Xixia Song Cliff Inscription 西狭颂

About Xixia Song Cliff Inscription

The Xixia Song Cliff Inscription (西狭颂) is an Eastern Han text carved in AD 171 on a cliff in the gorge of Tianjing Mountain (天井山), 13 km west of the town of Cheng County (成县) in Longnan (陇南), Gansu. It praises a local governor for rebuilding the road through the gorge.

The carving sits in Fengquan village (丰泉村), Paosha town (抛沙镇). Its subject is Li Xi (李翕), Governor of Wudu Commandery (武都郡), whose seat was at Xiabian (下辨), today's Cheng County. With the Western Qinling range in the way, travel from the commandery toward Guanzhong (关中), the Hexi region and beyond had to leave through this gorge, known as Xixia (西狭). Li Xi found the track dangerous and had it rebuilt; the repaired road is described as solid and broad, usable even at night. It was composed and written out by Qiu Jing (仇靖), a Xiabian man in minor office.

The panel has four parts: a four-character title, "Hui'an Xibiao" (惠安西表, roughly "a marker of kindness and safety in the west"), in seal script; the main text; an image called the Five Auspicious Signs (五瑞图); and a list of names. The main text is incised clerical script in 12 lines and 385 characters across a face 2.2 m high and 3.4 m wide. The image, 1.1 m by 2.1 m, stands to the right and shows a yellow dragon, a white deer, trees with joined branches, fine grain and falling sweet dew, omens of good government.

In calligraphy it is grouped with the Shimen Song (石门颂) of Hanzhong and the Fuge Song (郙阁颂) of Lueyang, both in Shaanxi, as the "Three Han Eulogies" (汉三颂). The other two have been cut from their cliffs and moved indoors; Xixia Song is the only one still in place. It went unnoticed until the Northern Song. Gansu listed it as a provincial protected site in 1962 and the State Council made it a national one in June 2001. In 2019 the ruins of the gorge's old plank road and their inscriptions were merged into the listing, now named the Xixia Ancient Plank Road and Cliff Inscriptions (西狭古栈道及摩崖石刻). The Cheng County Xixia Song Tourist Area appears as a 4A site in Gansu's list of rated scenic areas.

What to look for

• The main Xixia Song panel: 385 characters of Eastern Han clerical script, 2.2 m by 3.4 m
• The seal-script title "Hui'an Xibiao" (惠安西表) above the text
• The Five Auspicious Signs image (五瑞图): dragon, white deer, joined trees, grain and sweet dew
• The Han-dynasty Geng Xun Stele (耿勋碑), also in the gorge
• More than 20 later cliff inscriptions from the Song, Ming, Qing and Republican periods
• Remains of the Xixia ancient plank road (西狭古栈道) added to the national listing in 2019
• The gorge itself: a stream down the middle, pools, waterfalls and walkways along the cliffs

Location & getting there

Getting to Xixia Song Cliff Inscription

• Search for 西狭颂 with 陇南市 and 成县.