Collected Works of Huayang Hermit 华阳陶隐居集

Compiled by Tao Hongjing of the Southern Dynasties.

According to The Book of Sui: Bibliography of Classics and Records, there were thirty volumes of Collected Works of Tao Hongjing and five volumes of Inner Collection.

The works were lost one after another over time.

Collected Works of Huayang Hermit

The existing version in The Daozang has two volumes, compiled by Fu Xiao of the Ming Dynasty and included in the Taixuan Section of The Daozang.

This book compiles dozens of articles, poems and fu written by Tao Hongjing. Among them, prose works such as Record of Seeking Mountains, Ode to Water Immortals and Eulogy of Huayang, together with four poems, express the author's desire to forsake fame and fortune and indulge in mountains and rivers, his admiration for the realm of riding the wind and soaring freely in the great void as Zhuangzi and Liezi did, and his eulogy of the scenic beauty of Maoshan Mountain and his life of seclusion and cultivation there. There are nine letters and notes, in which the author discussed the merits and demerits of calligraphy of various schools in the Wei and Jin dynasties with Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty. The text Reply to Court Officials' Inquiry on the Substance and Appearance of Immortals and Buddhas expounds on the different views of Taoist immortality and Buddhist Dharma on the relationship between form and spirit. There are five prefaces, summarizing the essence of works such as Secrets of Ascending to Immortality and Seclusion, General Secrets of Medicines, A Hundred and One Prescriptions for Emergency, Annotated Compendium of Materia Medica and Classic of Physiognomy. Five stone inscriptions record the life stories of previous Taoist priests such as Ge Xuan and Xu Mi, as well as Taoist historical sites.

Tao Hongjing was erudite and had a free and unrestrained imagination. His poems and prose are all elegant, delicate and beautiful, worthy of recitation and appreciation. His works are not only outstanding among Taoist writings, but also top-tier literary works of the Six Dynasties.