longhu (Yuan edition), Revised Gazetteer of Mount Longhu

Author / transmission

Yuan Mingshan (initial Yuan compilation), Zhang Guoxiang (revised in the Wanli era of the Ming)

Period

Yuan–Ming · Mountain gazetteers were already compiled in the Yuan, such as by Yuan Mingshan; the version of the Gazetteer of Mount Longhu preserved in the Daozang today is mostly connected with the recension overseen by the fiftieth-generation Celestial Master Zhang Guoxiang during the Wanli era of the Ming, while Lou Jinyuan of the Qing compiled a separate sixteen-scroll Gazetteer of Mount Longhu (fifth year of Qianlong, 1740).

Canon division

Supplementary Daoist Canon

Collected in

Supplementary Daoist Canon of the Wanli Era (with a separate Qing Qianlong-era recension by Lou Jinyuan outside the Canon)

Category

Mountain Gazetteers

Fascicles

3 juan (Daoist Canon edition); 16 juan in the Qing-dynasty Lou Jinyuan edition

Synopsis

The Gazetteer of Mount Longhu records the history of Mount Longhu in Guixi, Jiangxi — the ancestral seat of Zhengyi Daoism and the residence of successive generations of Celestial Masters. Its contents include the mountain's topography (the confronting Dragon and Tiger peaks, the Shangqing Stream, and the cliff tombs of Xianshui Rock), the establishment of its temples (the Shangqing Palace, the Mansion of the Celestial Masters, and the Zhengyi Temple), the genealogy and biographies of the Celestial Masters, imperial edicts and titles through successive dynasties, and stele inscriptions and literary writings. Tradition holds that Zhang Daoling refined the elixir here, and that the fourth-generation Celestial Master, Zhang Sheng, moved back to Mount Longhu from Hanzhong, after which it became the seat of the hereditary Zhengyi lineage; in the Yuan dynasty it received the authority to 'oversee the talismans and registers of the Three Mountains,' and its standing was especially exalted in the Ming. The sixteen-scroll recension compiled by Lou Jinyuan in the Qianlong era of the Qing is more complete in structure and richer in material, and is the standard edition in common use. This gazetteer stands complementary to the Genealogy of the Han Celestial Masters — one recording the place, the other the people — together forming the basic framework of Zhengyi Daoism's self-narrative, and is also an important document for studying the relationship between Daoism and successive dynasties and for the local society of Jiangxi.

Key Ideas

• A gazetteer of Mount Longhu, the ancestral seat of Zhengyi Daoism
• The establishment of the Shangqing Palace, the Mansion of the Celestial Masters, and the Zhengyi Temple
• The genealogy of the Celestial Masters and imperial titles
• The institutional memory of overseeing the talismans and registers of the Three Mountains in the Yuan
• Lou Jinyuan's Qing-dynasty recension is the most complete

Structure

Divided into sections on topography, temples, biographical figures, imperial edicts, stele inscriptions, and literary writings.

Editions

• Supplementary Daoist Canon of the Wanli Era edition
• Sixteen-scroll Qing Qianlong-era recension by Lou Jinyuan
• Punctuated and collated edition, Jiangxi People's Publishing House

Full Text & Online Resources

• CTEXT search
• Wikipedia: Mount Longhu

Related scriptures

Related figures