The great cliff temples on the Yi river 12 km south of Luoyang, cut mostly in the Northern Wei and Tang (the colossal Vairocana of the Fengxian Temple belongs to the 670s; recalled), with the Xiangshan Temple on the east bank where the Tang poet Bai Juyi lived and was buried.
The Dili zhi (read) lists a town named Longmen in the prefecture. Carving had mostly stopped long before 1200, but the sites are visited and kept by monks.
Who holds it
- Title
- Keepers of the Longmen monasteries (names not known)
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No abbot, priest or community head is named for 1 January 1200 in anything we could reach. Sites dedicated to the Buddhist, Daoist and Confucian traditions are covered in the Jinshi only by passing notices, and the temple steles and local gazetteers that would date them were not reachable from here.
Overlord
the Jin emperor Zhangzong (Wanyan Jing), Cheng'an 4, through the Department of State Affairs at Zhongdu
What it holds
- The cliffs and their niches
- The monasteries on both banks
- Longmen town
How it was acquired
Cut from about 493 AD to the Song (recalled).
Allies and rivals
Under the prefect of Henan fu.
How things stand that morning
A pilgrimage and sightseeing place near Luoyang, at peace.
Wealth
Offerings.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: What is said about the foundation and the great periods is recalled from standard works and not re-read this session. Nothing I could reach describes the house in the winter of 1199 to 1200, so its estates, abbot and patron are not pinned.
On the map: A point or a small disc at the modern site; no estate boundary of 1200 is known, so none is drawn.
Primary sources for Jin empire
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. Read online
- Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. Read online
- Essentials of the History of Goryeo, Kim Jong-seo (金宗瑞) and the Joseon history office (1452). The chronological companion to the Goryeosa, finished a year after it and drawing on the same lost records, sometimes with entries the Goryeosa omits. Read online
- Outline and Details of Two Reigns (thirteenth century, after 1224). A Song outline-and-detail chronicle of exactly the two reigns around 1200, drawn from the court's daily records. Read online
- Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
- The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
- History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
- Record of the Great Jin State, Attributed to Yuwen Maozhao (宇文懋昭); the attribution is doubtful (preface dated 1234; probably assembled in the Southern Song from Song and Jin material, with later accretions). A Song-side history of the Jin, with annals for each emperor and chapters on institutions, customs, the capitals and the Jurchen way of life. Read online
14 more in the sources library for North China and Manchuria.
Sources and studies
- Jinshi, juan 25, Dili zhi 2 (the Nanjing lu, Shandong East and West and Hebei West sections), text hosted at donglishuzhai.net; read through a page summariser, the Nanjing lu section read entry by entry (read this session)
- Recalled from standard works and NOT re-read this session: Tao Jing-shen, The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China (1976); Franke and Twitchett (eds.), Cambridge History of China 6 (1994), the Jin chapter; Jinshi Hequ zhi, Bing zhi, Baiguan zhi, Shihuo zhi; the Song envoys' diaries (Lou Yue, Beixing rilu, 1169; Fan Chengda, Lanpei lu, 1170)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.