The population migration and resettlement in the south of the Yangtze River at the beginning of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, led to the concept of “native lands” becoming an important cultural symbol and political resource for the dynasty. Through literature such as historical biographies, local gazetteers, poems, and rhapsodies, as well as emigrants’ narration, the perception and imagination of the Eastern Jin intellectual elites concerning their native lands were inherited and shaped. Genres, including, in particular, capital rhapsodies, travelogue rhapsodies, and other rhapsodies on the scenery and geography of the native lands, played an especially significant role in the early Eastern Jin literary and knowledge environment. From the Yonghe era under the reign of Emperor Mu, with the military advances and territorial expansion of the Eastern Jin, the intellectual elites had the opportunity to revisit or hear about the current situation of the native lands after a decade of political isolation, such as Ba-Shu, Guanzhong, Luoyang, and the lower reaches of the Yellow River. They were able to compare this knowledge with their earlier perception and imagination that had been shaped by reading and narration, which had kindled a cultural enthusiasm for rediscovering the terroir of the native lands in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

During the Southern Dynasties, with paper extensively adopted, accessing knowledge became significantly more convenient compared to the era of bamboo and wooden slips. Amid this context, private book collections blossomed. It was not uncommon for families to possess extensive literature and histories, containing thousands of volumes. This led to the trend of “downward shift of knowledge.” Consequently, terms encompassing “vast breadth” like “profound and comprehensive,” became frequent descriptors of scholars of the era. Ruan Xiaoxu was renowned for his extraordinary reading habits, earning him the reputation of “extensively reading all categories of literature.” Details of Ruan Xiaoxu’s reading habits and knowledge foundation are documented in the “Preface to the Seven Catalogs,” preserved within the “Extensive Collection of Enlightened Wisdom.” Analysis of the “Preface to the Seven Catalogs” reveals that the bibliographic compendium, Seven Catalogs, due to its characterization as “the remnants and hidden records of the world are nearly exhausted within this catalog,” partially represents the scale of book collections throughout the Southern Dynasties up to the second year of the Datong era of Emperor Wu of Liang’s reign (536). From the perspective of private reading, the Seven Catalogs represents a synopsis of Ruan Xiaoxu’s personal “reading history,” encapsulating his individual “knowledge framework.” However, Ruan Xiaoxu exhibited extensive reading of all categories of literature, his “reading scope” encompassing virtually all academic fields of his era. Thus, investigating the journey of Ruan Xiaoxu’s private reading and the compositional structure of the Seven Catalogs gains even greater significance. Ruan Xiaoxu’s individual history of reading and intellectual advancements mirrored the evolution of the academic culture and spiritual essence during the Southern Dynasties.

“Zhang” 张 is one of the most common surnames in China, with a large population that is widely distributed. In medieval China, there were a number of active sites of the surname’s native place, or junwang 郡望, and Nanyang 南阳 was one of them. However, unlike the other Zhang clans’ junwang, the Nanyang Zhang clan was a fictitious junwang without a reliable genealogy. The Nanyang Zhang Clan emerged around the time of the Wei and Jin dynasties and became the main locus of their surname’s junwang in the Northern, Sui, and Tang dynasties, when it was widely used in epitaphs. As an influential junwang, it had a kind of competitive or symbiotic relationship with other Zhang clan’s junwang. From the mid-Tang Dynasty, however, it was on the wane. The rise and fall of the Nanyang Zhang clan’s junwang thus reflects an important aspect of aristocratic culture in the medieval period. Elites from the Zhang clan reconstructed the memory of their ancestors by putting together legends and historical figures to create a Nanyang Zhang clan and gradually complete its genealogy. The widespread forging of junwang origins and the popularization of knowledge of junwang and genealogies in the Northern, Sui, and Tang dynasties all helped in the creation of fictitious junwang. The process by which the Nanyang Zhang clan fabricated its junwang demonstrates the impact and significance of the fictitious junwang as a status symbol in the society of the medieval period.

Yijing, the eminent monk who was known for his pilgrim to India during the Tang Dynasty, in his A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago said that the length of the shadow differed owing to different situation of places. In Luoyang, there fell no shadow, and the case was different in other places. It has been conventionally accepted that the theory of no shadow at noon on the summer solstices in Luoyang reflected the conflict between domestic Chinese tradition and Indian Buddhist tradition, focusing on which is the center of the world. This article argues that the main reason lies in the connection between astronomical measurement and political legitimation. Since the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, Luoyang has been described as the center of the world and the place that should have been the capital for a legitimate Chinese ruler. Such a theory was based on Confucian classics, Chenwei prophecy texts, and traditional astronomy and astrology. Political legitimacy was usually built up on the base of the knowledge that was broadly acknowledged and this is an important aspect of the intellectual and political history of medieval China.

Cave 220 of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is a significant cave excavated during the early Tang Dynasty. Based on votive texts and inscriptions in the cave as well as relevant historical records, this cave was carved between the 16th year of the Zhenguan era (642) under the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty and the second year of the Longshuo era (662) under the reign of Emperor Gaozong. The numerous sutra illustration murals in its main chamber, particularly the row of seven standing Bhaisajyaguru statues on the north wall and the portrait of the emperor in the Vimalakirti Sutra Illustration on the east wall, which is similar to the emperors portrayed in Yan Liben’s The Thirteen Emperors. These paintings, which seem rather out of place compared to the artistic contents of nearby caves, had likely been copied from patterns of the capital Chang’an. The Tang Dynasty firmly secured control over Dunhuang in the sixth year of the Wude era (623) under the reign of Emperor Gaozu. Particularly after Dunhuang was officially renamed Sha Prefecture in the seventh year of the Zhenguan era (633), the connections between the Central Plains and Dunhuang were further strengthened. Some large and influential families and literati frequently journeyed to Dunhuang. Some native literati of Dunhuang, like Zhai Tong, who journeyed to Chang’an and achieved the degree of Classicist through the Prefectural Nominee. Furthermore, envoys were dispatched from Chang’an to Dunhuang in the 18th year of the Zhenguan era (644) to welcome Xuanzang on his return journey to the east. Any one of these people could have brought the painting patterns of Chang’an to Dunhuang. It can therefore be concluded that the painting patterns present in Cave 220 of the Mogao Grottoes, initiated in 642, represent the inevitable result of cultural exchanges between the Central Plains and Dunhuang.