Taishan Legend
01 · Historical Records
Mount Tai within the region was first called Dai and also Daizong, the first of China's famous mountains, known as the first mountain under heaven, with a total area of four hundred and twenty-six square kilometres and its highest peak, the Jade Emperor summit, at an altitude of one thousand five hundred and forty-five metres; in December 1987 it was inscribed by UNESCO on the World Cultural and Natural Dual Heritage List. The Mount Tai legends arose from the natural worship of China's primitive religion, the most influential and widely current being the scenery legends. Such works as the Eastern Han Fengsutongyi, the Jin In Search of the Supernatural, the Tang Jiyiji, the Song Jishenlu, Shuyi Ji and Taiping Yulan and the Ming Jiandeng Yuhua, Records of Mount Tai and Chaxiangshi Congchao all record a great many Mount Tai legends, of which Records of Mount Tai is the first collection of Mount Tai legends. In 2009 the Mount Tai legend was listed in the second batch of the intangible cultural heritage list of Shandong.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Mount Tai legend is an oral literature collectively created by the people around Mount Tai for a thousand years, with a long history, varied subjects, rich content and wide circulation. Its tellers include mountain dwellers, peasants, sedan-chair bearers, Daoist priests, monks, scholars and handicraftsmen, its audience wide; it has become the spiritual support and good teacher and helpful friend of the people of Mount Tai in olden times and is one of the most important intangible cultural heritages of the Mount Tai scenic area. Tai'an city lies in central Shandong, with two districts and four counties and a population of five million four hundred thousand. It relies mainly on word of mouth and had almost no written record before the founding of New China; influenced by the mutual fusion and penetration of the imperial feng and shan sacrificial culture, the culture of the three religions of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism and the culture of folk popular belief, the Mount Tai legend is wide in kind, great in number and rich in content. Judging from the Mount Tai legends so far collected, the Mount Tai folk stories first arose in remote antiquity. The Shanhaijing completed in the pre-Qin period records of Mount Tai that on it there is much jade and below much gold, and there is a beast shaped like a piglet but with a pearl, called the tongtong, which calls its own name; this is the earliest written record of the Mount Tai legend. The content of the Mount Tai legend roughly includes the five aspects of myth, legend, story, ballad and proverb, covering more than nine thousand six hundred pieces of natural-change myth, hero myth, legends of historical figures, legends of religious figures, legends of immortals and the Dao, legends of scenery, legends of local products, legends of custom, legends of animals, legends of plants, tales of ghosts, foxes and spirits, animal stories, stories of life, proverbs of life, proverbs of local conditions, witty-figure stories, folk jokes, idioms and allusions.
Legends of the Scenery
The most influential and widely current kind of Mount Tai legend.
Legends of Imperial Feng and Shan Sacrifices
Mount Tai legends connected with imperial feng and shan sacrifices.
Records of Mount Tai
The first collection of Mount Tai legends.
Legends of Immortals and the Dao
A distinctive kind of Mount Tai legend influenced by Daoism.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Mount Tai legend circulates with Tai'an city in Shandong as its centre; its tellers include mountain dwellers, peasants, sedan-chair bearers, Daoist priests, monks, scholars and handicraftsmen, its audience wide. It has become the spiritual support and good teacher and helpful friend of the people of Mount Tai in olden times and is one of the most important intangible cultural heritages of the Mount Tai scenic area.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The features of the Mount Tai legend are: first, oral transmission and vivid language; second, the non-fixity of time and place of telling; third, the diversified class composition of the tellers; fourth, the distinctive features under the influence of Buddhism and Daoism. It has literary, historical and aesthetic value.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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