CHINA HERITAGE QUARTERLY China Heritage Project, The Australian National University ISSN 1833-8461
No. 26, June 2011

NEW SCHOLARSHIP

Master Li's Mountain Hut Collection | China Heritage Quarterly

Master Li's Mountain Hut Collection

李氏山房藏書記 (1076)

Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037-1101)

Translated by Duncan M. Campbell
The Australian National University

Translator's Introduction:

As a reading of the essay translated below reminds us, anxieties about the deleterious impact on reading habits of easy access to ever-increasing amounts of reading matter are hardly new. In this essay Su Shi bemoans the effects both of commercial publishing and of the imperial examination system. Responding in part to what Su Shi had to say, the great Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) was later famously to complain about such 'faults' as skim reading and jumping from one section of a book to another and so on. 'Yet when he [Su Shi] wrote', Zhu Xi observed, 'books were still very difficult to get hold of!'

In her recent treatment of the techniques developed by scholars in early modern Europe for storing, sorting, selecting and summarizing information, Ann Blair argues that: 'We complain about overload on almost every field, from hardware-store stocking to library holdings to Internet searches. A Google search for "information overload" itself generates more than 1.5 million hits, with the promise of solutions from office supply stores, management consultants, and stress relief services, among many others. But the perception of and complaints about overload are not unique to our period. Ancient, medieval, and early modern authors and authors working in non-Western contexts articulated similar concerns, notably about the overabundance of books and the frailty of human resources for mastering them (such as memory and time).'[1]

This translation is intended to pick up on earlier discussions in this journal of issues to do with collecting generally (see for instance 'Passages from Ouyang Xiu: A Record of Collected Antiquity', China Heritage Quarterly, Issue 24 [December, 2010]), and the collecting of books particularly (see 'The Heritage of Books, Collecting, and Libraries', China Heritage Quarterly, Issue 20 [December, 2009]). Professor Richard Rigby of the China Institute of the ANU reminded me of Su Shi's essay some years ago and my translation is a token of my gratitude for his interest in my work; as always, I am grateful for the extent to which Professor Geremie Barmé's emendations to an earlier draft of this translation have served to greatly improve it.—The Translator

Ivory tusks and rhinoceros horns, pearls and jade, and all such strange and wondrous objects, may well serve to delight the eye and please the ear, but they do not lend themselves to practical use. Metal and stone, plants and trees, silk and hemp, the Five Grains and the Six Timbers, on the other hand, are to be sure all useful objects. Yet in the course of their use they are soon depleted. Books, however, both delight the eye and thrill the ear while also being of practical application. Moreover, by being used they are neither diminished nor destroyed. Books can be acquired by the worthy and the unworthy alike, and each finds benefit therein according to their needs. The humanity and wisdom derived thereof differs according only to one's station. Books may well vary in quality, but they fail none who would seek benefit therein.

From the time of the sage Confucius, learning has begun always with reading. At that time, only Lao Dan, Keeper of the Pillars of Zhou, had many books. Thus, it was only after Han Xuanzi 韓宣子 had arrived in the state of Lu that he saw the Changes 易 and the Images 象, along with the Spring and Autumn Annals of the State of Lu 魯春秋; only when Jizha 季札 was employed by the upper states did he hear of the 'Airs' 風, the 'Odes' 雅 and the 'Hymns' 頌 of The Book of Poetry 詩. And in the kingdom of Chu, only the Historian of the Left and the Prime Minister were able to read the Three Great Kings 三墳, the Five Emperors 五典, the Eight Laws 八索, and the Nine Regions 九丘.[2] Not many scholars born in those times so much as caught sight of the Six Classics, and their learning was acquired only with the greatest of difficulty. Nonetheless, in their mastery of the rites and music, their profound understanding of the Way and morality, they remain unequalled by the learned men of latter ages.

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Fig.1 Fig.1 A building at the Temple of the Meeting of the Seas ( 海匯寺) at the foot of Lu Shan 廬山, or Hermitage Mountain, looking up to the mist-cloaked Peaks of the Five Elders ( 五老峰). Photograph: Lois Conner, 31 July 2004.
Editor's Note: This image is part of a joint project on Chinese mountains and landscapes undertaken by Geremie R. Barmé and Lois Conner. The Temple of the Meeting of the Seas is situated at the foot of the Peaks of the Five Elders at Hermitage Mountain. It faces Lake Poyang (Poyang Hu 鄱陽湖). Destroyed during the tumultuous years of the Xianfeng 咸豐 reign in the mid-nineteenth century, the temple was rebuilt in the era of Guangxu 光緒. The main temple building originally bore the words 'Lotus Land and Sea City' (lianbang haicheng 蓮邦海城), the secondary building still carries the expression 'True Mien' (zhen mianmu 真面目), words made famous by a poem that Su Shi wrote about Hermitage Mountain. According to the Gazeteer of Lu Shan (Lu Shan Zhi 廬山誌), a copy of the Lotus Sutra in the hand of the illustrious calligrapher of the Yuan dynasty, Zhao Mengfu 趙孟黻, was kept in the temple. At the time of our visit in the summer of 2004, the temple was being painstakingly rebuilt under the direction of an elderly nun, formerly a state cadre, and a number of her female acolytes.

Ever since the Qin and Han dynasties, the number of writers has increased greatly, and paper has become more readily available whilst written characters have become simpler and more convenient to use; books are now so plentiful that it may be said that there is a volume available on every topic. But at the same time scholars have become ever more careless and superficial. Why is this? I myself am old enough to have met elderly scholars who claimed that when they were young they found it all but impossible to get hold of copies of the Records of the Grand Historian 史記 and the History of the Han 漢書. When, by luck, they were able to do so, they would immediately copy the text out by hand without break day or night. They recited it as they did so, fearful least they would not have time to finish the book. In recent years, however, book merchants can have ten thousand pages of the texts of the masters of old circulated and printed in the course of a single day, thus making it easy for scholars to enjoy an easy supply of books. By rights, this should mean that the number of scholarly writings in the present age should be many times greater than that of the ancients; but today scholars in pursuit of success in the examinations, leave their books unread, losing themselves instead in fatuous rhetoric. Why, I ask, is this so?

In his youth my friend Li Chang 李常 [1027-90] studied in a monk's cell at White Stone Monastery beneath the Peaks of the Five Elders at Hermitage Mountain 廬山五老峰下白石庵之僧舍.[Fig.1] After he had left, people on the mountain would point out his cell to visitors and say that it was 'Master Li's Mountain Hut.' The hut contains a collection of over 9000 fascicles. Li had familiarised himself with the gist of these works, he had examined their sources, so much so that he had absorbed their essence and savoured their flavour, thus truly making the books his own. In his own writing he would give voice to their meaning and in his behaviour he would embody their significance. And thus he became renowned in his own time. The books at Master Li's Mountain Hut are still in excellent condition, and show not the slightest sign of wear or tear. Now they are available to whomsoever should turn up, be it to satisfy a tireless pursuit of learning or to seek out knowledge in keeping with their differing needs. It is a gesture of his humanity that Li did not take his book collection and store it at home but rather left it in the cell where he had once lived.

I am now feeble and sick, of no further use to the age. If I am granted but a few more years of idleness, I will spend my time reading the books that I have been unable to read before. Long have I wished to visit Hermitage Mountain, but I have failed in my quest, and now I am too old. What great benefit it would be for me to use his collection; to improve myself from that which he has left behind.

Li Chang has asked me to write a note about his collection, and this is what I have penned. I have done so in the hope that it may remind readers of the hardships that the ancients experienced in their search for books to read and my present regret that scholars of subsequent ages read not the books that they possess in such ready abundance.





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Notes:

[1] Ann Blair, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2010, p. 3).

[2] These works, which are listed in the Zuo zhuan 左傳 (Duke Zhao 12th year 昭公十二年), are no longer extant but they are traditionally understood to be the earliest Chinese texts.

Chinese Text

李氏山房藏書記

象犀珠玉怪珍之物,有悅於人之耳目,而不適於用。金石、草木、絲麻、五穀、六材,有適於用而用之則弊,取之則竭。悅於人之耳目而適於用,用之而不弊、取之而不竭,賢不肖之所得各因其才,仁智之所見各隨其分,才分不同而求無不獲者,惟書乎!

自孔子聖人,其學必始於觀書。當是時,惟周之柱下史老聃為多書。韓宣子適魯,然後見《易象》與《魯春秋》。季札聃於上國,然後得聞風、雅、頌。而楚獨有左史倚相,能讀三墳、五典、八索、九丘。士之生於是時,得見"六經"者蓋無幾,其學可謂難矣!而皆習於禮樂,深於道德,非後世君子所及。自秦漢以來,作者益眾,紙與字畫日趨於簡便,而書益多,士莫不有,然學者益以苟簡,何哉?余猶及見老儒先生,自言其少時,欲求《史記》、《漢書》而不可得;幸而得之,皆手自書,日夜誦讀,惟恐不及。近歲市人轉相摹刻,諸子百家之書,日傳萬紙。學者之於書,多且易致如此,其文詞學術,當倍蓰於昔人;而後生科舉之士,皆束書不觀,游談無根,此又何也?

余友李公擇,少時讀書於廬山五老峰下白石庵之僧舍。公擇既去,而山中之人思之,指其所居為李氏山房。藏書凡九千餘卷。公擇既已涉其流,探其源,採剝其華實,而咀嚼其膏味,以為己有,發於文詞,見於行事,以聞名於當世矣。而書固自如也,未嘗少損。將以遺來者,供其無窮之求,而各足其才分之所當得。是以不藏於家,而藏於其故所居之僧舍,此仁者之心也。

余既衰且病,無所用於世,惟得數年之閒,盡讀其所未見之書,而廬山固所願游而不得者。蓋將老焉,盡發公擇之藏,拾其餘棄以自補,庶有益乎?而公擇求余文以為記,乃為一言,使來者知昔之君子見書之難,而今之學者有書而不讀為可惜也。