Mountainhopping: The Life of Wu Yun

Tang Studies 17 (1999) Mountainhopping: TheLifeofWuYun JAN A.M. DE MEYER UNIVERSITY OF LEIDEN Of all the Daoists whose lives are outlined in the chapters on reclusion (MM) in the Tang dynastic histories, Wu Yun ^£§ (d. 778) has been least favored by historical circumstances. For more than a millennium now, nearly all accounts of Wu Yun's life have contained a significant amount of inaccuracies.The cause of this fact ultimately rests with the confidence normally placed in dynastic historical writings, whose value for the present-day historian is often rather limited. Indeed, the first dynastic account of Wu Yun's life, in;. 192 of the Jiu Tang shu W®#, is so untrustworthy that it should better not be used at all. Sadly, this account, together with the somewhat more reliable one in/. 196 of the Xin Tang shu &fi§#, has formed the basis of nearly all that has been said of the life of Daoism's leading proponent during the Dali -KM era (766-80). In this article, I shall demonstrate that only one document relating to Wu Yun's life is more or less dependable. Besides pointing out the errors in other documents, I shall give a sketch of Wu Yun's life based to a large extent upon sources unjustly overlooked by premodern historiographers and contemporary scholars alike: occasional poetry, anecdotes, hagiography and, most important, the remains of Wu Yun's writings. That mountains figure prominently in our sketch is not the result of the partiality of our approach but rather due to the image Wu Yun carved out for himself. In his quest for more exalted spheres of existence, Wu Yun continuously Research for this paper was supported by the Foundation for Research in the Field of Philosophy and Theology which is subsidized by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). 171 De Meyer: The Life ofWu Yun sought the company of sacred mountains. Providing spiritual nourishment to our Daoist poet, these mountains are now useful in marking the successive stages of Wu Yun's life. 1. THE T W O OLDEST ACCOUNTS OF W U YUN'S LIFE? When comparing Wu Yun's biographies in the Jiu and the Xin Tang shu, one is immediately struck by a number of divergences. Whereas in the Jiu Tang shu, Wu Yun is called a Confucian scholar of the Lu region (^*P2.M±), the Xin Tang shu gives the disctrict of Huayin 8 ^ in Huazhou prefecture J£*N as Wu's place of origin. After failing the jinshi examination, Wu Yun is said in the Jiu Tang shu to have opted for a life of reclusion on Song shan {©ill, later to be ordained as a Daoist by the well-known Pan Shizheng M&filE. In the Xin Tang shu, Wu Yun's initial place of seclusion is changed to Yidi shan f ^ i i i near Nanyang i^B§. According to the Jiu Tang shu, Wu Yun travelled to Jinling ^ 1 ^ (today's Nanjing), Mao shan &\k, and Tiantai shan Z^O'UJ as early as the Kaiyuan H U 7 C era, i.e., between 713 and 742. The Xin Tang shu posits a different chronology: in the beginning of the Tianbao ^W era (742-56), Wu Yun was summoned to the capital, where he asked to be ordained as a Daoist. Thereupon he became a disciple of Pan Shizheng and later travelled southward. As we shall see, both versions, and the Jiu Tang shu in particular, are incorrect. Regarding Wu Yun's stay in the capital, his career as a Hanlin Academician in Attendance (Hanlin gongfeng §&;f*#^) and the events surrounding An Lushan's rebellion,both of our dynastic accounts present a fairly identical picture. They both quote Wu Yun's statement that "As to the essence of the Way and its methods, nothing equals Laozi's five-thousand words (the Daodejing); all the rest is a mere waste of paper." Both sources also refer to Wu Yun's unwillingness to inform emperor Xuanzong S*? (r. 712-56) about the cultivation of immortality, his anti-Buddhist sentiments and his friendship with Li Bai m & (701-762?). As to Wu Yun's death, the Jiu 172 Tang Studies Y7 (1999) Tang...