Writers › Writer / Poet
Sa Doula
Yuan poet of Central Asian descent, born at Yanmen, who passed the 1327 examination, held minor censorate posts and wrote a much-copied lyric on Jinling's past
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Zi Tianxi · Hao Zhizhai · Sa Dou La
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Sadula, courtesy name Tianxi, styled Zhizhai, came of a family of Central Asian origin, often described as Muslim, and was born at Yanmen in Daizhou, which is why his poems are called the Yanmen Collection (Yanmen ji). By his own account he grew up poor and failed in his first attempts at the examinations, living for a time as a trader, and he became a jinshi only in 1327. He then held a run of modest posts: overseer of the registry office at Jingkou, clerk in the Southern Censorate, and clerk or secretary in the surveillance offices of Hebei and of Fujian. In his last years he lived at Hangzhou and is said to have joined the staff of the warlord Fang Guozhen; when he died is not known. His verse covers both court and frontier, from the poems on summer at Shangdu to the lyrics on the ruins of Jinling, which are the most often reprinted of his works.
Life and times
Dates c. 1272 CE–c. 1355 CE (birth by another account c. 1300)