| This study looks at how the ritual tour to the mountains became a mechanism for negotiating temporal and divine power in early China. I examine how mytho-historic paradigms and esoteric arts informed imperial inspection tours and the Feng and Shan sacrifices on Mount Tai in the Qin and Han as a prelude to investigating the Six Dynasties Daoist uses of mountain journey motifs in meditative and ritual practice. These practices include mountain-going immortality quests, visionary inspection tours in the Shangqing tradition, and the ritual emplacement of the directional tallies on the altarplace in the Lingbao tradition. I pay particular attention to how the narrative and ritual complex associated with the peregrinations of Yu the Great served to mediate imperial, Daoist, and popular ritual practice. Elements of this complex included the delineation of sacred time and space, often in apocalyptic context; the reception of heavenly revelations and imperial treasures; and the enactment of rites of transmission and initiation. Ultimately, the study demonstrates the unity of the Chinese quest for an incorruptible Mandate (ming) of power, understood as not only as the longevity of the dynasty but also as the lifespan of the individual. |
