ABSTRACT
The sinological study of what has been called “mountains and the cultures of landscape” began in earnest nearly ninety years ago with Edouard Chavannes’ monumental monograph on T’ai Shan. Several scholarly symposia have been convened to investigate various aspects of the topic and have added their measure to the expanding bibliography. The heavenly purple haze reappears, here to be extinguished in the cascade’s downward rush from the pure limits of the sky. The very consistency with which he reverts to the same images is testimony to their symbolic status. The vividness of it all might put one in mind of the time of creation, when Yin and Yang first split apart. Simply to gain the best fortune, to become self-possessed,68I venture now to sheathe the author essence in the eddies of reclusion.
