Identity Reflections: Pilgrimages to Mount Tai in Late Imperial China (review)

Venerated since prehistory and a major tourist destination today, Mt. Tai (Taishan) in Shandong Province is China's premier mountain. Although it rises only fifteen hundred meters above sea level, its steepness and majestic form cause it to dominate the North China plain. To Brian Dott, it "epitomizes China's religious and social diversity" because it has been sacred to Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and people from all social strata have gone on pilgrimages to it. Emperors went there to legitimize their rule, and literati went for the cultural associations and enlightenment. For the past millennium, however, most pilgrims have been ordinary folks who went there to pray for ancestors and for heirs. It is on this latter element that much of the study focuses, with special attention paid to women pilgrims. Warming to this subject and explaining the title, Dott asserts that everyone who has journeyed to Mt. Tai has gone there with a different idea of the sacred and historic: "Each group's or individual's view of the world, interpersonal relationships, and ultimate goals or dreams-in a word, its identity-was reflected in its interactions with this sacred site." Dott claims that his study "is the first to trace the social landscape of Mt. Tai" to understand the motivations and mentalities of all the pilgrim groups, not just male literati but also women and peasants, "and to combine fiction, poetry, travel literature, and official records with the study of material culture and anthropology." What follows is a highly informative though anthropologically jargon-laden tour of the sociology of a sacred mountain.

Part 1 "Cultural Stratigraphy: Multiple Identities of a Sacred Site," explores Mt. Tai as a locus of nature worship, imperial ritual, history, mysticism, and death and life, for Mt. Tai, "like Chinese religion in general, reflects multiple belief systems and practices." Throughout, Dott draws heavily on the pioneering 1910 study on Mt. Tai by Edouard Chavannes, although the latter focused on imperial pilgrimages during the ancient and medieval periods. He also takes some inspiration from the anthropologist Victor Turner, but finds Turner's model of pilgrimage inadequate for explaining all the associations of Mt. Tai's and ultimately favors a very eclectic multidisciplinary approach. Part . contains definitions and descriptions of the various structures on Mt. Tai from rock inscriptions to stelae, arches, pavilions, and so on up to the great temples. It also explains the mountain's symbolism, especially its position in the east, which associated it with wood, spring, and sunrise, and thence to the source of birth and life.

These associations made Mt. Tai number one of China's Five Sacred Peaks, and from early times emperors made the ascent to gain personal power and heavenly approval. In the Qin dynasty, special sacrifices called feng and shan were developed specifically for performance on Mt. Tai. The origins of these sacrifices are unclear, but feng was addressed to heaven and shan to earth, which would make symbolic sense since Chinese have always seen mountains as meeting points between the two. Like all sacred rituals in ancient China, feng and shan had to be performed properly, and Sima Qian opined that the failure to do so contributed to the Qin's collapse. These sacrifices continued to be performed irregularly until the Qing, when they were abandoned. Besides imperial legitimation, Mt. Tai also drew people because of its historical significance. Sites on the mountain today date as early as Qin Shihuangdi's visit in 219 B.C. More important than China's first emperor, however, was Confucius, who is connected to Mt. Tai by numerous legends and by the particular sites that he visited. Scholar-literati produced volumes of poetry about Mt. Tai, to which Li Bo and Du Fu contributed. Literate pilgrims often recited Mt. Tai poetry when they visited.

Mt. Tai's multifarious significations did not stop with poetry. The venerable Queen Mother of the West...