The Autobiography of Imperial Instructor Lu
眠雲臥石
Lu Wenxue zizhuan 陸文學自傳, The Autobiography of Imperial Instructor Lu
by
Lu Yu (circa 733–804)
An Annotated Translation, Introduction, and Commentary by Steven D. Owyoung
Introduction to the The Autobiography of Imperial Instructor Lu,
an excerpt from the forthcoming book on the life and art of the Tang tea master, Lu Yu (circa 733-804), author of the Chajing, the Book of Tea
Lu Yu 陸羽 (circa 733–804) was a scholar who lived during the eighth century in Tang dynasty China. He was renowned as the author of the Chajing 茶經, a treatise also known as the Book of Tea. The Chajing was a pioneering study of tea that described the cultivation of the plant, the manufacture of caked tea, and the preparation and service of the leaf as a beverage. Comprised of ten parts in three volumes, the Book formalized and codified the implements, utensils, and methods employed in the art of tea. By writing the Chajing, Lu Yu also compiled the first anthology of tea as well as the first hagiography of historical and mythical figures associated with the leaf. For centuries, the Book of Tea remained the exemplar of writings on tea, and Lu Yu, the foremost practitioner of the art of tea.
In addition to the Chajing, Lu Yu wrote an autobiography, a personal history in which he recounted his early life as a foundling and fledgling scholar. Known as the Lu Wenxue zizhuan 陸文學自傳 or The Autobiography of Imperial Instructor Lu, the account was written when Lu Yu was just twenty-eight years of age. It is a wonder how such a young man of so little experience or social standing might warrant a biographical report, much less possess the conceit to write it himself. Over the centuries, numerous profiles and chronologies have offered various accounts of his early activities and attainments, but it is Lu Yu’s very own account that served as the touchstone for understanding the formative years of his life.
Written in the third person, The Autobiography of Imperial Instructor Lu presented a detailed and often intimate portrait of Lu Yu, from childhood through young adulthood. The first lines of his account provided the raisons d’être for writing a personal record so early in life. Firstly, Lu Yu explained that his surname and given name — Lu 陸 and Yu 羽 — were in question, and so too was his courtesy name, Hongjian 鴻漸, and that some people often confused his names out of ignorance. Secondly, not only were his names and origins at issue but his personal integrity as well.
Moreover, Lu Yu was acutely aware that some who did not know him were daunted by his ugliness, his coarse appearance and disheveled dress, and further unsettled by his speech impediment and cantankerous disposition, not to mention his often distracted and distant air. All of these physical and personal traits conspired to present him at a disadvantage, if not as downright disagreeable, his character questionable. To doubters of his goodness, he hastened to rectify their mistaken impression. To his friends and acquaintances, Lu Yu reassured all that he was ever forthright, humble, and true.
Having explained his name and nature, Lu Yu next claimed an early inclination towards reclusion, to shutting his door to the outside world to live in seclusion. He described how he read books at his leisure in a lone hut along the banks of a broad stream and welcomed only the society of learned monks and scholars. He wrote that he habitually disappeared into the countryside, simply dressed in peasant clothes, to ply the abundant waters of the riverine south and roam about without direction. He confessed to attacks of depression and despair such that he returned from his wanderings each night exhausted and distraught. He knew that people who saw him whispered and thought him quite mad.
Midway through the autobiography, Lu Yu revealed that he was once a foundling forsaken near a Buddhist monastery in Jingling on the Hubei plain west of Wuhan. Discovered by the friary abbot, he was rescued and raised as a novice, trained from childhood to lead a cloistered existence devoted to scripture and monastic routine. But though just an adolescent boy, Lu Yu questioned the monkish and celibate life, an existence without the secular joys of family, writing, or books. Dissatisfied with studying only religious teachings, Lu Yu requested to be taught secular writings, specifically the Confucian canon, only to be refused by the abbot, who insisted that the boy learn solely from Buddhist scripture. Lu Yu, however, persisted, engaging whomever beyond the priory walls in conversation, hoping to learn more. To blunt Lu Yu’s heretical desire for worldly knowledge, the abbot feigned disaffection and punished him, forcing the boy with harsh, demeaning labor and physically abusing him for his stubborn disobedience. Denied and maltreated, Lu Yu ran away from the monastery and joined a troupe of itinerant performers for whom he happily indulged his gift for farce and satire, performing stock comedic roles and writing satirical skits and jokes. Desperate to find his fugitive ward, the abbot personally searched for Lu Yu, only to discover him acting on stage, reveling in the limelight before approving audiences as an uncommon player of the demimonde at the very lowest rungs of society. To cox the boy to return to the priory, the abbot relented, granting Lu Yu dispensation and promising to allow him limited study of secular writings.
Yet, even while back at the monastery, Lu Yu and his thespian talent were still in demand. Officials, who had seen him perform on stage, sought him out as a young but dazzling master of ceremonies for their requisite entertainment of visiting guests and officers. In the face of command performances, the abbot yielded, allowing the boy to appear at events sponsored by the local and prefectural governments. On one pivotal occasion, Lu Yu met a high official from the imperial capital, an influential governor who set him firmly on a lifelong path of learning and scholarship by sending him to school and later appointing him to the prefectural staff. Subsequent Jingling officials also became benefactors, mentors, and friends, sharing with him their interests in tea and poetry, and setting by example the intellectual rigor and proper conduct of the scholarly, accomplished gentleman.
At age twenty-one or so, Lu Yu traveled west to Sichuan to conduct research on the botanical nature and horticulture of tea. Returning to Jingling, he was then forced by rebel armies in the north to seek the relative safety of the south by following the exodus of refugees across the broad waters of the Yangzi. He traveled to Zhejiang and eventually settled in Huzhou, a tea-growing region along the southwestern shores of Lake Tai.
Arriving in Huzhou as an émigré with few friends, Lu was unknown and suspect to those he met. And, although he was well educated and connected elsewhere, Lu Yu was initially misunderstood by Huzhou society such that he felt compelled to shield himself and his reputation in a subjective but factual account. Thus, amid rumor and misconception, Lu Yu chose autobiography as the means by which he conducted his self-defense.
Lu Yu set his thoughts to paper using brush and ink and initially wrote notes in cursive script as words and phrases came to mind, for as a learned scholar his biography would be a literary endeavor full of allusion. As the themes and structure took shape, his composition went through several drafts before the final manuscript was inscribed in a clear hand, dated 761, and mounted as a small handscroll. Lu Yu then passed the scroll to friends so that they might read and copy it for themselves. Lent and borrowed, read and copied, the autobiography gradually circulated more widely, passed from hand to hand among the literati of Huzhou and spread by his admirers to the distant provinces.
Lu Yu concluded his autobiographical account with several titles of his writings. Two compositions, written in response to uprisings against the central government, emphasized his loyalty to the Tang throne and state; the verses further supported by a treatise on the duties between sovereign and vassal. Remaining titles disclosed his keen interest and knowledge in lexicography, biography, genealogy, and history as well as his expertise in the occult. Significantly, one work in three volumes emphatically declared that he had already written the Book of Tea.
It was clear from the structure of the Autobiography that Lu Yu considered the first and last portions of the text as the most important: his good name and his scholarship were the defining contours of his life. As Lu Yu became known and eventually famous, renowned scholars and high officials supported his person and activities until the end of his days.
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Cover Illustration
Chajing 茶經, calligraphy by Fu Shen 傅申 (Shen C.Y. Fu, 1937–present), noted Chinese art historian, calligrapher, painter, and connoisseur. Former Research Scholar of calligraphy and painting, National Palace Museum, Taipei; Associate Professor, Yale University; Senior Curator of Chinese Art, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; and Professor, Graduate Institute of Art History, National Taiwan University.