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Ts’en Shen visited this Buddhist pagoda soon after returning to Ch’ang-an with Emperor Su-tsung’s army in 757. The pagoda was on Nanwutai Peak, among the northernmost ridges of the Chinling Range (the Chungnan Mountains). Ch’ang-an was twenty-five kilometers to the north and the Wei River thirty-five. The Chinese count nine heavens. The smoke came from fires set to the estates in the Wuling Hills northwest of the capital by the departing rebel armies of An Lu-shan. Ts’en had spent his life in the entourage of the powerful and now sees their insignificance and relative value and wonders if it would not have been better to possess nothing at all, to live the pure life of a monk rather than that of an official. The “golden immortal” refers to the Buddha.

On Climbing Tsungchih Pagoda

TS’EN SHEN

I climbed a pagoda that touched the highest heaven

I stood at the edge of the sun

I could see ten thousand courtyards below

and the dismal smoke of Wuling

beyond the railing the Chinling looked low

the Wei seemed small in the window

if I had known such detachment before

I would have served the golden immortal