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Tai Shu-lun (732–789) was a native of Chintan in Kiangsu province and served for many years as a private secretary in Hunan province. At one point, he was appointed prefect of Nanchang, but during his later years he turned his back on a worldly career and became a Taoist priest. The Yuan and Hsiang are the largest tributaries of Tungting Lake, which itself is often regarded as the final section of the Hsiang before it empties into the Yangtze. It was here that Ch’u Yuan (340–278 B.C.) was exiled for advice that would have saved his ruler, and it was here that he drowned himself rather than live in an unjust world. The Three Gates (San Lu) refer to Ch’u Yuan’s inherited position as overseer of the three royal lineages, and also to his ancestral fief near Tzukuei in the middle of the Yangtze’s Three Gorges. Some commentators place this shrine in Milo, not far from the place where Ch’u Yuan drowned himself in a tributary of the Hsiang. Others say it was on the Yuan River near the modern town of Huaihua, where Tai was serving as a private secretary at the time. The last two lines rise from the final lines of Ch’u Yuan’s “Chaohun” (“Summoning the Soul”), where the red maple leaves represent the blood of his heart.

Passing the Shrine to the Master of the Three Gates

TAI SHU-LUN

The waters of the Yuan and Hsiang never cease

Ch’u Yuan’s grief is so deep

the autumn wind rises at sunset

and blows through a grove of maples