Luo Hongxian

Life

Grave and restrained from childhood, he did not indulge in play and was fond of Buddhism. He was the son of Luo Xun, the grandson of Luo Yu, and the great-grandson of Luo Liang; his mother was surnamed Li, his younger brothers were Luo Shouxian and Luo Juxian, and his wife was surnamed Zeng.

In the fourth year of the Jiajing reign, he placed eightieth in the Jiangxi provincial examination and became a juren. In Jiajing 8 (1529), he ranked twenty-sixth in the metropolitan examination and first in the palace examination, becoming the zhuangyuan. He was appointed xiuzhuan in the Hanlin Academy and soon returned home. In Jiajing 18 (1539), he was recalled and appointed Left Canzan in the Left Spring Palace, and submitted a memorial proposing that court ritual for the Eastern Palace be settled. As the Jiajing emperor was devoted to Daoism, Hongxian and the remonstrator Tang Shunzhi, the proofreader Zhao Shichun, and others saw the government in decline in the winter of the following year; they jointly submitted the Memorial on Eastern Palace Audience Ceremonies, and Luo was dismissed for offending the emperor.

Of his dismissal he said: “A man’s enterprise is much greater than this; how could repeating this appointment every three years amount to a great undertaking?” Afterward he travelled among famous mountains, went through Dian and entered Yu, spent nights in conversation at Hongshan Hermitage, followed the traces of Li Zhongxi at Jizu, and later lectured at Bincang Pavilion. During the Jiajing era he also spent several months in the mountains of Huangpi, Hubei, and wrote the seven-character regulated verse 《望黃鶴樓》. His late-life retirement at Gushan is disputed: one account says that he became a monk there, took the religious name Nian'an, and wrote the poem 《醒世詩》.

Thought and cartography

Luo privately followed Wang Shouren, accepted the doctrine of the extension of innate knowledge while revising it, and became a representative of the Jiangyou school. Broadly learned and capable in writing, he emphasized investigation and studied astronomy, geography, ritual and music, institutions, waterways, and mathematics. He was skilled in cartography and redrew Zhu Siben's 《輿地圖》, naming the resulting map 《廣輿圖》.

Works

His works include 《念庵集》 and 《冬遊記》. Other titles include 《念庵羅先生集》 in thirteen juan, 《石蓮洞羅先生文集》 in twenty-five juan, and 《念庵子》 in two juan.

Posthumous honors

After his death, he was posthumously granted Taichang si shaoqing (太常寺少卿) or Guanglu si shaoqing (光祿寺少卿) in early Longqing, according to differing accounts. His posthumous name appears as Wengong (文恭), Wenzhuang (文莊), or Wen'an (文菴).