Lushan Three-Step Water Cliff Carvings

Lushan Three-Step Water Cliff Carvings

The Three-Step Water was accidentally discovered by a woodcutter in the second year of the Shaoxi era during the Southern Song Dynasty (1191), after which literati and poets flocked to the site. Zhu Xi, a renowned Neo-Confucian scholar of the Song Dynasty, once lectured at the nearby White Deer Grotto Academy. After leaving, he learned from letters that “a new three-tiered spring under Mount Wulao is quite spectacular,” but lamented that he “was unable to visit it in person to feast his eyes and heart,” so he had to ask someone to paint it for him to admire. There are now more than ten cliff carvings extant, including inscriptions by Liu Yuan'gang of the Song Dynasty, an inscription from the ninth year of the Yuandade era at Lushan Xunzhen Temple, inscriptions by Liu Shiyang of the Ming Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty Shuangxi Thatched Cottage, all of which have been listed as cultural relics protection units of Jiangxi Province.

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of Jiangxi Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units