Chen Kongping
Numinous mountains abound in beauty, and green waters share their misty haze. The long, winding Huotong River, like a sash of green jade coiled around tender green hills, lends so much charm to the land of Ningde in Fujian Province.
The beauty of the Huotong River lies in its long history. Like a weighty volume of annals, it never tires the reader. That long stream of clear water winds past range upon range of green hills and through layer upon layer of the mists of history; its splashing waves record many ancient legends on the dark rocks of its banks.
It is said that people first discovered fire on the mountains at the source of the Huotong River, and so this unbroken range of green hills became a mountain of the gods and a peak of the immortals. Calling Mount Huotong the foremost grotto-heaven of Taoism is not local boasting; it has real sources, and many authoritative ancient Taoist classics say so.
Sources differ as to when Mount Huotong came to be regarded as a “grotto-heaven,” but by the Jin dynasty at the latest it was already famous throughout the land as a renowned Taoist mountain.
Mount Huotong was once regarded as a “nest of immortals,” and wandering scholars gathered here from all directions; hence the saying “If you have not climbed Huotong, you seek the immortals in vain.” The person who truly made Mount Huotong the “First Grotto-Heaven” in fact as well as name was Sima Chengzhen of the early Tang.
When the famous Taoist priest Sima Chengzhen ranked the grotto-heavens of the world, he placed Mount Huotong first among the “Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens” that follow the “Ten Great Grotto-Heavens.”
Sima Chengzhen's Chart of the Palaces and Residences of Heaven and Earth records: “First, Mount Huotong, three thousand li in circumference. It is called the Grotto-Heaven of Huolin. It is in Changxi County, Fuzhou, and is governed by the immortal Wang Weixuan.”
The Precious Canon of the Heavenly Palace of the Great Song (scroll 4565), collated and compiled by Zhang Junfang by imperial order in the third year of the Tianxi era of the Northern Song (1019), records and confirms that among the “Thirty-Six Grotto-Heavens” the Grotto-Heaven of Huolin is the first. This view is mentioned and corroborated in Taoist classics such as the Taoist White Jade Scripture and Huang Fengxiang's preface to the Unofficial History of the Grotto-Heavens.
This wondrous land of mountains and waters has for centuries been a holy place of worship. Famous Taoists such as Zuo Ci, Ge Xuan, Ge Hong, Chu Boyu, Sima Chengzhen, and Bai Yuchan all stayed in these mountains for spiritual practice.
When speaking of Huotong, the foremost grotto-heaven of Taoism, one must mention the Helin Palace. First built in the second year of the Datong era of the Liang (528), the Helin Palace stands in the middle of the river valley below Mount Huotong. This earliest Taoist temple in central Fujian was also, for centuries afterward, one of the largest Taoist buildings in Fujian.
According to records, the main body of the Helin Palace consisted of an upper hall and a lower hall. The upper hall enshrined the Heavenly Worthy of Jade Clarity, the Heavenly Worthy of Highest Clarity, and the Heavenly Worthy of the Tao and Its Virtue (Daode Tianzun); the lower hall held thirty-six incense burners, with an elixir chamber, side halls, a separate courtyard, and covered walkways. Beside the gate stood a bluestone stele carved with “Grotto-Heaven of Huotong.” The Helin Palace faced north with its back to the south, and 108 stone pillars were erected according to the number of the Thirty-Six Heavenly Stars and the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends of Taoism; its scale was magnificent.
The building of the Helin Palace originated with Chu Boyu, a famous Taoist priest of the Southern Dynasties. According to the Pearl Bag of the Three Caverns and the Classified Matters of the Shangqing Way, Chu Boyu once wandered in search of the Tao carrying two scrolls, the Talisman of the Duke of the Western Peak for Sealing Mountains and the Talisman for Subduing Tigers, and lived in seclusion on Mount Huotong to practice.
The Wanli-era Ming Gazetteer of Funing Prefecture also records: “On the first day of the first month of the second year of the Datong era of the Liang, he rode a crane and ascended to heaven, and was granted the name Helin (Crane Grove).” The Illustrated Gazetteer of the Zhiti Monastery records this line: “Later people made the place into a palace.”
The Helin Palace was destroyed by a flood centuries ago. The present Helin Palace was rebuilt by local people a few years ago on the site of the original.
The Zhiti Monastery in the Huotong Mountains is a famous Buddhist monastery of southeastern China. It once had courtyards and halls in unbroken rows and more than a thousand monks, so that Buddhists had the saying “Without going to Zhiti, one is no monk.”
One imagines how, in those days, these immortals, Taoists, and eminent monks followed the clear Huotong River straight up to the immortal mountain. If you are observant and follow the Huotong River upstream, carefully examining the rocks on both banks, dark as the pages of ancient books, you may find traces left by the ancients.
The legends are wonderful, but the real history is even more so. Huang Ju, a Remonstrance Counselor of the Sui dynasty, disgusted with the corruption of officialdom, gave up his post and withdrew into seclusion. Traveling a thousand li from the Central Plains, he found this precious land and began a family history of farming and study. Huang Ju led his family in digging a canal to bring water from the Huotong River to irrigate the fields. When a rocky crag blocked the canal, in an age without explosives, he devised a method of burning the rock with fierce fire and then dousing it with cold water to crack it. Bit by bit they dug through the crag, finally completing the canal and bringing in the clear, sweet river water, creating a thousand years of abundance on both banks of the Huotong River.
The beauty of the Huotong River lies in its clarity. Like a lyric poem of perfect naturalness, it intoxicates you. The first time I came to the Huotong River, its clarity amazed me. Today, when rivers and streams everywhere are badly polluted and we are used to murky water, this silvery stream before your eyes makes you wonder whether you are wandering in a dream. You cannot help jumping into the stream, scooping up the clear water to wash your face, and taking a few sips, letting the sweet delight soak through your whole body.
Sit quietly on the ox-shaped rock by the stream and dip your feet into the cool water. The wind is still and the waves at rest; the calm pool is like a long mirror of the flying heavens, reflecting the blue sky, white clouds, green hills, and emerald bamboo… Faintly you feel a tickle on your feet, and looking down you find a school of little silver fish kissing you. You notice the water plants in the stream dancing happily and the colorful pebbles on the bottom winking at you. Pick out a few and play with them in your hand; the patterns polished by the flowing water and the colors left by time will stir many beautiful imaginings.
Only when you sit quietly beside the Huotong River can you truly feel what it means to “dwell poetically.”
The beauty of the Huotong River lies in its liveliness. Like a concerto with a stirring melody, it lets you feel the budding of life and the rhythm of the earth.
I remember how we once traveled up the stream, with wondrous peaks appearing one after another on both banks, more than the eye could take in. Where the water rushed over rapids, the spray flew up like snow filling the sky; where the stream widened, the water rippled and sparkled, trees swayed their shadows on the banks, mountain flowers blazed, and on the far bank a flight of stone steps and a few wooden houses made you feel you were walking in a painting.
In those days a folk song in the old upstream villages went: “Rock on four sides, no soil to till; one thread of river, by this we live.” With no land to farm, the villagers lived by rafting timber and poling boats to carry goods. The rushing river was the villagers' lifeline. So this place had a peculiar custom: when children reached six or seven, their parents made them go into the river to learn to swim; if a child refused, the adults drove him into the water with a bamboo switch to train him to be a good swimmer. The men here were all fine swimmers with solid skill at mastering the river. The local villagers' special feat was “riding a single log”: a man stands on a single bamboo pole or a log as thick as a bowl's rim, balancing his body with a long bamboo pole in his hands, and can shoot down the rapids with the current while standing on the log without budging, like a good horseman on the grasslands riding a wild horse through a storm, making one marvel at the human potential to conquer nature.
Today, when you ride a bamboo raft down from Waibiao Village on the upper Huotong River, you can still feel that unique liveliness. The raft drifts with the current, the water winding all the way; at times the waves are as calm as a mirror, reflecting the layered peaks on both banks, and at times there are rushing shallows, where the water strikes the raft's bow and throws up snow-white spray. Where the rushing stream is blocked by rock, the waves beat against the rocky bank and turn sharply. As the raft rushes toward the rocks with the current, the two raftsmen brace their long bamboo poles against the rock to keep the raft from being smashed, and as they push with all their strength the two poles bend into bows. Watching the raftsmen work in perfect unison, swinging their long poles in harmony, their rugged, powerful movements call to mind the boatmen battling the rapids on the Yellow River, and it is as if the magnificent music of the “Song of the Yellow River Boatmen” were ringing in your ears.
Rafting on the Huotong River, your heart leaps and flashes with the water: in a quiet pool a big fish suddenly jumps, splashing up spray and ripples; the mountain wind blows, and the green bamboo on the bank beckons and waves to you again and again; a kingfisher shoots like an arrow into the water and comes up with a gleaming silver knife-fish; egrets skim across the surface and forage leisurely by the stream…
The beauty of the Huotong River lies in its many colors. Along its course it unrolls a long, gorgeous, many-colored scroll, more than you can take in.
What the Huotong River first shows you is a landscape painting of profound mood. Around Waibiao Village on the upper reaches, the area has long been praised as “Little Guilin.” The beauty of its hills and waters is just like the Guilin scenery described in the line “the river a green silk sash, the hills like jade hairpins”; when you first arrive, you may suddenly think you are touring the Li River in a dream or a painting.
Drifting down on a bamboo raft, the picturesque peaks and crags on both banks will amaze you. In the distance, the layered peaks of Mount Zhiti are wreathed in cloud and mist, suffused with an immortal air. The nearby crags show a thousand strange forms, inviting you to spread the wings of your imagination as you study them. Most astonishing of all, where the Huotong River flows past the old town of Huotong, from a certain angle on the bank you will see that the great mountain in the distance is a sleeping beauty lying gracefully. Slender and lovely, from her head and face to every part of her body, she looks just like a gigantic realistic sculpture.
In this land of numinous mountains and beautiful waters, drawing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, even the mountain rocks turn into beautiful women—let alone the women of the human world. That the girls of Huotong are lovely is generally acknowledged throughout eastern Fujian. The famous Chinese poet Cai Qijiao, in his lyric poem “The Huotong River,” praised the women of the Huotong River in warm and beautiful lines:
The village girls, every one, graceful and lovely
Like the shining tender branches of spring
Their long hair drifting in the wind
Radiating the spirit of mountains and rivers
Flowing mother-of-pearl
Dewdrops on lily petals
Are their thoughtful eyes.