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Art Illustrating Guqin Melodies 首頁
Illustration for the qin melodies Liu Shang and Xiuxi Yin 流觴、修禊吟圖

The following is the beginning of the Orchid Pavilion Xiuxi scroll, a long scroll made from an ink imprint of a stone engraving dated 1417.1

The setting is a sort of park near Shaoxing, east of Hangzhou, called the Orchid Pavilion.2 In 353 CE Wang Xizhi is said to have organized a famous purification ceremony here.3 The whole scroll shows 42 attending scholars plus the poems 26 of them are said to have written during the event.4

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. Lanting Scroll (蘭亭卷 Lan Ting Juan)
Purchased in 2000 in a curio shop at Lanting, on the southern edge of Shaoxing.
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2. Orchid Pavilion (蘭亭 Lan Ting
33297.121. 越王句踐 King Gou Jian of Yue is said to have raised orchids here in the 5th c. BCE, hence the name. The pavilion is on the southern edge of Shaoxing, a city about 50km southeast of Hangzhou.
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3. Purification Ceremony (修禊 Xiuxi)
For more on this purification ceremony see the melody Xiuxi Yin.
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4. Contents of the scroll
The contents of the scroll as I have it are as follows:

A preface, dated 1417, that begins by saying Wang Xizhi's original preface is to its right;
A pavilion with Wang Xizhi in the center;
The statement "11 people wrote two poems, 15 people wrote one poem, 16 people didn't write any;"
Servants making preparations;
Scholars drinking and writing poems, with their poems included in boxes On my copy of the rubbing there are 41 scholars; this section of the rubbing consists of 6 sheets, with the breaks after #3 (see above), #10 (see above), #18, #25, #32 (who is partly missing), and before the second from the end; most likely the original has all 42, with the 33rd missing from here;
Orchids are mentioned in two poems, those by 陳郡袁山高之 Yuan Qiaozhi and 行參軍徐豐之 Xu Fengzhi. More servants;
An afterword by 孫綽 Sun Chuo (314-371; he was also the 7th scholar depicted);
??; begins "蘭亭詩兼公榷續...."
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