廬山記 1.2

1.2

In former times, I studied in the mountains. I loved its springs, rocks, stūpas, and shrines, [yet] its treatises were not detailed, omitting antiquity and slighting the recent; or else they arose from the talk of foolish folk and rustic elders, their phrasing […] and their words redundant, with little worth adopting. I intended to examine, edit, and arrange them, but had no leisure. Twenty years later, while collating books in the Secret Archives, I obtained a Record of Mount Lu and rejoiced with delight, thinking my long-cherished wish was fulfilled. Yet when examining what it recorded, it was especially crude and brief. In the fifth year of Xining, Chen Lingju Shunyu of Jiahe was demoted to an official post before the mountain. With a passion for excursions, using sixty days of exertion, he exhausted the scenic wonders of its north and south, its heights and depths. By day he walked among the mountains, wielding his brush and snapping slips, jotting down notes on every side and inquiring everywhere, neglecting neither the minor nor the major. By night he opened his books to research them, stopping only when they were fit to be transmitted. Their elevations and extents, mountain rocks and water springs, along with the shrines and temples of Buddhists and Daoists, the dwellings of recluses and men of understanding, their abandonment and revival, decay and prosperity, stele inscriptions and poetic verses—none were not fully recorded. Moreover, he made bird's-eye maps and records, tracing the mountain in sequential order; of deep springs and solitary stones, none was omitted. The finished work comprised five fascicles in all. Three years later, when I was prefect of Wuxing, Lingju crossed over in a small boat to visit me. Because I was a man from before the mountain, he brought out the manuscript to give to me, requesting that it be carved onto printing blocks and kept within the mountain. It coincided with my receiving imperial favor and being transferred to Jinan, so I hurriedly parted from him. Soon afterwards Lingju passed away. I became increasingly burdened by affairs, rushing about in all directions; longing for a single return, I found it utterly unattainable. I have therefore prefaced the diligence of his compilation to present it to gentlemen of noble curiosity, hoping perhaps to fulfill Lingju's aspiration.