Daoist priests in central and northern Hunan Province (PRC), an area known as Plum Mountain (Meishan 梅山), are the custodians of many local traditions. Among them is an ancient and elaborate ritual dedicated to a sacred site famous since medieval times: Peach Blossom Spring (Taohuayuan 桃花源), or Peach Spring Grotto (Taoyuandong 桃源洞), locally also referred to as Immortals’ Precinct of Peach Spring (Taoyuan Xianjing 桃源仙境). In addition to a written iteration by the medieval poet Tao Qian 陶潛, the site’s miraculous efficacy is ritually channelled into households of the region, consecrated on domestic altars, and its transcendent beings embodied by domestic spirit-mediums. Peach Spring forms an ecological complex where a vision of the landscape as sacred continues to be relevant.
Mark Meulenbeld teaches Chinese Religion in the School of Chinese at HKU. In addition to research on Daoism and the history of its interaction with the traditions of local cults in Hunan Province, he has begun to engage in projects that incorporate the Chinese legacy traditions in Southeast Asia, especially the rituals of ethnic Yao minorities in Northern Thailand. An increasingly prominent issue driving his current work is ecology. His publications include Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel (University of Hawai’i, 2015), and The Presence of Peach Spring: Daoism, Ritual, and Locality (Harvard Asia Center, July 2026).
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