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A Grain of Sand: Yingzao Fashi and the Miniaturization of Chinese Architecture Di Luo A Dissertation Presented to Faculty of the USC Graduate School University of Southern California In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy (East Asian Languages and Cultures) August 2016 Dissertation Committee Professors Dominic Cheung (Chair), Sonya S. Lee, Bettine Birge | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
ii Acknowledgement s My sincerest thanks go to the three distinguished scholars on my dissertation committe e: Professors Dominic Cheung, Sonya Lee, and Bettine Birge, who have directed and supervised the entire process of my dissertation research and writing. Their remarkable scholarship in the fields of Chinese literature, art history, and cultural history hav e been an in exhausti ble wellspring of knowledge and inspiration for me to tap over the years of my graduate study. They have guided and supported e very step of my academic journey with utmost patience and care. I have received enormous help from many other professors in and outside USC. Professor George Hayden has given me useful tips and suggestions for my translation of the Yingzao fashi and my understanding of Chinese drama. Professor James Steele of the USC School of Architect ure, who was the advisor of my M. Arch. thesis, discussed my dissertation project with much euthusiam and provided great insight into a lot of conceptual issues from his own professional perspective as an architect and architectural historian. Professors Mi n Li, Richard von Glahn, and Katsuya Hirano at UCLA have encourage d me to approach my study from the angles of a variety of disciplines including landscape arch aeology, history of religion, and popular culture. Professors Jeehee Hong and Youn-mi Kim have g enerously shared with me their most recent studies on Liao architecture and art, whereas Professor Stephen West has answered my questions about translating particular terms in Northern Song miscellanea, for which I am grateful. Professor Nancy Steinhardt h as spent much of her own time reading and commenting on my dissertation prospectus and chapters. Her deep knowledge of Chinese architectural history has informed and influenced my own work significantly, and my conversations with her helped to shape the ov erall theme and framework of the dissertation from its very inception. My 2014 fieldwork in China--during which I was able to collect first-hand information and data of the case studies presented in this dissertation--could not have been successful without the | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
iii assistance of my academic advisor, Christine Shaw. Chri stine critiqued my research proposal and agenda, helped me secure funding, and prepared necessary paperwork for my travel. Professors Li Luke, Fang Xiaofeng, and Liu Chang at Tsinghua University helped me contact local authorities to gain access to several restricted architectural sites. This dissertation has received multiple fellowships and grants from the USC Graduate School, the USC Department of EALC, the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Ar t Studies, and the Harvard-Yenching Library. I am deeply thankful for their generous financial support. My family has always been my strongest and most cherished source of courage, faith, strength, and willpower. This dissertation is dedicated to them. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
ii Contents List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 On Defining the Miniature: Philosophical, Religious, and Architectural Perspectives ....................... 3 Conceptual and Theoretical Framework: Deconstruction, Oneirism, and Simulation ....................... 8 Scholarship on the Miniature ..................................................................................................................... 12 Primary Sources, Digital Database, and 3D Modeling .......................................................................... 17 1. Miniatures in Texts .......................................................................................................... 21 Small-scale Woodworking ( Xiaomuzuo ) in the Yingzao Fashi ................................................................. 21 Types of miniature woodwork: shrines, repositories, and the “Heavenly P alace” ....................................... 23 Scaling and the cai-fen system .............................................................................................................................. 26 Models ( Xiaoyang ) and Ruled-line Paintings ( Jiehua )............................................................................... 29 Spiritual Vessels, Edible Architecture, Portable Shrines, Dollhouses, and Miniature Gardens ...... 32 Spiritual vessels ........................................................................................................................................................ 33 Edible architecture .................................................................................................................................................. 36 Shaluo shrines .......................................................................................................................................................... 37 Mohouluo dolls and dollhouses ............................................................................................................................ 39 Miniature gardens .................................................................................................................................................... 44 Puppets and the theatricality of miniatures ......................................................................................................... 45 Conclusion: Dreaming of Lil liput in Song China ................................................................................... 48 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
iii 2. Miniatures as Sacred Repositories, Part I: The Longxingsi Sutra Case ......................... 51 The Zhuanlun Jingzang (Wheel-turning Sutra Repository) at Longxingsi .............................................. 52 Dating the miniature: textual evidence ................................................................................................................ 54 Dating the miniature: a comparison with Yi ngzao fashi .................................................................................. 59 “Progressive miniaturization” in Chinese architectural history ....................................................................... 62 The Revolving Sutra Case in History ....................................................................................................... 64 Sixth century: legendary beginnings ..................................................................................................................... 66 Tang ........................................................................................................................................................................... 68 Northern and Southern Son g................................................................................................................................ 73 Yuan and later .......................................................................................................................................................... 78 Miniaturization as Deconstruction ........................................................................................................... 81 The octagon ............................................................................................................................................................. 83 The central pillar ..................................................................................................................................................... 86 The wheel ................................................................................................................................................................. 89 Conclusion: the Re volving World in a Nutshell ..................................................................................... 92 3. Miniatures as Sacred Repositories, Part II: The Huayansi Sutra Cabinets .................... 94 The Bizang (Wall Re pository) at the Huayansi ........................................................................................ 95 Scale and form ......................................................................................................................................................... 97 Discovery, dating, and identification ................................................................................................................... 99 Redefining Liao architecture ............................................................................................................................... 105 The art historical perspective .............................................................................................................................. 107 Repositories, Shrines, Cabinets .............................................................................................................. 109 In worship halls ..................................................................................................................................................... 110 In monastic living quarters .................................................................................................................................. 111 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
iv In houses ................................................................................................................................................................ 114 The Tamamushi Shrine: a distant echo from Japan ........................................................................................ 117 The Miniature and the Myriad ................................................................................................................ 119 The Flower Repository Universe ........................................................................................................................ 120 Indra's Net ............................................................................................................................................................. 122 Sudhana's epiphany in the Tower of Vairocana ............................................................................................... 124 Fazang's mirror hall: the art of Huayan Buddhism ......................................................................................... 128 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 130 4. Miniatures in the “Dome of Heaven” ........................................................................... 132 The Tiangong Louge Zaojing (Coffered Ceiling with Heavenly Palace Towers and Pavilions) at the Jingtusi........................................................................................................................................................ 133 Tiangong louge, the “Heavenly Palace” ............................................................................................................ 134 Xiaodouba zaojing, the miniature octagonal ceiling coffer ............................................................................ 136 Jing, the magic square, and ceiling compartmentalization .............................................................................. 138 Miniature-making in Jurchen-Jin Material Culture .............................................................................. 140 Characteristics of Jin architecture: a revision.................................................................................................... 144 Miniature theaters ................................................................................................................................................. 147 Ruled-line painting ................................................................................................................................................ 149 The ethnic dimension ........................................................................................................................................... 152 Symbolism of the Chinese Dome .......................................................................................................... 155 Zaojing, the “water-weed well” .......................................................................................................................... 157 Wooden “domes of heaven” from the tenth century onward ....................................................................... 160 Ceiling Design and City Design ............................................................................................................. 165 The well-field and Neo-Confucianism .............................................................................................................. 166 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
v The ideal city in miniature ................................................................................................................................... 172 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 177 5. Miniatures, Models, Simulacra ...................................................................................... 179 The Model Pavilion at the Chongfusi ................................................................................................... 181 Dating the mo del: a conundrum......................................................................................................................... 183 A note on scale ...................................................................................................................................................... 185 The original and the copy .................................................................................................................................... 188 Modeling in Chinese History .................................................................................................................. 191 Modeling and drafting in the design process .................................................................................................... 192 Miniature pagodas and King Asoka's 84,000 stupas ....................................................................................... 197 Armillary spheres and celestial globes: in simulation of heavenly images ................................................... 203 I Ching on the notion of simulation .................................................................................................................. 206 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 208 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 210 Figures ................................................................................................................................... 215 Glossary ................................................................................................................................. 293 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 298 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
vi List of Figures 1 Illustration of tiangong louge fodaozhang ................................................................................................. 215 2 Illustration of tiangong bizang ................................................................................................................ 215 3 Reconstructive drawings of douba zaoji ng, plan and section ............................................................ 216 4 Reconstructive drawings of xiaodouba zaojing, plan and section ..................................................... 217 5 Eight grades of cai in large-scale woodworking ................................................................................ 218 6 Six grades of cai in small-scale woodworking ................................................................................... 218 7 Guo Zhongshu, Summer Palace of Emperor Minghuang, detail ............................................................ 219 8 Tamamushi Shrine, detail of roof ....................................................................................................... 219 9 Illustration of huasheng .......................................................................................................................... 220 10 Line drawing of mural on east ceiling slope of Mogao Cave 31, showing a woman holding a Mohouluo doll ....................................................................................................................................... 220 11 Wang Zhenpeng, Dragon Boat Regatta, partial .................................................................................... 221 12 Wang Zhenpeng, Dragon Boat Regatta, detail ..................................................................................... 221 13 Longxingsi sutra case, overview ......................................................................................................... 222 14 Sectional drawing of Zhuanlunzangdian at Longxingsi .................................................................. 223 15 Plan of Zhuanlunzangdian at Longxingsi ......................................................................................... 224 16 Bottom of pivot of Longxingsi sutra case ......................................................................................... 224 17 Master plan of Longxingsi ................................................................................................................... 225 18 Rhino 3D model of Longxingsi sutra case ........................................................................................ 226 19 Reconstructive drawings of zhuanlun jingzang, plans, elevation, section, and details of brackets 227 20 Reconstructive drawing of zhuanlun jingzang, elevation an d section .............................................. 228 21 Rotating core of Longxingsi sutra case .............................................................................................. 228 22 Longxingsi sutra case in the 1920s ..................................................................................................... 229 23 Longxingsi sutra case in the 1930s ..................................................................................................... 230 24 Longxingsi sutra case, detail of corner set ........................................................................................ 231 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
vii 25 Rhino 3D model of corner bracket sets of Longxingsi sutra case ................................................ 231 26 Longxingsi sutra case, detail of column-top and intercolumnar bracket sets .............................. 232 27 Zhuanlunzangdian at Longxingsi, detail of exterior bracket sets .................................................. 232 28 Diagram showing historical development of Chinese bracketing system .................................... 233 29 Cornice of Tianwangdian at Longxingsi, showing Qing bracket sets arrayed among Song originals .................................................................................................................................................. 234 30 Daoxuan's layout of ideal monastery, detail ..................................................................................... 234 31 Elevation of Yunyansi feitianzang ........................................................................................................ 235 32 Beishan Cave 136, interior ................................................................................................................... 236 33 Baodingshan Cave 14 ........................................................................................................................... 237 34 Drawing of Jinshansi revolving sutra case ........................................................................................ 238 35 Pingwusi revolving sutra case ............................................................................................................. 239 36 Gaolisi revolving sutra case ................................................................................................................. 240 37 Modern revolving sutra case installed by Tai Xiangzhou in a 2010 exhibition in Shanghai ...... 240 38 Yungang Cave 1, interior ..................................................................................................................... 241 39 Yungang Cave 2, detail of central pillar ............................................................................................. 241 40 Northern Wei miniature stupa from Gansu ..................................................................................... 242 41 Yingxian Wooden Pagoda ................................................................................................................... 242 42 Sanjie jiudi zhi tu 三界九地之圖 ......................................................................................................... 243 43 Su Song's clock-tower .......................................................................................................................... 244 44 Wooden pagoda of Su Song's clock-tower ....................................................................................... 244 45 Huayansi Bojia jiaozang, interior view ............................................................................................... 245 46 Sectional drawing of Huayansi Bojia jiaozang .................................................................................. 245 47 Huayansi Bojia jiaozang, ambulatory alon g the back of the central altar ..................................... 246 48 Huayansi Bojia jiaozang, ambulatory along the south wall ............................................................. 247 49 Huayansi sutra cabinets, de tail of bracket sets ................................................................................. 248 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
viii 50 Arching bridge of Huayansi sutra case .............................................................................................. 249 51 Huayan Plaza in front of Huayansi .................................................................................................... 249 52 Arching bridge of Huayansi sutra case, detail ................................................................................... 250 53 Wooden miniature shrine in Binglingsi Cave 172 ............................................................................ 250 54 Yungang Cave 6, detail of central pillar ............................................................................................. 251 55 Erxianmiao miniature Daoist shrine .................................................................................................. 252 56 Huhuangmiao mini ature shrine, detail of roof corner .................................................................... 252 57 Elevation of miniature shrine in Buddhist dormitory ..................................................................... 253 58 Plan of Jinshansi dormitory ................................................................................................................. 253 59 Drawings of Jingshansi miniature shrine ........................................................................................... 254 60 Plan of Jingshansi dormitory ............................................................................................................... 254 61 Line drawing of stone relief, north wall of east side-chamber, Dahuting Tomb 1 ..................... 255 62 Line drawing of stone relief, north wall of north side-chamber, Dahuting Tomb 1 .................. 255 63 Front elevation, section, and plan of shenchu, according to Lu Ban jing ......................................... 256 64 Yangshi Lei miniature shrine .............................................................................................................. 256 65 Reconstructive drawing of bizang, section ......................................................................................... 257 66 Diagram of the typology of Japanese zushi....................................................................................... 258 67 Five Dynasty silk painting of “Seven Locations and Nine Assemblies” ...................................... 259 68 Bianxiang of Huayanjing, Mogao Cave 85, detail of Lotus Repository World ............................... 260 69 Bianxiang of Amitabha's pure land, Mogao Cave 321...................................................................... 260 70 Compound eye of a fruit fly, detail .................................................................................................... 261 71 Mordern installation of Fazang's mirror hall .................................................................................... 261 72 Main Hall of Jingtusi, west elevation ................................................................................................. 262 73 Scematic plan of Ji ngtusi ceiling ......................................................................................................... 262 74 Central coffer of Jingtusi ceiling, above the main Buddha ............................................................. 263 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
ix 75 Jingtusi Main Hall, interior view ......................................................................................................... 264 76 Miniature golden halls in central coffer of Jingtusi ceiling ............................................................. 264 77 Miniature Buddhas painted in central coffer of Jingtusi ceiling ..................................................... 265 78 Seven-tiered, fan-shaped bracket set at the southwest corner of Jingtusi ceiling ........................ 265 79 Double brackets in east coffer (Cof fer E) of Jingtusi ceiling ......................................................... 266 80 West coffer of Jingtusi ceiling ............................................................................................................. 266 81 Partial view of Jingtusi ceiling, show ing a combination o f three different geometric shapes: diamond, octagonal, hexagonal ........................................................................................................... 267 82 Baldachin roof above a painted Buddha at Jingtusi ......................................................................... 268 83 Sixteenth-century map of Yingzhou, showing location of Jingtusi ............................................... 269 84 Miniature bracket sets in the ceiling of Mituodian at Chongfusi ................................................... 269 85 Miniature theater in Houma Tomb 1 ................................................................................................ 270 86 Actor figures and a theater pavilion in Macun Tomb 4 .................................................................. 270 87 Line drawing of mural on the west wall of Manjusri Hall, Yanshansi .......................................... 271 88 Reconstructive plan of main building complex painted in Yanshansi murals ............................. 272 89 Coffered ceiling in Main Hall of Shanhuasi ...................................................................................... 272 90 Tiangong louge in ceiling coffer, Rear Hall of Fengshengsi................................................................ 273 91 Tiangong louge in ceiling, Offering Pavilion of Doudafuci ................................................................ 273 92 Tiangong louge in ceiling, Main Hall of Yong'ansi .............................................................................. 274 93 Tiangong l ouge in ceiling of Gongshutang ............................................................................................ 274 94 Zhihuasi ceiling coffer, now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art ................................................. 275 95 Zhihuasi ceiling coffe r, detail of tianggong louge.................................................................................. 275 96 Tiangong louge in circular coffer, originally from Longfusi ............................................................... 276 97 Diagram of well-field syste m.............................................................................................................. 277 98 Diagram of Warring-states land-allocation system for administrative purpose, according to Zhouli ....................................................................................................................................................... 277 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
x 99 Plan of ideal cap ital city, according to Kaogongji ................................................................................ 278 100 Plan of imperial palace, according to Kaogongji ................................................................................. 278 101 Reconstructive plan of Northern Song Dongjing ............................................................................ 279 102 Thirteenth-century map of Northern Song Dongjing .................................................................... 279 103 Plan of five-chambered mingtang ......................................................................................................... 280 104 Reconstructive plan of Zhou-dynasty mingtang ................................................................................. 280 105 Reconstructive elevation of Wu Zetian's mingtang............................................................................ 281 106 Mandala city painted in ceiling, Yulin Cave 3 (d. Xi Xia) ............................................................... 281 107 Model pavilion at Chongfusi ............................................................................................................... 282 108 East-west cross section of Qianfoge .................................................................................................. 283 109 North-south cross section of Qianfoge ............................................................................................. 283 110 Chongfusi model, detail of triple an d double brackets ................................................................... 284 111 Golden phoenix engraved between bracket-sets............................................................................. 284 112 Qianfoge at Chongfusi, exterior ......................................................................................................... 285 113 A typical ceyang ....................................................................................................................................... 285 114 Model pagodas in Japan, Nara period ............................................................................................... 286 115 Model of Ming gatetower Qianlou, Huayansi Main Hall ................................................................ 287 116 Model of Qianlou, detail ...................................................................................................................... 288 117 Restored Qianlou in 2013 .................................................................................................................... 288 118 Yangshi Lei drawing and model of a building complex at Yuanmingyuan .................................. 289 119 Asokan stupa, excavated from Leifengta top chamber ................................................................... 290 120 Asokan stupa, excavated from Leifengta crypt ................................................................................ 290 121 Excavated bronze and iron Asokan stupas attributed to Qian Hongchu .................................... 291 122 Stone Asokan stupas ............................................................................................................................ 291 123 Pictorial reconstruction of Su Song's clock-tower ........................................................................... 292 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
xi 124 Modern reconstruction of Su Song's clock-tower at Taiwan National Museum of Natural Science .................................................................................................................................................... 292 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
1 Introduction Miniature architecture proliferated in China during 1000-1200 CE. Buddhist and Daoist icons were shelte red by mini wooden pavilions, holy scriptures were stored in architectural-shaped bookcases and cabinets, whereas the interior of a worship hall--especially the vaulted ceiling--was typically ornamented with groups of tiny buildings to represent the “heave nly palace. ” Portable relic shrines, ceramic houses, container gardens, dollhouses, mini theaters, etc., became cherished items in social life. Specifications of miniature-making have been written into the official building code, Yingzao fashi營造法式 (Buildin g standards), promulgated in 1103 by the Northern Song imperial court. However, even though a few of these miniatures have been discussed by scholars on separate occasions, in general, miniature architecture has never received the systematic survey it dese rves. Miniaturization as a culturally significant form of artistic creation, too, has slipped past most scholars' attention. In fact, as this dissertation demonstrates, a critical understanding of miniatures helps to positively reshape our premises and con clusions about architecture, art, and material culture. The development of Chinese architecture from the eleventh century onward could be described as a history of “progressive miniaturization”: as key structural members and ornamental elements dwindled in size and scale over time, the overall form and structure of wooden architecture also underwent drastic changes. A major concern of this dissertation is the practical, spiritual, and aesthetic reasons behind the fervor of miniature-making: what qualities m ade these small objects particularly appealing to people? My study reveals that religious thought and practice, especially those associated with Huayan Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism, played a central role in the proliferation of the miniatures. I argue t hat the Mahayana Buddhist worldview of the universe being a recursive, self-multiplying system of “worlds-within-worlds,” a concept that resonates with William Blake's poetic imagination | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
2 of “a world in a grain of sand,” has been translated into distinctive motifs of art by means of miniaturization. The decrease in size allowed a much detailed display within a limited space; it signaled the uncanny, the illusory, and the sublime, which helped to convey abstract Buddhist tenets and assist one's visualization of a transcendental realm beyond the everyday experience. Since visualization was a key step of reaching Buddhahood, miniatures assumed liturgical as well as soteriological functions. For both elites and commoners, they became all-important symbols of spiritual power and “expedient means” of obtaining enlightenment and salvation. Another important question is: what historical and social factors stimulated the flourishing of miniature architecture? I propose that on the one hand, it was due to the high stand ardization of Chinese architecture in the eleventh century. This standardization greatly facilitated miniature-making, because carpenters only had to reduce the size of the standard timber material while the same set of rules and formulas for large buildin gs would still apply. On the other hand, since miniatures were never th e main targets of sumptuary law, they granted carpenters much freedom to execute their ideas and showcase their skills. With the installation of increasingly stricter statutes on buildi ng activities, it was often safer and more economic to invest in miniatures than in large structures to achieve similar levels of impressiveness and feelings of importance. The trend of miniaturization was also observed in painting, sculpture, masonry, cer amics, and cabinetry; it became a hallmark of the material culture of the eleventh-to twelfth-century China and endured well into later centuries. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
3 On Defining the Miniature: Philosophical, Religious, and Architectural Perspectives The English word “minia ture” hardly finds any equivalent in classical Chinese. 1 The concept of being miniature, however, like in many other world civilizations, can be traced as far back as high antiquity. Chinese myth tells how the cosmos was created by giant gods, compared wit h whom humans are like dolls or little children. One account describes that the firstborn, Pangu, reached ninety thousand leagues in height when fully grown. Upon death, his colossal body disintegrated, generating the sun and the moon, mountains and stream s, trees and rocks, and various other matters between earth and heaven, whereas “[a]ll the mites on his body were touched by the wind and were turned into the black-haired people ” (身之諸蟲, 因風所感, 化為黎氓 ). 2 Another account attributes the creation of human beings to the goddess Nuwa, who “kneaded yellow earth and fashioned human beings ” (摶黃土作人 ), perhaps following the image of herself. 3 It would seem that humans are born miniatures themselve s. While the myth contrasts the human body with gods and goddesses and with the immense world, the same contrasts is deeply ingrained in the human consciousness between the trivial, fragile, and vulnerable self in front of nature, of its formidable power a nd many unsolved mysteries. Coexisting with this consciousness, however, is the intuitional drive to project the self to the surroundings, to see oneself as created in the likeness of the pattern and structure of nature, and the unconscious to personify an d 1 Modern Chinese equivalents of the word “miniature” include weixing 微型 and weisuo 微縮. 2 Yishi yin wuyun jinianji 繹史引五運歷年紀 (A Chronicle of the Five Cycles of Times, 3rd cent. ), quoted in Anne Birrell, 1993, Chinese Mythology: An Introduction (Baltimore and London: T he Joh n Hopkins University Press ), 33. On p. 25, Birrell introduces the five main traditions of Chinese cosmologies expressed in six classical texts, the one on Pangu being the latest. Birrell suggests that the legend of Pangu might have derived from certa in Central Asian sources (30-31). See also Bruce Lincoln, 1991, Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press ). 3 Fengsu tongyi 風俗通義 (Explanation of Social Customs, late 2nd cent. ), quoted in Birrell 1993, 35. Another famous giant figure in Chinese myth is Kuafu. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
4 anthropomorphize all forces, causes, and phenomena. 4 In other words, humans see themselves as “miniatures” of the cosmos and the natural order personified. The dialectic of microcosm-versus-macrocosm and small-versus-large has been contemplated in early Chinese philosophical writings. In one of Zhuangzi's most imaginative and rhetoric-rich essays, “Autumn Floods ” (qiushui 秋水 ), the small and minuscule is denoted as xiao 小, jing 精, and wei 微. The Northern Sea, being the largest body of water on earth, reveals to the River Lord that amid heaven and earth, he is “as a little ( xiao) pebble or tiny ( xiao) tree on a big mountain ” (猶小石小木之在大山也 ). 5 Likewise, the expansive Middle Kingdom is but “a mustard seed in a huge granary ” (稊米之在大倉 ), whereas each person, in comparison with the myriad things, is like “the tip of a downy hair on a horse's body ” (毫末之在於馬體 ). 6 The Northern Sea warns tha t one must not belittle what appears small and tiny, since the capacity of things being forever smaller ( wei) and minute ( jing) is limitless. 7 Small and large are relative but never absolute; one can freely “regard the heaven and earth as a mustard seed an d the tip of a downy hair as a mountain ” (知天地之為稊 米也, 知毫末之為丘山也 ). 8 4 Lincoln 1991. The interrelations between the microcosm and the macrocosm is especially well illustrated in chap. 1--even though Lincoln's observations are mainly derived from Indo-European mythology, they are also applicable to this case. 5 Victor H. Mair, trans., 1998, Wandering the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press ), 153. 6 Mair 1998, 153-54. 7 Mair 1998, 155, “that which is minute is the smallest of the small ” (精, 小之微也 ). Jing is roughly equal to “minuteness” (also meaning refined) and wei is smaller than xiao. The term wei has been incorporated into weixing and weisuo as modern terms for miniature. See n. 1. 8 Mair 1998, 155. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
5 The same imagery is found in some Buddhist sutras claiming that the Sumeru mountain can somehow be placed inside a mustard seed. 9 To be enlightened is to cross the boundaries of things large and small, to transcend one's mundane perce ptions of the external world, and to see, or rather envision, “a world in a lotus petal ” (一葉一世界 ). 10 It is almost uncanny how this image resonates with “a world in a grain of sand” and “eternity in an hour” in William Blake's poem. To be sure, such poetic im ages appear in Buddhist narratives to serve didactic and soteriological purposes. Buddhism views the universe as not a singular but plural entities: the multiple worlds are all miniatures as well as components of a grand network which makes up the entire buddhaksetra (Ch. fotu 佛土 ), or Buddha land. 11 From this vantage point, the world we inhabit must look like a grain of sand amid the countless stars in the cosmic river Ganga (which we now call the galaxies). 12 Time, like space, is similarly composed of “miniatures” and need be me asured and articulated in terms of a fraction of a second. 9 “Placing something as high and wide as the Sumeru into a mustard seed, the size of the Sumeru does not increase or decrease ” (以須彌之高廣內芥子中, 無所增減 ). Vimalakirti Sutra (Ch. Weimojie suoshuojing 維摩詰所說經 ), T14. 475: 546b, http://www. cbeta. org/result/normal/T14/0475_002. htm. 10 “[The Vairocana] lives in the Lotus Terrace Repository of the Sea of World. The terrace is covered by a thousand leaves, each leaves being a world, and this makes a thousand worlds ” ([盧舍那 ] 住蓮花臺藏世界海. 其臺周遍有千葉, 一葉一世界, 為千世界 ). Brahmajala Sutra (Ch. Fanwangjing 梵網經 ), T24. 1484: 997c, http://www. cbeta. org/result/normal/T24/1484_001. htm. The same trope is also used profusely in chap. 5 of the Avatamsaka S utra (Ch. Huayanjing 華嚴經 ). 11 Randy Kloetzli, 1983, Buddhist Cosmology: From Single World System to Pure Land: Science and Theology in the Images of Motion and Light (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass): ix. Four major models of the Buddhist cosmos are introduced : (1) the single world system, (2) the “cosmology of thousands,” (3) the “cosmology of innumerables,” and (4) the cosmologies of the Pure Land sects. The plurality of cosmologies pertaining to the Huayan School is explicated on pp. 52-54. An explanation of the term buddhaksetra is in Stephen J. Laumakis, 2008, An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press ): 207, 214-15. 12 Kloetzli 1983, 121, contains a very poetic contemplation on this matter: “ Since the world is e ssentially a speck of sand in the perspective of the fixed stars, each of the grains of sand which make up the cosmic river must also be a world, a universe unto itself. ” | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
6 The atomic view emerged in the classical world and was adopted in proto-astronomy. A good example is Archimedes's calculation of the volume of the celestial space containing the sun and the earth, a space so vast that it could be measured only by the infinitesimal. He reckoned that a total of 1063 grains of sand would be needed in order to fill this space. 13 In this sense, a grain of sand, so humble and ordinary an object, offered the sage an approac h to even the most abstruse subject imaginable at the time, and yielded insight into the higher dimension. A certain similarity in the physical form and structure of the measuring and measured cannot be dismissed: a grain of sand to the earth, an atom to t he universe, and a second to eternity. In a similar light, in the works of Neo-Confucian thinkers, one find s propositions that the principle ( li 理, also translated as “coherence”) of heaven-and-earth can be sought in “a thing smaller than a cricket, an ant, or a blade of grass. ”14 Contrary to the Buddhist view of the world and the myriad things it contains being essentially empty and illusive, howev er, the li embodied by a blade of grass forms the basis of learning for Confucian scholars, who were obliged to investigate the principle of things so as to establish moral authority. The miniature discussed in this context, therefore, is the epitome of a whole range of knowledge and wisdom essential for the cultivation of the self. What, then, is a miniature in an architectural sense? The rule of scale still applies in this case: a miniature is several times smaller than a real structure, but the geometry of its basic form and structure often remains unaltered. Here the contrast in scale is not as drastic (as in the case of 13 Kloetzli 1983, 115-17. 14 Quoted in Willard Peterson, 1986, “Another Look at Li,” The Bulletin of Sung-Yuan Studies (18): 15. Also, on p. 24, “Coherence ( li) is intelligible on all levels of integration, a blade of grass, a school of fish, the experience of a lifetime, heaven-and-earth, the Great Ultimate. ” Peterson's article is an excell ent exposition of the meaning of li and many of its associated philosophical terms. Another great source concerning the concept of li in the context of the historical role of Neo-Confucianism is Peter Bol, 2008, Neo-Confucianism in History (Cambridge: Harv ard University Press). For a succinct summary of this important work, see Bettine Birge's review article in The American Historical Review 115 (2010. 3): 822-23. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
7 1:1063), and an architectural miniature usually ranges from 1/100 to 1/2 of the regular size. Historical records in China refer to them using the prefix xiao-,15 sometimes xiaoyang 小樣 (small-scale prototype), which denotes architectural models. More specifically, in the Yingzao fashi, the term xiaomuzuo 小木作 (small-scale woodworking) has been assigned to the category of non-structural carpentry encompassing joinery (doors, windows, stairs, etc. ), cabinetry, and miniature woodwork that observes strict scaling principles. Broadly speaking, miniature architecture could be a rather inclusive concept, denoting any piece of architectural-shaped--but functionally n on-architectural--object made using an identifiable downscaling method. In this dissertation, for clarity and concentration, miniatures are discussed within a narrower definition: 1. It has to be a three-dimensional, physical object. Architecture illustrat ed in some paintings, although observing certain miniaturizing techniques, is not the main subject of this dissertation. 2. It has to be made using architectural (additive), not sculptural (subtractive) methods. This confines our examination to wooden mini atures that applies the same post-and-lintel building technique of Chinese timber-frame architecture. By contrast, miniatures carved of wood, cast in bronze, or made of ceramic (such as the large number of Han pottery houses) adopt a disparate structural l ogic and are excluded from this dissertation. 16 Miniatures pertaining to this definition largely correspond to several types of structures categorized as the xiaomuzuo in the Yingzao fashi. Later in this introduction, I will expla in further what these structures are and what material evidence is available for the study of them. 15 The term xiao also refers to non-architectural miniatures, such as xiaoxiang ; see Ch apters 1 and 5. 16 This exclusion is due mainly to the purpose of this dissertation, which is to reveal the scaling method of miniature-making without considering the change of building material or technique. Such a concentration allows me to expose the exchanges be tween large-and small-scale woodworking, which further shed light on the historical development of Chinese architecture. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
8 Conceptual and Theoretical Framework: Deconstruction, Oneirism, and Simulation Modern critcis of architecture often debate the interrelationship of a pair of concepts: form and function. The form of a building, it has been argued, needs to follow the intended function, sometimes to the extreme that any type of ornamentation--since it does not serve the “ultimate purpose” of architecture, which is to provide shelter--is deemed superfluous, wasteful, and even sinful. 17 To read architecture as a duality of form and function is to read it as a sign (or a collection of signs) conveying certain meanings. The moment we cast our sight upon a building, the process of reading and interpreting immediately takes place: this porch signifies an entrance, that belfry indicates a church, etc. This process of interpretation, however, does not stay at the recognition of the direct function of the building and its various parts, but always extends to the social and cultural identities and values of architecture. Georges Bataille (1897-1962), for one, has compared the museum to a “colossal mirror in which man finally contemplates himself in every aspect, finds himself literally adm irable, and abandons himself to the ecstasy expressed in all the art reviews;” whereas public monuments, such as the Bastille, stand for the very existence of social order, authority, and fear imposed on the multitudes. 18 Postmodernists and Poststructuralis ts, on the other hand, seek to provide an alternative to the linear interpretation of form and function. Deconstruction, a term coined by Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), has found many interesting intersections with architecture in this respect. The term itself possesses a certain architectural underpinning in that it seems to reverse the usual process of 17 The most influential architect and theorist in history holding this view is perhaps Adolf Loos (1870-1933), whose essay Ornament and Crime has received much criticism including that of Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969). See Theodor W. Adorno, “Functionalism Today,” in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach, 1997 (London and New York: Routledge), 6-19. 18 George s Bataille, “Architecture,” in Leach 1997, 21; “Museum,” in Leach 1997, 22-23. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
9 construction by demolishing or dissembling the whole into parts. Derrida himself, however, clarifies that the essence of deconstruction lies in neither archi tectural technology nor metaphor, but architecture itself can be a deconstructive discourse, a way of thinking, and a form of writing. 19 His theory has given rise to the so-called “deconstructivist” architecture, a postmodern style associated with the works of many world-renowned architects including Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhass, and Zaha Hadid, even though critics believe that the link between this particular style and deconstruction is problematic and misleading. 20 Characteristic of the decon structivist architecture is the profusion of non-rectilinear forms, the accentuated asymmetry, irregularity, disorientation, and ambiguity of space. Take, for example, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles or the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing : in a material discourse, deconstruction has been expressed as a detachment of form from function, or indeed from any solid cultural contexts, allusions, or innuendoes. It disrupts the linear reading of meanings and allows architecture to become a self-referential existence. Miniaturization, to some extent, can be analyzed as a mode of deconstruction. What constitutes deconstructivist architecture finds many resonances here: the form is detached from the assumed function (or rather, there is a general lack of architectural functionality); the usual expectation for and experience of architecture is discontinued; articulation is replaced by ambiguity, sometimes redundancy, which overwhelms us and prevents any straightforward interpretation. But the distinctiv eness of miniaturization is that the “deconstructing” force derives not from the unfamiliar form but the unfamiliar scale. The twist of scale--even when the original form is largely 19 Jacques Derrida, “Architecture Where the Desire May Live,” in Leach 1997, 320-21. See also Leach 1997, 317-18; Mark Wigley, 1993, The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt (Cambridge, Mass. : The MIT Press ). 20 One of the first publication on deconstructivist architecture is Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley, 1988, Deconstructivist Architecture (Museum of Modern Art). | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
10 maintained--bestows the architecture with a new identity and its observer a new spatial experience. In essence, miniature architectur e becomes non-architecture or anti-architecture in disguise; it embraces strict rules of construction for the sake of “deconstructing” architecture and destabilizing its very meaning. This “deconst ructive” reading of miniature architecture shares many points in common with other critical works on the topic of miniatures, as will be introduced later. From the perspectives of reception theories and psychoanalysis, miniatures engender far more profound impacts on the human psyche than what meets the eye. As Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) has proclaimed, “[v]alues become engulfed in miniature, and miniature causes men to dream. ”21 Bachelard highlighted the oneirism, or dreamlike nature, of the minuscule: th e toy-world of our childhood, the botanist's magnifying glass (to which we might add Alice's looking glass), he asserts, become the fountain of daydreams and memories, presenting to us a new world and a new universe. 22 In the phenomenological inquiry, the m iniature averts direct “reading” but evokes powerful imaginations. A miniature garden, as Bachelard would argue, does not necessarily stand for any real garden in the world, but it may bring to the mind reveries about the fairyland, the luxuriant rainfores t, the rolling hills, the tranquil countryside, or perhaps the distant isles in the sea. Herein lies the poetics of the miniature--it opens up a vast space for the free wanderings of the mind and heart, a world not restricted or predefined by any descrip tion, narration, or natural law. This world created by the miniature might sound phantasmal and unreal. The miniature itself, likewise, is sometimes regarded as a “fake,” a shadow of the past, a mere “copy” or representation of something original and substan tial. If, according to Plato, all art is but imitation of a real object, which is itself the imitation of an ideal form created by God, miniatures could similarly 21 Gaston Bachelard, 1969, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas ( Boston: Beacon Press ), 152. 22 Bachelard 1969, 149-50, 153-55, 157. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
11 be categorized as “imitations of imitations” since they are twice-removed from the truth. Suc h a hierarchical view of artistic creation, however, has become more and more problematic as we entered the age of new media. Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) has pointed out acutely the falsehood of the presumed dichotomy between the “original” and the “copy, ” between “reality” and “simulation. ” As much as an image imitates a basic reality, it also works to pervert reality or even mask the absence of reality (think of, for instance, a painting of the Elysian), to an extent that the image “bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum. ”23 Baudrillard depicted Disneyland as “a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation,” an imaginary, “deep-frozen infantile world” full of illusions and phantasms. 24 Many of his observations st ill apply as recent technologies of simulation--computer-aided design, video games, and virtual reality, to name but a few--have been continuously reshaping and redefining modern ways of living and thinking. These technologies have also encouraged new meth ods of approaching and preserving the past: while the physical form of historical sites and artworks may perish, they may be archived and forever stored in a digital form, i. e., as their own simulacra. This dissertation engages with these three concepts in the discussion of miniature architecture. I will reveal how miniature-making, within a particular historical and social context, can be analyzed as 1) a deconstructive language of artistic creation as well as a deconstructive discourse of Chinese architec tural history; 2) a tool for inducing imaginations and daydreams, which lead to insights; and 3) a method of simulation involved in the transmission of canonical forms, formulas, and knowledge. 23 Jean Baudrillard, 2001, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 173. 24 Baudrillard 2001, 174-75. Also see Leach 1997, 209, 221-22. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
12 Scholarship on the Miniature Scholars have approached the top ic of miniature art from various perspectives. Rolf Stein is perhaps the first to have commented extensively on Chinese miniatures from a cultural-historical point of view. His celebrated work, The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought (1990), focuses on the container garden, the traditional house, and the temple as distinctive forms of miniature art in China as well as in Tibet, Mongolia, and Vietnam. He traces the container garden back to the Han-dynasty ince nse burner ( boshanlu 博山爐 ) which was often fashioned into a miniature mountain; and this deep historical connection, as he demonstrates, has been implicated by multiple literary references. 25 Lying behind the miniature mountain and miniature garden was a set of “themes” associated with Daoist aesthetics and Buddhist motifs. The tiny landscape, because of its altered size, transcended “from the level of imitative reality [into] the domain of the only true reality: mythical space,” offering a retreat, a separat e world, a world of magic and imagination for the wandering soul. 26 A full-size house, on the other hand, was at once a microcosm of the universe and a projection of the human body. Various parts of the primitive house--the hearth, the skylight, and the cen tral drainage--have carried rich symbolic meanings ingrained in cultural-specific ritual practices. As the name of the book indicates, Stein understands religious thought and aspiration to be perhaps the strongest drive behind the creation of such miniatur e art. The Altar of Heaven in Beijing, the legendary Hall of Light ( mingtang 明堂 ) in history, and the many turning libraries used in Buddhist monasteries, to name but a few, are interpreted as miniaturization based on cosmological 25 Rolf A. Stein, 1990, The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought, trans. Phyllis Brooks (Stanford : Stanford University Press ), 23-48, and chap. 2. 26 Stein 1990, 52-53, 77, 112. Stein proposes two sets of themes associa ted with miniature gardens. The Taoist themes encompass ideas of cures, vital power, immortality, medicinal essences, horns of plenty, and retreats. The peasant themes include cures (once again), vital power, longevity in its social context, continuation o f life, fertility, and fecundity. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
13 theories and cosmographical models such as the Kunlun mountain or its Buddhist equivalent, the Sumeru. He accentuates that real architectural features have been rigorously incorporated to help worshipers visualize the sacred landscapes or intended world order; the sutra libraries in Beijing and Shanxi, for instance, can literally rotate, some carved in a w ay that they appear to be a miniature Sumeru “emerging from the sea. ”27 However, notwithstanding these technical details, Stein's interpretation of the miniatures largely concentrates on their metaphorical and symbolic nature, but specifications of the mini aturizing process and its socio-economic significance--such as will be elaborated in this dissertation--have been left undiscussed. A comparable approach is taken up by Susan Stewart in her On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souveni r, the Collection (1993). The miniatures analyzed in this work, encompassing toys, dollhouses, and motifs in fairytales such as the Lilliputians, are examined as metaphors and cultural products expressing the anxieties, triumphs, and desires of the bourgeo is society. 28 Though concerning a different historical context and intellectual tradition, Stewart agrees with Stein that a chain of projections exist between the universe, the human body, and architecture: the Vitruvian Man, therefore, besides being a gold en formula for perfect proportions and measurements, is a miniaturization and personification of the entire world with all its natural laws and phenomena. 29 But the miniature is not entirely a reflection; it presents a theatrical stage where we entertain ou rselves with “a deliberately framed series of actions. ”30 On this stage, even the flow 27 Stein 1990, 254-56. 28 Susan Stewart, 1993, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Durham: Duke University Press ), xii. 29 Stewart 1993, 128-30. 30 Stewart 1993, 54. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
14 of time is manipulated--quickened, slowed, or stopped, as in dreams--generating a total interiority segregated from the external and the ordinary. 31 James Roy King's Remak ing the World: Modeling in Human Experience (1996) illuminates miniature-making from an anthropological perspective. He emphasizes the modeling process as an “experience” consisting of a broad spectrum of human activities: e xploring dimensionality; world making through realism, detail, and truth to prototype; solving technical problems; investigating diverse materials; exchanging goods; collecting; exercising the muscles (kinesthetics); projecting personal values and experiences; creating aesthetic experien ces; and fantasizing. 32 This “activity set,” as he calls it, aims to bring “pleasure and insight” for those involved in the experience. 33 On the one hand is the display of the magic of verisimilitude and miniaturization, with the sole purpose of telling stor ies, of stopping time, of escaping this world and venturing into the realm of imagination. On the other hand, by contrast, is the passion for geometric precision, the attention to technical details, and the rigorous practice of using models as analytic and pedagogical tools. 34 King differentiates the two groups by referring to the former as miniatures and the latter as models. 35 In fact, as this dissertation will unravel, the line between miniatures and models is at best a fuzzy and shifting one. The apparent contradiction noted here only helps to expose the paradoxical nature of the miniature--it has to be mimetic in order to be fantastic. 31 Stewart 1993, 65-66. See also 61, 68, on the interiority of the dollhouse. 32 James Roy King, 1996, Remaking the World: Modeling in Human Experience (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996 ), 6. 33 King 1996, 3. 34 King 1996, 19, 148, 209. Models have been used since the Middle Ages, through High Renaissance, all the way to the modern period. 35 King 1996, 3. “By model I mean a re-creation of some prototype or original, generally but not always smaller and usually of materials different from those of the original. ” And p. 19, “Miniatures... seem to be less interested in accuracy and more devoted to a wide array of small, domesticated objects that look something like the real thing. ” | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
15 In recent years, miniature art has started to receive increasing attention from art historians. Lothar Ledderose's Ten Th ousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (2000), though highlighting the concept of modularity rather than miniaturization, has in fact foregrounded many important issues regarding miniature-making in traditional China. To this dissertation, the most pertinent and illuminating point Ledderose has made is that both modular design and prefabrication of wooden structures were enabled by the standardization of building components. 36 As he explains, this high standardization was achieved by implem enting a scaling principle: using cai 材 and fen 分 as the primary and secondary measuring units, each structural member was proportioned to the standard unit according to prescribed formulas. 37 It will be revealed further in this dissertation that the same scaling principle was applied to creat e visually stunning miniature woodwork. Besides wooden architecture aboveground, miniatures found underground have become a special focus of interest. Archaeological finds have testified to the inclusion of miniature architecture in tombs beginning no late r than the late seventh century BCE, a practice which continued to flourish well into later dynasties. Excavated architectural models are made of either ceramic, wood, or bronze, their types ranging from simple granaries, stoves, and wells to houses, pigst ies, and more complex structures such as multistory towers, fortified courtyards, and paddy fields. 38 Generally categorized as mingqi 明器 (spiritual vessels), these miniatures have been believed to accompany the dead and ensure their wellbeing in the afterli fe. Wu Hung, for one, has argued that these artifacts 36 Lothar Ledderose, 2000, Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (Princ eton: Princeton University Press), intro. and ch ap. 5. 37 See Chapter 1 of this dissertation. 38 A table showing the earliest known architectural models from Chinese tombs is provided in Armin Selbitschka, 2005, “Miniature Tomb Figurines and Models in Pre-imperial and Early Imperial China: Origins, Development and Significance,” World Archaeology 47 (1): 26-27. Also see Qinghua Guo, 2010, The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China: Architectural Representations and Represented Arch itecture (Sussex Academic Press), for a general introduction to mingqi architecture. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
16 were intentionally designed in diminutive forms based on the belief that the posthumous soul--a duality of the ascending, heavenly-bound hun 魂 and a descending, earthly-bound po 魄--was invisible and a m iniature itself. 39 Not only the mingqi but tomb objects that symbolically or physically contained the deceased--including the soul jars ( hunping 魂瓶 ), the coffins, and the burial chambers--were miniaturized structures serving the soul. Armin Selbitschka, on the other hand, points out that miniatures similar in form to the mingqi have also been found at several residential sites, thus problematizing the long-held opinion that they were prepared exclusively for burials. 40 Selbitschka contends that architectural models in fact represented real land properties previously owned by the deceased; they were placed in tombs with the good wish of the living that the land would remain a source of income for the family. 41 Jeehee Hong's recent study on miniature fruits and f urniture deposited in medieval tombs and pagoda crypts provides a more nuanced narrative. Entering the tenth century, she argues, the mingqi were given new modes of representation which aimed to function for both the dead and the living. 42 While most art hi storians emphasize the mimetic quality of the miniatures, Nancy S. Steinhardt's analysis of a Yuan-dynasty architectural-shaped wooden 39 Wu Hung, 2015, “ The Invisible Miniature: Framing the Soul in Chinese Art and Architecture,” Art History 38 (2): 286-303. S ee also Wu Hung, 2010, The Art of the Yellow Sp rings: Understanding Chinese Tombs (Honol ulu: University of Hawaii Press ). 40 Selbitschka 2015, 20-44. 41 Selbitschka 2015, 39-40. According to the inscriptions and “land contracts ” found in tombs, architectural models represented private land ownership, and ensured the sources of income and tax for the living family members. Regarding land contracts and ownership, an important work to be consulted is Valerie Hansen, 1995, Negotiating Daily Life in Traditional China: How Ordinary People Used Contracts, 600-1400 (New Haven: Yale University Press). 42 Jeehee Hong, 2015, “ Mechanism of Life for the Netherworld: Transformations of Mingqi in Middle-Period China,” Journal of Chinese Religions 43 (2): 161-93. Hong's main argument is that t he burial chamber, which simul ated a wooden structure with downscaled wooden chairs and tables inside, transformed from a private section of the dead to a “socialized,” public realm to be negotiated between the living and the dead. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
17 coffin has led her to believe that a miniature could mimic and deviate from the real at the same time, thus becoming a du al-purpose object which is both representational and decorative. 43 The existing scholarship has exposed many lingering issues: for funerary miniatures alone, the debates go on as how their social functions and values should be understood and through what artistic forms these functions became realized. A more general question, perhaps, is whether or not miniatures were created to imitate and simulate, or else as mainly decorative, less symbolically significant objects. But before satisfactory answers to these questions are sought, what seems still lacking is a clear definition and classification of the miniatures. Also lacking is an explanation of the specifications and procedures of miniature-making using proper nomenclature. While this dissertation does not intend to solve these issues all at once, it does provide rudimentary conceptual and technological foundations for the study of miniature architecture in China in a predefined historical period. While in dialogue with former scholarly works on miniature, i t focuses on scale instead of form, style, or other physical attributes. I will demonstrate how scale and scaling principles, when carefully observed, can shed light on questions not only about dating and iconography but those concerning the historical bac kground, social value, and religious significance of the surveyed object. Primary Sources, Digital Database, and 3D Modeling The key text consulted in this dissertation is the Yingzao fashi, especially the part on terminology, the scaling principles, and miniature woodworking. The historical background and significance of this text will be briefly outlined in Chapter 1, where I will provide a summary of the technical details of miniat ure-making so as to prepare the reader for the discussions in succeeding chapters. It has to be 43 Nancy S. Steinhardt, 2010, “ The A rchitecture of Livi ng and Dying,” i n The World of Khubilai Khan, ed. James C. Y. Watt (New Haven and London: Yale University Press ), 65-73. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
18 noted here that the Yingzao fashi has several limitations: first, it prescribes, instead of describes, methods and procedures of buil ding activities. The formulas and patterns listed in the text have been associated mainly with official and canonical--and to some extent, ideal--forms, whereas in real practice, we often observe vernacular and/or regional features differing from those exe mplified in the text. Second, the types of miniatures prescribed in the text are almost exclusively timber-frame structures, meaning that “sculptural miniatures”--including the majority of mingqi--are not covered. Moreover, the examples that have been incl uded represented merely a selective few from all the wooden miniatures available at the time. Despite such limitations, the Yingzao fashi has proven to be the most indispensable and invaluable guideline and “grammar book” for the research conducted here. A fuller picture of the variety of miniature architecture can be reconstructed by referring to supplementary texts especially Song-dynasty miscellanea, which will also receive a detailed examination in Chapter 1. In terms of mater ial evidence, four key examples will be examined, one for each of Chapters 2 to 5. These include a revolving sutra case at the Longxingsi 隆興寺 Buddhist monastery in Zhengding, Hebei Province, a set of sutra cabinets at the Huayansi 華嚴寺 in Datong, a coffered ceiling at the Jingtusi 淨土寺 in Yingxian, and a model pavilion at the Chongfusi 崇福寺 in Shuoxian, the last three all in Shanxi Province. Chronologically, these four are dated to the period from the eleventh to the twelfth centuries, and have been traditiona lly associated with the architecture of the Northern Song, the Liao, and the Jin, respectively. Geographically, the group represented the woodworking practice in China's northern “borderlands”--an area under constant territorial disputes and conflicts betw een the Han and non-Han regimes at the time, and one close to the cultural center, i. e., modern-day Kaifeng in Henan, where the Yingzao fashi was compiled and promulgated. The first two examples each display a remarkable conformity to the Yingzao fashi, the third exposes both adherence to and deviation from the standard, whereas the fourth stands for a | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
19 type of miniatures completely omitted by the text. While the scaling method will be analyzed for every example, the focus of each chapter is slightly different : the revolving sutra case is most ideal for illustrating the interrelationship between the concepts of m iniaturization and deconstruction; the sutra cabinets and the ceiling will illuminate the kind of unusual visual experience and psychological impact brought by miniatures; and the model pavilion will shed light on the issue of simulation. The digital count erpart of this dissertation is an open-access online database called Project Cloud Castle,44 which will eventually outgrow the scope of this dissertation and serve as a reference, research guide, and digital preservation for Chinese architecture. Currently, for a selective examples including the four key miniatures, it offers basic information on the date, geographical location, layout, formal and structural features, ornamentation, brief history, and the inscriptions, textual records, and secondary works discussing these examples. It will further include a glossary of architectural terms and a digitized Yingzao fashi with my annotated English translation. The most crucial feature of this website is the visualization of the dimensional data of the miniatures I collected in fieldwork. I have developed several interactive photogrammetry and Rhino 3D models to achieve this, a process which has been instrumental to the writing of this dissertation. My chapters use the data extracted from the models to identify and date the miniatures, to expose, in quantitative terms, the downscaling formulas they adopted, and to unravel the technological exchanges between Chinese architecture a nd its miniatures in history. In a greater sense, 3D models not only enable a heightened awareness of, and a “tangible” way of critiquing the spatial and dimensional attributes of the objects, but they also benefit and potentially transform processes of architectural and art historical inquiry. Further, these models would constitute what I envision to be a digital collection and exhibition of Chinese architecture accessible via new media and on different 44 https://chinesearchitecture. wordpress. com | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
20 platforms, to be used in classrooms, libraries, and m useums. They not only encourage innovative learning and research modes but would assist in physical as well as digital conservation projects. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
21 1. Miniatures in Texts Literary references to miniatures exist in abundance. They are, however, largely fragmentary in nature, and they simply do not adhere to a set of specific terms when describing different miniatures. For a start, it is necessary to narrow down the scope of research to targeted historical period and genres of literature. In this dissertation, I tak e the Yingzao fashi as a point of departure and expand my search to a selective few miscellanea ( biji 筆記 ) written by Song-dynasty scholars. The reason to focus on these texts is manifold. While the Yingzao fashi demonstrates the technical details of miniature woodworking, the many eye-witness accounts in the miscellanea vividly depict how the miniature world actually interacted with people in all aspects of life. While the former is a legal text compiled by a court architect under imperial decree, the latter assume much more personal tones and provide multiple lens for readers to inspect miniatures and their variegated roles in different social venues. The former focuses on definition and technique, where as the latter, practice and significance. The written evidence presented here is certainly not exhaustive but representative; in some cases it may even appear convoluted. But it is my intention to expose the heterogeneous nature of these records, and to sh owcase the types of narratives where traces of miniatures might be pursued. Small-scale Woodworking ( Xiaomuzuo ) in the Yingzao Fashi The Yingzao fashi, a canon often compared to the famous Ancient Roman architect Vitruvius' s (c. 80-15 BCE) Ten Books on Architecture, has been internationally recognized as one of the most fundamental works for the study of premodern Chinese architecture. Compiled by the court architect Li Jie 李誡 (1035-1110) and promulgated state-wide in 1103, the Yingzao fashi not only served as the Northern Song official building code, but has also remained the earliest surviving | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
22 treatise on Chinese architecture. Ying 營 means to conceive, to plan, zao 造 is to build and make. Put together, yingzao is roughly equivalent to architecture in its broadest sense. The word fashi 法式 denotes law, rules, and standard forms and patterns to be followed; it excellently exposes the nature of this text being a legal code written in a most serious and crit ical manner possible, one that had been meticulously scrutinized by court officials before formal promulgation--a fact that has lent much authority and credibility to this text even today. 1 The Yingzao fashi was “rediscovered” in 1919 by Zhu Qiqian 朱啟鈐 (1872-1964), who later founded the Society for the Research in Chinese Architecture (Zhongguo yingzao xueshe 中國營造 學社 ) in 1930. Since then, the text has become an invaluable reference for modern architectural historians, who constant ly rely on the terminology, design methods, procedures of construction, and other important information in this text in their efforts of exploring and interpreting Chinese architecture. 2 A particularly interesting and engaging content of the text is the se t of architectural drawings attached at the end to illuminate what mere words can hardly convey. This makes the Yingzao fashi a visual as well as a textual source. 3 1 Yingzao fashi (Building Standards), comp. Li Jie, vol. 1 (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1954 ), 1-8, 15-18. 2 A brief history of the Society and their study of the Yingzao fashi is provided in Shiqiao Li, “Reconstituting Chinese Build ing Tradition: The Yingzao fashi in the Early Twentieth Century,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 62 (2003. 4): 470-89, doi: 10. 2307/3592498. Research on the Yingzao fashi have been co nducted by scholars such as Liang Sicheng 梁思成, Chen Mingda 陳明達, Pan Guxi 潘谷西, and Li Luke 李路珂 in China ; Takeshima Takuichi 竹島卓 一 in Japan ; Else Glahn, Qinghua Guo, and Jiren Feng in the West. See, for instance, Jiren Feng, Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2012 ); Else Glahn, “Some Chou and Han Architectural Terms,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 50 (1978): 105-25; Jiren Feng, “Bracketing L ikened to Flowers, Branches and F oliage: Architectural Metaphors and C onceptualization in Tenth to Twelfth-century China as Reflected in the Yingzao Fashi,” T'oung Pao 93 (2007. 4/5): 369-432. Other historical treatises on Chinese architecture include the Gongcheng zuo fa 工程做法 (Methods of architectural projects), Yingzao fayuan 營造法原 (Building standards and sources), Yuanye 園冶 (On gardening), Lu Ban jing 魯班經 (Carpenter 's classic), etc., but these are much later works and far less influential than the Yingzao fashi. 3 The illustrations, however, needed be treated with caution, since the earliest illustrated edition is dated to the Ming Yongle Period (1562-1567). For a discussion of the d ifferent historical and modern editions of the Yingzao fashi, see Li Luke, “Chuanshi liang Song shiqi Yingzao fashi de canjuan, zhailu ji zhulu gouchen 傳世兩宋時期營造法式的殘卷, | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
23 The Yingzao fashi categorizes architectural design and construction into a total of thirteen types of zuo作, or works. These include stonework, large-scale woodwork ( damuzuo 大木作 ), sma ll-scale woodwork ( xiaomuzuo ), woodcarving, bamboowork, plasterwork, brickwork, and so on. The text is a tripartite system which first describes the rules and techniques for each work, second the required labor force, and then the estimated amount of mater ials to be used. So far, the part on large-scale woodworking is well-studied, whereas its counterpart--small-scale woodworking--receives relatively less attention. This is mainly because the former deals with the loadbearing members of the building, encomp assing the columns, the beams, the brackets, and about everything integral to the structural frame. The latter, on the other hand, covers architectural joinery and furnishing--the doors, the windows, the stairs, the ceiling, the interior shrines and cabine ts--which lack significant structural functions but are more often the focal points of ornamentation. 4 It is, however, from the part on small-scale woodworking that we learn about particular types of miniature architecture. Types of miniature woodwork: sh rines, repositories, and the “Heavenly Palace” The ninth through eleventh chapters ( juan 卷) of the Yingzao fashi introduce two major types of miniatures: 1. Zhang 帳, canopy shrines, which include four subtypes: 摘錄及著錄鉤沉 (Transmitted manuscripts, excerpts, and copies of the Yingzao fashi in the Northern and Southern Song period),” Zhongguo jianzhu shilun huikan 4 (2011): 31-46. 4 A full list of the types of small-scale woodworking is found in chaps. 6-11 of the Yingzao fashi, totaling forty-two distinct types of works. These include partition walls, screens, fences, balustrades, sun-shades, plaques, etc. Else Glahn has translate d the xiaomuzuo as “lesser carpentry,” which is often followed by later scholars. But translating xiao as “lesser” or “minor” could be misleading due to the implication of “lesser importance,” subordinate, and minor. Counterintuitively, it is often the small-scale components that are more extravagantly embellished and elaborately crafted in both secular and religious, urban and vernac ular settings. My translation of “small-scale woodworking” was suggested by Professor Nancy Steinhardt, who believes “small-scale” to be a more accurate and less misleading rendering of xiao. “Small” not only indicates the generally small overall size of t hese objects, but also the smaller cai 材 (timber material) they use in comparison with that of large-scale woodworking. See below. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
24 1a. Fodaozhang 佛道帳 (Buddhist/Daoist shrines); 1b. Yajiaozhang 牙腳帳 (aproned shrines); 1c. Jiuji xiaozhang 九脊小帳 (nine-ridged small shrines); 1d. Bizhang 壁帳 (wall shrines). 2. Jingzang 經藏, sutra repositories, which include two subtypes: 2a. Zhuanlun jingzang 轉輪經藏 (wheel-turnin g sutra repositories); 2b. Bizang 壁藏 (wall repositories). We are able to get a fairly clear idea of what these objects are and how they look thanks to the text and the detailed drawings attached to it ( figs. 1, 2). 5 The zhang appear to be wooden shrines where religious icons are sheltered, and the jingzang are receptacles for the scriptures. Both types of structures are installed in the interior as immobile fixtures of architecture, just like built-in fur niture pieces. The subtypes are functionally similar to each other but offer visually different schemes of design. The four subtypes of zhang, for instance, involve different degrees of technical complexity and would be selected based on need and budget. Both zhang and jingzang can be identified as miniature architecture (in the sense defined in this dissertation) for three reasons. 6 First, they are timber-framed, follow the same structural logic, and adopt the same woodworking technique as large-scale buil dings. The main physical difference lies in the reduced scale of the wooden components. Second, they imitate, painstakingly and convincingly, the form of real buildings, from the elevated platform to the colonnades, the bracketing system, the suspended eav es and the sweep of roof, etc. Each corresponding part has appropriated the name of its large-scale equivalent, i. e., a miniature hall is directly termed a “hall,” 5 For reconstructions of these shrines and repositories, see Takeshima Takuichi, Eizo hoshiki no kenkyu 營造法式の研究 (A Study o n the Yingzao fashi ), vol. 2 (Tokyo: Chuokoron bijutsu shu ppan, 1971 ), 469-779; Pan Guxi and He Jianzhong 何建中, Yingzao fashi jiedu 營造法式解讀 (Interpreting the Yingzao fashi ) (Nanjing: S outheast University Press, 2005 ), 137-52. 6 See I ntroduction of this dissertation for my definition of miniature architecture. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
25 and a miniature rafter directly a “rafter. ”7 It would seem that each miniature is a replica of some implied “prototype” or “original” found in real life--perhaps a pavilion, a tower, or a mixture of several buildings. Third, specific downscaling formulas have been prescribed in the Yingzao fashi for these structures, confirming that they are indeed to be created via a conscious and rigorous miniaturizing process. An overview of the downscaling formulas would illuminate how exactly miniatures were produced back in time. But before we delve into the technical details, two more types of miniatures recorded in the Yingzao fashi require our attention. One is the tiangong louge 天宮樓閣 (lit. heavenly palace towers and pavilions), a set of wooden “buildings” to be placed at the top of the Buddhist/Daoist shrine or sutra repository (see figs. 1, 2). These are even smaller in scale, and they do not seem to have any functions except for ornamentation. The names assigned to par ticular parts of the miniature group are quite intriguing--nine-ridged palatial halls, tea houses, corner towers, galleries, etc.--do they suggest that the miniatures are supposed to mimic these specific building types? The term tiangong 天宮 (heavenly palace) is even more problematic: does it imply that the mini halls and towers are to symbolize a certain imagined, heavenly realm? These questions cannot be answered based on the Yingzao fashi alone, yet it is remar kable that the zhang, jingzang, and tiangong louge are all to be installed in a religious (Buddhist or Daoist) setting and are likely to be involved in certain religious rituals or practices. 7 But this appropriation does not happen without certain modification; the tripartite structure of a typical Chinese building--the terrace, the columns and bracketi ng (vertical supports), and the overhanging roof--are “transformed ” into the dais ( zuo 坐), the body ( shen 身, also including columns and bracketing), and the crown ( tou 頭) of the miniature shrines and repositories. A variety of architectural motifs such as the balustrade ( goulan 鉤闌 ), the festive gate ( huanmen 歡門 ), and the coffered ceiling ( pingqi 平棊 ) do not always follow the rules of large-scale woodworking and are added creatively to the miniatures. There are even elements commonly used for wooden couches, beds, and tables and chairs, notably the apron ( yajiao 牙腳 ) and the decorative pattern of the archway ( kunmen 壼門 ). | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
26 The other additional type of miniatures is the douba zaojing 闘八藻井 (eight-ribbed vaulted coffer) with its smaller form, the xiaodouba zaojing 小闘八藻井 (miniature eight-ribbed vaulted coffer), both to be installed in the center of the ceiling (figs. 3, 4). The coffers do n ot have an ostensible architectural appearance, but they do embrace elements of large-scale structures including doors, windows, balustrades, and brackets. 8 Like the other three types mentioned above, they observe the same set of scaling formulas. Scaling and the cai-fen system The primary measuring unit of a Chinese timber-frame structure is called cai材 (lit. timber material). A cai does not have an absolute numerical value but always keeps a height-to-width rati o of 3:2 in cross section. 9 The cai is further measured by a secondary unit called fen分 (lit. fraction), and one cai equals 15 by 10 fen. 10 To design a building, the first step was to determine the dimension of the cai, so that the majority of the building components could be proportioned and calculated accordingly; this is often referred to as the cai-fen system ( caifenzhi 材分制 ) by modern architec tural historians. The Yingzao fashi has proposed a total of eight grades of cai to be adopted for different ranks of buildings (fig. 5):11 Grade of cai Height of cai Width of cai Application 1 9 6 Nine-and eleven-bay palatial halls 2 8. 25 5. 5 Five-and seven-bay palatial halls 8 These coffers are discussed in Yingzao fashi, vol. 1, 165-69. 9 Yingzao fashi, vol. 1, 73-75. 10 A third unit, zhi 栔 (6 by 4 fen in cross section), is used especially for brackets and beams. 11 Ibid. The ranking of the timber material has been examined by many scholars. See, for instance, Liang Sicheng, “Yingzao fashi zhushi 營造法式註釋 (Annotations on the Yingzao fashi ),” in Liang Sicheng quanji 梁思成全集 (Complete works of Liang Sicheng), vol. 7 (Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 2001 ), 79-80, 378. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
27 3 7. 5 5 Three-and five-bay palatial halls; seven-bay ordinary halls 4 7. 2 4. 8 Three-bay palatial halls; five-bay ordinary halls 5 6. 6 4. 4 Small three-bay palatial halls; larg e three-bay ordinary halls 6 6 4 Gazebos, small ordinary halls 7 5. 25 3. 5 Small palatial halls and gazebos 8 4. 5 3 Vaulted ceiling coffers for palatial halls; brackets for small gazebos (The height s and width s of cai are expressed in cun, a Song-dynast y unit of length. 1 cun = 3. 09-3. 20 centimeters, or roughly 1. 22-1. 30 inches. ) From Grade 1 to Grade 8, as the cai decreases in size, the corresponding type of structures also decreases in overall size. In most cases, the social rank of a Chinese building was manifested not by its form but scale: an eleven-bay palatial hall with first-grade cai, for instance, would have been reserved for imperial palace buildings and temples only. To select a specific grade of cai hence would mean to choose an appropriate s cale, which ought to match the intended social identity and function of the building. Interestingly, a similar scaling scheme exists for miniature woodworking (fig. 6):12 Grade of cai Height of cai Width of cai Application 1 1. 8 1. 2 Ceiling coffers; Buddhist/Daoist shrines 2 1. 5 1. 0 Aproned shrines 3 1. 2 0. 8 Nine-ridged small shrines; wall shrines; well gazebos 4 1. 0 0. 66 Sutra repositories 5 0. 6 0. 4 Miniature ceiling coffers ; Heavenly Palace and ceiling coffers for Buddhist/Da oist shrines 6 0. 5 0. 33 Heavenly Palace for sutra repositories (unit: cun) 12 The dimensions of these cai, however, are not listed explicitly as those of the damuzuo in the Yingzao fashi. The first who has noticed this scaling scheme is Chen Mingda ; see his Yingzao fashi cijie 營造法式辭解 (Annotations on the glossary in the Yingzao fashi ), ed. Ding Yao 丁垚 et al (Tianjin: Tianji n University Press, 2010 ). The table includes only miniature woodworks; two other types of small-scale structures regulated in the Yingzao fashi, jingtingzi 井亭子 and jingwuzi 井屋子, are not considered in this dissertation. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
28 Take the Buddhist/Daoist shrine for example: for the majority part of the shrine, the size of the cai has to be decreased to 1. 8 by 1. 2 cun. This means that ideally, a Buddhist/Da oist shrine would be a 1:4 replica of a medium-size hall. 13 Moreover, when it comes to the tiangong louge ornaments and ceiling coffers installed in the shrine, the cai has to be further downscaled to 0. 6 by 0. 4 cun--merely one-third of that of the shrine--making them “miniatures within the miniature. ”14 This kind of “double miniaturization” is also observed in sutra repositories. 15 The advantage of adhering to this scaling scheme and the overall cai-fen system was immediate. Since the dimension of each buildi ng component was standardized, architects could easily apply their usual woodworking knowledge to miniature-making. A floral bracket arm (huagong 華栱 ), for instance, was always one cai (15 by 10 fen) in cross section and 72 fen in length, miniature or not. 16 Though the actual size might vary, this measurement was to be maintained regardless of scale and building type. The observation that a grander sc ale should signify a higher-rank building does not necessarily apply to miniature woodworks. In fact, it might be possible for an intricately crafted small structure to capture the same sense of imperial grandeur found in real palace buildings. The dwindli ng scale, which has shrunken past a threshold that it now denies the intrusion of the human body into the interior “architectural” space, seems to have bestowed the miniatures with some 13 By “m edium-size” I mean a hall adopting the fourth-grade cai. This is an ideal situation; the shrine could never be an exact replica due to its nature of being a receptacle. More on this issue in the following chapters. 14 Yingzao fashi, vol. 1, 19 9. Mainly it is the bracketing system, the balustrade, the ceiling coffers, and the roof frame that observe this scheme. Other non-architectural elements, however, have their distinctive scaling formulas. 15 Ibid., vol. 2, 6, 26. 16 Ibid., vol. 1, 76-77. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
29 magical attributes. 17 The logic is reversed: the smaller the architectu re, the farther away it is dislocated from this world, and the more transcendent it becomes. It is therefore no coincidence that the “Heavenly Palace” has to be presented using the smallest scale possible. Meanwhile, the sumptuary law s must have been rend ered useless for miniatures. The Northern Song statute s “Tianshengling 天聖令 ” promulgated in 1029, though strictly forbidding extravagant building forms and schemes for all but a small privileged group, did not enforce any restrictions on miniature architecture. 18 Miniature-making, therefore, could mean a greater freedom for bot h patrons and miniaturists to execute their vision and maximize the potential of their project. But miniatures were not at all thrifty objects; a complete set of tiangong louge for the Buddhist/Daoist shrine, for one, would cost 1,525 workdays ( gong 功)--amounting to some 12,200 hours--to make and install. 19 Models ( Xiaoyang ) and Ruled-line Paintings ( Jiehua ) Building practices that did not fall into the criteria of officially supervised and administered projects are not addressed in the Yingzao fashi. Architectural models, for instance, have been omitted 17 One of the Daoist canon ical texts, Daodejing 道德經, has a famous saying that it is the emptiness ( interior space) of architecture that can be used. This quote has been inspirational for many American architects and theorists including Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolf Arnheim. 18 The Tianshengling specifica lly forbids officials lower than the fifth rank to use the “double bracketing” scheme for their residences, in addition to a number of other restrictions. See reprint in Tianyige cang mingchaoben tianshengling jiaozheng: fu tangling fuyuan yanjiu 天一閣藏明鈔本天聖 令校證 : 附唐令復原研究 (Correction and examination of the Tiansheng Statutes based on the Ming edition in the Tianyige collection s), 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006 ). An especially relevant essay in the book is Niu Laiying 牛來穎, “Tiansheng yingshanling fuyuan tangling yanjiu 天聖營繕令復原唐 令研究 (Study and reconstruction of the Tang statute s based on the Tiansheng Statute s on Building and Repairing),” 650-74. The sumptuary laws in pre-modern China never fail ed to expose the anxiety of the ruling elites about t he paralle lism between the possession and exhibition of material wealth and that of fame, social rank, and political power. An exemplary work addressing this issue is Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China (Cambrid ge: Polity Press, 1991), in which Ming literature and material culture is the main focus. 19 Takeshima 1971, vol. 2, 562. The gong is a unit used in the Yingzao fashi to measure the length of the time of labor; one gong is equivalent to eight hours on a regular workday. See Yingzao fashi, vol. 1, 22-23. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
30 altogether. This omission is to some degree compensated by other contemporary written sources such as Wen Ying's 文瑩 Yuhu Qinghua 玉壺清話 (Pure talk in a jade pot, 1078), which recounts an interest ing incident involving a model pagoda: Guo Zhongshu was good at painting multistory palace halls and pavilions, and when builders compared his paintings [with real structures], the measurement [of the painted architecture] did not err in even the slightest. Emperor Taizong (r. 976-997) heard of his fame and granted him the official title of Jiancheng. At that time the pagoda of the Kaibaosi monastery was about to be built; its architect, Yu Hao of the Zhe region, designed a thirteen-level structure. Guo mad e a xiaoyang [of the pagoda] to calculate the size of each level from the bottom upward; and coming to the top level, there was an excess of a one-chi-five-cun distance that could not be integrated into the smooth curving profile of the pagoda. He informed Hao of this problem and said, “You had better inspect it. ” Thereafter, Hao spent a few sleepless nights reexamining the original design, and it was indeed as Guo had warned. In the next morning, he knocked at Guo's door and knelt in gratitude. 郭忠恕畫殿閣重複之狀, 梓人較之, 毫釐無差. 太宗聞其名, 詔授監丞. 將建開寶寺塔, 浙匠喻 皓料一十三層. 郭以所造小樣末底一級折而計之, 至上層餘一尺五寸, 殺收不得, 謂皓曰 : “宜 審之. ” 皓因數夕不寐, 以尺較之, 果如其言. 黎明, 叩其門, 長跪以謝. 20 The term xiaoyang, as briefly mentioned in the Introduction, indicates an architectural model. Whereas miniature woodwor ks in the Yingzao fashi were made as part of architecture--as shrines and repositories placed inside monasteries or as ceiling ornaments--a model was physically detached from any nesting or sheltering structures. Another importan t difference lies in purpose: while shrines and repositories were largely products to exhibit creativity, virtuosity, and the pursuit of aesthetic forms and expressions, models had to be faithful to real buildings, to accurately replicate every technical d etail. If the former were meant to invoke powerful images and arouse the feeling of religious solemnity and royal magnificence, the latter, on the other hand, were meant to serve as practical tools for experts to exchange ideas, check measurements, detect problems, and make necessary corrections before real constructions commenced. It appears that architectural models, though miniaturized, were deprived of any possible symbolic meanings. 20 Yuhu qinghua 玉壺清話, by Wen Ying 文瑩, reprint in Xiangshan yelu, xulu, yuhu qinghua 湘山野錄, 續錄, 玉壺清話, annotated by Zheng Shi gang鄭世剛 and Yang Liyang 楊立揚 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997), 21. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
31 Underlying all models and other miniature woodworks, however, was the basic scaling rules to be followed. It is not clear how the model pagoda in the text was made, but the author does tell us that it was used to “calculate ( ji 計)” and “inspect ( shen 審)” the dimensions of the real. In other words, there must have existed a fixed numerical relationship between the two scales--one for the model and the other for the planned pagoda--so that such calculations could be of any use. The tradition of modeling in China could be traced back to around 100 BCE, and written records have testified to the enduring appeal of models over a millennium. 21 Relating to modern-day experience, it has been a common practice for architects today to develop a series of models at different stages of design--from the most preliminary, concept models to study models and the final representational models, from hand-made models to digital and 3D printed models--which serve different audiences and purposes. In the quoted text, however, the modeler is a painter. The type of paintings Guo Zhongshu 郭忠恕 (fl. 952-977) was famous for have been traditionally classified as the jiehua 界畫, or ruled-line paintings, which depict architecture, bridges, boats and other structure s using a set of drawing tools including a ruler (fig. 7). Ruled-line paintings were critiqued by generations of Chinese literati for the “indulgence” in minuscule details, which were believed to inhibit imagination and creativity, but they were also admired by many for the breath-taking verisimilitude, and are now treasured as invaluable visual evidence and an archive of Chinese wooden architecture. Interestingly, Guo's ability to produce lifelike paintings of “palaces and pavilio ns” was primarily, if not solely, based on his mastery of scale. When builders came to compare his painted work with real architecture, they did not seem to pay much attention to either form, style, or color, but rather the represented dimension of the bui ldings, which was said to “not err in even the 21 This is a topic to be further investigated in Chapter 5 of the dissertation. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
32 slightest. ” Guo must have been quite familiar with the actual scaling scheme of real wooden structures so that he was able to reproduce these structures in a miniature form--whether as painted objects or as fr eestanding models. Similarly remarkable is the implication from the text that Guo was able to apply his knowledge across different types of media, from wood to silk, from a three-dimensional working space to a two-dimensional, planar one. 22 To be sure, in comparison with modeling, the “miniaturization” of buildings in painting would necessarily entail a rather complex procedure involving certain degrees of abstraction and distortion. The two-dimensionality of silk or paper determines that only a portion of the “data” of the original building could be preserved and represented at a time--a six-sided box could, at best, be drawn showing a half (three sides) of it, whereas the hidden sides could only be hinted at or imagined. 23 Spiritual Vessels, Edible Archite cture, Portable Shrines, Dollhouses, and Miniature Gardens A more holistic picture of the social life of miniatures in the eleventh-to thirteenth-century China is represented by a series of Song-dynasty miscellanea, which describe the metropolitan life in the old and new capitals, Dongjing 東京 (Eastern Capital, modern-day Kaifeng) and Wulin 武林 (modern-day Hangzhou). Five such texts will be examined here, including: Dongjing menghua lu 東京夢華錄 (The Eastern Capital: a dream of splendor, 1147) by Meng Yuanlao 孟元老; 22 The idea and practice of the transfer of media is examined in Shih-shan Susan Huang, “Media Transfer and Modular Construction: The Printing of Lotus Sutra Frontispieces in Song China,” Ars Orientalis 41 (2011): 135-63. 23 It is dubious if foreshortening--which makes things appear more “natural” to the observer's eye--was ever considered during this process of miniaturization. It would involve an extra complex system of calculation if the law of perspective was to be applied. Even if a certain degree of foreshortening was adopted by some painters, it seems that no strict rules or formulas were applied. Chapter 4 of the dissertation will continue this discussion. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
33 Ducheng jisheng 都城紀勝 (Record of the famous sights in the capital, 1235) by Naideweng 耐 得翁 ; Xihu Laoren fanshenglu 西湖老人繁盛錄 (Xihu Laoren's record of prosperity, ca. 1253) by Xihu Laoren 西湖老人 (Elder at the West Lake) ; Menglianglu 夢粱錄 (Dream of the yellow mil let, ca. 1275) by Wu Zimu 吳自牧 ; Wulin jiushi 武林舊事 (Recollection of everyday life in Wulin, after 1280) by Zhou Mi 周 密. 24 The five texts can be discussed as a group because they overlap in terms of contents as well as structure, and it is not uncommon for la ter texts to emulate--even reiterate whole sentences from--former works on the same subject. In this group, the Dongjing menghualu has been traditionally recognized as the “model;” it contains descriptions of a more transient, everyday type of miniatures that have been rarely, if ever, preserved as material remains. In all five texts, miniatures are most frequently associated with several major festivals of the year, including the Qingming 清明 Festival, the Ghost Festival, the Duanwu 端午 Festival, the Buddha's birthday, and the Qixi 七夕 Festival, during which time they became highly treasured and beloved goods to be purchased, presented, and exchanged among people, from the imperial family to c ommoners. Spiritual vessels Mingqi, a type of funerary objects found in burial chambers, encompasses a great variety of miniature architecture including granaries, wells, kitchens, animal pens, houses, multistory towers, and fortifications. 25 These objects might serve as surrogates of worldly possessions to accompany the 24 All five texts are in the reprint Meng Yuanlao 孟元老 et al., Dongjing menghualu 東京夢華錄 (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1962). Studies and partial translations of these texts inclu de: Stephen West, “ The Interpretation of a Dream: The Sources, Evaluation, and Influence of the Don gjing Meng Hua Lu,” T'oung Pao 71 (1985 ): 63-108; and Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion: 1250-1276 (Stanford: Stanford Un iversity Press, 1970 ). 25 Many of these miniatures still retain their original shape upon excavation and have since provided much visual information about Chinese wooden architecture back in the first and second centuries. See Introduction for a selective list of scholarship. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
34 dead, or as channels for the living to communicate and interact with their deceased relatives and friends. While the earliest mingqi were often made of bronze and clay, the much more epheme ral paper-made mingqi started to be widely adopted in the Song. According to Zhao Yanwei 趙彥衛 (fl. 1163-1206), “the ancient mingqi were [so named because they were] vessels for the spirits. Today, people use paper to make such objects and call them 'vessels of the netherworld' ” (古之明器, 神明 之也. 今之以紙為之, 謂之冥器 ). 26 The paper mingqi were perhaps meant to be burned, rather than buried, under the influence of the more and more frequent practice of cremation. 27 Two instances of the use of paper mingqi can be found in the Dongjing menghualu. The first is during the Qingming Festival in spring, on the third day of the third month, when inhabitants of the capital swarmed to the outskirts of the city to “sweep the tombs. ” This was also a time for family outings and picnicking under the blossoming trees. On this day, All the paper-goods shops rolled and folded paper in the form of towers and pavilions and displayed them along the street. 紙馬鋪皆於當街用紙袞疊成樓閣之狀. 28 These paper buildings would be bought as the gifts for the dead. To be portable they would certainly have been miniatures instead of full-scale replicas; and they would not need to follow any strict scaling rules as those prescribed in t he Yingzao fashi but could be simplified wherever their makers saw fit. 26 Yunli manchao 雲麓漫鈔, juan 5, http://ctext. org/wiki. pl?if=gb&chapter=856778. 27 For burial practices in the Song, see Patricia Ebrey, “Cremation in Sung China,” American Histo rical Review 95 (1990), 406-28; Hsueh-man Shen, “Shengsi yu niepan--Tang Song zhiji fojiao yu shisu muzang de jiaocuo lingyu 生死與涅槃--唐宋之際佛教與世俗墓葬的交錯領域 (Where Secular Death and Buddhist Nirvana Intersect: Secular and Religious Burials during the Tang-Song Tra nsition) ” (unpublished paper, 2012), https://www. nyu. edu/gsas/dept/fineart/people/faculty/Shen_PDFs/Shengsi. pdf. 28 Dongjing menghualu, 39. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
35 The second instance details the burning of paper mingqi during the Ghost Festival (fifteenth day of the seventh month). Though not mentioning architecture in particular, it helps to illustrate the social and religious setting wherein miniatures as surrogates were produced and used: Several days before [the Ghost Festival], the types of mingqi sold in the marketplace included boots, shoes, kerchiefs, caps, gold en rhinoceros clasps, surrogate belts, and five-colored clothes. These were displayed on paper-made racks and transported around to be sold. The Pan Tower and the east and west wazi districts were [buzzing with excitement] just as in the Qixi Festival. Eve rywhere there were vendors of cakes, potted seedlings, fruits and the like; some were selling woodblock-print Scripture of the August Mulian. Still other vendors chopped the bamboo into a three-legged stand three to five chi in height, and weaved its top i nto a bowl-like lantern base to represent the yulanpen (Sk. ullambana, the upturned vessel for salvation in Buddhism), on which paper clothes and money were disposed to be burned. Musicians and performers of the entertainment districts had started the show of “Mulian Rescues His Mother” since past the Qixi and would continue until the fifteenth day; the spectators multiplied. 先數日, 市井賣冥器靴鞋, 幞頭帽子, 金犀假帶, 五綵衣服. 以纸糊架子盤游出賣. 潘樓并州东 西瓦子亦如七夕. 耍鬧處亦卖果食種生花果之類, 及印賣尊勝目連經. 又以竹竿斫成三腳, 高 三五尺, 上織燈窩之狀, 謂之盂蘭盆, 掛搭衣服冥錢在上焚之. 构肆樂人, 自過七夕, 便般目連 救母雜剧, 直至十五日止, 觀者增倍. 29 This passage informs us of the variety of the paper mingqi available at the time: in addition to miniature buildings, people also made paper clothes and accessories. A special container, yulanpan, which was required for the rit ual of burning the mingqi, served as a means of providing salvation for the ghosts. Associated with this ritual was the popularization of the worship of Mulian, a paragon filial son and pious Buddhist, whose heroic adventure to hell must have become a wide ly-circulated story made readily accessible to the public by woodblock printing and theatrical performances. (The scriptures mentioned in the text, however, was probably to be used as mingqi. ) The adventurous and courageous spirit exemplified in the story must have appealed to the multitudes, winning much admiration. The multi-day show based on the story, too, must have been quite a spectacle featuring horrific scenes of the burning hell and grotesque-looking ghosts, providing a feast for the senses and 29 Ibid., 49. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
36 the imagination. 30 It seems that two factors--the development of paper and printing industry on the one hand and the popularization of Buddhist rituals, stories, and related performances on the other--have encouraged the spread of paper goods as the new form o f mingqi. Edible architecture The Spring Fair was a time when hundreds of social groups, guilds, and clubs held meetings to publicly showcase their activities and products in a certain competitive spirit, to attract customers and perhaps also recruit new members. The Wulin jiushi records such groups to include clubs of drama, kick-ball, singing, ci-lyrics, wrestling, music playing, archery, tattooing, martial arts, storytelling, shadow plays, hairdressing, and tricks and magic, each having a unique and cat chy name. Among the most extraordinary displays on the fair was certain “edible architecture” from the cooks' guild and the bakers' shop ( chuhang guoju 廚行果局 ): Certain participating groups, flaunting the so-called ingenious design ideas of theirs, used the tongcao plant [ tetrapanax? ] and silk gauze to sculpt and decorate [foodstuff] into towers, terraces, and various dioramas. They embellished them with pearls and jade to attain an utmost exquisiteness. A dish [of miniature architecture] like this could reac h as much as tens of thousands of coins in value, even though these were such wasteful and useless items created for nothing but momentary pleasure. 有所謂意思作者, 悉以通草羅帛, 雕飾為樓台故事之類, 飾以珠翠, 極其精緻, 一盤至直數萬, 然皆浮靡無用之物, 不過資一玩耳. 31 Obviously, the author of the text was most critical of such costly and unnecessary “art. ” But for the fair-goers, especially the culinary geniuses, the most rewarding aspect of the edible miniatures perhaps lay not as much in the monetary value as in the enthralling experience of miniature-making, which must have brought much delight, pride, and a feeling of self-fulfillment. 30 For a n overview of Song plays and drama performances, see William Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1976 ), 14-20. 31 Dongjing menghualu, 377. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
37 Architecture made of food was also produced on the Duanwu Festiva l (fifth day of the fifth month), a midsummer's day for people to row dragon boats and commemorate the great poet Qu Yuan 屈原. According to the Wulin jiushi, for the imperial family and the court officials, a certain food art was created using the zong 粽 (sticky rice dumplings), a traditional delicacy consumed on this day: The artfully made zong had many varieties; some were even connected and combined to form towers, terraces, boats, and carriages. 巧棕之品不一, 至結為樓臺舫輅. 32 This observation resonates with the Xihu Laoren fanshenglu, which proudly claims that [Wulin] is the only capital under heaven where people stack the zong together to make artful designs such as towers, pavilions, gazebos, carriages, and the like. 天下惟有是都城將棕揍 [湊]成樓閣, 亭子, 車兒諸般巧樣. 33 We are not, howeve r, provided with any further details as how such edible miniatures looked, and there seems to be a general lack of visual evidence for this curious food art. 34 Shaluo shrines A type of makeshift portable shrines, referred to as the shaluo 沙羅 shrines, was r eportedly used for sheltering Buddhist statues on special occasions. The Dongjing menghualu notes that on the eighth day of the twelfth month, monks and nuns in Dongjing would parade in the streets and alleys of the city in groups of three, four, and five. Chanting the Buddha's name, they would use a silver-covered bronze shaluo or some other basin of decent quality to contain a Buddha's statue made of gilt bronze or wood. They immersed [the bottom of] the statue into fragrant water and 32 Ibid., 379. 33 Ibid., 118. 34 Most of the zong Chinese people eat today are triangular or someti mes rectangular in shape. They do not come in any immediately recognizable forms such as houses. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
38 constantly sprinkled water over it with a sprig of willow tree. In this way they would go door to door to preach [Buddhist teaching] and convert [the townsfolk]. 以銀銅沙羅或好盆器, 坐一金銅或木佛像, 浸以香水, 楊枝洒浴, 排門教化. 35 According to the same text, the ritual of “bathing the Buddha” was also h eld in major monasteries of the city and on the eighth day of the fourth month, the Buddha's birthday. Here the shaluo seems to have consisted of no more than a basin, but a sheltering structure could be added on top to convert it into a proper miniature s hrine suitable for its “occupant. ” An entry in the Xihu Laoren fanshenglu states that in Wulin, to celebrate the Buddhas's birthday, The nuns and monks of every monastery came to assemble flower pavilions and flower houses on top of the sacrificial tables; in [each pavilion or house] they placed a golden Buddha in a shaluo basin and filled the basin with fragrant water. The [entire assembly] was then carried to the market [for the parade]. 諸尼寺僧門卓上札花亭子並花屋, 內以沙羅盛金佛一尊, 坐於沙羅內香水中, 扛臺於市中. 36 A similar instance appe ars in the Wulin jiushi, also on the Buddha's birthday: Monks and nuns, in a competitive spirit, used small basins to contain bronze statues [of the Buddha], immersed the statues in sweet water, and covered them with flower huts. Playing cymbals during procession, they went to visit every great mansion and wealthy family in the city, where they used small dippers to pour water [onto the statues] and asked for alms. 僧尼輩競以小盆貯銅像, 浸以糖水, 覆以花棚, 鐃鈸交迎, 徧往邸第富室, 以小杓澆灌, 以求施 利. 37 It is highly likely that the flower pavilions, houses and huts mentioned in these texts were miniatures (since they were to be carried around the city) and could even be somewhat similar to the shrines pr escribed in the Yingzao fashi. A possible connection is suggested by the particular term hua 花 (flower). In classical Chinese this term is alternatively written as 華 (considered a more refined written form) which carries the conn otations of “decorated” and “splendid. ” This latter form has 35 Dongjing menghualu, 61. 36 Ibid., 117-18. 37 Ibid., 378. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
39 been adopted in the Yingzao fashi throughout to name many of the core components of the wooden architecture, such as the huagong 華栱 (floral bracket arms) and the huaban 華版 (floral-patterned or decorative panels). 38 In this light, the “flower pavilions” could mean either a structure made of real flowers, or a structure that is heavily decorated, with or without distinctive floral motifs. Another connection lies in the func tion of these miniatures. Like the examples in the Yingzao fashi, the “pavilions,” “houses,” and “huts” were made to venerate and shelter the Buddha. Even though they were not permanent structures installed in monasteries and tem ples, it might be possible that their makers were more or less inspired by those immobile shrines during their creative activity. Mohouluo dolls and dollhouses On the Qixi Festival (the seventh night of the seventh month), a particular type of dolls calle d the Mohoul uo 摩侯羅 (alt. Mohele 磨喝樂 ; Sk. Rahula) became the most treasured goods for both adults and children. According to the Dongjing menghualu, the Mohouluo dolls would be on sale everywhere in the outer city during the festival. The dolls, though made of clay, we re placed on carved, colorfully embellished wooden daises surrounded by balustrades. Some were sheltered by red silk gauze and blue-green envelopes; some were ornamented by golden pearls and ivory jade. A pair of dolls could cost as much as several thousan d coins. 悉以雕木彩裝欄座, 或用紅紗碧籠, 或飾以金珠牙翠, 有一對直數千者. 39 The dais, the balustrade, the sheltering gauze and the envelope seem to suggest a certain architectural-like structure. As we encounter in the Yingzao fashi, the dais ( zuo 座) and the balustrad e (lan 欄) are two distinctive components of the miniature woodworks. These forms were 38 More connotations of the term hua in relation to architecture are discussed in Feng 2012, 138-80. Th e use of hua as a prefix could indeed suggest that flower-like forms are adopted as either structural supports or motifs of decoration of a building, but it could also mean that something is exquisite and well embellished in general. 39 Dongjing menghualu, 48. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
40 appropriated from real wooden buildings and miniaturized for the encasement of religious icons. The silk gauze ( sha 紗) and the envelope ( long 籠), on the other hand, are m ore ambiguous terms. The character long literally means a cage, a bamboo basket, or a trunk. Put together, shalong could indicate a silk gauze canopy or something like a small tent for interior use. 40 Speaking of canopies, we are reminded that the miniature shrines in the Yingzao fashi are termed as zhang, or canopy shrines. Could this suggest that the shalong had a similar (though perhaps simpler) form? The Xihu Laoren fanshenglu provides a brief description of how the Mohuoluo dolls looked: “[They were] mostly dressed in crimso n vests and blue-green silk skirts; some were wrapped in swaddl ing clothes, and some wore hats ” (多著乾紅背心, 繫青紗裙兒 ; 亦有著背兒, 戴帽兒者 ). 41 A more detailed account is given in the Menglianglu : In the imperial court and the houses of wealthy families, Mohele, also know n as the Mohouluo dolls, were modeled and sold. [The dolls] were crafted using clay and wood; additionally, [craftsmen] made colorfully embellished balustrades and daises, and enveloped the dolls with blue-green silk gauze. Below, they supported the dolls with a table enclosed by dark green, gold-lined aprons, and those decorated with gold, gems, pearls and jade were especially well-crafted... Children in the marketplace, holding newly picked lotus leaves in their hands, mimicked the appearance of Mohouluo. This custom was widespread in the Eastern Capital [i. e. Dongjing] and has not changed ever since; no one knows from which textual source it was derived from. 內庭與貴宅皆塑賣磨喝樂, 又名摩㬋羅孩兒, 悉以土木雕塐, 更以造綵裝襴座, 用碧紗罩籠之, 下以桌面架之, 用青綠銷金桌衣圍護, 或以金玉珠翠裝飾尤佳... 市井兒童, 手執新荷葉, 效摩㬋羅 之狀. 此東都流傳, 至今不改, 不知出何文記也. 42 A similar entry appears in the Wulin jiushi : The clay dolls called the “Mohouluo” were sometimes extremely exquisite; decorated with gold and pearls, their value could not be calculated... 40 Alternatively, it could mean a lantern made of silk gauze. Many Tang and Song texts speak of shalong or bishalong used as lanterns or as envelopes/encasements for keeping the dust off works of calligraphy. 41 Dongjing menghualu, 120. 42 Ibid., 160. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
41 Young boys and girls often wore short-sleeved coats made of lotus leaves and held lotus leaves in their hands to mimic Mohuoluo. These were perhaps old customs of Central China. Prior to the Qixi, as a tradition, the Department of the Construction and Repair of Imperial Buildings would present to the court ten tables of Mohouluo dolls, each table containing thirty dolls. A large doll could reach three chi in height; some were carved of ivory, some made of ambergris and foshouxiang (lit. Buddha-hand fragrance), while engraved gold leaves, jewels an d jade were used for all. Clothes, caps, coins, hairpins, bracelets, jade pendants, pearl-strung curtains, hairs, and the toys held in their hands were all made of the seven precious metal and gems, and each [doll] was encased in a five-colored, silk gauze cabinet embellished with engraved gold leaves. Some regional military commanders, dignitaries, and capital officials even ordered golden dolls to be cast and presented to the court. 泥孩兒號 摩㬋羅, 有極精巧, 飾以金珠者, 其直不貲... 小兒女多衣荷葉半臂, 手持荷葉, 效顰摩㬋羅. 大抵皆中原舊俗也. 七夕前, 脩內司例進摩㬋 羅十卓, 每卓三十枚, 大者至高三尺, 或用象牙雕鏤, 或用龍涎佛手香製造, 悉用鏤金珠翠. 衣 帽, 金錢, 釵鋜, 佩環, 真珠, 頭鬚及手中所執戲具, 皆七寶為之, 各護以五色鏤金紗廚. 制閫貴 臣及京府等處, 至有鑄金為貢者. 43 These sources confirm that a certain kind of highly decorative encasement was made for the precious dolls. Such an encasement should include a dais (sometimes with a table underneath), the balustrade, and a tent-like envelop. The last source gives it a specific name, shachu 紗廚, literally silk-gauze cabinet, which cou ld carry several layers of meanings. First, the shachu has been generally used as a kind of interior partition in traditional Chinese architecture. Though the name suggests a certain silk fabric as the primary material, in later historical developments, wo oden partitions--which constituted a wooden frame and lattice screens--have also been indiscriminately referred to as shachu. Second, shachu is a term sometimes interchangeable with shazhang 紗帳, meaning silk canopies. As we have read in the Yingzao fashi, a zhang did not necessarily involve the attachment of any fabric. What lies in the heart of the zhang, then, is not the use of canopy, but the fact that it defines an intimate, sheltered space for a single occupier. In this sense, the shachu of the Mohouluo 43 Ibid., 380-81. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
42 dolls and the zhang in the Yingzao fashi shared a very similar function--to protect and enshrine. 44 This point becomes even more promin ent when we consider the meaning of the character chu 廚. The chu denotes a cabinet or cabinet-like structure for storage, usually with openable door leaves. A number of surviving historical miniature shrines have been named chu, such as the famous Tamamush i Zushi 玉蟲廚子, a miniaturized, single-story wooden hall elevated on a high plinth (fig. 8). 45 Intriguingly, the name zushi 廚子 (Ch. chuzi), literally small cabinets, refers to not the Tamamushi alone but almost all Buddhist miniature shrines in Japan. In light of the connections between shachu, zhang, and zushi, it is possible that the Mohouluo dolls were sheltered by some kind of miniature shrines with or without silk canopies. Putting dolls in miniature architecture creates an inter esting juxtaposition. While it makes sense to encase religious icons in shrines for worship, it is, at first sight, a bit surprising that the Mohouluo dolls would be enshrined in a similar manner, almost as idols to be admired by the emperor and commoners alike. This myth can be dispelled considering the dual identity of Mohouluo as both a human child and a Buddhist disciple. An earlier textual reference to the Mohouluo dolls states that “During Qixi, as a custom, people would make wax models of infants and float them on the surface of the water as a form of entertainment. Called huasheng, these were considered auspicious dolls for women to give birth to boys. They originated from the Western Regions where they were called Mohouluo ” (七夕俗以蠟作嬰兒形, 浮水中以為戲, 為婦人宜子 44 More discussion on the function and meaning of zhang can be found in Neil Schmid, “The Material Culture of Exegesis and Liturgy and a Change in the Artistic Representation in Dunhuang Caves, ca. 700-1000,” Asia Major 19 (2006): 171-210. 45 An overview of the shrine, its history, architectural features, and pictorial program can be found in Akiko Walley, “Flowers of Compassion: The Tamamushi Shrine and the Nature of Devotion in Seventh-Century Japan,” Artibus Asiae 72 (2012. 2) : 265-322. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
43 之祥, 謂之化生. 本出西域, 謂之摩喉羅 ). 46 The same huasheng 化生, a child-looking figure, is included as one of the eight major woodcarving motifs in the Yingzao fashi (fig. 9). Scholars have confir med that Mohouluo was in fact none other than the historical Buddha's only son Rahula (Ch. Luohouluo 羅睺羅 ), who later converted to Buddhism and became one of the ten disciples of the Buddha. 47 It seems that Mohouluo in Northern and Southern Song China was wor shipped as the divine son, a figure almost like the cherubs, who carried the dual significance of religious piety and the mundane wish of the Chinese household to produce healthy boys as heirs of the family. Visual and textual evidence of this long traditi on of the Mohouluo worship has been found at the Mogao cave temples in Dunhuang (fig. 10). 48 What can be added to this analysis is a note on the intersection between miniature architecture and childhood. The shachu of Mohouluo doll s reminds us of the dollhouse. Of course, unlike a dollhouse, which usually features a spacious, all-inclusive interior equipped with different household articles, the “house” of a Mohouluo doll was as a much narrower container and would not permit any ima ginary activity of the doll. Nonetheless, in both cases there exists the intention to create a miniature world suitable for the occupant; in return, this miniature world is meant to please the eye and amuse those living in the “normal,” “real” world. What else could the Mohouluo dolls bring to us aside from seasonal entertainment, good wishes, and religious inspirations? The two dominant themes proposed by Susan Stewart for the dollhouse--wealth and nostalgia--also appear true in this case. On the one hand, the Mohouluo “dollhouses,” embellished with precious metal and 46 Quot ed in Guo Junye 郭俊葉, “Dunhuang bihua, wenxian zhongde 'Mohouluo' yu funu qizi fengsu 敦煌壁畫, 文獻 中的 '摩睺羅 ' 與婦女乞子風俗 (The Mohouluo in Dunhuang murals and documents and its relationship with the custom of 'begging for sons' of women),” Dunhuang yanjiu 142 (2013. 6): 15. 47 Ibid., 1 3, 16-17. 48 Ibid., 13-17. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
44 gems, were certainly “extravagant displays of upper-class ways of life. ”49 On the other hand, the “dollhouses” would arouse a sense of nostalgia by presenting an encapsulated childhood or infan cy. 50 Miniature gardens Another type of treasured items on the Qixi Festival were the miniature gardens, which seem to be a kind of predecessors to today's penjing 盆景 (container gardens or landscapes): [Some vendors] applied a layer of earth to the surfac e of a small tray, upon which they planted grains of millet and let them grow into seedlings. They then added small cottages, flowers and [dwarf] trees [to the scene], and placed small figurines of peasants and farmers; all was in the likeness of a rural village. This was called the “tray of grains. ” 又以小板上傅土, 旋種粟令生苗, 置小茅屋花木, 作田舍家小人物, 皆村落之態, 謂之榖板. 51 While in this case the miniature world had an unmistakably agricultural, rural setting, there were also mini landscapes cultivated in a similar fashion, as evidenced in many Tang and Song written sources. The Yingzao fashi, for one, mensions the so-called “artificial mountains” ( jiashan 假山 ) and “container mountains ( penshan 盆山 ), though it does not ela borate how they should be made. 52 Rolf Stein's research on the history of miniature gardens exposes excellently how the East Asian fascination with miniature landscapes (and more generally, with the idea of the microcosm) can be traced back to Han China. 53 It was during the Song, however, that the literature on the techniques of 49 Stewart 1993, 61-62. 50 Ibid., 44. As Stewart observes, such an intersection comes not only from the fact that “the child is in some physical sense a miniature of the adult, but also because the world of childhood, limited in phy sical scope yet fantastic in its content, presents in some ways a miniature and fictive chapter in each life history. ” 51 Dongjing menghualu, 49. 52 Yingzao fashi, vol. 3, 82-83. 53 Stein 1990, 23-48. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
45 gardening and other leisure activities as aspects of “elegant living” started to flourish and came to be massively printed as manuals. 54 Stein speaks of two intertwining threads of themes found in these miniatures: one is the Daoist aesthetic associated with longevit y and immortality, and the other is the peasant element emphasizing fertility and fecundity. 55 The “tray of grains,” displaying an idyllic scene of the agricultural life, gives further support to Stein's observation. Puppets and the theatricality of miniat ures The miniatures in these examples had varied forms and functions, but they were all products of the same social environment and cultural milieu. Techniques of miniature-making and mass production spread widely across various crafting and manufacturing professions in the capitals of the Northern and Southern Song. The types of trade goods made in miniature forms encompassed food, toys, funerary objects, ritual artifacts, and home decor. What became miniaturized, of course, was not confined to architectur e alone but had extended to vehicles (such as imperial carriages and dragon boats), animals (bulls, horses, elephants, lions, and fowls), and human figures of different ages and occupations. 56 In many cases, these miniatures were not isolated objects but we re actually put together as part of an integral scene, a diorama, or a “stage” where certain “drama” was to be enacted. 57 The shaluo shrines, the Mohouluo “dollhouses,” and the miniature gardens, for example, 54 Ibid. Stein points out the frustrating fact that none of these manuals, in addition to contemporary and later encyclopedia, seems to have treated the miniature garden as a unique phenomenon under certain cultu ral criteria. He tentatively traces the term penjing to xiezijing 些子景 (lit. a bit of landscape) referred to in a late-Yuan and early-Ming source, where familiar elements such as dwarf trees, small balustrades, and figurines were used to create a miniature world in the container. See also Clunas 1991. 55 Ibid., 112. 56 These miniatures are discussed in the five miscellanea consulted in this section. 57 A discussion on the theatricality of miniatures is in Stewart 1993, 54. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
46 were each meant to present or evoke a spectacula r “scene”--be it mythological or historical, imaginary or nostalgic. The magic of the miniatures in creating drama and stirring emotions and memories originates from their innate ability to mirror and distort the real world. The result of miniaturization, therefore, is the birth of a familiar-looking space-time nested in this world, which is at the same time near and far, approachable and inaccessible. The miniature is essentially a paradox, a mimicry of what is considered usual and ordinary, which turns ou t to be extraordinary and magical, creating a clear departure from daily experience. In the Northern and Southern Song, there was an emerging urban culture of drama taking the forms of shows, plays, storytelling, parades, acrobatic performances, and festiv al extravaganzas, and it was no coincidence that miniatures rose quickly in popularity with this new passion for theatricality. During the Ghost Festival, as briefly mentioned earlier, the Buddhist story of Mulian saving his mother from hell was put on sta ge and became the most spectacular show on this occasion not just for commemorating the dead but also for valorizing and entertaining the living. This was not an isolated case. In fact, drama literature and performance became so widely permeated in all ech elons of the society that it gave birth to a series of professions, organizations, and official departments specialized in different aspects of the performative art on stage. The Ducheng jisheng provides an excellent summary of who these professionals were. For actors and actresses, there were five distinctive roles called moni 末泥, yinxi 引戲, fujing 副淨, fumo 副末, and zhuanggu 裝孤, each fulfilling specific purposes of the play. 58 Acrobatic performers included wrestlers, pole climbers, sword dancers, bird tamers, archers, and those doing various 58 Dongjing menghualu, 96. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
47 physical feats such as somersaults, walk ing on stilts, and playing fireworks. 59 Special performances involving the use of miniatures were called “puppet plays ( kuileixi 傀儡戲 )” or “shadow plays ( yingxi 影戲 ). ” A puppet play was a three-dimensional, miniaturized version of a normal play; but instead o f being performed by adult actors and actresses, it featured the use of string puppets, rod puppets, waterborne puppets, and most intriguingly “human puppets ( roukuilei 肉傀儡 ),” which were actually children or teenagers “manipulated” by the puppeteers in cer tain ways (don't we see here, again, the intersection between childhood and miniatures?). 60 On the other hand, a “shadow play” would be unfolded on a two-dimensional “stage”--a single backdrop like the screen in today's movie theaters--on which the shadow o f paper or leather puppets was cast and animated. 61 Puppet plays were a beloved form of entertainment in the marketplace as well as on imperial feasts; the Dongjing menghualu has detailed a waterborne extravaganza held annually at the imperial lake, the Jin mingchi 金明池 (Pond of Golden Light), located west of the Northern Song capital. During the feast, there would be large and small dragon boats carrying all kinds of performers, musicians, wooden puppets, kickball players, and spinning dancers. 62 The scene mus t have been so impressive and memorable that it inspired a number of great artworks, most notably Wang Zhenpeng's 王振鵬 (fl. 1280-1329) painting illustrating the entire process of the dramatic performance (fig s. 11, 12). 63 An intriguing account in the Wulin jiushi mentions a curiously crafted “jade wine-boat” presented in 1179 by 59 Ibid., 97. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid., 97-98. 62 Ibid., 40-41. 63 This painting is examined in Zhang Huazhi 張華芝, “Wanmin tongle: Yuan Wang Zhenpeng Longchi jingdutu 萬民 同樂 : 元王振鵬龍池競渡圖 (Pleasure with the masses: the painting of the rowing competition in the dragon pond by Wang Zhenpeng of the Yuan dynasty ),” Gugong wenwu yuekan 361 (2013. 4), 48-57. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
48 Emperor Xiaozong 孝宗 (r. 1162-1189) of the Southern Song to his father, the former emperor: “As the wine filled up the jade boat, mo st of the figurines on the boat were animated as if they were alive” (酒滿玉船, 船中人物, 多能舉動如活 ). 64 Could this be a remote echo of the show on the imperial lake? In this culture of drama, spectators were also performers, and the world was a grand stage where drama s of life unfolded. During the Qixi Festival, some households in Wulin “performed in small towers using people [as puppets] for a gigantic shadow play ” (戲于小樓, 以人為大影戲 ). 65 The theme of regarding the world as the ultimate stage and life as essentially theatric al and illusory was not uncommon in many contemporary and later literary works. 66 It seems that the idea and practice of miniaturization found a certain affiliation with this view of world and life, and in turn engendered a surprisingly glamorous material c ulture of miniatures whereby the triviality and transience of human life could be dramatized, experienced, and contemplated upon. Opposite to this sense of humbleness was the unleashed human imagination, creativity, and perhaps a feeling of self-importance ; after all, we humans are the creator, collector, and manipulator of the miniature world, of its architecture, its physical environment, and its “occupants” from dolls to puppets. Conclusion: Dreaming of Lilliput in Song China The miniatures introduced i n this chapter served different purposes and were used for different occasions and/or locations. Miniature shrines (including the zhang and the shaluo shrines), sutra 64 Dongjing menghua lu, 471. 65 Ibid., 370. The xiaolou 小樓 might be a small or miniature tower--it is hard to determine. 66 Wilt Idema and Stephen H. West, Chinese Theater, 1100-1450: A Source Book (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1982 ), 291. See also Jeehee Hong, “Virtual Theater of the Dead: Actor Figurines and Their Stage in Houma Tomb No. 1, Shanxi Province,” Artibus Asiae 71 (2011. 1): 102-03. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
49 repositories, and the “Heavenly Palace” were all created for “transcendent” or “sacred” c auses, especially religious rituals or practices. Paper towers and pavilions, in a similar manner, were “spiritual” items to function in the world of the dead. On the other hand were miniatures designed for overtly mundane purposes: architectural models we re created to facilitate communication between experts, to detect structural flaws, and to demonstrate the feasibility of a building project; edible architecture, dollhouses, and miniature gardens were meant to please the eye, to flaunt wealth, to arouse f eelings of nostalgia, to induce imaginations, and to dramatize everyday experiences. Though some of these miniatures were permanent structures while some were merely for overnight entertainment, one important commonality was their magical ability to open u p a new world by downscaling and alienating the “real” world in front of us. They alluded to the familiar and the ordinary, wove the daily elements together and represented them as half-real-half-fabricated stories, as an impenetrable, self-contained, time less universe. Admittedly, this world-making magic heavily relied on the creative manipulation of the scale, on the miniaturizing process, whereby a mixed sense of unfamiliarity and theatricality was engendered. It is perhaps not too far-fetched to suggest that an Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome or Lilliputian complex existed in the collective subconscious of Chinese literature. Gulliver's encounter with the tiny inhabitants of Lilliput is quite comparable in theme to several widely-read Tang tales on uncanny dreams, notably the “Nanke Taishou zhuan 南柯太守傳 (Governor of the Southern Tributary State)” by Li Gongzuo 李公佐 (fl. 766-818). The story tells of a certain desolate man, Chunyu Fen, who dreamt of entering the “Kingdom of Huaian”--an anthill where he was to li ve for more than twenty years. 67 Unlike Gulliver who was aware of the tiny kingdom he steps into, Chunyu 67 This tale became a classic in the Northern Song and has been incorporated into Taiping guangji 太平廣記, juan 475, http://ctext. org/taiping-guangji/475/chunyufen/zh. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
50 had no idea he was in a different world until the end of his dream, since his body was miniaturized into the scale of an ant. Also miniaturized was the length of time--the twenty-odd years in the dream actually lasted for only a few hours. In the beginning of those twenty-odd years, he married the king's daughter, became a governor, and enjoyed a wealthy life. But after suffering a major military defeat, he was charged of treason and soon escorted back to the human world. Waking up from the dream, Chunyu searched his backyard and found a little anthill beneath an old ash tree, where tiny city walls, pavilions, towers, and swarms of ants could still be seen. The moral of this tale is to warn against any worldly desire of amassing wealth and fame, because in the eyes of the wise, eventually, they would turn out to be nothing but heaps of anthills. The sober and somewhat pessimistic tone on the insignificance and impermanence of life carries a Daoist note on self-renunciation and the Buddhist ideal of enlightenment. As will be elaborated in later chapters, such concepts and ideals would become the intellectual underpinnings of the burgeoning of miniature art. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
51 2. Miniatures as Sacred Repositories, Part I: The Longxingsi Sutra Case This and the next chapters provide a close examination of the miniature woodwork known as jingzang (sutra repositories) in the eleventh-century China. Corresponding to the categorization in the Yingzao fashi, the chapters each focus on one of the two major subtypes--the zhuanlun jingzang (wheel-turning sutra repositories) and the bizang (wall repositories)--by presenting and analyzing pertinent architectural remains as well as revealing their dimension al characteristics in comparison with the official templates. The key example to be investigated in this chapter is the zhuanlun jingzang at the Longxingsi in Zhengding, Hebei. Known as a masterpiece of Northern Song architecture, this particular revolving sutra case has been regarded by scholars as an excellent reflection and representation of the contemporary woodworking techniques. More often than not, it is looked upon as a certain “model” or “replica” of large structures, whereas its distinctive nature as a miniature receives relatively less consideration. The first and foremost question this chapter aims to answer, therefore, concerns the identification of this sutra case: on what grounds can it be labeled as miniature architecture? Does this identific ation change our view of the sutra case, and of the architectural tradition it exemplifies? Equally important is the issue of dating--while the dating of a miniature woodwork could be largely tentative, even speculative, observing the scaling scheme it fol lows might shed new light. Following identification and dating, this chapter turns to question how the Longxingsi sutra case might have been used in history. It is interesting that the sutra case has been frequently discussed in the discourse of Chinese ar chitectural history--i. e. it has been recognized as a piece of architecture more than anything else--whereas the case itself as a receptacle of scriptures involving specific religious rituals and practices appears to be a much neglected matter. In fact, as will be | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
52 demonstrated in this chapter, the spiritual drive and materialistic concern lying behind the making of sutra cases cannot be fully exposed without an inquiry into function. A survey of historical examples preceding and following the Longxingsi sut ra case will help us to better determine the application and social significance of this type of miniatures. The last section of this chapter, engaging with the concept of deconstruction, attempts to read the miniature as a composite of several distinctive, iconic formal elements. The deconstructive interpretation of the sutra case presents many new problems and intellectual challenges: was the miniature made to consciously “copy” certain classical examples or prototypes? What forms have been appropriated, altered, or reinvented? Does the change in scale induce a consequent change in the meaning of form? I propose that the miniaturizing process can be compared to a deconstructing process in which the assumed, long-established interrelationships between word and meaning, sign and signified, and in this case, architectural forms and the significances they carry, are destabilized and ruptured. Deconstructive reading therefore offers a means to analyze miniature architecture as essentially non-architecture and an ti-architecture, a dissolution of the established architectural discourse. The Zhuanlun Jingzang (Wheel-turning Sutra Repository) at Longxingsi Standing some eight meters tall in the center of a two-story hall, the zhuanlun jingzang at the Longxingxi is a fairly massive interior installment (fig. 13). 1 It would be, at first sight, awkward to call 1 My survey of this sutra case has been digitized and accessible at my online database, https://chinesearchitecture. wordpress. com/2016/03/05/longxingsi/, which includes a Rhino 3D model and a photogrammetry model. Studies on the Longxingsi and its sutra case include (in a chronological order): Liang Sicheng 梁 思成, “Zhengding diaocha jilue 正定調查紀略 (Brief report on the field survey in Zhengding),” Zhongguo yingzaoxueshe huikan 4 (1933. 2): 1-40; Laurence Sickman and Alexander Soper, The Art and Architecture of China (Penguin Books, 1984); Nancy S. Ste inhardt, Liao Architecture (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997); Zhang Xiusheng 張秀生 et al. eds., Zhengding Longxingsi 正定隆興寺 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2000); Liu Youheng 劉友恒 and Du Ping 杜平, “Woguo xiancun zuizaode zhuanlunzang: Zhengding Longxingsi Songdai zhuanlunzang qianxi 我國現存最早的轉輪藏 : 正定隆 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
53 this structure a “miniature,” a term which is usually associated with portable, hand-held items. Indeed, by what standards can one ident ify something several times larger than the human body as essentially small? Here I ask that we do not look upon this receptacle based on expectation or our conventional judgment about size, but instead consider how it would compare with its surrounding structure. One soon notices that the Zhuanlunzangdian 轉輪藏殿 (Hall of the wheel-turning sutra repository, or library hall), reaching 23. 05 meters tall and 13. 98 by 13. 3 meters across, is significantly larger, in which the sutra case is nested like a fetus in t he mother's womb (fig. 14). 2 Such nesting requires changes to be made to the wooden frame of the hall in order for the sutra case to fit in. As scholars have observed, a major beam at the first level of the library is slightly cur ved and elevated at one end to make room for the crown of the sutra case. Additionally, two interior columns have been shifted outside the orthogonal column-grid, forming a hexagonal boundary (fig. 15). 3 The nesting of the sutra c ase inside the library hall demands more than structural adjustments to be successful. The sutra case is fixed in a round pit on the ground floor by a single, robust wooden pivot, the top end of which penetrates a small hole in the second floor (fig. 16). But the link between the nest and the nested reaches far beyond physical contact; they are bonded also through structural similarity and dimensional consistency. In terms of the scaling scheme, the sutra case has adopted a cai of 4. 5 by 3 centimeters, whereas the cai of the library hall ranges between (20- 興寺宋代轉輪藏淺析 (The earliest surviving revolving sutra repository in China: a brief analysis of the Northern Song revolv ing sutra case at Longxingsi in Zhengding),” Wenwu chunqiu 59 (2001. 3): 52-55. 2 The phenomenon of nesting (as in Russian dolls and Buddhist relic containers excavated from the Famensi) often tellingly exposes the incremental change in scale. 3 Liang 1933, 153. Also see Steinhardt 1997, 198-199. The particular adjustments made are rarely found in con temporary Buddhist buildings. One only has to compare it with its twin, the Cishige 慈氏閣 across the central avenue of the Longxingsi, a pavilion which appeared exactly the same as the Zhuanglunzangdian from the outside but comes up with a different interior structure. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
54 22) by (15-18) centimeters. 4 This means that the smaller cai is roughly one-fifth of the larger cai. Since the sutra case is made up of columns, beams, brackets, rafters, and eave s like all Chinese wooden architecture, carpenters only had to produce miniature versions of these structural components to create the desired outcome. 5 Dating the miniature: textual evidence Though the nesting relationship suggests that the Longxingsi su tra case could be as old as the library hall, its actual dating has been a highly debated issue. The earliest surviving stone stele in the monastic precinct, the famous Longcangsi bei 龍藏寺碑 (Stele of the Monastery of the Hidden Dragon), dates the foundation of the monastery to 586, the sixth year of the Kaihuang 開皇 Period of Sui. The second earliest stele dates from 971 (the fourth year of the Kaibao 開寶 Period), when the first Northern Song emperor, Zhao Kuangyin 趙匡胤 (r. 960-976), visited the monastery durin g the war and ordered the colossal statue of Bodhisattva Guanyin to be recast and sheltered in a newly built structure, the Dabeige 大悲閣 (Pavilion of Great Compassion). 6 The multistory Dabeige has since become the dominant building of the monastery, which c ontinued to flourish under imperial 4 Guo Daiheng 郭黛姮, ed., Song, Liao, Jin, Xi Xia jianzhu 宋, 遼, 金, 西夏建築 (Song, Liao, Jin, and Xi Xia architecture), vol. 3 of Zhongguo gudai jianzhushi 中國古代建築史 (History of ancient Chinese architecture) (Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe ), 382. This is roughly equal to the fourth-grade cai in the Yingzao fashi. Pan Guxi, however, states that the pavilion uses a cai of 24 x 16. 5 cm, which he equals to 7. 5 x 5. 16 chi, the third-grade cai in the Yingzao fashi. See Pan and He 2005, 46. It is likely that the cross section o f the timber material varies in dimension after years of weathering, alteration, and rebuilding, and the various given sizes (21 x 15 cm and 24 x 16. 5 cm) only show rough average values. 5 Yingzao fashi, vol. 1, 206. “The curving of the roof and the proportioning of the brackets and other members all comply with the design principles of the large-scale woodworking, while their sizes are decreased according to the cai to be used. This is also true to the rounding, beveling, and seg mentation of columns and flying rafters ” (其屋蓋舉折及枓栱等分 數, 並準大木作制度, 隨材減之. 卷殺瓣柱及飛子亦如之 ). 6 A brief history of the monastery is recounted fairly comprehensively in Zhang et al. 2000, 1-2, 323-331. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
55 auspices during the Yuan, the Ming, and the Qing dynasties. The Northern Song also seems to be the earliest possible time any wooden structures on the premises could be traced back to; and because of centuries of expansi on, dilapidation, alteration, and repair (the most recent large-scale restoration took place in 1997-1999), not a single building can be said to have remained a one-hundred-percent, authentic Northern Song structure. Nonetheless, the overall layout of the monastery and the predominant structural features of its architecture are generally believed to have retained the Northern Song style (fig. 17). 7 When Liang Sicheng 梁思成 (1901-1972) made his field trip to the Longxingsi in 1933, h e proposed that the cruciform Monidian 摩尼殿 (Hall of the Mani Jewels)--then the most well preserved building in the monastery--was an eleventh-century remain, based on his comparison between this wooden structure and the prescriptions in the Yingzao fashi. 8 His judgment turned out correct only posthumously in the 1977-1980 restoration of the hall, when inscriptions of “ Da Song huangyou sinian 大宋皇祐四年 (fourth year of the Huangyou Period of the Great Song, equivalent to 1052)” or simp ly “huangyou sinian ” were found on the surfaces of multiple wooden components, thus confirming that the hall was indeed a Northern Song original. 9 This discovery has led scholars to date several other buildings--including the library hall--to the eleventh century, since they have displayed a great consistency in form, style, and scaling scheme with the Monidian. 7 This conclusion is based on the scale of the timber unit and the woodworking techniques shown from the str uctures, which have been discussed by many architectural historians to have generally followed the principles laid out in the Yingzao fashi. 8 Liang 1933, 19-20. 9 Also found are inscriptions of “Ming Chenghua ershier nian ” (明成化二 十二年, 1486 ) and “Qing Daoguang ershisi nian” (清道光二十四年, 1844), when major repairs or restoration works were carried out. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
56 The dating of the sutra case, on the other hand, proves to be a lot more difficult. While Sekino Tadashi 關野貞 (1868-1935) asserts that this is a Qing woodwork, Liang, however, considers it to be a masterpiece of Northern Song carpentry, again based on his k nowledge of the Yingzao fashi. 10 Alexander Soper agrees with Liang and dates the sutra case to the eleventh century, a date generally accepted by architectural historians today. 11 This is despite the fact that the earliest inscript ion found on the sutra case indicates a year of 1365. 12 There have been other voices of disagreement, too. A colleague of Liang, Liu Dunzhen 劉敦楨 (1897-1968 ), himself a highly esteemed scholar of Chinese architecture, believes that “even though the wooden fr ame of the library hall adopts the Song style, the sutra case seems to have come from the Yuan or the Ming... In any event, the sutra case must have undergone considerable modifications during the late-Yuan and early-Ming period. ”13 10 Liang judges the sutra case to be a Northern Song woodwork based on three distinctive structural features: 1) the use of “genuine” ang 昂; 2) the concave contours ( ao 䫜) of the lower part of the bearing blocks ( qi 欹); 3) the use of liaoyanfang 橑檐方, a roof purlin rectangular in cross section, which all comply with the Yingzao fashi regulations for large-scale wood working. See Liang 1933, 154-55. Surprisingly, Liang did not mention the zhuanlun jingzang in the Yingzao fashi, which should be an obvious template for this woodwork. He seems to be mainly comparing the sutra case with full-scale structures, which may potentially undermine his argument. It is understandable because the study on the Yingzao fashi at the time merely just covered the damuzuo part and had not yet stepped into the xiaomuzuo. See Liang 1933, 23-24; Tokiwa Daijo 常盤大定 and Sekino Tadashi 關野貞, Shina bunka shiseki 支那文化史蹟 (Historical remains of Chinese culture), vol. 8 (Tokyo: Hozokan, 1940), 90-91. 11 Sickman and Soper 1984, 433. See also Qi Yingtao 祁英濤, “Monidian xinfaxian tiji de yanjiu 摩尼殿新發現題記的 研究 (A study on the newly discovered inscriptions in the Monidian), ” in Qi Yingtao gujian lunwenji 祁英濤古建論文集 (Collected essays of Qi Yingtao on ancient architecture) (Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 1992 ), 106-13. 12 The twenty-fifth year of the Zhizheng 至正 Period o f Yuan. This is briefly mentioned in Zhang et al 2000, 17. See also Liu Youheng 劉友恒, Fan Ruiping 樊瑞平, and Du Ping 杜平, “Jin 50 nian Zhengding gujianzhu weixiu zhong faxian de wenzi tiji chubu yanjiu 近50年正定古建築維修中發現的文字題記初步研究 (A preliminary study on the textua l inscriptions discovered during the recent fifty years of res toration of the ancient architecture in Zhengding),” Wenwu chunqiu (2006. 1): 44, which indicates that the inscriptions are found written on the hanging posts and beams and were left by tourists in the Yuan. 13 “藏殿架構隨系宋式, 但轉輪藏則似元, 明間物... 此轉輪藏殆元末明初大經改作, 無可置疑. ” Liu Dunzhen 劉 敦楨, “Hebei gujianzu diaocha biji 河北古建築調查筆記 (Survey notes on the ancient architecture in Hebei ),” in Liu Dunzhen quanji 劉敦楨全集 (Complete works of Liu Dunzhen), vol. 3 (Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gon gye chubanshe, 1987), 17-18. Also see Zhang et al. 2000, 22-26, for a list of all steles on site. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
57 Liu's rebuttal is based on the inscription of a stele dated to 1259, titled “Dachao guoshi Namodashi chongxiu Zhendingfu Da Longxingsi gongd eji bei 大朝國師南無大士重修真定府大 龍興寺功德記碑 (Stele recording the merit of the Namodashi, State Master of the Yuan, who restored the Grand Longxingsi in Zhending Prefecture). ” It mentions that in the year of yimao乙卯 (1255), the Namodashi “ordered the jingzang to be repai red [or (re)built] ” (隨令補修經藏 ), and that after the restoration work, “the monastery was complete with a Buddhist zang, a sutra hall, and the monks' living quarters ” (寺有佛藏有經堂有僧 ). 14 It is unclear if the jingzang mentioned in the inscription is the one in situ t oday, but a certain form of repository must have stood in the monastery by 1255. There are two more steles with probable references to the sutra case. One is the “Shecai shi yongyedi zhuan Dazangjing gongdeji bei 捨財施永業地轉大藏經功德記碑 (Stele recording the merit o f donating money and land for the turning of the Tripitaka),” erected in 1314, now in the library hall. The phrasing of the title, “turning of the Tripitaka,” seems to refer to the ritual of turning a sutra case where the Tripitaka was stored. 15 The charact er zhuan 轉 also appears in the second stele, “Shengzhu benming changsheng zhuyan bei 聖主本命長生祝延碑 (Stele wishing for 14 Changshan zhenshizhi 常山貞石志, 15. 21a, http://ctext. org/library. pl?if=gb&file=31654&page=42. The year 1259 is the ninth year of Yuan Xianzong 憲宗 (Mongke 蒙哥 ). The term buxiu 補修 is frustratingly ambiguous; it could mean “to fix and repair (in this sense it is the same as xiubu 修補 )” or “to build so as to make whole. ” My first impression points to the first alternative. The inscription also records, “Since the time of war and commotion, [the monastery] had become dilapidated while only the pavilion [of the Bodhisattva Guanyin] was intact 兵塵以來, 破落如是, 獨有此閣如 故,” implying that many buildings in the monas tery had been damaged by then. About Namodashi 南無大士, see Ma Xiaolin 馬曉林, “Dachao guoshi Namodashi chongxiu Zhendingfu Da Longxingsi gongde ji zhaji: jianlun Make Boluo xingji de xiangguan lunshu 大朝國師南無大士重修真定府大龍興寺功德記劄記 : 兼論馬可波羅行記的相關論述 (Notes on the record of the merit of the Namodashi, State Master of the Yu an, who restored the Grand Longxingsi in Zhending Prefecture: with comments on pertinent contents in Marco Polo's travel logs),” Guoji hanxue yanjiu tongxun (2012. 6): 252-57. 15 This inscription has been mu ch defaced and become largely illegible. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
58 the longevity of the Sage Lord, d. 1317),” which records that “the Sutra for Humane Kings, in fifty volumes and a hundred chapters, and the Sutra of t he Medicine Buddha, in fifty chapters, were printed and bestowed to this monastery, where rituals of reading, turning, reciting, and chanting these sutras for the Sage Lord [Yuan Renzong (r. 1311-1320)] had to be performed under imperial decree ” (印造 仁王護國般若波 羅蜜經五十部計百卷, 藥師如來本願功德經五十卷, 施本寺, 欽為聖主本命 看轉誦讀 ). 16 According to these texts, it is safe to say that some sutra repository was built in the Longxingsi no later than 1255, and that the ritual of “turning the Tripitaka” has been practiced on site since at least the early fourteenth century. Can we wager for an even earlier date? In fact, since the library hall can be fairly positively dated to the eleventh century for identifiable structural characteristics, a certain revolving sutra case must have existed along with it considering the exclusiveness of both the nest and the nested. It is highly likely that the two were originally designed and built as a whole; it would be technically inefficient--if not impossible--to restructure the existing hall and later install an individually designed sutra case in the interior. 17 This evaluation is further supported by an in-depth analysis of dimensional and formal qualities. 16 Changshan zhenshizhi, 19. 15b, http://ctext. org/library. pl?if=gb&file=31657&page=31. The calligraphy of the inscription is by the famous calligra pher Zhao Mengfu 赵孟頫. The same inscription implies the ritual function of the sutra case, which will be elaborated in the next section. 17 For the sutra case to fit in the pavilion perfectly well, its overall structure could not have been altered in any sig nificant way, though it must have undergone multiple repairs and renovations and may or may not be true to its original design in every detail. The external form--especially the ornaments and decorative patterns--could have deviated remarkably from one ver sion to another throughout the maintenance and negligence in history. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
59 Dating the miniature: a comparison with Yingzao fashi The size of each part of the Longxingsi sutra case can be extracted from the 3D Rhino model I have developed (fig. 18). 18 As mentioned earlier, the cai is 4. 5 by 3 centimeters; this is actually larger than the recommended value, 3. 2 by 2. 1 centimeters (1 by 0. 66 cun), for the zhuanlun jingzang in the Yingzao fashi. 19 The octagonal case measures 2. 6 meters each side and 6. 9 meters in diameter, also larger than the values of 2. 1 meters (66. 6 cun) and 5. 1 meters (160 cun) prescribed in the official standards. 20 This “deviation” in size, in fact, is commonplace fo r surviving wooden structures from the same historical period, and it has been usually interpreted as a result of regional building practices and customs and the carpenter's predilections in each individual project. 21 In spite of the enlargement in size, th e sutra case displays certain similarities with the Yingzao fashi template in terms of structure and form. As shown in the modern reconstructions of the template (figs. 19, 20), the sutra case is supposed to consist of a rotating core ( neicao 內槽 ) and an immobile, pavilion-shaped outer structure ( waicao 外槽 ). 22 From bottom to top, it should include a dais ( zhangzuo 帳坐 ), an octagonal case ( zhangshen 帳身 ), a layer of skirting roofs ( yaoyan 腰檐 ), a 18 This models is viewable at https://chinesearchitecture. wordpress. com/2016/03/05/longxingsi, together wit h a photogrammetry model. 19 Yingzao fashi, vol. 2, 5, 11. This is smaller than the cai of the fodaozhang (1. 8 by 1. 2 cun). 20 Ibid., 1. Regarding the overall size of the jingzang, the Yingzao fashi regul ates: “The principles of making revolving sutra cases: the total height is 200 cun and the diameter 160 cun. Make in an octagonal prism with each side measuring 66. 6 cun wide” (造經藏之制 : 共高二丈, 徑一丈六尺. 八棱, 每棱面廣六尺六寸六分 ). 21 Such a phenomenon has been noted by many architectural historians. For the most comprehensive survey, see Guo 2009. 22 Takeshima and Pan have each made their reconstruction of the structure of jingzang. The two proposals are somewhat different. The most obvious discrepancy is Pan's reconstruction of the pivoting mechanism, which comprises of a series of diagonal braces spoking from the axle. Since the Yingzao fashi never indicates that the braces should be so placed, which is only one of many possibilities, it is enticing to think that Pan could have closely studied the Longxingsi sutra case (where diagonal braces are exposed) and determined that its inner st ructure could have reflected the Northern Song standard. This is a reticent proclamation that the design of the Longxingsi rotating core is a Northern Song original. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
60 layer of roof-top substructure ( pingzuo 平坐 ), and the Heavenly Palace ( tiangong louge ) as ornamentation of the crown ( zhangtou 帳頭 ). 23 These components are clearly identifiable from the Longxingsi sutra case, except that the latter has chosen not to include the Heavenly Palace, and has combined the inner core and the outer structu re into a single rotating entity. In its current state of dilapidation, the sutra case is missing many elements: its interior has been hollowed out, exposing the wooden pivot and the web of braces originally hidden behind the shelves and drawers (fig. 21). Any scriptures once stored in the case, too, are completely gone. 24 In one of Sekino's photographs taken in the 1920s, a Buddhist icon is shown placed inside the sutra case, directly facing the viewer (fig. 22). 25 Also shown are the ornately carved coiling dragons on the columns, round mirrors hung on each side of the octagon, and two rings of miniature balustrades, one on top and the other surrounding the bottom of the dais. 26 Most of these features had alr eady disappeared when Liang visited the Longxingsi in 1933 (fig. 23). The bracket sets beneath the double-layered eaves, on the other hand, have been carefully restored, even though their original paints are lost. Because of the s mall scale of the brackets, they easily recall the type of bracketing used in Qing architecture--slender, tightly spaced, and overwhelmingly decorative--features that have possibly led Sekino to attribute this the woodwork to 23 Yingzao fashi, vol. 2, 1-16. 24 The Yingzao fashi mentions that coffers ( jingxia 經匣 ) should be used for the storage of scriptures inside the jingzang. See Yingzao fashi, vol. 2, 15. 25 According to Sekino, there were in fact four bodhisattvas, one sitting at each c ardinal direction of the sutra case. It is not clear if scriptures were then kept behind the statues or totally lacking. See Tokiwa and Sekino 1940, 90-91. 26 Today, the balustrades have all gone, leaving only irregularly interspersed, rectangular holes on the stone-paved ground along the perimeter of the sutra case. The restoration team obviously has not completed their work. During fieldwork, I found stacks of dust-covered timber behind the sutra case in a restricted area of the library hall. Many of them appeared to be broken or heavily weathered materials taken directly off from the sutra case, as they had mortises and tenons on them; some arched ones appeared to fit with the curvature of the round sutra case. I took the risk of pushing the sutra case to make it rotate, but it wouldn't budge. The bottom of the pivot looked as though it was displaced slightly from the center of the pit. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
61 Qing carpenters. 27 Applying the scheme of “eight-tiered double-twig triple-arm counted double bracket ( bapuzuo shuangmiao sanxia'ang jixin chonggong 八鋪作雙杪三下昂計心重栱 ),” the brackets appear grander than the six-tiered brackets prescribed in the Yingzao fashi. A greater number of tiers usually signals a higher-rank building since it is more visually appealing and demands more time and resources. In fact, according to the Yingzao fashi, eight is the maximum number of tiers a bracket set may have; material evidence of such brackets has not been found elsewhere, making the Longxingsi sutra case a singular example. 28 The complexity of the eight-tiered bracketing is especially well exposed at the eight corner sets ( zhuanjiao puzuo 轉角鋪作 ) (fig. 24). Their distinctive form is a result of their specific position at the vertices of the octago n, where two adjacent sides intersect at 135 degrees. In this situation, all tiers of bracket arms of the same set have to be “tripled” in essence: placed on top of the same column, they grow into a cluster of three interconnected subsets--one parallel to the left side, one to the right side, and one jutting out in the middle, with an angle of 22. 5 degrees between each subset (fig. 25). This method of tripling the corner set is in accordance with the instructions found in the Yingz ao fashi. 29 The column-top bracket sets ( zhutou puzuo 柱頭鋪作 ) and intercolumnar bracket sets ( bujian puzuo 補間鋪作 ), on the other hand, are relatively simpler (fig. 26). A total of eight sets--including two co rner, two column-top, and four intercolumnar sets--have been evenly spaced for each side of the octagon, spanning over one central bay and two end bays. The spacing and the arrangement, yet 27 Tokiwa and Sekino, 90-91; Sekino asserted that it should date between 1643 and 1661. 28 Guo 2009, 384. A case of nine-tiered bracketing is found in the Chongfusi; see Chapter 4 of this dissertation. 29 Yingzao fashi, vol. 1, 79-80. It does differ considerably from the regular method of assembling corner sets (where members are intersected orthogonall y), but the angle formed by the octagonal shape of the sutra case has led to a slightly different variation. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
62 again, shows a striking conformity to the rules explained in the Yingzao fashi. 30 These brackets are placed tightly to each other, leaving no space to breathe; whereas all existing Northern Song buildings--such as the library hall--have fairly sparsely-spaced brackets (fig. 27). Such is the privilege of miniature architecture: regulations for full-scale buildings concerning structural stability, efficiency, and social rank often become invalid for miniatures. 31 No wonder why such a small-scale woodwork could have had the most extravagant form of bracket sets in Chinese architectural history, as its creators were free to exhaust their ingenuity and attempt the most complex design. The Buddhist societies, too, would have loved to patronize the most attractive and “authoritative” structure for the shelterin g of sacred images and scriptures. “Progressive miniaturization” in Chinese architectural history The miniaturization of the Longxingsi sutra case was not an isolated phenomenon. It signaled a trend of change, a critical historical moment when the ultimat e source of architectural impressiveness continued to transition from sheer mass to accumulated intricacy and redundancy. As small-scale woodworking became standardized by the end of the eleventh century, the regular components of large buildings also star ted to undergo a series of miniaturization. This is most excellently exposed by one of Liang Sicheng's hand-drawn diagrams (fig. 28), in which he reveals the changing proportion between the bracket set and the column from the Tang to the Qing dynasties. 30 The “bay” is here the space between the columns and/or the hanging posts. According to the Yingzao fashi, the number o f intercolumnar sets should not exceed one per bay, at most two for the central bay. However, for the jingzang, the same text also stipulates five intercolumnar sets to be used for the skirting eaves of the outer ring, the dais, and the crown of the inner ring, and nine intercolumnar sets for the substructure of the Heavenly Palace. This would mean a total number of seven or ten bracket-sets per side. Bracket spacing will be explained in Chapter 3 of this dissertation. 31 See Chapter 1 for the discussion on the Tianshengling. The contrast is particularly striking when comparing the sutra case with the library hall. The latter, restricted by its rank, simply applies the “five-tiered counted single bracketing” for the lower level and follows the regular spacing of intercolumnar sets--two in the central bay and one in all other bays. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
63 Not only did the bracket set become increasingly miniaturized in comparison with the column, but the size of the cai (manifested as the cross section of the bracket arm) also gradually decreased with the passage of time. 32 This is ev idenced by the Tianwangdian 天王殿 (Hall of the Heavenly Kings) of the Longxingsi, where much smaller bracket sets have been added during a Qing repair to bolster the original Northern Song structure, providing a salient contrast between the robust, medieval brackets and their overtly decorative, diminutive descendants (fig. 29). 33 Accompanying this miniaturization of architectural components was the “degeneration” of certain structural members. This is most clearly detected from the ang 昂, the slanting arms in the bracketing system. Prior to the eleventh century, the ang had been used for strictly structural purposes. Functioning like a lever, its outer end ought to follow the downward slope of the roof and be suspended under the eaves, w hereas the inner end should go all the way up to the roof frame to provide extra support to the beams and purlins. In the Longxingsi sutra case, however, while the ang all appear to be genuine slanting members from the outside, they have in fact lost their structural integrity because the inner ends have been cut short and attached to a partitioning board. In other words, they are functionally corrupt even though having partially preserved the original form. The same phenomenon is also observed in some elev enth-century buildings as well as in the Yingzao fashi. 34 32 Zhongguo gudai jianzhu jishushi 中國古代建築技術史 (History of the technology of ancient Chinese architecture ) (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1985), 100-01. 33 Liang 1933, 28. 34 The famous Shengmudian 聖母殿 (Hall of the Sacred Mother, d. 1023-1032 ) at the Jinci 晉祠 in Taiyuan, Shanxi, for instance, uses “fake” ang. In the Yingzao fashi, the ang of miniature shrines and repositories are essentially non-structural. As far as large-scale woodworks are concerned, there is also a type of functionally corrupt ang termed cha'ang 插昂 (inserted lever arm), which coexists with functional ones like the basic ang and the tiaowo 挑斡 (cantilever). What Liang regards as the “ancient-style genuine ang” in his 1933 report is in comparison with the “fake,” horizontally placed lever arms that started to grow in fashion in the late eleventh century. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
64 Coming to the Qing, even the bracket sets started to lose their original role and become largely ornamental components. The implication is that carpenters could now make m uch smaller brackets, since their size would not affect the validity of the structural frame. Indubitably, the experience accumulated over centuries of miniature woodworking must have prepared for this transformation, a process during which small and dense ly spaced brackets turned out to be one of the most prominent features of Chinese architecture. 35 The Revolving Sutra Case in History According to textural evidence, revolving bookcases came to be used in China as early as the sixth century. Luther Carring ton-Goodrich's article, “The Revolving Book-case in China,” is perhaps the first comprehensive study on this subject. 36 This article is primarily a literary survey; it explores various forms of historical records encompassing stone inscriptions, gazetteers, building standards (i. e., the Yingzao fashi ), monks' travel logs, and miscellanea from the Tang to the Qing dynasties. Altogether, Carrington-Goodrich identifies some twenty-six sutra cases from the early tenth to the mid-seventeenth century, but his major interest lies not in the specific a rchitectural forms but rather the curious revolving mechanism and its provenance. He argues that the notion of the revolving bookcase had never really existed in either Confucian or Daoist tradition and should be mainly considered a Buddhist inspiration, o ne that was perhaps derived from the “prayer cylinder” or “prayer-wheel” used in Tibetan Buddhism. 37 Meanwhile, it is likely that the techniques of making 35 Generally speaking, the preference for the smaller scale might have been a choice based on economic and/or aesthetic reasons. Economically, there was an increasing lack of large timber as time passed. Aes thetically, the slender and intricately crafted miniatures could have intrigued later rulers include the Mongols, the Manchus, and the Chinese themselves, who turned to seek a new architectural fashion and statement to suit their styles and needs. 36 Luther Carrington-Goodrich, “The Revolving Book-case in China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 7 (1942. 2): 130-61. 37 Ibid., 152-55. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
65 revolving devices had come from local craftsmanship which gave birth to the chariot, the potter's whee l, the watermill, the wheelbarrow, the “taxicab ( jili guche 記里鼓車 ),” and the like. 38 The reason to make the bookcase turnable, he believes, was to assist translators and copyists of Buddhist sutras to quickly locate books as well as to enact the ritual of ci rcumambulation. 39 A more recent study is Helen Loveday's “La Bibliotheque Tournante en Chine: Quelques Remarques sur son Role et son Evolution. ”40 Based on Carrington-Goodrich's work and other previous studies, Loveday's article has made several profound obs ervations. She attributes the popularity of revolving sutra cases in Tang and Song times to the culture of worshipping dharma relics--i. e. Buddhist scriptures--and to the turning ability of the sutra case which enabled the ritual of cakrapravartana (turnin g the wheel of law) to be performed. 41 She also comments extensively on structure and iconography, explaining that the form of the sutra case displayed a great resemblance to certain funerary and religious monuments, especially funerary stupas ( muta 墓塔 ) and dharani pillars ( tuoluoni jingchuang 陀羅尼經幢 ), whereas the resemblance in form was further enhanced by shared pictorial motifs symbolizing the Sumeru and other elements of the imagined cosmos. 42 While their works greatly inform the following discussion, what I aim to present below include not only available textual sources but also material evidence of the sutra cases in history, from the earliest time to the present. I will concentrate on the religious functions of the sutra cases across time, the rituals th ey entailed in different settings, and their significances in the eyes of 38 Ibid., 156. 39 Ibid., 157-58. 40 Helen Loveday, “La Bibliotheque Tournante en Chine: Quelques Remarques sur son Role et son Ev olution,” T'oung Pao 86 (2000. 4/5): 225-79. 41 Ibid., 239-46. 42 Ibid., 225-26, 246-58. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
66 different audiences. This will contextualize the Longxingsi sutra case in the historical development of this special device, leading to a better understanding of how it might have be en used. Meanwhile, it will give us a hint of how and why miniature-making came to be involved during the process. Sixth century: legendary beginnings Multiple textual sources have traced the invention of the revolving sutra case to the Liang dynasty (502-557); some have traced more specifically to a historical figure, the monk Fu Xi 傅翕 (497-569), who is believed to have invented this device. One exemplary text, Shanhui dashi lu 善慧大士錄 (Record of the Grand Master Shanhui), prefaced by a Tang scholar Lou Ying 樓穎 (fl. 744-?), gives the following account: When [Fu Xi] was at [the Shuanglin si monastery], he often felt that the scriptures were too numerous for people to read them all [in a lifetime]. Thus he built a large multilevel shrine ( kan) by the mountain, which consisted of a single column [as the pivot] and eight sides, and it was fil led with various scriptures. The shrine revolved without any hindrance and was called lunzang. [Fu Xi] then made a vow: “Those who come to the gate of my zang shall never lose their human form in their lives and afterlives [throughout the transmigration of souls]. ” He preached to the common folks: “Those who seek enlightenment, endeavors sincerely and exhaust themselves in this pursuit will be able to turn the wheel repository. Regardless of how many turns one might make, this person would achieve the same amount of merit as those holding and reading the scriptures. All is contingent on one's will and mind. Everyone can be benefitted. ” The lunzang built nowadays all feature the image of [Fu Xi]; and this is how it started in the beginning. 大士在日, 常以經目繁多, 人或不能遍閱, 乃就山中建大層龕一柱八面, 實以諸經, 運行不礙, 謂之輪藏. 仍有願言 : “登吾藏門者, 生生世世不失人身. 從勸世人, 有發菩提心者, 志誠竭力, 能推輪藏. 不計轉數, 是人即與持誦諸經功德無異. 隨其願心, 皆獲饒益. 今天下所建輪藏皆 設大士像, 實始於此. 43 Carrington-Goodrich reminds us that the two earliest biographies of Fu Xi, one in the Xu Gaosengzhu an 續高僧傳 (Extended biographies of eminent monks) by Daoxuan 道宣 (596-667) and 43 Xinzuan xu zangjing 新纂續藏經, X69. 1335: 109c http://www. cbeta. org/result/normal/X69/1335_001. htm. This text seems to be largely the same as in the Shishi jigu lue 釋氏稽古略 (ca. 1354?) 2. 35a, which is quoted in Carr ington-Goodrich 1942, 132. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
67 the other in the Jingde chuandelu 景德傳燈錄 (Transmission of the lamp) by Daoyuan 道原 (fl. 1004), do not mention such an invention, which is why he cautiously considers Fu Xi's revolving sutra case a “legend. ”44 From the Northern Song onward, however, the account of Fu Xi's legendary invention became readily accepted and incorporated into both official and anecdotal discourses. In the comprehensive Buddhist history Fozu tongji 佛祖統紀 (Comple te chronicles of Buddhas and patriarchs, 1260-1264?) compiled by the monk Zhipan 志磐 under the Southern Song, the revolving sutra case is explained to have been first installed in the dharma field of the Shuanglinsi 雙林寺 by Fu Xi, out of his “compassion for t he laity who either did not have enough time for reading the sutras or were simply illiterate ” (愍世人多故不暇誦經及不識字 ). 45 The text contains some overlaps with the excerpt from the Shanhui dashi lu quoted above; similarly, it records the vow of Fu Xi that “one who c an faithfully turn the sutra case in one complete circle receives the same merit as reciting the sutras; one who can rotate the sutra case in countless turns receives the same merit as reading and reciting the complete Tripitaka ” (有能信心推之一匝。則與誦經其功正等。有能旋 轉不計數 者。所獲功德即與讀誦一大藏經正等無異 ). 46 Legendary or not, it seems likely that in the beginning, the sutra case was invented as a turnable device to enable the laity, especially those who were illiterate, to have an equal opportunity to accumulate merit and achieve enlighte nment. The sources do not detail the form of the lunzang, 44 Carrington-Goodrich 1942, 132-133. 45 T49. 2035: 318c. The same entry mentions having the images of Fu Xi and the eight divine guardians by the side of the sutra case. 46 Ibid. Additional textual evidence for Fu Xi's invention com es from Qisong's 契嵩 (1007-1072) Xinjin wenji 鐔津文集 14. 7b-8b, Ye Mengde's 葉夢得 (1077-1148) Jiankangji 建康集, 4. 6ab, and the Shishi jigu lue. In more recent scholarly works these have been incorporated into Nanjo Bunyu 南條文雄, A Catalogue of the Chinese Translatio n of the Buddhist Tripitaka: the Sacred Canon of the Buddhists in China and Japan (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1883), http://catalog. hathitrust. org/Record/010249920. Also see Carrington-Goodrich 19 42, 131-33. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
68 only that it was a single-pivot, eight-sided “shrine ” (kan 龕), which was geometrically the same as the Longxingsi sutra case. The employ of the term kan suggests that the sutra case might have been modelled after some Buddhist halls or pavilions and was perhaps small in size like a niche. Clearly, what the texts focus on is the function of the revolving device as a receptacle of the Buddhist Tripitaka and a miraculous tool of salvation. Tang The see mingly humble beginning and charitable nature of the lunzang have been somewhat rewritten soon afterward, when the ideal of offering equal accessibility was largely downplayed in certain cases by an emerging emphasis on the exquisite and lifelike architect ure. This is evidenced by a passage from Daoxuan's Zhong Tianzhu Sheweiguo Zhiyuansi tujing 中天竺舍衛國祇園寺圖經 (Illustrated scripture of Jetavana vihara of Sravasti in Central India), a text providing a vivid picture of the ideal monastery (fig. 30). It speaks of a certain lianhuazang 蓮花藏 (lotus repository; Sk. padmagarbha ) installed inside the Hall of the Grand Buddha (Dafodian 大佛殿 ): [The repository] is one zhang three chi tall. Its form resembles a mingtang [Hall of Light]. Beneath the dais are nine coiling dragons as the support; the dragon heads were made of purple-sheen polished gold. Up above is a seven-jeweled lotus, in which there is a standing statue of the great divine heavenly general Manibhadra. The statue is made of gold with silver engravings; it wears a seven-jeweled necklace and a seven-jeweled cap. On top of the lotus is a seven-layered, silver dais. The dais has eight sides; on each side there is a window above and a door with golden door leaves below. The doors are locked with golden, lion-shaped locks; they open on their own but not by people. [The repository] uses red crystal roof tiles. The tile-ends are all decorated with golden lions with golden and silver bells in their mouths. The finial [of the repository] is simil ar to those of contemporary pagodas; however, it is eight-sided, and on each side there is a golden chain where golden lions with bells in their mouths are hung. The tongues of the lions are all made of eight-sided, rooster-shaped king jewels. The jewel on top of the finial takes the form of the Garuda. On the back of the Garuda is the Bodhisattva Puxian riding a white elephant and sheltered by a baldachin (the part from the Garuda to the baldachin is made of a single jewel). Such is how the lotus repositor y look s. 高一丈三尺, 狀若此間明堂形. 臺下九龍盤結為腳, 紫磨金作龍頭. 上有七寶蓮花, 花中有摩 尼跋陀大神將立身, 用黃金作之, 白銀彫鏤, 項以七寶頭戴七寶. 蓮花之上以白銀為七層臺, 臺有八楞, 八面有窗, 窗下有門以金為扉, 有黃金鎖形如師子自然開, 開不以人功. 以紅頗梨 為瓦, 瓦頭皆有金師子, 師子口中皆銜金銀鈴. 臺上相輪如今塔上者, 然有八角, 角別金鎖具 | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
69 之. 鎖上懸金師子如上銜鈴, 皆八楞珠王為舌, 珠王如雞. 相輪上珠如金翅鳥, 鳥上普賢菩薩 乘白象王, 覆以寶蓋 (從金翅鳥以上至蓋一珠所作 ). 上敘蓮花藏相. 47 It is not clear if the lotus repository is turnable, but like Fu Xi's sutra case, it is similarly an eight-sided, architectural-shaped receptacle. Specifically, Daoxuan has identified the seven-layered dais ( tai 臺), the windows and doors, the roof tiles ( wa 瓦), and perhaps most importantly the finial (xianglun 相輪 ), which strongly suggest the pagoda ( ta 塔) to be the main source of the architectural shape. Though Daoxuan's text is allegedly based on the authentic Indian prototype, the author had in fact never been to India, and scholars believe that his depictions were largely derived from his personal observations of contemporary Buddhist and imperial buildings. 48 This could mean that by the time the text was written, the lotus repository had already become a highly developed, popular device with elaborate forms and distinctive iconography used in Chinese monasteries. The same text informs us of the important role of the repository in Buddhist rituals. On each of the six fasting days ( liuzhairi 六齋日 ), the monks and nuns should come to worship the repository. On such a day, the nine dragons would exhale the smoke of fragrant incense, the great general Manibhadra would admonish the audience, whereas the golden lions and the bells would all eulogize the virtue of upholding the Buddhist precepts. 49 Also involving the repository was the ritual of ordination. As Daoxuan recounts, any monk wishing to be ordained should first come to pray to the repository; in response, the Garuda and the Puxian would offer their sermon and encouragement. Having heard their illuminating voices and cleared any remaining doubts in the mind, the monk would then proceed to the altar of ordination. After the ordination was complete, 47 T45. 1899: 887a-b. 48 Puay-peng Ho, “The Ideal Monastery: Daoxuan's Descriptions of the Central Indian Jetavana Vihara,” East Asian History 10 (1995): 1-7. 49 T45. 1899: 887 b. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
70 he had to return to the repository; and if he h ad been ordained in a superior way, the doors of the repository would open automatically for him, manifesting in front of him hundreds of thousands of buddhas and a myriad of silver towers and pavilions of the Lotus Repository World ( lianhuazang shijie 蓮花藏世界 ). 50 While Fu Xi's sutra case was invented for the laity, Daoxuan's lotus repository was to be used in a strictly monastic setting and played a key role in the all-important ritual of ordination. What mattered in the latter case was not the revolving mech anism but the vividly represented Buddhist icons lavishly adorned with precious materials--gold, silver, crystal, and various other jewels and gems. It is notable that architecture was an important part of this spectacle: the ordained would be able to “see ” numerous towers and pavilions inside the open repository, a vision perhaps brought forth through certain forms of miniature architecture such as the tiangong louge. 51 The earliest known revolving sutra case which was actually built, however, came from 809 CE, in the Huayan 華嚴 court of the Daxingtangsi 大興唐寺 monastery outside Chang'an. We know of its existence from the “Binguogong gongde ming 邠國公功德銘 ” inscribed on a stone stele dated 823, which extols the deeds of Liang Shouqian 梁守謙 (779-827), a devout Buddhi st and powerful eunuch in the imperial court, who patronized the installation of this very sutra case and the 5,327 juan of scriptures it held. 52 According to the inscription, [Liang Shouqian] has built a zhuanlun jingzang inside the [sutra] hall, where sto ne has been carved into clouds and the ground dug open, from which [the repository] emerges. It is square in shape... Countless floral dharani-pillars have been erected, making [the structure] comparable to the Tushita Heaven; thousands of towers and pavilio ns have been built as if in the Mirage City. Resembling and 50 Ibid. 51 As will be further elaborated in Chapters 3 and 4, miniatur e architecture played an important role in the visualization of the marvelous Buddhist world. 52 The date 809 is determined by Carrington-Goodrich by cross-referencing two gazetteers. See Carrington-Goodrich 1942, 133-34; also see Zhang Yong 張勇, Fu Dashi ya njiu 傅大士研究 (A research on Fu Dashi) (Dharma Drum Publishing Corp, 1999), 434-35. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
71 modeled after real objects, it is lifelike in appearance but transcendent in spirit. The phoenixes and swans seem to be flying away, while the dragons appear to be sneaking out. Curved brackets an d bearing blocks, stacked one upon another, are intermingled with jewels and gems. Roof rafters, neatly arranged in lines, are embellished with pearls and jades. [The repository] soars up in five stories and has four doors opening to the four sides; the ge ms shine upon each other, their luster is reflected back and forth... On the facade are drawn [carved?] portraits of the divine kings and various monsters as extravagant ornaments. There are also images of Bodhisattvas and celestial beings encircling the str ucture. 又於堂內造轉輪經藏一所, 刻石為雲, 鑿地而出, 方生結構, 遞[ ][ ]緣. 立無數花幢, 竊比兜率 ; 造百千樓閣, 同彼化城. 狀物類本, 擬容奪真, 鵷鵠若飛而不飛, 虹螭似走而不走. 欒櫨櫛比, 雜之以琳琅. 榱桷駢羅, 飾之以珠翠. 淩雲五級, 方開四門, 璀錯相輝, 煥麗交映... 其外或圖寫 龍神鬼物之狀, 以為嚴飾 ; 或造菩薩天仙之類, 周匝其旁. 53 Clearly, in this case the miniatures have made their way into display: the entire repository was shaped into to a five-story, tower-like structure adorned with “countless floral dharani-pillars” and “thousands of towers and pavilions. ” The text further alludes to the Tushita heaven ( doushuai 兜率 ) and the Mirage City ( huacheng 化城 ), implying that these miniatures, indeed, were meant to evoke a vision of the miraculous realm. The smaller the miniatures, the greater was the visual effect of the world of the myriad they engendered;54 but what has been stressed here is not just sheer number but also verisimilitude. The architecture must have truthfully embodied reality in both form and spirit in order to be visually persuasive. The miniature buildings, fully equipped with bracket sets and roof rafters, might have also followed certain scaling rules to successfully achieve a sense of realness. At least from the perspective of this inscription, the repository was first and foremost a monument of Liang Shouqian's personal merit and charitable deeds, which would serve as a paradigm for othe r Buddhists to follow suit. It more or less stood as a conspicuous symbol of wealth and power to awe and dazzle its audience. In this case, one did not have to turn the 53 Quan Tang wen 全唐文 998, http://ctext. org/wiki. pl?if=gb&chapter=158780&remap=gb ; Guanzhong jinshiji 關中金石 集, 4. 17b, http://ctext. org/library. pl?if=gb&file=27718&page=35. 54 This is inspired by a talk with Kun Yue in 2014, then an EE major doctoral student at U niversity of Southern California, who asserted that the logic of having to produce and operate on a smaller and smaller scale in today's most advanced technology (such as nanotechnology) was to allow more units (and a faster speed) in a limited, confined space. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
72 repository to receive merit; but patronizing its installation was considered an even mo re admirable act. In most cases, the financing and building of the repository proved to be a commu nal effort. The revolving repository in the Nanchanyuan 南禪院 monastery in the ninth-century Suzhou, for instance, involved different social groups in the process of its installation, which became quite an event at the time according to a record by the famou s Tang poet Bai Juyi 白居易 (772-846). Bai Juyi informs us that the project was initiated by none other than himself, then the prefect of Suzhou; subsequently, two monks from the Shu region and three from the Wu region gathered building materials, two patrons donated coins, and four monks at the monastery administered the construction, which lasted from 829 to 836. 55 The total cost amounted to ten thousand strings for the library hall and three thousand six hundred strings for the repository and the Tripitaka combined. In the year following its completion, a new abbot, the Chan Master Yuansui, was invited to the monastery. As a daily ritual, Master Yuansui would come to venerate the thousand Buddhas in the library hall, open the repository, retrieve the scriptur es, and lead the crowd to chant these sutras. The chanting voice was so powerful that it immediately bestowed blessings to those who heard it, and moved the hearts of the listeners who soon converted to Buddhism. 56 Bai Juyi's repository was a nine-storied, eight-sided turnable structure hosting a thousand Buddhas and 256 sutra coffers containing 5,058 juan of the Tripitaka. 57 To rationalize the installation 55 Bai Juyi 白居易, “Suzhou Nan chanyuan Qianfotang Zhuanlun jingzang shiji 蘇州南禪院千佛堂轉輪經藏石記 (Record of the revolving sutra case in the Qianfotang of the Nanchanyuan in Suzhou),” in Quan Tang wen 676, http://ctext. org/wiki. pl?if= gb&chapter=398674. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. “Inside the hall, there is a baldachin above and a repository below. Between the [baldachin] and the repository are nine layers of disks and a thousand Buddha niches painted with various colors and embellished with gold and jade. Around the baldachin are sixty-two hanging mirrors. The repository is octagonal with two doors on each side; it is painted with vermilion and reinforced with bronze fittings. Surrounding the repository are arranged sixty-four mats. Inside, the r epository is turned by a rotating core and stopped by a wooden block. There are a total of 256 sutra coffers | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
73 of such a costly device, he has dwelled on the belief that the dissemination of Buddhist teachings amon g people, as would be facilitated by this repository, would naturally foster a humane society, encouraging mutual help, generosity, and benevolence. To him, building the repository proved to be a worthwhile endeavor, for it would “mark the path to enlighte nment, lubricate the wheel of dharma, entice the old man's children out of the fire house through expedient means, and dispel common people's ignorance about life ” (以表旌覺路也，脂轄法輪也，示火宅長者子之便門 也，開毛道凡夫生之大竇也 ). 58 Bai Juyi further stresses that the tripartite system of the sutra, the repository, and the library hall served as an indispensable vehicle for the preservation of Buddhism. The installation of the repository, therefore, was tantamount to the meritorious deed of continuing the Buddhist law. 59 Northern and Southern Song None of the Tang or earlier revolving sutra cases have survived. The one at the Longxingsi now stands as the oldest example of this particular type of dev ice. A slightly later example is the feitianzang 飛天藏 (celestial repository) at the Yunyansi 雲岩寺 in Jiangyou 江油, Sichuan (fig. 31). This revolving repository, dated 1181, shares quite some similarities with the Longxingsi sutra case in terms of overall form and dimension. 60 It tak es the shape of a three-storied, octagonal wooden and 5,058 scrolls of scriptures 堂之中上蓋下藏。 [藏] 蓋之間輪九層，佛千龕，彩繪金碧以為飾，環蓋懸鏡六十 有二。藏八面，面二門，丹漆銅鍇以為固，環藏敷座六十有四。藏之內轉以輪，止以尼，經函二百五十有 六，經卷五千五十有八。 ” 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. A dditional textual sources on pre-Song sutra repositories are collected most comprehensively in Huang Min-chih 黃敏枝, “Zailun Songdai siyuan de zhuanlunzang 再論宋代寺院的轉輪藏 (A further discussion on the revolving sutra cases in Song-dynasty monasteries),” Qinghua xue bao 26 (1996. 2): 139-88; (1996. 3): 265-96. 60 For studies on this repository, see Gu Qiyi 辜其一, “Jiangyouxian Ruishan Yunyansi feitianzang ji zangdian kancha jilue 江油縣圌山雲岩寺飛天藏及藏殿勘察紀略 (A brief record of the survey of the celestial repository and the | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
74 pagoda with a central pivot anchored in a round pit 7. 2 meters in diameter. The octagon is 5. 2 meters across and roughly 2. 11 meters wide per side. The cai measures 3 by 2 centimeters, smaller than that of the Longxingsi sutra case but almost the same as the values prescribed in the Yingzao fashi. The most notable feature of this repository is the three levels of tiangong louge on the upper part of the pagoda, where the cai is further reduced to 2. 3 by 1. 3 centimeters. Inside these miniature towers and pavilions were once held some two hund red wooden figurines of the Daoist pantheon, such as the gods of the twenty-eight lunar mansions and those of the twenty-four solar terms. 61 Interestingly, no sutra or sutra coffers have ever been found inside the repository: unlike its Buddhist counterpart, it seems that the feitianzang was designed to enshrine Daoist icons only. 62 Images of the revolving repository have also been captured by twelfth-century stone sculptures. Two well-known examples come from Dazu 大足 in Sichuan. One is the Beishan 北山 Cave 136 (d. 1142-1146), the so-called “Zhuanlun jingzang ku 轉輪經藏窟 (cave of the wheel-turning sutr a repository),” where a four-meter-tall stone “repository” is sculpted at the center of the cave (fig. 32). 63 The repository is hollowed inside and cannot be turned; but it has incorporated all repositor y hall at Yunyansi in Ruishan, Xiangyou county),” Sichuan wenwu 14 (1986 ): 9-13; Huang Shilin 黃石林, “Sichuan Jiangyou Douruishan Yunyansi feitianzang 四川江油窦圌山雲岩寺飛天藏 (The celestial repository at the Yunyansi in Douruishan, Jiangyou, Sichuan),” Wenwu 文物 (1991. 4): 20-33; Zuo Lala 左拉拉, “Yunyansi feitianzang jiqi zongjiao beijing qianxi 雲岩寺飛天藏及其宗教背景淺析 (A preliminary analysis of the Feitianzang at Yunyansi and its religious background),” Jianzhushi 21 (2005) : 82-92; Guo 2009, 535-48; Shih-shan Susan Huang, Picturin g the True Form: Daoist Visual Culture in Traditional China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012): 108. 61 Gu 1986. 62 Zuo 2005. The feitianzang is considered a Daoist imitation and appropriation of the Buddhist lunzang. The revolving ritual, however, is in this case equaled to the veneration of the images. 63 Studies on this particular repository include Hu Liangxue 胡良學, “Dazu Beishan Fowan shike Zhuanlun jingzang ku zhi guanjian 大足北山佛灣石刻轉輪經藏窟之管見 (A glimpse at the Cave of the Wheel-turning Sutra Repository at Fowan, Beishan, in Dazu),” Zhonghua wenhua luntan (2001. 1): 112-16. A brief description and images are in Guo Xiangying 郭相穎, Beishan shiku 北山石窟 (Beishan Caves), vol. 1 of Dazu shike diaosu quanji 大足石刻雕塑全集 (A complete collection of the sculptural art of Dazu) (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1999). Another source is Angela Howard, Summit of Treasures: Buddhist Cave Art of Dazu, China (Trumbull, CT: Weatherhill, 2001). | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
75 essential formal and iconographical f eatures appropriate for a wooden jingzang : a Sumeru dais, an octagonal lotus throne (which appears in Daoxuan's repository), eight columns carved with coiling dragons, and an octagonal crown adorned with reliefs of single-, double-, and three-storied pavil ions and pagodas, reminding us of the tiangong louge. The other is the Baodingshan 寶頂山 Cave 14 (d. 1174-1252), known as the “Pilu daochang 毘盧道場 (Dharma field of the Vairocana Buddha)” (fig. 33). The central hexagonal (octagonal?) pillar has five niches hosting the images of the Vairocana, the Sakyamuni, the Amitabha, and two six-storied dharani-pillars. 64 Though less conspicuous, the structure of the central pillar is unmistakably that of a revolving repository. The Sumeru dais, th e lotus throne, the columns with coiling dragons, and the double-story miniature pavilions on top are all strikingly similar to the stone repository in Beishan Cave 136. The skirting roof with its well-articulated tiles and rafters clearly indicates that t he repository was modeled after a wooden structure. Further visual evidence for the revolving sutra cases comes from a set of drawings by Japanese pilgrims to Southern Song Buddhist monasteries. The drawings are dated to 1248, and one of them shows a parti cular wooden structure labeled as the “ bajiao lunzang 八角輪藏 (octagonal revolving repository)” found in the Jinshansi 金山寺 monastery in Zhenjiang 鎮江 (fig. 34). 65 The 64 The back of the repository is not hollowed out, leading Howard to the observation that it is five-sided. It could, however, indicate an eight-sided structure; this is proposed in Hu Wenhe 胡文和, “Dazu Baoding Pilu daochang he Yuanjue daochang tuxiang neirong yuanliu xin tansuo: poyi liudai zushi chuan miyin midi 大足寶頂毗盧道場和圓覺道 場圖像內容, 源流新探索 : 破譯六代祖師傳密印謎底 (A new exploration of the contents and origination of the images of the Field of Vairocana and Field of P erfect Enlightenment at Baoding in Dazu: deciphering the riddle of the transmission of the esoteric mudra by the Sixth Patriarch ),” Fagu foxue xuebao (2008. 2): 247-310. Hu has attributed the pictorial program of the cave to the representation of the Lotus Repository World. The connection to the Huayan School and perhaps also esoteric Buddhism has been pointed out by Howard and other scholars. This connection with Huayan visualization will be further discussed in Chapter 3 of this dissertation. 65 For a study of these drawings, their dating and transmission, see Zhang Shiqing 張十慶, Wushan shicha tu yu Nan Song jiangnan chansi 五山十剎圖與南宋江南禪寺 (Drawings of the Five Buddhist Mountains and Ten Monasteries and their connections with Southern Song Buddhist monasteries in the Jiangnan Region) (Nanjing: Southeast University Press, 2000 ). On p. 62, Zhang further supplies with information on Japanese repositories, which are believed to have been | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
76 section of the sutra case is excellently exposed: the entire structure appears to be hinged upon a single pivot fixed in t he center of a ground pit, whereas the other end of the pivot is inserted into the mezzanine or roof frame. The rotating core consists of many diagonal braces, providing support for the outer components. Like the examples mentioned above, the outer structu re has a dais at the bottom, the sutra cases (represented as lattices in the drawing) in the middle, and a crown at the top. Other formal features--including the balustrade, the columns with carvings, and the tiangong louge--are also recognizable. Accordin g to the Northern Song scholar Ye Mengde's 葉夢得 (1077-1148), while revolving sutra cases had been rarely used when he was young, they soon became widespread across China from metropolitan cities to poor villages, where six to seven out of ten Buddhist monas teries had one installed. 66 Associated with these sutra cases were rituals in which horns would be blown and drums would be beaten, bringing forth an audio-visual performance for the crowd, who would swarm to the monastery and line up outside its walls carr ying coins and bolts of silk on their backs. 67 Such ritual performances, in Ye Mengde's opinion, were not able to convey Buddhist teachings or inspire Buddhist followers as the devices were originally designed to do; instead, they became corrupted tools for monasteries to seek profit, and for patrons to solicit blessings simply by paying inspired by Chinese prototypes. Another work examining the relationship between C hinese and Japanese repositories is Zhang Shiqing, “Zhongri fojiao zhuanlun jingzang de yuanliu yu xingzhi 中日佛教转轮经藏的源流与形制 (Sources and types of Buddhist revolving sutra cases in China and Japan ),” Jianzhu shilun wenji 11 (1999): 60-71. 66 Ye Mengde 葉夢得, “Jiankangfu Baoningsi lunzangji 建康府保寧寺輪藏記 (Record of the revolving repository at the Baoningsi in Jiankang Pre fecture ),” in Jiankangji 建康集, 4. 8a-10a, http://ctext. org/library. pl?if=gb&file=10513&page=112 (image); http://ctext. org/wiki. pl?if=en&chapter=838905 (text). 67 “吹蠡伐鼓, 音聲相聞 ; 襁負金帛, 踵躡戶外, 可謂盛然. ” Carrington-Goodrich renders “ 吹蠡伐鼓, 音聲相聞 ” as “one can hear the sound of the wheels of the revolving cases turning (p. 137),” which was not necessarily the case. More likely, this describes t he musical instruments used or that some sutra-chanting rituals were performed when the wheel was turned. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
77 for the sutra case to be turned. 68 Huang Min-chih has demonstrated that Ye Mengde's criticism is in fact well-grounded: anyone who wanted to turn the sutra case was supposed to pay a formidable amount of money, and their payments indeed remained a major source of income for Song-dynasty monasteries. 69 The economic benefits stirred up construction: not only were revolving sutra cases being built in a greater number, but monaster ies often vied for producing the most grandiose work. In some cases, the repository was built surrounded by four smaller ones, making a five-wheel composite. 70 Others, however, have argued that the ultimate purpose for such extravagance was still to make sa lvation available to everyone. The abbot of the Shengfasi 勝法寺 in Changshu 常熟, for instance, has confided his opinion on this issue to Ye Mengde. The abbot asserted that the revolving sutra case could work only by providing its beholder an extraordinary vie wing experience. For commoners, he argued, “to instruct them with words would confuse them, whereas to teach them by books would tire them. The only means is to use the extravagant repository to convey religious solemnity and grandeur through its spectacul ar, extremely elaborate carvings and colorful embellishment. This will turn all those who come to seek blessings and repentance into faithful followers ” (與之言吾理則惑, 教以其書則怠. 惟轉輪藏侈, 極雕刻彩繪之觀, 以致其莊嚴之意. 68 Jiankangji 建康集, 4. 9b, http://ctext. org/library. pl?if=gb&file=10513&page=115. 69 Min-chih Huang 1996, 272-73. 70 One such five-wheel repository is recorded in Huihong 惠洪 (1017-1128), “Tanzhou faifu zhuanlunzang lingyanji 潭 州開福轉輪藏靈驗記 (d. 1119)” in Shimen wenzi chan 石門文字禪, 21. 2b-6a, http://ctext. org/library. pl?if=gb&file=1929&page=54 ; also in J23. B135. 21: 676b, http://tripitaka. cbeta. org/J23n B135_021. It is said that “a large wheel was built on the crest of the mounta in and surrounded by four small wheels at the four corners, like five standing humans 建大輪山之顛, 而輔以小輪, 四棋布 峙, 立如人聚. ” The miniature architecture is compared to the thirty-three heavens on the Sumeru ( Daoli gongque 忉利宮 闕, Sk. Trayastrimsa ), and other canonical Buddhist texts have been invoked to rationalize the symbolism of the five wheels. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
78 可使凡徽福悔過者, 一皆效誠於此 ). 71 In other words, it was no longer the contents but the appearance of the container that really mattered. Yuan and later Back to the Longxingsi sutra case, can we assume that it was installed in a similar light, out of similar motivations to preserve the Buddhist law, bestow blessings, convert the multitude, provide an expedient means to enlightenment, and perhaps also to commemorate the deeds and virtue of a certain patron? One has to admit that a single sutra case could have derived various different meanings for different audiences, and that over the course of its installation, dilapidation, restoration, and alteration, generations of users and patrons must have written and rewritten the religio us and social functions of this particular device. The aforementioned inscription of “Shengzhu benming changsheng zhuyan bei” informs us of how the Longxingsi sutra case was used in the early fourteenth century. It tells that Zhilihetai 執 禮和台 (Jirgu'atai, fl. 1339),72 a Mongol official, donated a hundred chapters of the Sutra for Humane Kings and fifty chapters of the Sutra of the Medicine Buddha to the monastery, together with a thousand strings of coins from his own salary to set up a fund for the continued provision of food and incense in the future. 73 As the inscription indicates, the monks were to perform rituals of “reading, turning, reciting, and chanting [the sutras] ” (看轉誦讀 ), which most likely involved the actual 71 “Changshuxian Shengfasi 常熟縣勝法寺,” in Wujunzhi吳郡志, 35. 6b-7b, http://ctext. org/library. pl?if=gb&file=4805&page=122 (image), http://c text. org/wiki. pl?if=gb&chapter=982353 (text). 72 Yuanren zhuanji ziliao suoyin 元人傳記資料索引 (Index to Yuan Biographical Materials ), p. 16092, retrieved from the China Biographical Database (CBDB), http://isites. harvard. edu/icb/icb. do?keyword=k16229&pageid=icb. page76535. 73 Changshan zhenshizhi 常山貞石志, 19. 15b-16a, http://ctext. org/library. pl?if=gb&file=31657& page=29. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
79 turning of the sutra case. What Zhilihetai asked for return was apparently the longevity of the emperor and the prosperity of the dynasty: “[I] wish and pray that the rule of the emperor persists for billions of ages, spanning over boundless territories, and that his royal bond with Buddhism lasts thousands of years ” (冀祝聖歷億萬載無疆之算, 結梵席千百年不斷之緣 ). 74 The same wish certainly also served as a proclamation of Zhilihetai's loyalty to the emperor. 75 In spite of Zhilihetai's good wish, Emperor Renzong died prematurely at the age of thirty-six, and the Yuan turned out a short-lived dynasty which collapsed in 1368, merely half a century after the stele bearing this inscription was erected. The revolving sutra cases, however, man aged to endure the vicissitudes of time and continued to survive, even flourish, in later dynasties. A well-preserved example is found in the Baoensi 报恩寺 in Pingwu 平武, Sichuan, dated 1446. Occupying the eleven-meter-tall space inside the library hall, the sutra case takes the form of a three-story octagonal wooden pagoda adorned with two levels of exquisite tiangong louge, showing a stunning resemblance to the feitianzang at the Yunyansi (fig. 35). 76 By contrast, the sutra case at the Zhihuasi 智化寺 in Beijing (d. 1444) looks vastly different from all previous examples: it has a marble dais and a rather bulky, octagonal body filled with densely arranged sutra coffers. The expression of architectural elements has been kept to a minimum, and the structure cannot be turned. These new 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. The inscription explicitly states toward the end, “Always contemplate the extreme devotedness of the subordinate (Zhilihetai), [whose donation] will indeed provide for the long years to come ” (永惟臣子至極之情, 寔為 歲月悠久之計 ). 76 This reposito ry is introduced in Xiang Yuanmu 向遠木, “Sichuan Pingwu Ming Baoensi kancha baogao 四川平武明 報恩寺勘察報告 (Survey report of the Ming-dynasty Baoensi in Pingwu, Sichuan), ” Wenwu (1991. 4): 1-19. http://www. nssd. org/articles/article_read. aspx?id=1002614790# ; Li Xiankui 李先逵, “Pingwu baoensi 平武報恩寺,” in Yuan-Ming jianzhu 元明建築 (Yuan-Ming architecture), ed. Pan Guxi, vol. 4 of Zhongguo gudai jianzhushi 中國古代建築 史 (History of Ancient Chinese Architecture) (Beijing: Zhongguo jianz hu gongye chubanshe, 1999), 323-29. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
80 changes in form and style might have been due to the increasing popularity of Tibetan Buddhism at the imperial court. 77 Even during the final years of the Ming, the miraculous power of the revolving sutra case to bestow blessings and facilitate enlightenment was still firmly believed by many. The Dijing jingwu lue 帝京景物略 (Overview of the famous sights in the imperial capital, 1635), when commenting on the sutra case at the Dalongfusi 大隆福寺 in Beijing, tells us that “people would chant sutras or donate coins; and when their merit became equal to that of [reading] the e ntire Tripitaka, the repository would be turned once ” (人誦經檀施, 德福滿一藏為轉一輪 ). 78 The text seems to suggest an almost reversal of the original function of the sutra case conceived by its inventor, Fu Xi: in the beginning, one only had to turn the repository to ob tain the same merit of reading the sutras; in late Ming, however, one needed be either literate or wealthy. 79 But the story ends with an interesting twist: “A poor girl, unable to either chant the sutras or donate coins, felt ashamed and distressed at heart. She then placed a single coin on the wheel, and the sutra case started to turn by itself incessantly ” (一貧女不能誦經, 又不能施, 內愧自悲. 因置一錢輪上. 輪為轉轉不休 ). 77 Liu Dunzhen 劉敦楨, “Beiping zhihuasi rulaidian diaochaji 北平智化寺如來殿調查記 (Survey notes on the Tathagata Hal of the Zhihuasi in Beijing),” Zhongguo yingzao xueshe huikan 3 (1932. 3): 1-69, reprint in Liu Dunzhen quanji 劉 敦楨全集 (Complete works of Liu Dunz hen) (Beijing:Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 2007), vol. 1, 47-85; Yan Xue 閆雪, “Beijing Zhihua chansi zhuanlunzang chutan: Mingdai Hanzang fojiao jiaoliu yili 北京智化禪寺轉輪藏初 探: 明代漢藏佛教交流一例 (A preliminary res earch on the revolving sutra case in the Zhihua Chan Monastery in Beijing: a case of the interaction between the Han and Tibetan Buddhism in the Ming dynasty ),” Zhongguo zangxue 85 (2009. 1): 211-15. 78 “Da Longfusi 大隆福寺,” in Dijing jingwulue 帝京景物略, by Liu T ong 劉侗 (1593-1636) and Yu Yizheng 于奕正 (1597-1636), ed. Zhou Sun 周損, 1. 78a-79b, http://ctext. org/library. pl?if=gb&file=24430&page=194&remap=gb (image), http://ctext. org/wiki. pl?if=gb&chapter=666227&remap=gb (text). 79 Carrington-Goodrich's translation goes: “People may read the canon or make donations. If one's virtue or gift is equal to one tsang 藏 [one of the t hree baskets of Buddhism] it is sufficient to make one turn of the wheel (p. 145). ” To me, however, the text still reads ambiguous. It could actually mean that one turn of the repository equaled reading the entire Tripitaka, but not necessarily which one s hould go first or be the prerequisite for the other. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
81 The construction and use of the revolving sutra case continued in the Qing and even today. 80 In 2007, the Song monastery Gaolisi 高麗寺 was reconstructed anew at its original location in Hangzhou, where a library hall and an octagonal sutra case were also built. The reconstructed sutra case is a fourteen-meter-tall, four-storied wooden pavilion believed to have faithfully embodied the Song character and style (fig. 36). It weighs several tons and c an be turned either manually or by the mechanical transmission and hydraulic drive system at the bottom. The century-old religious device has also become a peculiar cultural icon in contemporary art. In April 2010, a modern version of the revolving sutra c ase--its form obviously inspired by the Longxingsi example--was installed as the central piece of art at the exhibition of “Zhi de wenming 紙的文明 (All about paper)” in Shanghai (fig. 37). 81 The artist Tai Xiangzhou 泰祥洲 filled it with the Siku quanshu 四庫全書 instead of the Buddhist Tripitaka, and explained that by turning the sutra case, one was symbolically receiving all the wisdom recorded in the books. He called his installation a “fangbian famen 方便法門 (expedient means),” a term derived from Buddhist literature, and interpreted it to be a “cosmic model” or “cosmic mechanism” comparable to the particle colliders devised by modern physicists. Miniaturization as Deconstruction As proposed in the Introduction, miniature architecture can be interpreted as deconstructive architecture or anti-architecture because of the detachment of form from function (or in other words, sign from signified) resulted from the deliberate manipulation of scale. The reduction in scale 80 Two well-known Qing repositories are in the Yonghegong 雍和宮 and the Summer Palace, both of imperial nature and in Beijing. A probably late-Ming early-Qing example is at the Tayuansi 塔院寺 in Wutaishan. 81 A news report of this exhibition is at http://art. china. cn/zixun/2010-04/24/content_3480899. htm. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
82 is apparently a numerical or “qualitative” change, but it entails a series of “quantitative” transformations leading to structural redundancy and ambiguity. Such transformations are not only closely related to the development of Chinese wooden structures in history, but they also deconstruct and dissolve the very meaning of architecture, providing us a new perspective to discourses on architectural history. The Longxingsi revolving sutra case would be an excellent example to illustrate these points. Being essentially a receptacle for religious scriptures and icons, the sutra case does not feature a common-sense “architectural interior” to be occupied by humans. Instead, it denies any intrusion of the human body as if to preserve a sacred, unsullied, and impenetrable space. This determi nes that it no longer needs real entrances or exits, windows or doors, and yet the intention to keep the distinctive form of a wooden pavilion or pagoda has generated miniature versions of these architectural components which are now mainly decorative than functional. While imitation and numerical precision are still the primary goal during miniature-making, alterations and simplifications of design can nonetheless be freely embraced in the process as the miniaturist see fit. The following is an analysis of what particular architectural icons and patterns--which I term as “archetypes”--have been deconstructed in the making of the Longxingsi sutra case. Somewhat similar to the Jungian archetypes, the archetypes discussed here are not pure geometrical forms an d shapes but ones fully imbued with religious and cultural significances, deeply ingrained in their specific historical context, and evocative of certain feelings, memories, and notions. They are reminders of the past, but in the deconstructive process of miniaturization, their images and associated meanings have been forever destabilized and created anew. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
83 The octagon The most immediately perceptible archetype for the Longxingsi sutra case--and for almost all other surviving sutra cases introduced in the p receding section--is the octagonal structure. More specifically, it is the octagonal-based “pavilion-type pagoda ( lougeshi ta 樓閣式塔 )” which has been generally accepted as the ultimate visual source. The tradition of building octagonal architecture in China can be traced as far back as the Han tombs, but octagonal pagodas started to emerge not until the first culmination of Buddhist art in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. 82 The earliest surviving Chinese pagoda was the twelve-sided stone-hewn Songyuesi 嵩岳寺 pagoda (d. 520) built under the Northern Wei. Most pagodas at this early stage, including the well-known Simenta 四門塔 (d. 544) in Shandong, the stone pagodas found in the Yungang Caves 1 and 2 (fig s. 38, 39), and the legendary Yongningsi 永寧寺 pagoda (d. 516, now in ruins), were generally square in plan. 83 Interestingly, the octagonal design was perhaps first presented on a smaller scale by a group of miniature stone stupas found in Northwest China. The four teen stupas, dated to 426-436, are collectively known as the “Beiliang shita 北凉石塔 (Northern Liang stone stupas)” with an average height of forty centimeters (fig. 40). 84 Except but one, each stupa is composed of, from 82 Nancy S. Steinhardt, Chinese Architecture in an Age of Turmoil, 200-600 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014 ), 92-93. A Han-dynasty octagonal burial chamber is found near Luoyang. 83 Liang Sicheng regards the early stage in the history of Chinese pagodas as “the Period of Simplicity, or the Period of the Square Plan (ca. 500-900). ” See Liang Ssu-ch'eng [Sicheng], Chinese Architecture: A Pictorial History, ed. Wilma Fairbank (Cambridge : MIT Press, 1984), 124. A more nuanced discussion of the early period is in Nancy S. Steinhardt, “The Sixth Century in East Asian Architecture,” Ars Orientalis 41 (2011): 27-71, which relates the earliest pagodas to multiple sources including the mingtang and the N orthern Liang miniature stupas. 84 An examination of the eight inscribed stupas is provided by Stanley Abe, who argues that they should not be identified as miniatures of the stupas due to obvious differences in form, though they do display close visu al connections with Indian/ Central Asian architecture. See Stanley K. Abe, Ordinary Images (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002 ), 103-06, 123-66. Also see Alexander Soper, “Northern Liang and Northern Wei in Gansu,” Artibus Asiae 21 (1958. 2): 131-64; Su Bai 宿白, “Liangzhou shiku yiji he Liangzhou moshi 涼州石窟遺跡和涼州模式 (Remains of Liangzhou cave temples and the Liangzhou artistic mode),” Kaogu xuebao 83 (1986. 4): 435-46; Yin Guangming 殷光明, “Beiliang shita shulun 北涼石塔述論 (A discussion on the Northern Liang stone stupas),” Dunhuangxue jikan 敦煌学辑 刊 33 (1998. 1): 87-107; Angela Howard, “Liang Patronage of Buddhist Art in the Gansu Corridor during the Fourth | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
84 bottom to top, an octagonal base, a cylindrical body, a shoulder in the shape of an inverted bowl, a neck, a conical spire, and a hemispherical crown. The composition is largely “Indian or Central Asian” as observed by scholars, but many iconographical elements, such a s the cylindrical body and the spire, later became incorporated into the Chinese pagoda. 85 The octagonal plan became widely adopted for large-scale pagodas in the eleventh century. 86 The eight-sided, nine-storied wooden pagoda (d. 1056) at the Fogongsi 佛宫寺 in Yingxian, Shanxi, still stands as a supreme example of the pagodas of its time (fig. 41). Near the capital of the Northern Song (modern-day Kaifeng), most wooden pagoda s have been lost in time, but their images have been largely captured by two contemporary brick pagodas--the Kaibaosi 開寶寺 pagoda (d. 1049, more commonly known as the “iron pagoda of Kaifeng”) and the Kaiyuansi 開元 寺 pagoda (d. 1055), both multistoried and oc tagonal in plan. 87 For miniature architecture, however, Century and the Transformation of a Central Asian Style,” in Between Han and Tang, Religious Art and Archaeology of a Transformative Period, ed. Wu Hung (Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 2000), 92-107. 85 Dietrich Seckel, “Stupa Elements Surviving in Eastern Asian Pagodas,” in The Stupa, Its Religious, Historical, and Architectural Significance, ed. Anna Libera Dallapiccola and Stephanie Zingel-ave Lallement (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980). Seckel proposes two models of the development from stupa to pagoda. Generally speaking, one is the elongation of the original stupa along the vertical axis, resulting in a multistory tower; the other is the miniaturization of the hemispherical body and its spire to be placed on top of the pagoda, now as the latter's finial. Many scholars discuss the evolution of the Chinese pagoda, arguing that earlier prototypes includ e the que 阙 (gate towers or watchtowers) and other similar multistory wooden pavilions or towers. See Liang 1984, 124; and Lothar Ledderose, “Chinese Prototypes of the Pagoda” in Dallapiccola and Lallement 1980, 238-45, which considers the mingtang to be a likely p rototype because of its cosmological symbolism. 86 Liang 1984, 124. The Longxingsi repository falls in what Liang terms as “the Period of Elaboration, or the Period of the Octagonal Plan (ca. 1000-1300),” the second stage of the development of Chinese pagod as. 87 See Steinhardt 1997, Conclusion. It includes an overview of the development of Chinese pagodas, focusing on Liao and Song periods, the octagonal imagery, and the Womb World Mandala. Steinhardt claims the octagon to be the distinctive feature and grea test legacy of Liao architecture. See also pp. 353, 363. The octagonal plan was also adopted for burial chambers in the Liao and Xi Xia, sometimes accompanied by octagonal miniature pagodas as funerary objects and an octagonal mound aboveground. The use of the octagon is again discusses in Steinhardt 2011, 56, this time including the mingtang by Empr ess Wu and the Hall of Dream at the Horyuji. Also helpful is her lecture on the same topic at the University of Southern California on Feb ruary 19, 2014, where she argued that the purpose of the octagon was to approach the circular stupa. The formal resemblance between the octagonal-based pagoda and the repository is perhaps best showcased by a little known single-story wooden pagoda near Mogao named the Cishita 慈氏塔 (ca. 1000). See Xiao Mo 蕭默, Dunhuang jianzhu yanjiu 敦煌建筑研究 (A study on Dunhuang architecture) (Beijing: Jixie gongye | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
85 the octagon might have been applied even earlier: Daoxuan's lotus repository and Bai Juyi's revolving sutra case, as we have seen, were both eight-sided structures. Why did most sutra cases adopt an oc tagonal plan? On the one hand, there must have been technical considerations. The traditional square shape was replaced by the octagon because the latter was closer to the shape of a circle but technically more practical than a circular structure. The octagon was more exciting than the square; it demanded necessary breakthroughs of building technology, bringing forth more complex and labor-intensive projects which at the same time allowed the demonstration of advanced woodworking skills, virtuosity, and var iety. On the other hand were semantic considerations. It would seem only natural to make the sutra cases octagonal since the Buddhist structure they emulated--i. e. the pagoda--were themselves octagonal in plan. But one would lose sight of the bigger pictu re if one regards the sutra cases as simple imitations and hence signifiers of the pagoda; what could be derived from the octagonal, miniaturized form was in fact a hybrid of mixed images, iconographies, and symbolisms. As Eugene Wang has observed, the oct agon functioned as an architectural intermediary where Chinese cultural codes and cosmological ideals (the Eight Trigrams, the shi 式 divinatory boards, etc. ) sought to “translate” and incorporate imported Buddhist terms and visions. 88 The outcome was often one of ambiguity and confusion--a “Tower of Babel” effect--as not a single set of definitive references could be pinpointed. chubanshe, 2003 ), 387-91. Also to be considered is a type of pagodas known as the huata 華塔 (ornamented pagodas), for instance the ones in Chengchengwan 成城灣, at the Guanghuisi 廣惠寺, and the Qinghuasi 慶華寺, which all feature an octagonal base and a spire embellished by multiple miniature buildings reminiscent of the tiangong louge. 88 Eugene Wang, “What Do Trigrams Have to Do with Buddhas? The Northern Liang Stupas as a Hybrid Spatial Model,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 35 (1999): 70-91. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
86 The central pillar The second archetype for the Longxingsi sutra case is the “central pillar” in both physical and metaphysical senses. Many early monasteries featured the pagoda as the single most important monument occupying the center of the entire building complex. Scholars often trace the pagoda-centered layout to the Yongningsi mentioned above, where the square-based pagoda dominated the sky of the capital city of Luoyang, a spectacle which could be seen from one hundred li away. 89 Again, this layout was co nsidered at the time as an Indian original: Daoxuan's illustration (see fig. 30), for instance, shows a seven-story pagoda standing at the center of the ideal monastery. 90 Though other spatial configurations gradually gained more p opularity over time, in the eleventh century, the pagoda-centered layout was still in use, such as at the Fogongsi. At the Longxingsi, even without a pagoda, the idea of having a tall structure as the visual center and vantage point of the entire monastery has nonetheless been realized by the 33-meter-tall Foxiangge 佛香閣 (Fragrance Pavilion of the Buddha, est. 971, restored post-1950s ). For Buddhist cave temples, there is a certain type of “central-pillar caves ( zhongxinzhu ku 中 心柱窟 )” which typically feature a miniaturized, rock-cut pagoda at the center of the cave chamber 89 Yang Hongxun 楊鴻勛, “Beiwei Luoyang Yongningsi ta fuyuan yanjiu 北魏洛陽永寧寺塔復原研究 (Reconstruction of the Yongningsi pagoda in Northern Wei Luoyang),” in Jianzh u kaoguxue lunwenji 建築考古學論文集 (Collected essays on architectural archaeology) (Beijing: T singhua University Press, 2008), 328-341. Yang's reconstruction of the pagoda amounts to a total height of 147 m eters. The earliest literary evidence for the pagoda-centered layout is in Hou Hanshu 後漢書, which mentions Zuo Rong's 笮融 temple in Xuzhou. See Marylin M. Rhie, Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia, vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1999): 20. 90 A detailed examination of Daoxuan's illustration is given in Antonino F orte, Mingtang and Buddhist Utopias in the History of the Astronomical Clock: The Tower, Statue and Armillary Sphere Constructed by Empress Wu (Paris: Roma Istituto Italiano Per Il Medio Ed Estremo Oriente Ecole Francaise D'Extreme-Orient, 1988), 41-42, 46. The historical account of the transmission and preservation of the illustration and its text is outlined in the appendix to the Introductory Essay on pp. 51-52. See also Alexander Soper, The Evolution of Buddhist Architecture in Japan (Princeton: Princet on University Press, 1942), 36-37. A similar pagoda-centered layout has been adopted by the Shitennoji 四天王寺 (originally built in 593) in Japan. This is not the only layout adopted in Japan, however. Variations include the pagod a-kondo pair (Horyuji) and th e twin p agodas (Yakushiji and Todaiji). | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |
87 serving as the main niches for Buddhist icons as well as the principal vertical support (pillar) in the interior. The space around the central pillar then naturally provides the route for cir cumambulation. Examples include the Yungang Caves 1 and 2 (see fig s. 38, 39), the Beishan Cave 136 (see fig. 32), and many others at Mogao, Xiangtangshan 響堂山, and Kizil. 91 Though the actual form of the central pillar in each individual case varies, some apparently lacking identifiable architectural elements, the central pillar could still be interpreted as a symbol of the stupa in most cases. This symbolism is evidenced by an inscription (d. 698) found in Mogao Cave 332, where the patron, Li Kerang 李克讓 (d. 880), ordered the craftsmen to “carve out a treasure stupa in the middle [of the cave chamber], and leave the four sides open to form an ambulatory [around the stupa] ” (中浮寶剎, 匝四面以環通 ). 92 Scholars often read the central-pillar plan as a Chinese translation of the Indian chaitya, a rock-cut chamber of worship wherein a hemispherical stupa was usually placed at the center of the apse. 93 From a large Buddhist monas tery to a single hall or cave temple, the center seems to have been generally reserved for a stupa or pagoda, if not for a Buddhist image alone. Whether full-scaled or miniaturized, in wood or in stone, the stupa/pagoda functioned as an embodiment and 91 For studies on the central-pillar caves, see Li Chongfeng 李崇峰, Zhong-Yin fojiao shikusi bijiao yanjiu 中印佛教石窟寺 比較研究 : 以塔廟窟為中心 (A comparative study on Chinese and Indian Buddhist cave temples: focusing on the pagoda-temple caves ) (Hsinchu: Chuefeng Buddhist Art Foundation, 2002) ; Andrew K. Y. Leung, “The Architecture of Central-Pillar Cave in China and Central Asia: A Typological Study,” Ph D diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2007. 92 Translation after Sonya S. Lee, Surviving Nirvana: Death of the Buddha in Chinese Visual Culture (Hong Kong: H ong Kong University Press, 2010), 157. The full text of the inscripti on is included on pp. 278-81. The term baocha 寶剎 could mean either a Buddhist monastery or a stupa, and the two are sometimes used interchangeably (the latter being a metonym of the former). Cave 332 is identified by Lee as a “nirvana cave” based on its pictorial program and intended viewership. For a n analys is of its architectura l and pictorial characteristics, see pp. 146-69, including an examination of the content and background of the inscription. 93 Leung 2007, 62, 80. | di-luo-a-grain-of-sand-full-draft-3.pdf |