Gazetteer of Mount Mao
茅山志
People belong to a place. This thirty-three-juan gazetteer brings together masters, temples, landscape, inscriptions and writings: a way from the lineage back into the mountain’s historical setting.
Contents guide · linked primary textHow to approach this work
This is a gazetteer and historical source. The site’s forty-five-entry register follows juan 10–12, Shangqing pin. Sacred biographies, lineage ordering and datable events require different kinds of reading.
Chinese primary texts and reading guides are presented separately.
Masters and manuscripts
Read from Wei Huacun, Yang Xi and the Xu family to Song and Yuan masters. Compare the site’s register while distinguishing succession, manuscript transmission and direct teaching.
Landscape and temples
Move from named places to buildings to understand how traditions attach to caves, peaks and residences. Historical locations and surviving structures require further comparison.
History in inscriptions
Inscriptions preserve accounts of building, restoration, commemoration and people. Identify the writer, the date of composition and the date of the event before comparing a biography.
The mountain in literary writing
Literary writing reveals how the mountain was seen and described. It records sensibility as well as place, and needs to be read differently from itineraries and inscriptions.
Edition & sources
Four reading routes into the volume contents, not a full transcription. The electronic text contains variants and visible transcription errors; significant names, dates and temple histories warrant comparison with scanned editions.
Guides are written for this site. Read divine beings, bodily imagery and longevity in their religious setting.