ABSTRACT
In an article published in 1965, the late Paul Demieville briefly surveyed the historical evolution of the treatment of mountains in Chinese literature. In recognizing the “divine numina” of greater or lesser power that inhabited and energized the mountains, Ko Hung was only adhering to accepted tradition. The Marchmounts, among the most powerful of the deified natural forces of ancient China, had been regarded as important protectors of the state. It is, of course, possible to read the lines with the poet as the understood subject, and it may well be that Tu Fu had this reading in mind. One of the most practically potent periapts of early Taoism was that known as “The Plans of the Real Forms of the Five March-mounts”. In fact, among humans there seem to have been only two “gentlemen of the Way” remembered for any particular association with T’ai Shan.
