The first fully comprehensive survey of Chinese architecture, extending from the sixth century BCE to the present. An
278 127 52MB
English Pages 400 Year 2019
Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Chinese Dynasties
Map of China
Introduction: Beyond the Forbidden City
Chapter 1: Genesis of Chinese Buildings and Cities
Chapter 2: Architecture of the First Emperor and His Predecessors
Chapter 3: Han Architecture
Chapter 4: An Age of Turmoil: Three Kingdoms
Chapter 5: Northern Dynasties
Chapter 6: Sui and Tang: Architecture for Empires
Chapter 7: Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
Chapter 8: Grandeur and Magnificence under Liao and Western Xia
Chapter 9: The Chinese Building Standards
Chapter 10: Song Elegance and Jin Opulence
Chapter 11: The Chinese City between Tang and Ming
Chapter 12: The Mongol Century
Chapter 13: The Chinese Imperial City and Its Architecture, Ming and Qing
Chapter 14: Late Imperial Architecture in Chinese Style
Chapter 15: Convergences: Lamaist, Dai, Islamic
Chapter 16: Garden and House
Chapter 17: China Comes to Europe, Europe Comes to China, Chinese Students Come to the United States
Conclusion: Resolving the Forbidden City The Counteraxis
Notes
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Image Credits
Index
Chinese Architecture
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Chinese Architecture A History Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt
Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford
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Copyright © 2019 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Control Number: 2018961518 ISBN 978-0-691-16998-9 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Editorial: Michelle Komie and Pamela Weidman Production Editorial: Karen Lynn Carter Design: Luke Bulman Office, New York Jacket illustration: (front) Hall for Worship of the Ancestors, Ancestral Temple complex, Beijing, early fifteenth century with many later repairs. Photo by author (back) Residence, Hong village, Huizhou, Anhui, Ming-Qing. Photo by author Production: Steven Sears Publicity: Jodi Price and Katie Lewis Copyeditor: Anita O’Brien
This book has been composed in Atlas Grotesk and Cormorant Garamond Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in Hong Kong 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To the students
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Contents
xi
Preface Chinese Dynasties Map of China
1
Introduction: Beyond the Forbidden City
8
Chapter 1: Genesis of Chinese Buildings and Cities Cities and Buildings before Written Records Cities and Buildings of the Bronze Age Western Zhou to Warring States
viii x
20
Chapter 2: Architecture of the First Emperor and His Predecessors Rulers’ Cities Rulers’ Tombs Architecture of China’s First Empire
32
Chapter 3: Han Architecture Han Chang’an: The First Emperor’s Vision Realized Han Luoyang and Other Cities: Realistic Imperial Vision and Nonimperial Presence Han Tombs outside the Capitals Additional Evidence of Han Architecture China’s Earliest Buddhist Architecture
52
Chapter 4: An Age of Turmoil: Three Kingdoms, Two Jins, Sixteen States Urbanism and Palaces in an Age of Disunion New Buildings for a Buddhist Age Tombs
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72
Chapter 5: Northern Dynasties and Southern Dynasties Cities and Palaces Tombs of Royalty Tombs in Gansu, Koguryŏ, and Datong Great Age of Buddhist Cave-Chapels China’s Earliest Pagodas Toward a Timber Frame A Buddhist Monument to Pious Deeds Sarcophagus as Architecture
104
Chapter 6: Sui and Tang: Architecture for Empires Three Great Cities Palace Architecture in and outside the Sui-Tang Capitals Sacred Wooden Architecture Exemplary Tang Pagodas Tombs Five Extraordinary Buildings Tang Architecture outside the Empire
126
Chapter 7: Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Humble Halls for Aspiring Rulers, 963–966 Tenth-Century Timber Architecture before 960 Official and Royal Tombs Architecture of the Dali Kingdom
136
Chapter 8: Grandeur and Magnificence under Liao and Western Xia The Ancestral Prefecture Magnificent Halls—Liao Style Liao Pagodas Liao Tombs Octagonal Construction: Liao and Western Xia
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150
Chapter 9: The Chinese Building Standards Fundamentals of the Chinese Timber Frame Bracket Sets and Roofs Jiehua
162
Chapter 10: Song Elegance and Jin Opulence Religious Architecture North and South, 960–1127 Religious Architecture, 1127–1279 Secular Architecture
192
Chapter 11: The Chinese City between Tang and Ming Urbanism on the Grasslands Metropolises of Millions Jin Capitals The Road to Dadu Yuan Dadu and Zhongdu Cities and Princely Retreats outside the Capitals
202
Chapter 12: The Mongol Century Eminent Halls Other Yuan Buildings Architecture of Foreign Faiths
220
Chapter 13: The Chinese Imperial City and Its Architecture, Ming and Qing Imperial Nanjing Imperial Beijing Building Standards in Qing Palatial Architecture Altars Thirteen Ming Tombs Qing Imperial Architecture
246
Chapter 14: Late Imperial Architecture in Chinese Style Ming Buddhist Monasteries Monasteries on Sacred Peaks Architecture of Confucianism Three Towers in Shanxi
268
Chapter 15: Convergences: Lamaist, Dai, Islamic Architecture of Lamaist Buddhism Chengde: Qing Vision Realized Buddhist Architecture in the Yunnan Marshes Dong Towers Ming and Qing Islamic Architecture
298
Chapter 16: Garden and House Gardens of South China Imperial Gardens of Beijing Residential Architecture
314
Chapter 17: China Comes to Europe, Europe Comes to China, Chinese Students Come to the United States Chinoiserie Sequestered European Architecture China’s First Generation of Architects
334
Conclusion: Resolving the Forbidden City The Counteraxis
342
Notes Glossary Selected Bibliography Image Credits Index
348 357 377 378
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Preface
I am often asked how in the years when China was closed I came to study Chinese architecture. My passion for this field began in the early 1970s as a sophomore in Nelson Wu’s class, The Arts of Asia. It was followed the next year by a course entitled Chinese Architecture for which the textbook was a history of the subject written by Liu Zhiping in 1957. Professor Wu and Huang Pao-yü in Taiwan, whose lecture notes were based on a class taught by Liang Sicheng at Tsinghua University, would be the only teachers I would have through my doctoral education who had seen Chinese buildings. Finally, in 1983, I was in China. A conversation in a hotel lobby with a political science professor whose name I no longer remember has never left me. Knowing my interests, he asked me to explain what he should look for when standing in front of a Chinese building. I don’t remember what I said, but the question has been with me ever since because I know I was not satisfied with my answer. Someone as deeply engaged in this field as I already was—it had been the subject of my dissertation and I had already taught a one-semester survey of Chinese architecture—not only should be able to articulate what is most fundamental about a Chinese building and the Chinese building tradition but should be able to do it with more confidence than someone who gave a lecture or two on architecture in a class on Chinese art or one on China in a class on global architecture. I was far from an answer at that time, but as I think back, I already knew what he was asking me: Why did so many buildings look like so many other buildings? Why was he observing almost exclusively wooden pillars and bracket sets and ceramic tile roofs? Was there a reason so many buildings the tour guide had taken him to looked so similar, so much like small versions of what he had seen in the Forbidden City? Were there other kinds of old buildings in the countryside or that had been destroyed? I have taught survey classes on Chinese architecture seven more times since 1983, approximately every four years. Each time some of the buildings most pertinent to understanding Chinese construction and China through its architecture change. Yet the questions on which I began to reflect in 1983 have always been with me, as they have during each of the fifty or so times I have traveled to East Asia since then, each time I stand inside a building for the first time, and each time I return to one. Much of the canon in the books I read in the 1970s or 1980s is found in the pages that follow, but I have made important substitutions of better examples or newly surveyed
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structures and have eliminated some buildings based on new information that changes former understanding of them. Through the 1980s the books with the words gudai jianzhu (premodern architecture) published in China or Japan numbered fewer than one hundred, and almost every one contained unique information. In the 1990s it became more cost- and time-efficient to make annual trips to China and look at the books than to buy and read all of them, because new books often summarized older ones. In addition, the explosion of new information in periodical literature never made it to the books. The bibliography here reflects what I have found most important in my own pursuit to understand Chinese architecture: the classics of the field from the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century; seminal publications of scholars and research institutes of the 1970s and 1980s; detailed monographs about individual structures or compounds that exemplify how site research, measuring, and excavation combine with information on steles, inscriptions, local records, dynastic histories, and seminal periodical articles. The books and selected articles listed have been the core of reading for students and student papers in courses I have taught. The cover-to-cover contents of the periodicals from which those articles are drawn are necessary reading for someone who wants to engage more deeply in the Chinese architecture field. The book begins with the assumption that the reader may know nothing about China or about architecture. For that reason, and since more than 90 percent of scholarly study of China is in Chinese or Japanese, the endnotes are as short and succinct as possible; each title is listed in full in the bibliography. The notes are intended so that someone who seeks the next level of information knows where to begin, but the intent of the text is a coherent, continuous narrative through which the reader is not encouraged to stop, read the endnote, go to that source, and then return to the text. Also for the purpose of an uninterrupted text, Chinese characters appear only in the glossary of Chinese terms. Because many buildings in the course of four thousand years of construction have had the same names, the various usages of a name through all chapters, such as gate or hall or tower or monastery, are provided in parentheses. In most prefaces, the reader finds at this point a list of grants that provided leave from teaching to write a book. My research in China of course has often been funded by Penn and numerous outside sources, but this book was written through
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teaching and lecturing. My lecture notes and study guides in the eight Chinese Architecture classes as well as public lectures with a similar title and, most important, the questions from those who heard them, are behind the introduction, level of discussion, and decisions about endnotes, use of Chinese terms, and use of characters. This book reflects the fact that while a scholar must be a superior text-reader, the field has moved from desktop architectural history of the generation of my teachers to the assumption that anyone who reads this book not only can see almost every building discussed but can walk inside and around it, draw, measure, and, if there are stairs, ascend to the upper stories. As for every book or article I have written, I could not have finished this without the support of my family at every stage, and colleagues in Asia, North America, and Europe, or the support of Penn Visual Resources and Princeton University Press. Of the many, I single out Paul Goldin for reading this manuscript in its entirety; Petya Andreeva for checking the character glossary; Chen Wei for drawings; Constance Mood, Christal Springer, and Elizabeth Beck in Penn Visual Resources; and, at Princeton University Press, Michelle Komie for knowing it was time to write this book, Anita O’Brien for copyediting exactly as I would have written, Pamela Weidman and Steven Sears for working with each illustration individually, and Karen Carter for seeing the book through to publication. Still, it is the students in the Chinese Architecture surveys and higher-level seminars whom I have been fortunate enough to teach, and the more than fifty whose dissertations I have been privileged to advise at Penn and other universities, now all valued colleagues, to whom this book is so gratefully dedicated.
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Chinese Dynasties
Xia
ca. 2070–1600 BCE
Sui
581–618
Shang
ca. 1600–1046 BCE
Tang
618–907
Zhou Western Zhou Eastern Zhou Spring and Autumn Period Warring States Period
1046–256 BCE 1046–770 BCE 770–221 BCE 770–476 BCE 475–221 BCE
Qin
221–207 BCE
Five Dynasties Later Liang Later Tang Later Jin Later Han Later Zhou
907–979 907–923 923–936 936–947 947–950 951–979
Han Western Han Xin (Wang Mang Interregnum) Eastern Han
206 BCE–220 CE 206 BCE–9 CE 9–23 23–220
Three Kingdoms Wei Shu Wu
220–280 220–265 221–263 222–280
Jin Western Jin Eastern Jin
281–420 281–316 317–420
Ten Kingdoms Shu Later Shu Nanping/Jingnan Chu Wu Southern Tang Wu-Yue Min Southern Han Northern Han
902–979 907–925 935–965 907–924 927–951 902–937 937–978 907–978 907–946 907–971 951–979
Liao
947–1125
Sixteen States
304–439
Northern Dynasties Northern Wei Eastern Wei Western Wei Northern Qi Northern Zhou
386–581 386–534 534–550 535–557 550–577 557–581
Song Northern Song Southern Song
960–1279 960–1127 1127–1279
Western (Xi) Xia/Tangut
1038–1227
Jin
1115–1234
Yuan
1271–1368
Southern Dynasties Liu-Song Southern Qi Liang Chen
420–589 420–479 479–502 502–557 557–589
Ming
1368–1644
Qing
1644–1911
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Map of China
Lake Baikal
RUSSIA
KAZAKHSTAN Hailar Heilongjiang
Lake Balkhash
Qiqihar Harbin
MONGOLIA
Karamay
Changchun
Kulja
Nei Mongol
Urumqi
Jilin
KYRGYZSTAN
Shenyang Liaoning
Kashgar
Hebei
Xinjiang Hohhot
AFG.
Beijing
Yumen
Dalian
Tianjin
PAK.
Xining
Shijiazhuang
Taiyuan
Yinchuan Ningxia Golmud
Shanxi
Jinan
Lanzhou Gansu
Shiqunhe
Xi'an
Henan
Anhui
Shaanxi
Nanjing
Xizang
Chongqing Changsha
Fuzhou Fujian
Kunming Guangxi
Yunnan
Nanning
MYANMAR
National Capital City International Boundary Provincial Boundary
Bay of Bengal
500 km
TAIWAN
Guangdong Guangzhou Hong Kong
VIETNAM LAOS
Province Name Disputed Boundary
0
East China Sea
Xiamen
China
Hunan
Zhejiang
Jiangxi
Guiyang BANGLADESH
Xi'an
Hunan
Guizhou
INDIA
Hangzhou
Nanchang
NEPAL BHUTAN
Shanghai
Hefei
Hubei Wuhan
Sichuan Chengdu
Yellow Sea
Jiangsu
Zhengzhou
SOUTH KOREA
Yantai Qingdao
Shandong
Qinghai
Lhasa
NORTH KOREA
THAILAND
Haikou Hainan
South China Sea
PHILIPPINES
500 Mile s CAMBODIA
Map 1. Chinese provinces and major cities, autonomous regions, and bordering countries
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INTRODUCTION
Beyond the Forbidden City
Chinese architecture rises across more than 4,000 kilometers, on a landmass of 9.707 million square kilometers (3.748 million square miles) on the eastern side of continental Asia. Yet when the two words, Chinese and architecture, are joined, almost anyone on any continent, usually without hesitation, visualizes a building from the Forbidden City (figure i.1). Most often it is the Hall of Supreme Harmony where the emperor of China held court from 1420 to 1912. With the possible exception of the Great Wall, the Hall of Supreme Harmony is the most recognized structure in China; it is the cover image of countless books and the single illustration for every variety of media. The hall is the identifier of China worldwide, not only because it presents such a clear image—high marble platform, vermilion wooden columns, complicated bracket sets, and a golden ceramic tile roof—but also because innumerable other buildings in China have so much in common with it. One can begin with other imperial structures such as the Hall of Spiritual Favors (Ling’endian) where sacrifices to the Yongle emperor, the man who ordered construction of the Forbidden City, were performed after his death in 1424 (figure i.2). One finds the same multitiered, stone elevation platform, approach from the front by stairs, vermilion pillars, bracket sets above them that support roof eaves made of ceramic tile and punctuated by parallel rafters in a 67-meter-tall, multistory pagoda, an example of religious architecture (figure i.3). Wood, brick, stone, and tile, the four materials used in all three buildings and the predominant materials in Chinese construction through the five millennia covered in this book, are put together in this way for most of that time. These four materials are the province of craftsmen—carpenters, masons, and tilers—and unlike other Chinese arts such as painting or architecture in parts of the world such as Europe, Chinese construction has been considered a craft and its builders craftsmen for most of its history. Only a few names of men involved in the building industry in China before the twentieth century survive. Most of them were officials whose service at court included directing imperial-sponsored projects, perhaps occasionally even designing, and writing about construction. The classical Chinese language has no word for “architect,” only one for a person who engages in the craft of building. Instead, from as early as written records can confirm, the final millennium BCE, in every branch of Chinese construction—public or i.1. Forbidden City, Beijing, Ming-Qing, and today
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private, imperial or vernacular, religious or secular—principles and standards established centuries earlier dictated building practices. The standards were sanctioned and guarded by the Chinese court, and the government was the sponsor of all major manuals that dealt with official architecture. Craftsmen were not required to be literate, only to follow prescribed modules and methods so as to ensure that court dictums were followed. The treatises expound a standardized system of construction that is maintained not just in imperial buildings of life and death and a towering religious monument (see figures i.1–i.3) but in temples hidden in the mountains, houses, and shrines, and in paintings and relief sculpture of architecture through the ages (figures i.4, i.5). The treatises do not categorize Chinese buildings according to their functions but rather by importance. They also distinguish buildings by material. Wood, the most widely used material for the support system of architecture in China, receives the most attention. It is differentiated by grade through which techniques for largescale, important buildings are distinguished from smaller, less important ones. Wood joinery and the manipulation of timber more generally are unique aspects of Chinese architecture. The Chinese system goes far beyond the frame, referred to by Chinese builders as the wooden skeleton. The interlocking network of vertical, horizontal, and sometimes diagonal or curved wooden members through which a structure is supported is the result of a modular system whereby the measurement of almost any piece can be calculated from the dimensions of another piece. Modular construction on a larger scale means that from individual components such as pillars to entire planar sections of a building, all can be replicated, increased, decreased, repositioned, or eliminated to change a temple into a palace, a shrine into a house, or a humble dwelling into a lavish family compound, and vice versa (figure i.6). The proportional relationships throughout a Chinese structure have accounted for stability in severe earthquakes and have made it possible for any builder to repair or replace damaged parts, including those assembled in the distant past. The use of a modular system based on a building’s rank and the ease with which wooden parts can be remade, replaced, or moved are perhaps the main reasons the perishable timber frame persisted for so long as the primary structural type in China. In any configuration, the wooden pieces of a standard Chinese building divide themselves into three layers. Closest
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Introduction
i.2. Hall of Spiritual Favors, Changling, tomb of the Yongle emperor, Changping, Beijing suburbs, ca. 1424
to the ground is the column network. The pillars that support a Chinese structure form a perimeter around the building. Sometimes there are interior columns, sometimes forming a grid, sometimes a concentric, interior rectangular set, and other times only a few pillars. Sometimes pillars define a front porch. The second wooden layer, joined to the upper portions of columns or to beams that cross the columns, is the bracket set layer. Last is the roof frame, the part of the building that supports rafters and roof tiles (figure i.7). Below and above these three networks of wooden pieces, building components are made of other materials. The base of a Chinese building, the part that interfaces wood above it and earth below, ideally is made of nonrotting material, expensive stone such as marble for an eminent structure and brick or occasionally ceramic tile for a more humble one, and rammed earth when funds are limited. Only rarely are columns implanted directly into the ground. In more expensive buildings, columns are placed into pilasters rather than directly into a podium. A multilayer building foundation can be a sign of a structure’s eminence. The roof also defines a Chinese building. The roof, of course, is the protective cover for the interior. It is equally a decorative feature that displays a building’s rank but not its function. Most
often the Chinese roof is covered with ceramic tiles, glazed for more important buildings. Golden roof tiles and ornaments along the roof ridges are reserved for the most important buildings, both imperial and religious. Usually roofs of China’s most important buildings are hipped, sometimes with a second or even third set of eaves below the main roof. More than twenty styles of roof were used in pre-twentieth-century China. A comparison between the stick-figure frames in figure i.6 and the Hall of Supreme Harmony or Hall of Spiritual Favors (see figures i.1, i.2) is a dramatic indication of how straightforward it is to erect a Chinese building, even a highly elaborated one. It is an equally emphatic presentation of the fact that the most significant differences between figures i.1 and i.4 are the number of repeated building units, courtyards around them, and decoration. How is it possible that emperors who could afford anything and had a limitless labor force continued to live in timber-frame buildings that differed from humble temples or dwellings of their most lowly subjects only in the amount of wood used and expense of materials that adorned them? This is a field-defining question of Chinese architecture. i.3. Timber Pagoda, Ying county, Shanxi, 1056
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Beyond the Forbidden City
i.6. Six combinations of pillars, beams, struts, purlins, and rafters, the modular components of a timber frame
2 pillars 3 purlins 1 beam
2 or 3 pillars 5 purlins 2 beams
2 pillars 7 purlins 3 beams
5 pillars 7 purlins 3 beams
Some might say that a profound reverence for the past, for the building system of the ancestors, drove decisions to preserve patterns of antiquity in much later buildings. Continuing along this line of thinking, one should be reminded that Chinese painting, too, has a long history of imitation, in part because old masters were revered and in part because painters learned by copying their predecessors. Painters, however, were not anonymous, and some were recognized as masters. The names of thousands of Chinese painters and their works are recorded from the fourth century onward. Moreover, it is easy to demonstrate that pre-twentieth-century Chinese painting broke from its past much more dramatically, much earlier, and intentionally, compared to architecture, and the cleavages occurred long before the contacts with the world outside that were to ignite changes in Chinese buildings. The major difference between painting and architecture is that a painting on silk or paper can be made in private, rolled up, put aside, or hidden. A building requires large sums of money and land, whether a family house, an emperor’s palace, or an imperial or village monastery; bringing any of these to completion required an organized labor force. When a Chinese emperor built a palace or a villager contributed to a temple, history confirmed that those structures would outlive the patrons. The decision to build as China had in the past, in any century as recently as the twenty-first, was conscious and, in the case of the imperial monuments of Beijing, also political. An aspect of the political impact of China’s clearly recognizable architecture is that it is always recognizable out of
3 or 4 pillars 6 purlins 2 beams
2 or 4 pillars 9 purlins 4 beams
context, and the portable wooden pieces make it readily exportable. Anyone aspiring to make reference to China, from an admiring emperor of Japan in the eighth century who sought to model his nation after East Asia’s most powerful example of statehood (Tang China), to William Chambers, who designed the China pavilion in Kew Gardens in the eighteenth century as a reference to exotic places of the Orient eyed as potential colonies by the British empire, could accomplish that symbol through wooden posts and ceramic tile roofs, or clear imitations of them in other materials. The simplicity and clarity of the model have meant that China has been able to maintain this profound emblem of its civilization across far more than the 4,000 kilometers of the Asian continent that have constituted its empire through history. Part of the success of the Chinese architectural system is that its modular components render archetypes such as the bracket set and the ceramic tile roof, or the one tall building, the pagoda, that readily lend themselves to imitation. “China” and “architecture” are the dominant messages of countless buildings for a multiplicity of purposes in China and in locations far beyond. Reliance on past models and modularity are as important on a larger scale as well. Just as the Hall of Supreme Harmony is the archetypical individual structure, the Forbidden City in which it is central is the archetypical building complex. The eight fundamental features of Chinese spatial arrangement are present there. First is the horizontal axis. The primary axis is usually north-south, and the most important buildings are positioned on it. In figure i.1 we see north-south axial lines of buildings parallel to the axis of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and we also observe buildings on perpendicular east-west axes. Spatial magnitude is expressed by longer and longer lines along horizontal planes, not vertically, for space requires ownership of land, so that someone with wealth can exhibit that wealth
i.4. Qingliang Monastery, Yuncheng county, Shanxi, Main Hall repaired in second decade of fourteenth century i.5. Buddhist paradise, Mogao cave 217, Dunhuang, Tang period
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Introduction
Roof Frame Layer
Bracketing-system Layer (Duogong Layer)
temples, Buddhist or Daoist, are part of a group of buildings that in this book are referred to as monasteries when monks were resident or as temple complexes. Gates are the fifth feature. They are fundamental structures of any Chinese building complex—palatial, religious, funerary, or vernacular. Gates may be freestanding or attached to walls. They are psychological as much as physical structures. Like the enclosing spaces to which they may join, gates mark the boundary between more sanctified or imperial space behind them and the profane world in front or outside. The sixth feature is modularity, as important in building complexes as it is in individual buildings. Whereas a piece of a bracket set or dimension of a column or bay may guide the rest of the measurements in a building, in the Forbidden City the width of the Back Halls behind the Hall of Supreme Harmony cluster is half the width of the Three Great (or Front) Halls that include the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Almost all imperial building complexes in Beijing are based on modular dimensions. Rank, the seventh feature, is as much an aspect of building complexes as it is of individual structures. Just as the roof and its decoration indicate a building’s rank, the positioning of buildings according to formations such as the gong plan signify a complex’s importance. The final feature of Chinese space is privacy. It is achieved by four-sided enclosure and by gates. The private space, sometimes a garden, is where one may find a pavilion or other structure that breaks out of the standardized, modular system. Private space and its architecture are visible only to a select, personal audience. Siting, sometimes referred to as Chinese geomancy, a translation of fengshui, may also be considered a feature of Chinese space. The most difficult to articulate, implicit in the initial selection of a building site, is that it be in accord with the natural forces, specifically mountains and water. Often protective mountains, sometimes just artificial hills, are at the back of imperial construction, and often a water source is in front or runs through it. And so the Forbidden City and countless smaller, less elaborate Chinese buildings have symbolized China and been replicated for millennia. That many of those buildings survive in Beijing is in part because the city has been a Chinese capital almost continuously since the tenth century. Xi’an, known historically as Chang’an, was a primary capital for more than five
Axial Tie-beam
Column Network Layer
Column Architrave
i.7. Three timber layers of a Chinese structure: pillars, bracket sets, and roof frame
by more and more one-story buildings. Tall buildings, even with ceramic tile roofs, often look unnatural in a Chinese courtyard setting (figure i.8), for the second feature is that Chinese architecture, with the exception of the pagoda, which came to China as a foreign import from India, not only is onestory, it is human-sized. The height of columns across the front facade of the Hall of Supreme Harmony is about 8.43 meters, a mere five times the height of a man who would stand alongside them in an arcade. The courtyard is the third fundamental feature of Chinese space. In this spatial world dominated by four-sided enclosure, south, the orientation of the Forbidden City, is the cardinal direction. Sometimes buildings stand on four sides of a courtyard, other times three; but the fourth face is always implied. In these courtyards enclosed by walls or covered corridors, the most important buildings are often arranged in a capital-I-shaped formation, known as the gong plan, named after the Chinese character gong 工. It has been reserved for the most eminent architecture in China since the second millennium BCE. Fourth, every Chinese building complex has one focal structure, but no building stands in isolation. Implicit in the name of a building type, such as palace (gong), is that it is part of an architectural complex of interrelated buildings, courtyards, and enclosing arcades. Gugong, literally “former palace,” is the Chinese name of the entire Forbidden City. Individual Chinese
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Beyond the Forbidden City
i.8. Jueshan Monastery, Lingqiu, Shanxi, ca. eleventh century
hundred years. Luoyang and Nanjing have histories as capitals that are as long. These four cities are the locations of nearly all the buildings discussed in certain chapters of this book. Upon the establishment of the People’s Republic on October 1, 1949, archaeology became a state-sponsored enterprise that made it possible to write China’s early architectural history. Until then, the study of architecture before ca. 800 relied heavily on extrapolation based on architecture above ground and facsimiles of architecture on a small scale or in the form of painting (see figure i.5). The most famous tomb in China, in Lintong, today a suburb of Xi’an, which belongs to the First
Emperor, is one of hundreds of excavated sites through which the more than seven thousand years of Chinese architectural history are written. This very early architectural history, which could not have been written seventy years ago, is more detailed than it was twenty years ago, and is most likely to be altered by new discoveries in the next decade, is where we begin.
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CHAPTER 1
Genesis of Chinese Buildings and Cities
The date of the earliest evidence of architecture or urbanism in China is determined by one’s definition of a building or a city. The physical evidence of cities is earlier than evidence of individual buildings, probably because buildings were made of perishable materials whereas city walls were constructed of rammed earth. Urbanism in China begins by the sixth millennium BCE. The evidence of city building for the next four millennia is primarily archaeological, with a wall the defining feature of a Chinese city. This physical definition is reflected in the translation of the Chinese character cheng as both wall and city. When a wall is found, Chinese archaeologists assume that it signifies a group settlement. Walls were erected earlier in China than in any other part of East or South Asia but so far do not predate Jericho’s tenth millennium BCE wall. Chinese texts also offer a terse but clear statement about the earliest architecture: “In the remote past, (man) dwelt in caves or lived on open land.” Commentators explain its meaning as, “In the remote past, ancient rulers did not have palace halls. In the winter, they built caves, and in the summer, they erected nests.”1 The reference to rulers (wang) is because the source is a text of China’s classical age that focuses on the life of the elite. The significant aspect of this statement for architecture is the use of verbs that translate as built or erected: altering the landscape with architecture is a concept as old as the human realization of a need for shelter. Equally significant is that today, earth-sheltered dwellings and residential architecture raised on stilts are still used in China (see figures 16.14, 16.16). This is the first example of a Chinese building practice with a multimillennial history. Some date cave dwelling hundreds of thousands of years earlier than evidence of urbanism. Here we begin with the archaeological record of the sixth millennium BCE.
Cities and Buildings before Written Records Group settlements of extended families or larger units in which hunting, fishing, gathering, or planting may have been shared predate the formation or construction of cities in China by several millennia. Walled settlements whose inhabitants used stone implements and buried their dead in cemeteries trace to the sixth millennium BCE. A village in Li county, Hunan province, on the Yangzi River, had an earthen wall, 6 meters wide at the base that narrowed to about 1.5 meters at the top, roughly rectangular in shape, about 200
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meters east to west and 160 meters north to south. The wall was enclosed by a ditch, perhaps anticipating the moats that would become standard in Chinese cities for the rest of the premodern period.2 Several thousand kilometers to the northeast, in Aohanqi, Inner Mongolia, a ditch, but without wall remains, encompasses another settlement of similar size dated 6200–5400 BCE. Residential buildings there are believed to have been arranged in rows.3 Remains of more complex settlements, also without walls, are in Wuyang county of Henan province in North Central China where 9 pottery kilns, 10 sacrificial dog burials, 32 urn burials, 45 building foundations, 349 tombs, 370 ash pits, and thousands of other objects including a wind instrument were found at a site dated 7000–5800 BCE. 4 Semisubterranean communal dwellings from the fifth millennium BCE were discovered at Dadiwan in Gansu, China’s westernmost province. The site is more than a square kilometer, with several hundred residential foundations uncovered by the early twenty-first century. Foundation 901, a rectangular space oriented 30 degrees northeast, had a circular fire pit for cooking, with symmetrically positioned rooms on three sides. Two large pillars supported by pilasters were in the central area, right and left behind the fire pit. In front was an entryway or porch, a feature of other Dadiwan structures that is believed to signify residential architecture. That small area may have connected the pillar-supported, rectangular structure directly in front of it. The configuration of the main chamber with small rooms along its perimeter anticipates construction known as palaces at Erlitou from the second millennium BCE, discussed below. Connected large and small rectangular halls may anticipate gong plans of later time (figure 1.1). Floors of some of the Dadiwan foundations were painted.5 Dadiwan is a site whose artifacts identify it as belonging to Yangshao Culture, one of the major cultures of Neolithic China. Like most Chinese cultures of the period, it is named for a village (Yangshao) where numerous, representative examples of its pottery and other artifacts were excavated in 1921.6 Settlement began at China’s most famous preliterate site, Banpo, also an example of Yangshao Culture, in Shaanxi province, just east of Xi’an, in the fifth millennium BCE. Those remains have guided our understanding of Yangshao Culture since the 1950s. By the fourth millennium BCE, Banpo included houses of at least three sizes, three cemeteries, a pottery workshop, and animal pens (figure 1.2).7 Banpo is often compared with the 50,000-square-meter nearby site Jiangzhai, in Lintong
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GENESIS OF BUILDINGS AND CITIES
county of Shaanxi, where some 120 residential foundations were found. Jiangzhai is completely excavated; Banpo is still largely underground.8 A nearly circular wall, surrounded by a moat, enclosed a Yangshao settlement in Zhengzhou, Henan province, dated 3300–2800 BCE. The wall was framed by wooden planks between which earth was pounded into layers. Like the moat, walls of pounded layers of earth (hangtu) would be used in Chinese city construction well into the second millennium CE. One cannot conclude that circular settlements were preferred at this time, nor that the suggestion of a round enclosure anticipates ritual architecture that would stand several millennia later in China, but Chengtoushan in Li county, Hunan, also was enclosed by a circular wall and moat (figure 1.3a).9 Approximately 300 meters in diameter, Chengtoushan’s wall was 28.6 meters at the base and 20 meters thick at the top, to a height of between 5 and 6 meters. The walls are thicker than those at any other known settlement in Asia at the time. The contemporary city Pingliangtai, in Huaiyang, Henan province, is the earliest evidence of a squarish city, an idealized shape that would be associated with Chinese rulers in later millennia (figure 1.3b).10 Only 185 meters on each side, Pingliangtai has two other features that would be part of many future Chinese imperial capitals: a prominent entry was at the center of its southern wall; it was approached from the south by an avenue that continued northward, to divide the city into eastern and western sections. Pottery drainpipes excavated at Pingliangtai confirm that China had an underground drainage system at the same time as the ancient South Asian city Mohenjo-daro. Hemudu in Yuyao county of Zhejiang province, 22 kilometers northwest of Ningbo, flourished earlier and is the only site from this period that has wooden remains. The 40,000-square-meter site yielded pieces of notched timbers that would have been used in post-and-lintel construction, making it perhaps the most important location for the study of Neolithic Chinese wood joinery (figure 1.4). Remains are dated 5000–3200 BCE. Hemudu had a flourishing rice-growing culture more than six thousand years ago, with a population that raised pigs, water buffalo, and dogs. They used bows, arrows, and whistles, hunted and fished, made pottery vessels, and carved in bone and ivory. The largest structure with a wooden foundation was 160 square meters in base perimeter.11 Hemudu marks a dramatic change that occurred by the third millennium BCE across China: size. Cities served
1.1. Plan of main chamber, with fire pit in center of room with two interior pillars and rooms on three sides, connected by corridor to smaller room with complete grid of pillars in front, foundation 901, Dadiwan, Qin’an county, Gansu 1.2. Reconstruction of moat-enclosed sector of Banpo showing “Great House” and residences with pyramidal and circular roof. On display in Banpo Museum in 1983 1.3. Plans of Neolithic Chinese cities: a. Circular plan of Chengtoushan, Li county, Hunan province, 3300–2800 BCE. b. Squarish plan of Pingliangtai, Huaiyang, Henan, third millennium BCE
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populations that spread as many as 90 kilometers in more than one direction from the center. Taosi in Xiangfen, southern Shanxi, is an example. Three million square meters (approximately 1.2 square miles) with multiple walled areas and a 30,000-square-meter cemetery, Taosi is a precursor or a very early example of the urban center around which a state and in which a society organized. The pattern would continue in China for several more millennia and would be described in writing by the first century CE. The second aspect of size as an agenda of construction in third millennium BCE China is the “great house” (Dafangzi), shown in the reconstruction of Banpo (see figure 1.2). Dafangzi is a Chinese term used to designate a structure significantly larger than others in the same settlement. Dafangzi are usually understood as palatial or ceremonial space. One thereby further assumes a kingly and/ or priestly class. Dafangzi, especially in mid-twentieth-century Chinese writing that seeks to understand Chinese architecture in the context of contemporary society, is sometimes interpreted as a communal space. A Dafangzi also is believed to have existed at Hemudu. Some of the most impressive buildings and cities in third millennium BCE China are associated with the Neolithic culture known as Longshan. More than fifty walled Longshan settlements from this period have been uncovered along the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers. Since its discovery in the 1920s, China’s most famous Longshan city has been at Chengziya(i) in Zhangqiu county, Shandong province. Dated ca. 2600 BCE, the pounded-earthen wall was an irregular rectangle, roughly 445 by 540 meters. The wall had 10-meter sides at the base and was about 5 meters wide at the top; today parts stand to a height of about 7 meters.12 Shimao, a late Longshan site in Shenmu county of Shaanxi, on the Yellow River near today’s border with Inner Mongolia, is likely to surpass Chengziya in important information about both Longshan Culture and the period just after it.13 Dated ca. 2000–1700 BCE, Shimao is the largest walled city of the period so far in China, and one of the most heavily fortified. Oriented roughly southward, its stone walls, the earliest evidence of this feature in China, enclose an area of 4 square kilometers with corner towers and the earliest evidence of fortified projections out from the city wall known in later China as mamian, literally “horse faces.” Gates are huge: the east gate stands on 2,500 square meters of space. In contrast to the wall, the gates, towers, and mamian are made of tightly packed, pounded earthen
layers and then faced with stone. Oriented roughly northsouth, Shimao divides into eastern and western sectors (figure 1.5). Traces of paint indicate that Shimao has some of the earliest evidence of murals in China. Northern and southern walls, each about 500 meters in length, a 353-meter eastern wall, and north and south gates of a nearly south-oriented city were uncovered at Guchengzhai in Henan province. One exceptionally large building, presumably a Dafangzi, and other residential architecture were found as well. Its area was 176,500 square meters. Walls and building foundations were made using the rammed-earth technique. Guchengzhai is a late Longshan settlement, dated ca. 2000 BCE.14 A large, high mound of which more than 7 meters remain in Niuheliang, Liaoning province, an example of Hongshan Culture (ca. 4700–2900 BCE), is known as Female Spirit Temple because statue pieces believed to be female were uncovered there. Stone platforms and burial mounds were found above jade and other expensive materials.15 In South China at Yaoshan, in Yuhang district of Hangzhou, and other sites where Liangzhu Culture (ca. 3300–2300 BCE) is present, altars and jade objects that attest to ceremonies have been excavated. The walled area around Yaoshan was 1,500–1,700 meters east to west by 1,800–1,900 meters north to south.16 By the early twenty-first century, two gates had been found in each of the north, east, and south walls. Examples of the lightgreen-white jade named Liangzhu Jade because of this location have been excavated at tombs in the vicinity since the 1930s. The most intriguing structure in Yaoshan is the man-made mound 4 meters high and about 3,000 square meters in area. Eleven rectangular graves are exposed on it today (figure 1.6). It is believed to be a ritual altar. Evidence indicates that Liangzhu Culture communities were supported by rice growing in the third millennium BCE. The Yaoshan burials have been used as evidence of ancestor worship.17 Whether or not ancestors were the purpose of construction, remains at Niuheliang also support the idea that an 1.4. Notched timbers, excavated at Hemudu, Zhejiang, ca. fifth millennium BCE 1.5. Remains of east gate, outer wall, Shimao, Shenmu, Shaanxi, 2000–1700 BCE 1.6. Likely altar with graves, Yaoshan, Yuhang, Zhejiang
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altar and thus ritual were part of the Chinese building tradition before the third millennium BCE. Dafangzi, as mentioned above, also may have been related to rituals. Before 3000 BCE, then, there is evidence of architecture and urbanism all over China: Hunan, Liaoning, Henan, Gansu, Shaanxi, Zhejiang, and Inner Mongolia, Southwest, Northeast, West, and Central China on today’s map. All the remains indicate that by 3000 BCE, terre pisé (rammed-earthen) walled settlements enclosed by drainage canals with systematically arranged residential architecture, cemeteries, and sometimes workshops existed across China, and that wooden pillars were the primary support system for buildings. By the end of the third millennium BCE, large settlements had overshadowed villages. Timber framing was a technology of construction. Walls and building foundations were made of rammed earth; mud-earth and sun-dried bricks also were used for buildings, sometimes to fill in walls of the timber frame, and stone also was used for walls and altars. Whitewash and other forms of paint covered surfaces. Tombs and workshops, including kilns and areas designated for handicrafts, were part of Neolithic cities and smaller settlements. Great Houses suggest communal hierarchy, perhaps the notion of centrality (not enough is known about their locations to confirm this), and perhaps ceremonial altars or other spaces. These features have been found throughout the regions that would unite as China approximately 2,500 years later.
dynasty, finds at Erlitou could define it. Some believe Erlitou was a Xia capital.18 Its architecture, as well as bronze vessels of the shapes known as jue, ding, and he, bronze plaques inlaid with turquoise, carved jade and bone, lacquer, shells, and pottery attest to the complexity of life at Erlitou. The turquoise is believed to have been local and thus not evidence of trade with other regions. The population of Erlitou at its peak is estimated at eighteen thousand to thirty thousand.19 An area with more than thirty building foundations is known as the palace-temple complex. In the early years of excavation, building foundations of rammed earth were assumed to be palaces, but the presence of tombs designated as belonging to elite members of this society because of the objects found in them raises the possibility that some of the structures were for ritual. Among seven large sets of remains identified by the 2010s are three features that would be present through the next four millennia of Chinese architectural history: building complexes labeled by excavators as palaces (gong) are oriented toward the south; each has a pillar-supported structure divided into interior rooms near the center and facing south inside a much larger enclosed courtyard; and a gate sits in the south-enclosing arcade or wall (figure 1.7). The principles mentioned in the introduction—main buildings along a north-south axial line, four-sided enclosure, and the importance of gates—thus were in place here. By 1600 the dynasty known in Chinese texts as Shang was underway. Characterized by bronze vessels made with ceramic piece molds and decorated with motifs sometimes known as taotie or shoumian wen (animalistic or beast-faced patterns), the early Shang dynasty is known in architecture for huge cities. Like Erlitou of ca. 1700 BCE, the largest cities dated after ca. 1600 have often been identified as Shang capitals. The preeminent historian of Chinese archaeology of the twentieth century, Kwang-chih (K. C.) Chang, believed that the Shang dynasty had sacred capitals whose locations did not change and auxiliary capitals that did. In ca. 1600 enormous walled cities were built in Henan. They represent Erligang Culture.20 The Shang city wall beneath the modern city Zhengzhou in Henan, for example, was 6,960 meters in perimeter and between 20 and 32 meters wide at the base. Eleven gaps in the wall probably are the locations of gates. The wall was built with a technique known as banzhu in which earth was rammed between wooden planks. The sections of earth were about 3.8 meters
Cities and Buildings of the Bronze Age The entry into the second millennium BCE is coincident with the period sometimes known as the Xia dynasty (ca. 2070–ca. 1600 BCE). Shang (ca. 1600–1046 BCE), more widely accepted as a dynasty, follows. The manufacture of bronze objects predates Shang, and the pictographic writing system develops during it. China’s most important architectural remains of Xia and Shang are along the Yellow River, much of it in Henan province. Erlitou in Yanshi county, Henan, is on the Luo River, which runs through the city of Luoyang on the western side. Excavation began at the 4-square-kilometer site in 1959. There were at least four phases of occupation at Erlitou from ca. 1900 to ca. 1500. The largest of all contemporary sites in China, by the early twenty-first century Erlitou was understood as the core of a culture descended from Longshan that spread across western Henan and southern Shanxi, and if there were a Xia
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1.9. Plan of Shang city at Yanshi, Henan, ca. 1600 BCE
1.7. Reconstruction of palace 1, Erlitou, Yanshi, Henan Luoyang Museum 1986 and 2005 1.8. Remains of walled city, Erligang period, Zhengzhou, Henan
high (figure 1.8). More than twenty palatial building foundations were excavated in the north center and northeastern sectors of the city in an area of around 800 meters east to west by 500 meters north to south. A foundation of about 2,000 square meters divided into nine rooms served as the Dafangzi or its Shang-period successor. Excavation confirms that human sacrifice was performed in the northern section of the Shang city. The Shang city sometimes known as Yanshi after the county in which is it located, and other times as Shixianggou (Shixiang ditch) because of the drainage canal that runs through it, is in the same county that today includes Erlitou. Shixianggou had multiple walled sectors. The outer wall was only one-tenth the size of the contemporary Erligang-period city in Zhengzhou. Shixianggou had seven outer-wall gates. An inner city of 740 by 1,100 meters shared the southern wall and southern sections of the eastern and western walls of the outer city. At its center was a palatial sector that can be called a palace-city (gongcheng), approximately 200 meters square. Building foundations were
positioned symmetrically on the east and west. The walls of the three cities, outer, inner, and palace, were 16–25, 6–7, and 2 meters in thickness, respectively (figure 1.9). The outer wall was surrounded by a moat of 20 meters in width. Sacrificial burials and an underground drainage system confirm this as a model example of Erligang (early Shang) urbanism, and there surely was a palace-city; but the small size has led to suggestions that a major purpose of this city might have been defense rather than a royal center.21 A small city would be much easier to defend, and Yanshi’s very narrow gates may further support the idea that the construction sought to make entry as difficult as possible. It is also possible that Shixianggou was built by conquerors right after the conquest of Xia at Erlitou. Palatial foundations at Shixianggou confirm that the buildings they upheld were planned according to the same principles observed at Erlitou: a main structure supported by columns on its exterior was divided into interior rooms; an enclosing structure, perhaps a pillared arcade, contained the courtyard
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in front of it; a gate was centrally positioned in the front part of the enclosure, at a place that formed an axial line near the center of the back chamber. Erligang Culture spread from the Yellow to the Yangzi River. Since 1954 Panlongcheng, in Hubei province, has been the most important example of Erligang architecture and one of the most important sources of bronze vessels outside Henan province before the year 1300 BCE. Located 450 kilometers south of Zhengzhou, about 5 kilometers from Hubei’s largest city, Wuhan, the 75,000-square-meter wall (about 290 by 260 meters) that enclosed the Shang city in Hubei was roughly four-sided, with water flowing around all but the northwestern corner and probably with a gate in each wall face. Three large building foundations have been excavated inside the walled area and 38 tombs, among which 350 bronze vessels were found, are outside the walls. One of those tombs is the largest Erligang tomb known.22 The outer wall of the city at Panlongcheng is made by the same technique used at the Zhengzhou city: layers of rammed earth were packed between and around wooden planks, with the widest base thickness 45 meters and the narrowest surviving part at the top, 18 meters. Intramural architecture, however, suggests a more complicated building arrangement than can yet be verified at other Erligang sites or at Erlitou. Structures known as foundations 1 and 2 are positioned in front and back of each other in an enclosure to which they are attached by side arcades. A gate is at the central front. In reconstruction, the complex not only confirms the axial arrangement of major buildings, use of a front central gate, and four-sided enclosure around courtyards, it anticipates arrangements of imperial and other eminent space in China such as the original configuration of Back Halls of the Forbidden City (figure 1.10). Panlongcheng’s tombs are rectangular pits. Some had a feature known as yaokeng (waist pit), an additional pit below the main burial area that usually contained one or more sacrificial human or animal corpses. Yaokeng are associated almost exclusively with Erligang burials.23 When a single, clearly important example exists, in this case a front-and-back-hall arrangement that anticipates a building configuration employed by Chinese emperors 3,500 years later, it is noteworthy. A second example of the same arrangement makes it possible to consider whether the configuration was a style of the period. A nearly square, rammed-earth wall, 300– 310 meters on each face, uncovered in the 1990s at Fucheng, in
Jiaozuo county, Henan, is such a site. The wall enclosed a building foundation with two south-oriented halls in front and back of each other, important evidence that front and back halls were the focus of a city sector, even on this small scale, in the middle of the second millennium BCE.24 A slightly larger city in Yuanqu county of Shanxi, whose four wall segments were between 336 and 400 meters in length, had a palatial sector just east of the center of the enclosure.25 The arrangement of buildings is not clear enough to support the front-and-back-palaces concept. The bottoms of the outer wall were less than half the thickness of their counterparts at Erligang, but portions along the south and west were double that size. The palace was roughly in the center. The sizes of the cities in Jiaozuo and Yuanqu have led to the suggestion that they may have been military outposts of Shang capitals in Zhengzhou or Yanshi. Shang China’s most important city and presumably, therefore, the location of Shang China’s most sophisticated architecture, was the last capital, sometimes referred to as Yinxu (ruins of Yin), today in Anyang, Henan. Whereas some still dispute whether the ruins in Zhengzhou and Yanshi are of previous primary capitals of the Shang, there is no question that the ruler named Pan Geng moved the capital to this place in Anyang or that it endured there for 274 years until the fall of the Shang dynasty. Excavation began in 1928 under the direction of Li Chi (pronounced Li Ji) and others. The ruins of massive pit tombs, with approach ramps from north and south, and sometimes also from east and west, gained immediate international attention. Excavation at the Shang site in Anyang has occurred every year since 1928 except for the period 1937–1949. The last Shang capital flourished from about 1300 to about 1050 BCE. The Anyang core spanned about 36 square kilometers on either side of the Huan River, and the settlements that formed a network around it spread even farther in all directions. Among the remains are thousands of tombs and yet more thousands of sacrificial burials, and thousands of artifacts in bronze, bone, ivory, jade, stone, pottery, and horn, and even a few fragments of painting. A walled sector of about 4 square kilometers that includes some of the earliest ruins, all from stage one of the four stages into which remains have been divided, is north of the Huan River. So far, a wall around the entire city cannot be confirmed.26 The area of Anyang known as Xiaotun, named after the village where it was uncovered in the 1930s, is due south and west of the Huan River, with a moat enclosing it on its other two
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sides. It extends about 1,100 meters north to south and about 600 meters east to west. Fifty-three large, rammed-earth foundations comprise the most important palatial-ritual sector whose buildings divide into three groups, the first with fifteen foundations (100 by 90 meters), the second with twenty-one foundations (200 by 100 meters), and the third with seventeen foundations (50 by 35 meters). The first group includes a building that was 46.7 meters long, and the second group has an 85-meter-long foundation. Both were long and narrow, 10.7 and 14.5 meters wide, respectively. The Xiaotun excavations are also the source of thousands of oracle bones, turtle plastrons, and bovine scapulae that were burned and, based on the cracks, used for divinations, sometimes with the inscriptions of the prognostication on the bones.27 The tomb of Lady Hao (Fu Hao), consort of King Wu Ding (ca. 1250–1192 BCE), is south of the Huan River, about 100 meters northwest of Xiaotun. A simple pit tomb of 5.6 by 4 meters and 7.5 meters deep, and showing no signs of robbery when it was excavated in 1976, it contained bronze vessels on which the occupant’s name was inscribed. The inscriptions confirmed information about her life known through other records, including oracle bone inscriptions, found elsewhere in Anyang. Architectural remains on top of the tomb may be from a ritual or sacrificial hall. Sixteen sacrificial burials were found in the pit. Nearly two thousand objects, including more than two hundred bronze vessels and nearly six hundred jades, were uncovered. More than one hundred medium-sized tombs and about four thousand small tombs had been excavated among the Shang Anyang ruins by the early twenty-first century. Medium-sized tombs contained as many as eight sacrificial burials, but small tombs contained a single corpse, often in a coffin of about 2 square meters at the base. There were, in addition, thousands of pits of sacrificial burials, evidence of this practice often in the form of decapitated or dismembered skeletal pieces. Excavations document more than ten thousand sacrificial burials in the centuries the Shang capital flourished in Anyang.28 The royal cemetery of the Anyang capital, at the site known as Xibeigang, is one of the extraordinary necropolises of the second millennium BCE (figure 1.11). Located north of the Huan River and 1.5 kilometers from Xiaotun, it contains thirteen tombs, seven of them in all likelihood housing the kings from Wu Ding to Di Yi, and an unfinished tomb perhaps intended for Di Xin, the man during whose reign the
1.10. Theoretical reconstruction of palatial complex at Panlongcheng, Huangpi, Hubei, ca. 1400 BCE 1.11. Royal Tomb no. 1001 from cemetery at Xibeigang, Anyang, Henan ca. thirteenth century BCE
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Western Zhou to Warring States
Shang fell. The tombs entered from four sides probably were for kings, and those with one or two entries probably belong to royal wives. Each tomb is more than 200 square meters, oriented northward, and has an outer coffin made of wooden planks. The tombs divide as eight on the west and five on the east, each self-contained but some sharing approach ramps or with approaches built above earlier ones. Every royal tomb had sacrificial burials, as are indicated by decapitated and dismembered parts shown on the left side of figure 1.11, some with more than two hundred, as well as sacrificed animals, inside it. In addition, the area on the eastern side of Xibeigang, where there are fewer large tombs, is filled in with sacrificial pits and individual burials.29 Different parts of China entered the Bronze Age at different times, but every province and autonomous region contains evidence of Bronze Age architecture. Excavation at Aduuchuluu, in Wenquan county of Inner Mongolia, for instance, yielded large building foundations, stone tombs, and stones in the shape of horse heads, the last giving it its Mongolian name that transliterates into Chinese as Adunqiaolu.30 Shang architecture lends itself to global assessments. Comparisons focus on aspects of Shang society that can be derived from cities and tombs discussed here in combination with information in oracle bone inscriptions. From the physical and written sources, Shang emerges as a hierarchical society in which rule passed from older to younger brother or father to son. The Shang worshiped Shangdi, sometimes translated as High Lord, and their own ancestors, presumably in large structures or outside. Shang society had lineages and clans, and members who held titles and ranks. It is believed that the fifty-three large building foundations at Xiaotun belonged to or were used by elite members of society. The Shang had a primary capital at any given time, but it moved in the course of the dynasty. Shang also had lesser cities and perhaps military cities, the last type a possibility because the Shang ruling class had a military. Shang had a royal necropolis that contains evidence that when a ruler died and probably during other kinds of ceremonies large numbers of humans were sacrificed. Based on these well-established understandings of Shang, comparisons have been made with civilizations with the same level of bronze technology in the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Nigeria, Mesoamerica, and the Andes. It is often queried if Shang cities were city-states, a question that also is asked of China’s first millennium BCE.31
The first millennium BCE, coinciding roughly with the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE), was also a Bronze Age in China. During this period, we know the name of every primary capital, when it flourished, and its rulers. Historians divided the Zhou dynasty into Western Zhou (1046–770 BCE) when the primary capitals were at Feng and Hao, both in the West near Chang’an (Xi’an), followed by the Eastern Zhou (770–221 BCE), whose capital was to the east in Luoyang. Eastern Zhou is further divided into the period of Spring and Autumn (770–476), named after a text (Chunqiu) that records events according to the season through the reigns of twelve dukes from 722 to 481, and the period of the Warring States (475–221). Texts of the period as well as long bronze inscriptions provide important information about building practices not only of Zhou but of its predecessor Shang. The written sources from China’s first millennium BCE are voluminous. The middle of the millennium was the age of Confucius (551–479) and the age of Chinese philosophical writings that include the Shujing (Book of Documents), Shijing (Book of Odes), and Yijing (Book of Changes), all written before unification of the states in 221 BCE by the Qin. The Shijing, for instance, states that Feng, the capital built by King Wen (1152–1056) of Western Zhou, was walled.32 The wall does not survive, but it is certain that King Wen’s city was 6 square kilometers and located on the western bank of the Feng River. Hao, also known as Zongzhou, the capital of Wen’s successor King Wu (r. 1046–1043), was on the opposite side of the river. It was 4 square kilometers in area. More than ten large building foundations have been excavated at Feng, the largest, more than 3,000 square meters.33 An underground sewage system, bronze foundries, ceramic workshops, and semisubterranean and cave dwellings have also been found. The royal cemetery of Western Zhou rulers has not yet been discovered, but four large tombs that belonged to the family of an early-ninth-century minister of the Zhou dynasty have been excavated. Each had a designated wooden chamber in which nested coffins remained. These tombs are examples of the highly important lineage system of the Zhou. Indeed, families were buried in lineage cemeteries. In these cemeteries, commoners were separated from the nobility, whose tombs were placed according to their relationship with deceased ancestors of their clan and so as to determine the burial positions of future generations. Cemeteries of nobility often included sacrificial
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genesis of buildings and cities
1.12. Theoretical reconstruction of palatial complex at Fengchu, Qishan, Shaanxi, ca. twelfth century BCE
burials. Before their conquest of Shang, the Zhou royal family lived in Zhouyuan (plain of Zhou), a 15-square-kilometer site in Shaanxi province about 140 kilometers west of Xi’an in the present-day counties of Qishan and Fufeng near the modern city Baoji. History records that Gugong Danfu, the grandfather of King Wen (1099–1050), moved the Zhou capital here, to the foot of Mount Qi (Qishan). Two of the most important architectural remains of China’s Bronze Age were built at these two sites during this period known as predynastic Zhou. The building complex in Fengchu, Qishan, was 32.5 meters east to west by 43.5 meters north to south (figure 1.12). Following a screen wall on the south, a gate and rooms along an arcade enclosed the compound. The three-bay gate is directly behind the screen wall, positioned symmetrical to the central entryway. The gate, hall behind it, and arcade form four sides of a courtyard, an early example of the Chinese principle later known as siheyuan, four-sided enclosure. The equally important principle of Chinese eminent construction, the gong scheme, is achieved by the central hall, corridor, and connecting causeway. The main central hall is approached by three sets of stairs. The courtyard arrangement, gong plan, centrality of the main hall, axial arrangement of main structures, and pillars that define a bay system all anticipate the Forbidden City and countless other buildings complexes for important purposes in China for the next three millennia. Screen walls also are used in the Forbidden City and numerous other architectural settings for the duration of traditional-style construction. More than seventeen thousand oracle bones or fragments were found among two hordes in rooms on the western side of the Fengchu enclosure, nearly three hundred of them inscribed. References to specific Shang kings are the reasons the site is dated to just before the move of the Zhou capital to Feng.34
By the first decade of the twenty-first century, Shaochen in Fufeng, Shaanxi, about 25 kilometers southeast of Fengchu, had yielded fifteen building foundations that date from ca. the eleventh century BCE to late in the Western Zhou period. The majority, including the three largest, date to the middle of the Western Zhou. Enough pieces have been found to generate theoretical reconstructions of all three, and more than one proposal for certain aspects of the reconstructions. All supported by timber frames and all elevated on earthen platforms, foundation 8 appears to have upheld a seven-by-three-bay building with an almost complete grid of columns whose roof was framed by a main ridge and four additional ridges that emanated from its two ends. Parallel rafters emerged from the main and four side ridges to create a checkerboard support system, presumably for roof tiles. This building was the focus of a complex that included back chambers and side wings. Foundation 5 lent itself to a similar reconstruction for an eight-by-three-bay building that had one entry on one of the shorter sides. Foundation 3 may have had a pointed roof frame supported by twelve purlins that rose above the rest of the roof. It would have covered a more open central portion of the interior with enlarged front and back central bays and five evenly sized side bays. A twelve-sided frame may have supported a circular roof made of natural materials with ceramic tile on either side. A few pilasters have been found. The Shaochen site also indicates the use of parallel bay frames that run from the front to the back of the building. Like other features seen in architecture of China’s second millennium, crosswise bay frames are associated with Song and later Chinese architecture. Yet excavation suggests that at Shaochen, front, back, and interior pillars were in lines from roof to floor, through the depth of the structure, to define bays. Slanting roof purlins
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and horizontal beams that extended from front columns to back ones and were parallel to the floor and perpendicular to the columns on the same planes also appear to have been part of buildings in Shaochen (figure 1.13).35 Two building remains among those excavated in Fufeng county have been identified as ceremonial. The foundation 1 complex is proposed to be an ancestral temple. Foundation 1 is oriented south, with side buildings to its southeast and southwest and a sluice gate to the south. Majiazhuang foundation group 3, fewer than 50 kilometers to the northwest (about 25 kilometers northwest of Fengchu) and believed to be contemporary, in the Fengxiang county of Shaanxi, comprised five courtyards along a 326.5-meter, roughly north-south line, each entered by a south central gate, each with at least one gate on the east, and three courtyards with one or more western gates. This site also has been proposed as the location of temples of the Qin state. A central building or a pair of structures was in the second, third, and fourth courtyards, and three buildings were in the back courtyard.36 As labeled in figure 1.14, the courtyards may anticipate the three courtyards of Beijing’s Forbidden City. By the seventh century the site was part of the Qin state, one of the most powerful in the Spring and Autumn period. Qishan and Fufeng also were powerful. Finally, bronze vessels excavated at Zhuangbaijia, also in Fufeng, are examples of small-scale objects that provide evidence of architecture. Two four-sided vessels of the shape known as fangding (square vessel on four legs) have front door panels that open to the outside. One has door hinges and the other has a balustrade in front of the doors that defines a front corridor. Both have windows divided with grilles that separate them into four open sections (figure 1.15). Another vessel, a bowl of the form gui, is elevated on four legs so tall they appear to function as corner pillars. A flat piece across the top that will be called minban in later architecture supports the lintel that extends to connect the tops of the pillars. Above the lintel
1.13. Theoretical reconstruction of building complex at Shaochen, Fufeng, Shaanxi, ca. twelfth century–770 BCE 1.14. Plan of foundation group 3, capital of state of Qin, Majiazhuang, Fengxiang, Shaanxi, Spring and Autumn period
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1.15. Bronze vessel showing two-panel door and windows, excavated at Zhuangbaijia, Fufeng, Shaanxi, Western Zhou period
between the legs are two short posts that may anticipate dwarf pillars in later architecture. The last vessel dates from the time of King Cheng, son of King Wu, in the second half of the eleventh century BCE. It was excavated at Luoyi, also known as Chengzhou, today Luoyang, the eastern capital of the Zhou that was founded by King Cheng. The Zhou also had a capital in Qizhou, Gansu province. Early Zhou capitals thus extended across North China from Gansu to Henan. In the early eighth century BCE, the Quanrong from the West invaded the Zhou. King Ping (d. 720) moved the capital to Luoyang, thereupon commencing the Eastern Zhou dynasty, whose primary capital was in that city.
between one or several large, most important structures and smaller ones. Four-sided enclosure, axial alignment, particularly orientation toward the south, central front gates, and the gong plan were all in place, as was a perimeter of spaces around a central open area. Excavated materials confirm pottery and bone workshops in the preliterate age and bronze foundries beginning in the second millennium. Bronze Age China’s architecture also supports the idea of powerful kingship and of numerous servants and/or slaves who were ritually sacrificed and buried in or near graves of elite members of society. From the Shang dynasty onward, the names and sequences of China’s kings are certain, even though the dates or duration of certain reigns remain uncertain. The importance of kings and their cities would escalate in the first millennium, with a concept of an ideal city emerging at its beginning and a unified empire at its end. With this unity would come the ideology that a major role of cities and their most important architecture was to serve the state. This focus on emperor and empire would result in a uniformity in construction that would define and distinguish most of China’s architecture through the duration of premodern times.
By the sixth millennium BCE it was already clear that walled cities were to be a signature of China. Every one of those cities needed a water source, and each was on or near at least one river or tributary, but so far no city from China’s preliterate age is coastal. By the second millennium BCE, China’s most important cities were capitals. The architecture of China’s settlements from the fifth millennium BCE onward bears evidence of the use of wooden building frames, a post-and-lintel system, and notched timbers. Through the end of the second millennium, groups of buildings show clear differentiation
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CHAPTER 2
Architecture of the First Emperor and His Predecessors
Upon the move of the capital to Luoyi (Luoyang), the Zhou controlled less of China than they had for most of the previous three hundred years. Instead, dozens of states rose, built cities, and vied for power during the period known as Spring and Autumn. Cast iron appeared in China around the eighth century BCE, making metal weaponry easier to produce and cheaper, in addition to the use of iron in agricultural implements.1 Bronze and jade technology became more sophisticated, with inscriptions on bronze vessels remaining an important source of information about the major historical figures of the period and their states. Writings of this Classical Age of Chinese thought provide information directly relevant to architecture and ceremonies in and around it, and thousands of tombs offer information about building technology as well as objects that filled them.
Rulers’ Cities Passages in texts of the early centuries CE have guided the understanding of architectural remains dated from the Western Zhou through the early Spring and Autumn period in the region of central Shaanxi known as Zhouyuan, the area that once belonged to the state of Qin, discussed in the previous chapter. The phrase qian(you)chao, hou(you)qin, or “in front, audience hall; behind, private (or resting) chambers,” a reference to the placement of buildings in imperial settings, is almost iconic:2 it was observed at Majiazhuang and is still in place in the Forbidden City, where the Three Front Halls were for audience and other court functions and the Back Halls were for imperial residence; and when the empress held audience in the Back Halls sector, she slept behind her hall of audience. Her position behind the emperor was further demonstration of the greater importance of a front building or complex and lesser significance of architecture behind. The idea that the more public space of a ruler is in front of where he lives and sleeps is in evidence at every Chinese imperial city from the third century onward and will be implemented in tomb and cave-temple construction. One passage from “Kaogongji” (Record examining trades or crafts [including construction]), a section of the Zhouli (Rituals of Zhou), has emerged as preeminent in writing about Chinese cities. It is a prescription for Wangcheng (ruler’s city). Like the rest of “Kaogongji,” the passage is believed to refer to Zhou practices, even though the text survives probably from the
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period of Western Han.3 Wangcheng is to be a square whose four wall positions are determined by measuring out from a midpoint according to the sun’s shadow. Each side of the wall is 9 li, the number nine associated with fullness and perfection and, by extension, with royalty. Major thoroughfares are to cross the entirety of Wangcheng from wall to opposite wall. The central thoroughfares, however, are blocked by the ruler’s palace, positioned in its own walled enclosure. The palace faces south with markets behind it, a temple to the ruler’s ancestors on the east, and altars to soil and the five grains on the west (figure 2.1).4 A civilization of archetypical images, ever aware of and building on its past and at times resisting innovation, Chinese imperial urbanism shows resonances of this idealized plan through the rest of China’s imperial history. Yet already in the Eastern Zhou dynasty alternate arrangements of Chinese rulers’ cities existed. A key feature prescribed for Wangcheng persists: the palace-city, or gongcheng. Indicated in Shang and earlier capitals, a designated, walled palace area is found in almost every Zhou city where a ruler resided. The evidence is stronger in Eastern Zhou than Western, for as mentioned above, once the Zhou capital moved east, contenders for power increased, and with time, the sizes of cities of those who prevailed increased as well. The many Eastern Zhou cities divide into only four plans. The city Wangcheng described in the “Kaogongji” is the Zhou capital Luoyi, which was squarish, about 3 kilometers on each side, and surrounded by a moat. A few building foundations have been excavated, but not enough remains to confirm that it followed the prescription for an ideal ruler’s city. Qufu, in Shandong province, where Confucius was born in 551 BCE, and Anyi in Shanxi are the closest Eastern Zhou examples to the Wangcheng plan. The late Longshan city Guchengzhai, mentioned in chapter 1, may have had this plan as well. Qufu, capital of the state of Lu from the reign of King Cheng in the eleventh century until conquest by the state of Chu in 249 BCE, was surrounded by a rectangular wall with rounded corners that measured about 3.7 kilometers east to west and 2.7 kilometers north to south, all enclosed by a 30-meter-wide moat (figure 2.2). The wall had eleven gates, two on the south side and three on each other face. Ten major thoroughfares ran through the city, five north-south and five east-west, each emanating from a city gate or leading to an important building. Large building foundations in an area of about 1,000 by 500 meters, roughly in the center of the outer wall, are believed
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to be from an enclosed palace-city. Three foundations on an axial line are believed to have supported a gate, palatial hall, and altar. That area was inside the confines of the Han-period city wall, which shared its southern and western border with part of the Zhou city but was outside a later wall that survives in part today.5 The Eastern Zhou city at Anyi in Xia county of southwestern Shanxi had much in common with the Lu capital in Shandong. Both were oriented northeast-southwest. Measuring 4.5 kilometers north-to-south and 2.1 kilometers east-to-west, Anyi’s palace area was roughly in the center of a much larger outer city. The Anyi city was last studied in the early 1960s, so we do not have the kind of information available for the capital of the Lu state. In the 1960s Anyi went by the name Yuwangcheng, city of King Yu, Yuwang also the name of the village where it was found.6 The second urban pattern of the Eastern Zhou period is represented by Jiang, the capital of the state of Jin in Shanxi province. Here the roughly rectangular outer city wall was 8.48 kilometers in perimeter, surrounded by a moat. The 1-kilometer-square inner city was in the north center, sharing a boundary with the north outer wall. A street of more than a kilometer in length ran from the north wall through the inner city and into the outer city.7 The third urban pattern is the most common among capitals of large Zhou states: multiple walls that are not concentric. Adjacent walled enclosures positioned north and south, east and west, or at the corners of each other are among them, and occasionally there are more than two walls. The state of Zhao, in Handan in southern Hebei, flourished from 403 to 222 BCE. The 1.888-square-kilometer site has archaeological remains from the period of Spring and Autumn. That area became an outer city when the Zhao moved its capital to Handan in 386 and constructed adjacent east and west cities south of it. In this case, then, there are three adjacent walls (figure 2.3a). In the palatial sector, the western enclosure is just under 1.4 meters on each side and contains the largest building platform known from the later part of the Zhou dynasty. Almost certainly the place identified in texts as Dragon Terrace, it forms a roughly north-south line with two smaller building platforms behind it. The eastern city to the south is 926 meters east to west by 1.442 kilometers north to south. This wall is 20–40 meters wide as opposed to 20–30 meters for the western wall. Here, too, three platforms form an axial line through the city north to south. The older, northern city is 1.52 kilometers
2.1. Illustration of Wangcheng, “ruler’s city,” from Nie Chongyi, Sanlitu (Illustrated “The three li (ritual) classics”), part 1, juan 4/26, orig. 962 2.2. Wall of Qufu, capital of state of Lu, Shandong, second half of first millennium BCE
north to south and approximately 1.4 kilometers east to west. Only one foundation platform remains inside, suggesting it may have been the palatial area of the Spring and Autumn city. Another platform is directly opposite outside the northern city’s western wall, perhaps evidence that there was another enclosure of the earlier city. Workshops have been excavated outside the walls to the northwest.8 Handan is an example of
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2.3. Plans of three multiwalled cities of the Eastern Zhou period a. Handan, capital of Zhao, Hebei; b. Xiadu, capital of Yan, Hebei; c. Linzi, capital of Qi, Shandong
a city where additional walls and growth continued when new rulers conquered existing cities. Xiadu, literally lower capital, of the Yan state in Yi county, Hebei, just south of Beijing, is an example of an Eastern Zhou city with adjacent walled areas that are further divided by a canal (see figure 2.3b). Positioned between rivers to the north and south, the 30-square-kilometer area stretched about 8 kilometers east to west by between 4–6 kilometers north to south. The more developed part of the Yan capital was on the east with an enclosed sector to its north. Remaining wall portions are about 40 meters wide. A narrow sector at the north is further divided from the rest of the eastern sector. Platform foundation remains suggest this northern area was the location of the palace. The number coincides with four terraces (tai) named in Shuijingzhu (Commentary on the Waterways Classic), a treatise perhaps written in the third century and annotated in the early sixth century by Li Daoyuan (d. 527), which describes 137 waterways in China and, in the process, other features of the landscape such as cities. The central and largest terrace, 140
by 110 meters and 11 meters high, is probably the foundation of Wuyang Terrace.9 Bronze, iron, bone, and pottery workshops are among the ruins of the eastern sector of Yan Xiadu, as are places where bronze currency was cast. Cemeteries are found in both cities.10 The capital of the state of Qi in Linzi, Shandong, which flourished for more than six hundred years from 859 to 221 BCE, is one of the oldest examples of a city with adjacent walls. Here the palace-city was in the southwestern corner of a much larger walled area (see figure 2.3c). The rammed-earth outer wall was 14 kilometers in perimeter and contained a population of 210,000 households. Two gates provided access on the north and south, and there was a single gate on the eastern and western sides. The seven main roads through the city emanated primarily from city gates; they were as wide as 20 meters. The palace-city in the south, 1.5 by 2.5 kilometers, was enclosed by a wall that at points was 60 meters wide. It, too, had main roads passing through wall gates. A platform of 14 meters in height and 86 meters north to south known as Duke Huan Platform
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was in the northeast. It was probably the main palace sector through the city’s Zhou history. A drainage system ran beneath both walled enclosures, and pottery, bronze, iron, and bone workshops were found, as well as a mint. Two large cemeteries also were excavated within the city. The cemetery of the later rulers of Qi is about 10 kilometers outside the city walls.11 Xintian, capital of the state of Jin in Houma, southern Shanxi province, flourished from 585 to 376 BCE. It is better evidence than Handan of continued occupation and growth on a preexisting city site. By the end of the twentieth century, seven walled enclosures, four of which shared space, had been uncovered in an area that was 4.7 square kilometers. Large, rammed-earthen foundations amid smaller ones were found in two of the enclosures, suggesting palatial halls. The capital of the state of Zheng, which became the capital of the state of Han in 375 BCE in Xinzheng, Henan province, was a city of about 20 square kilometers with two adjacent walls; its small palace area, only 500 by 320 meters in extent, was in the western walled section. The eastern city was not significantly larger than the western one, but it may have served as an outer city. The Xinzheng capital had several bronze foundries and is the source of important bronze hoards that included musical instruments.12 The fourth type of Eastern Zhou city had a single wall with a palace sector inside it. Ying, the capital of the state of Chu just outside Ji’nan in Jiangling, Hubei province, today is an example. It was founded in 689. Contained in walls that were as thick as 40 meters at the base and tapered to 10–14 meters, and 4.45 by 3.588 kilometers in perimeter, the north and south city walls had sluice gates that have been theoretically reconstructed as shown in figure 2.4. Eighty-four palatial foundations and more than thirty cemeteries with more than eight hundred mounded tombs have been identified.13 Hundreds of states vied for power in the Spring and Autumn period.14 No name could more aptly describe the 250 years that followed than Warring States. By the mid-third century BCE, only seven survived. The above-mentioned Qi, Yan, Zhao, Han, and Chu were among them. The others were Wei and Qin. The capitals of each of these states and the many of the first millennium BCE that did not endure until the third century had markets. The “Kaogongji” passage about Wangcheng states that a market was part of every ruler’s city. Several other texts of the period reinforce the role of commerce in later Zhou cities. Bamboo slips excavated in a tomb in Linyi, Shandong
2.4. Reconstruction of section of sluice gate, south wall of Ying, capital of Chu state, Jiangling, Hubei, 689–278 BCE
province, in 1972 contain sections of a document known as Shifa (Rules about markets). According to Shifa, markets were administered by officials, specific products were sold in prescribed locations, and misconduct in the marketplace was punished.15 The text Zuozhuan (Zuo commentary) informs us that market officials were on duty in the pre–Warring States period of Eastern Zhou. The third-century-BCE official Xunzi wrote that in the earlier part of Eastern Zhou, market directors were largely responsible for maintenance, cleaning, traffic flow, security, and price control, and in later Eastern Zhou they expanded to merchandise inspection, settlement of disputes, loans, and tax collection for sales, property, and imported goods.16 One also learns from texts that each state market had its own name. Whether Eastern Zhou states functioned as city-states according to the definition used for those of ancient Greece is debated.17 Archaeological evidence informs us about other aspects of commerce in and among Warring States cities. Seals that name officials in charge of state-controlled minting of coins and foundries for bronze weapons and vessels are almost invariably found in the vicinity of palaces, suggesting that these industries were tightly controlled by the state ruler. Workshops for goods such as farming tools and pottery usually were farther from palaces, perhaps suggesting less government control of manufacturing, sales, or distribution. More than thirty thousand coins uncovered at Yan Xiadu suggest that currency was an important commodity. An early-fourth-century massacre in this city has led to the theory that the urban population increased dramatically and posed a challenge to royal control of the city’s goods and production, and that the mass murder was an assertion of power by the ruler to regain control of his state.18 Other archaeological evidence suggests that warfare was not only inter- and intracity but between Chinese states and nomads at China’s northern frontier. Gold objects made almost certainly by northern nomadic populations have been
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found in Warring States period tombs. Entwined animals are prevalent among the gold, and interlace patterns and inlay, all characteristic of the art of peoples including the Scythians known as Animal Style, dominate Chinese bronze vessels of the Warring States period. 2.6. Reconstruction of inner coffin, tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, Leigudun, Sui county, Hubei, ca. 433 BCE
Rulers’ Tombs Our knowledge of these vessels comes from tombs, most of them belonging to Eastern Zhou kings or princes. Royalty were interred in lingyuan, royal funerary precincts, spacious grounds that included architecture of the ruler, family members, often those close to him in life such as officials, and sometimes servants or slaves, as well as aboveground architecture for sacrifices and additional land that kept the tomb area isolated from a nearby city of the living. This practice would continue through the Han dynasty. Nonnobles also had cemeteries, as did lineages. The size and structure of the tomb, number of coffins, numbers and kinds of bronze vessels, and presence of objects such as instruments were prescribed in texts and determined by rank. More than a dozen royal tombs or cemeteries of the Warring States period have been excavated. Here we highlight those with important architectural features or objects that provide unique information about architecture. Chu, the largest state during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, has yielded more than five thousand tombs. The above-mentioned Chu capital city in Ji’nan, Hubei, had sluice gates (see figure 2.4), and in Baoshan and Jingzhou, both in Hubei, and elsewhere, Chu built royal tombs (figure 2.5). The single approach ramp, stepped sides, and coffin pit at the center are simplified compared to tombs of the late Shang rulers in Anyang (see figure 1.11). The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, a name on objects in his tomb but perhaps a man whose name was different in historical records, in Sui county of Hubei, who died in 433 BCE, was divided into four compartments, each lined with wooden planks and each connected to adjacent sections by tunnels.19 This pit tomb with no approach ramp had space between rooms and between the burial and ground level that was sealed by charcoal and other materials. Although this tomb is best known for the set of sixty-five bronze bells weighing about two-and-a-half tons, it
also reveals three important features of Eastern Zhou architecture. First, the contents and purpose of the compartments are differentiated: the main chamber contained the marquis’s and eight other coffins, the latter all female sacrificial burials, as well as the coffin of a dog; a room with thirteen coffins is on the opposite side of the main chamber; between them and to the north were burial goods. Second are the plank walls, which are used in other tombs of the period such as one excavated in Xinyang, Henan.20 Third are windows. We have seen doors that open outward in a bronze vessel of the early Zhou period (see figure 1.15). Doors are painted on the outer of two lacquered wooden coffins of the marquis, and windows divided into four panes are painted on the inner sarcophagus (figure 2.6). The window might be compared to the representation of windows or other light sources in tombs of ancient Egyptian royalty, symbolically providing a view to the world outside. One of the most important artifacts for the study of Eastern Zhou architecture was excavated in a cemetery of the Zhongshan kingdom in Pingshan county of Hebei province. King Cuo (r. 327–313 BCE) and his wife and concubines were buried beneath truncated pyramidal mounds, his being 100.5 by 90 meters at the base and 18 meters square at the top. A funerary hall was on top of the mound. Again we see continuation of a much earlier practice: a funerary temple was on top of the tomb of Lady Hao at the last Shang capital in Anyang. Also following precedents from Yin are approach ramps to King Cuo’s subterranean chamber from the north and south, with the primary burial in a pit at the center, similar to the structure of the Chu tomb at Baoshan as well (see figures 1.11, 2.5). Horse and chariot pits, treasuries, sacrificial burials, and a pit for a boat were all part of the universe created underground for King Cuo. Here, too, one readily draws comparisons with ancient Egyptian practices that included the burial of boats that would have made passage through the dark, watery underworld possible.
2.5. Two Chu tombs, Juliandun, Baoshan, vicinity of Ji’nan, Jingzhou, Hubei, period of Chu state
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The object is a bronze plate of 94 by 48 centimeters and about 1 centimeter in thickness. A plan of the burial precinct is inlaid with gold. The representation of three-dimensional space in two dimensions is extraordinary anywhere in the world in the third century BCE, and the use of scale is more amazing. Distinctions in line thickness suggest that different kinds of lines had different meanings for builders. Breaks in lines indicate gates. Inscribed notations are as extraordinary as the plaque itself. Building sizes and distances between buildings and walls are provided. They are given in chi, a unit of measure similar in usage to the English word foot, and whose specific length changes through Chinese history, and in bu, paces, even more similar to foot. South is at the top of the diagram, where it would be for most of the rest of China’s premodern cartographic history. Archaeologists have named the diagram zhaoyutu, image of the “omen” territory, zhao, or omen, presumably a reference to the funerary world (figure 2.7).21 Perhaps even more important than the scaled and labeled plan is the forty-two-character directive on the plate that there be two copies, one to be kept in the palace and this second one to be buried with the ruler. The purpose was so that future generations would know how to construct a tomb in the manner of their ancestors, and by inference, the understanding that the patterns of antiquity were to be followed or, more explicitly, that the intent of royal architecture was to model itself after its past and to be continued in the same manner in the future. The tomb of Yun Chang, the king of Yue on Mount Yin, Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, was part of a moat-surrounded cemetery of approximately 85,000 square meters. It had an underground chamber that was triangular in section. The tomb, 46 by 14–19 meters at the base and 14 meters into the surface of the mountain, was lined with wooden slabs and sealed with charcoal in the manner of the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng. The subterranean space, 34.8 meters long, 6.5 meters wide, and 5.6 meters high, was divided into three rooms. Burial was inside a 6.5-meter-long tree trunk that had been cut in half (figure 2.8).22 As for other tombs of the Warring States period, tombs of the state of Jin are in southern Shanxi and seem to divide according to the lineage of the deceased; south-facing tombs of the state of Wei in Hui county, Shanxi, have funerary temples on top of mounds; mounded tombs believed to belong to Zhao
2.7. Zhaoyutu (plan of the omen territory), 94 by 48 by 1 cm, ca. 313 BCE, excavated in tomb of King Cuo of the Zhongshan kingdom, Pingshan, Hebei. Hebei Provincial Museum 2.8. Tomb of Yun Chang, king of Yue state, Yinshan, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, Hebei, ca. 500 BCE 2.9. Drawing of bronze pole showing balustrades, cantilever corner brackets, and hipped-roof with bird and dragon ornaments at the top and drawing of its four sides, excavated at Xiadu, capital of the Yan state, Hebei, Warring States period
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2.10. Sectional drawing and reconstruction of multilevel, pillar-supported structure incised on bronze vessel, excavated in Zhaogu village, Hui county, Henan, Warring States period
royalty are in the vicinity of Handan; the royal cemetery of Qi is in the vicinity of Linzi; and the royal cemetery of Yan is near Xiadu. Seventeen log coffins, some carved into the shapes of boats, excavated in a pit tomb of 30 by 21 meters at the base in Chengdu, were part of a royal cemetery of the state of Shu.23 Excavated objects of the Warring States period may inform us about architectural details of the period. A bronze pole divided into three registers supports a one-bay-square roofed structure (figure 2.9). Like bronze vessels of the Western Zhou dynasty, it shows the use of balustrades (see figure 1.15). The five-ridge roof has a dragon on each side ridge and winged creatures at the ends of the main ridge. Similar creatures join cantilevers to the undersides of the roof to help support it. Animals on roof ridges and cantilevered bracketing will be standard in Chinese construction through the nineteenth century. A building engraved on a bronze mirror excavated in
Zhaogu village, Huixian, Henan, is even more informative. The structure is supported on a high foundation, with two stories above it. Theoretically reconstructed as it appears in figure 2.10, this depiction combined with excavations of architecture and literary descriptions are the basis for reconstructions of architecture through the end of the first millennium BCE.24
Architecture of China’s First Empire Between 230 and 221 BCE, the remaining six warring states fell to Prince Zheng (259–210 BCE) of the state of Qin, who declared himself Shi Huangdi, Primordial August Thearch, and founded the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) in 221; he is often referred to as the First Emperor. Although his own dynasty endured a mere fifteen years, building principles observed in Qin were much older and endured much longer. The rendering
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Chapter 2
of cartographic space, for example, seen on the bronze plate from the tomb of King Cuo of Zhongshan (see figure 2.7), is evident on pine boards excavated in Tianshui, Gansu province, and dated 239 BCE.25 From 677 to 383 BCE, the state of Qin was centered in the above-mentioned region Zhouyuan, which included the modern cities Qishan, Fufeng, and Fengxiang, the locations of building complexes and perhaps ancestral temples in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (see figures 1.12, 1.13). This part of Shaanxi also contained enormous ducal tombs of the kind constructed across China in the middle of the last millennium BCE. A 21-square-kilometer necropolis with some thirteen tomb areas, each with one or two main tombs, includes the seventh-century BCE tomb of Duke Mu and the largest burial of the Spring and Autumn period, possibly the tomb of Duke Jing (r. 576–537); it is 5,334 square meters in area. Tombs believed to be royal are approached by long ramps from two sides like those in Anyang and King Cuo’s tomb in the Zhongshan necropolis. Many of the tombs were enclosed by moats, some by double moats, and some by “dry moats,” perimeters dug as if to contain water. There is no evidence of mounds above the Qin state tombs. In 383 the Qin state moved its capital farther north in Shaanxi to Liyang in Lintong county, near the site that would become the capital of the Qin dynasty. Roof tiles, indications of streets, and wall pieces confirm its thirty-four-year existence.26 Cruciform-shaped graves in Lintong are believed to belong to fourth-century BCE Qin dukes. They are different from the Qin state tombs in western Shaanxi in an important way: funerary temples were on top of the earlier tombs, whereas the fourth-century burials were covered with mounds and funerary temples were nearby. Initially Prince Zheng resided in palaces that remained from the Qin capital of the Warring States period. Following unification of the states in 221 BCE, he built new, larger palaces on new sites. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) tells us that the First Emperor had three hundred palaces with another four hundred outside the palace-city walls.27 What these numbers refer to depends on how one defines palace, for as explained in the introduction, the character gong, translated as palace, can refer to one courtyard or more than twenty that are interrelated in a complex of palatial buildings. The outer boundaries of Qin Shi Huangdi’s capital also are vague: different from the dictum in “Kaogongji” that stipulates a ruler should build the
square outer wall of his city and then construct palaces, altars, and markets inside it, the First Emperor constructed his palaces before he walled his capital, and the short duration of his dynasty is the likely reason the outer wall was never completed. The city was approximately 7.2 kilometers east-to-west by 6.7 kilometers north-to-south, with its northern boundary along the Wei River. By the early twenty-first century, foundations of four building groups had been excavated. Evidence is strong that the first of them, known as palace 1, had at its core a two-story structure with seven rooms on the first floor and five upstairs, and with a central pillar extending from the ground to the upper-story ceiling.28 Palace 2 is northwest of palace 1, and about the same size, but in a poorer state of preservation. Palace 3, the largest so far, was also two stories and was connected to palaces 1 and 2 by covered arcades. Its lower story had eleven rooms. Murals done in mineral pigments remain in palace 3. Subjects include acrobats, horses, animals, floral motifs, geometric patterns, and architecture. The architectural elements are especially interesting. Features such as tie-beams are painted along the upper walls where they would be found in an actual building. The paintings anticipate a broader-based imitation of architectural elements in relief sculpture or paint in later time that is known as fangmugou, imitation of the timber frame. Carbon-14 testing on wood from palace 3 dates it to the mid–Warring States period, suggesting that painting and refurbishing probably occurred during the Qin, but older building parts were reused. In addition, excavators believe they have found some of the palaces the emperor is reported to have built in imitation of those of each of the final six states as he toppled them during his unification of China. Pottery tiles with the names of several of the states have been uncovered on either side of palace 3. Qin Shi Huangdi’s greatest achievement in palatial architecture was to be Epang Palace, immortalized in the Records of the Grand Historian as a project for which the emperor conscripted more than 700,000 laborers and which, when it was destroyed by the armies of the man who would found the Han dynasty, burned for several months.29 The remains of Epang Palace are about 15 kilometers west of Xi’an in the vicinity of the Western Zhou capital Hao. The concept of a traveling palace (xinggong) also blossomed under the First Emperor. The palatial residences in and around the capital were a means of decoy for the ruler, information
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2.11. Remains of Jieshi Palace, Shibeidi, Suizhong, Liaoning, on coast of Bohai Sea, Qin dynasty
about whose specific whereabouts at a given time could be punishable by death. Qin Shi Huangdi also used traveling palaces in the manner they would be used by emperors for the rest of Chinese imperial history: he made inspection tours of his empire to demonstrate and consolidate his power, inscribing rocks and building residences at sacred and strategic sites en route.30 He no doubt traveled on plank roads that had been built in the Warring States period. Parts of one of these roads between Xianyang and Sichuan province in the West remain today. Rocks and palace architecture survive at Jieshi on the coast of the Bohai Sea in Liaoning, the xinggong most distant from the capital. Announced by two rocks that rise from the sea as sides of an entryway, the coastal palatial area has been excavated as ten interrelated courtyards, most of which had building remains (figure 2.11). Ceramic tiles uncovered at Jieshi Palace confirm either that craftsmen from Xianyang worked here or that their products were sent to the coast of Liaoning province for installation.31 Objects uncovered at all sites associated with the First Emperor confirm his vision of empire. Weights, money, and inscriptions prove that he unified weights and measures and established a national currency and a national script. The last made it possible for documents to be written and read by anyone, regardless of dialect. Qin Shi Huangdi also established a central government in his capital and divided the empire into commanderies, further dividing them into prefectures. He had canals dug in order to transport goods. He attempted to define the borders and protect his country by enclosing it in a Great Wall. Although the wall never stretched continuously across the approximately
3,000-kilometer northern border, the First Emperor’s intent was to join preexisting walls of former states into a single protective wall. He deserves credit for the idea of a bounded nation, separate from nations beyond its borders, and perhaps for understanding the symbolic power of a wall for China. The First Emperor did not accomplish his goals by being a benevolent ruler. He resettled 120,000 families from defeated states to serve him in the capital, conscripted hundreds of thousands in his building projects, and is said to have burned books of which he did not approve. Assassination attempts on his life occurred with regularity, but none was successful. He died in his fiftieth year in 210 during one of his inspection tours, not having realized nearly what he hoped to accomplish. His minister Li Si kept the death a secret as long as possible, returning the body to the capital in a covered carriage filled with salted fish to disguise the smell of its more valuable contents.32 No single tomb in China has aroused as much interest or has been excavated or studied as intensely as the First Emperor’s. For two thousand years, anyone who passed the truncated, pyramidal mound in Lintong county knew that China’s First Emperor lay beneath it. The contents that continue to come out of the ground since the announcement of the 7,000 life-sized terra-cotta warriors in 1976 are so staggering that one indeed believes reports that 700,000 men labored there and that 16,000 men carried away 42,000 tons of earth supplied by 200 diggers over a period of 300 days. The mausoleum was begun in 246 when Prince Zheng became King of Qin. Only the squarish mound, approximately
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2.12. Plan of tomb complex of First Emperor, Qin dynasty, Lintong, Shaanxi
350 meters on each side, is above ground. No architecture has been found on it. Stairs led to the top. It is the central focus of a double-walled funerary precinct, the outer wall 6.21 kilometers in perimeter with a gate in each face and the inner wall 3.87 kilometers in perimeter with two north gates and one at each of the other sides. It is not as extensive as some royal funerary sectors of the past or future in China, no doubt because neither the emperor nor his dynasty endured long enough to realize his vision. Still, remains and literary descriptions indicate extensive construction above ground (figure 2.12). The two walls and the contents of pits suggest comparisons with the double wall and underground spaces of the tomb of King Cuo of Zhongshan (see figure 2.7). Beneath the mound the burial chamber remains sealed. Records of the Grand Historian tells us that the tomb builders
oil was used for lamps, which were calculated to burn for a long time without going out.33
This kind of replication of aspects of life in the microcosmic world of the tomb would be standard funerary practice for the rest of premodern Chinese history. As has been the practice in China, and as occurred during excavation of the First Emperor’s palaces, the underground areas were numbered as they were opened. Pit 1, still not completely excavated, is 14,240 square meters and contains more than seven thousand terra-cotta warriors and horses, twenty wooden chariots, and about four thousand bronze weapons. The L-shaped pit 2 is 6,000 square meters and has only infantry. Pit 3, 520 square meters, includes the elite soldiers and horses. Pit 4 was found empty. Other subterranean pits contain small numbers of terra-cotta officials, weapons, tools, 150 sets of stone armor, 50 stone helmets, a 212-kilogram bronze tripod, and cranes and other bronze birds. Qin Shi Huangdi’s own burial chamber has not been entered, perhaps because of the mercury (or cinnabar) believed, based on Sima Qian’s account, to have been used to preserve his corpse; after more than two millennia of concealment the atmosphere may be toxic. But perhaps it is because the aura of the First Emperor’s architecture holds unique intrigue even among the myriad blockbuster finds that continue to emerge from China’s soil. Moreover, the parts of the tomb beyond the burial chamber are far from completely uncovered. In 2002,
dug down to the third layer of underground springs and poured in bronze to make the outer coffin. Replicas of palaces, scenic towers, and the hundred officials, as well as rare utensils and wonderful objects, were brought to fill up the tomb. Craftsmen were ordered to set up crossbows and arrows, rigged so they would immediately shoot down anyone attempting to break in. Mercury was used to fashion imitations of the hundred rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangzi, and the seas, constructed in such a way that they seemed to flow. Above were representations of all the heavenly bodies; below, the features of the earth. “Man-fish”
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using remote sensing, archaeologists detected that the soil was not uniform throughout the mound. Soil samples revealed that the mound is not a single entity but rather two layers made of different materials, both of rammed earth, the inner finer and of thinner layers than the outer. 3-D scanning determined more precisely where the boundaries between inner and outer layers are. Also found under the mound in 2002 were pieces of ceramic tile of the kind used in roofs.34 Excavation of the royal cemetery of Qi near the capital Linzi in Shandong province in the twenty-first century also sheds light on the tomb of the First Emperor. Archaeologists found the burial chamber interfaced sub- and supraground levels. They called this tomb style qizhong, rising into the mound. Similar burials were employed in Chu at Ma’anshan tomb 1 and at Pingliangtai tomb 16, suggesting the kind of layered construction beneath the mound also observed beneath the mound of King Cuo of Zhongshan. Roof tiles uncovered beneath the mound in 2002 may be from an ancestral or sacrificial temple on the mound, but it is also possible that roofed architecture was inside the mound: the use of the mound to conceal passage in and out of the tomb also is possible. Construction underground will continue to change or refine our understanding of Chinese architecture until the final tomb in China is excavated. One writes based on information gleaned from excavation in combination with textual sources about Chinese architecture of centuries BCE, but always with the understanding that one new find may explain or alter much that has been written to inform us of what we do not yet know.
city and its architecture was guided by writings of the first millennium BCE that declared the ruler’s mandate to reign from the center of the world and an officialdom with subsidiary political and social roles around him. This central position of the ruler was envisioned in the concept of Wangcheng, a plan that was realized a few times in the first millennium BCE and would guide conceptions of the imperial city thereafter. Up to the Qin dynasty, the most important centers of production were also capitals, for the role of the capital and its architecture was to serve its state or empire. Through the third century BCE, the greatest monumental architecture of China above ground was also in cities, but already construction was emerging in places visited by the emperor outside his capital such as on sacred peaks. Underground and outside, but near the ruler’s city, tombs and ancestral temples signaled social relationships as clear as the location of a palace in its capital.
Architecture was crucial to Qin Shi Huangdi’s vision of empire, but his fifteen-year reign was far too short to achieve it. The most important period for this implementation would be the next two hundred years, the period known as the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE). The purpose of a capital, role of the palace, and designs of ritual architecture and tombs constructed in the first two Han centuries would then be carried forward for the rest of Chinese imperial history. Even though the First Emperor worshiped at sacred spots and established palaces across the land, part of his vision was that the capital was the supreme city. Precedents for this concept emerged in the Eastern Zhou dynasty when each state had a designated palace-city. The understanding of the role of the
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Han Architecture
In contrast to the political complexity of the Warring States period, the four hundred years that would follow the brief unification under the Qin dynasty divide themselves into two parts on either side of an interregnum: Former or Western Han (206 BCE‒ 9 CE), roughly the final two centuries BCE, and Latter or Eastern Han (25‒220), roughly the first two centuries CE, with the period 9–23 known as the Xin dynasty or Wang Mang interregnum. The designations Former and Latter are self-evident. The geographic labels refer to the locations of the primary capitals, Chang’an in the West and Luoyang in the East, near the cities with those names and in the same sequence as the capitals of the Western and Eastern Zhou dynasty. Han is the earliest period from which six kinds of Chinese architecture remain: city, palace, imperial ritual space, tomb, rockcarved structure, and garden. In addition to buildings, three kinds of images that dominated knowledge about Han architecture in the twentieth century continue to aid our understanding: relief sculpture, usually dated to the second century CE and primarily from funerary architecture; freestanding pillars known as que that sometimes form the two sides of an entry; and mingqi, smallscale structures excavated in tombs.
in premodern writings about the city also are confirmed by excavation: the 12–16-meter-wide outer wall had a perimeter of 25.7 kilometers divided roughly as 7.2 kilometers on the north, six kilometers on the east, 7.6 on the south, and 4.9 on the west. The city had three gates on each side, and each was wide enough to accommodate at least three side-by-side carriages. The number and positions of gates and carriagetrack lengths in a ruler’s city are stipulated in “Kaogongji.” However, Chang’an’s outer wall does not follow the directive of being square. A desire to understand the irregular plan gave rise to popular explanations: perhaps it represented Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, and the river running through it was the Milky Way. Perhaps, however, the unusual shape was the result of pragmatism whereby the northern wall ran along the Wei River and the jut in the southern wall was to enclose the Qin palace Xinglegong, which was reused and renamed when the founder of the Han dynasty, Liu Bang (256–1 BCE), built his city.2 Han Chang’an had six palace complexes, five inside the city walls and one on the exterior. We noted in chapter 2 that Qin Shi Huangdi had Xianyang Palace, Epang Palace, six palaces representing those of the six conquered states, and additional palaces and traveling palaces, so the number of palatial complexes in Han Chang’an does not seem large. However, fully two-thirds of the city of Chang’an inside its walls was occupied by palace architecture. No past capital except perhaps Xianyang had so much imperial architecture inside its outer walls, nor would any in the future. The ratio of palace to outer city around it at Yanshi of the Shang dynasty was 1:4.3 and then decreased to 1:6. At Qufu of the Lu state the ratio was 1:5.5; at Anyi of Wei it was 1:5.1; and at Luoyang of Eastern Zhou it was nearly 1:10. The main palace complex of the Eastern Han capital Luoyang would occupy about one-third of the capital, as would the Northern Wei (386–534) palace-city of Luoyang. Thereafter the palace-city becomes a smaller and smaller part of the outer city of a Chinese capital. At Sui-Tang Chang’an and Northern Song Bianliang, the ratio was about 1:5. At Ming-Qing Beijing, it would be 1:5.8.3 The capital as a city of imperial architecture was the first way that Han implemented the First Emperor’s vision. All six Chang’an palaces are described in historical sources.4 Three have been extensively excavated. Changle Palace, located on the site of the First Emperor’s Xingle Palace, was the largest. The Qin ruler had built a bridge across the Wei River so that
Han Chang’an: The First Emperor’s Vision Realized The phrase Han cheng Qinzhi (Han inherited the Qin system) has been a premise of Chinese architectural history.1 There is inherent logic in this statement, for the First Emperor’s capital, palaces, and tomb are across the Wei River from or in the vicinity of their Han counterparts; Han saw, destroyed, and in some cases reused them. More important, excavation of the first Han capital and its architecture confirms how much of the Qin vision of the role of architecture in an empire was implemented by Liu Bang (r. 206–195), the founding emperor of the Han dynasty, at his capital Chang’an. A City of Palaces Plans and palaces of Western Han Chang’an have been drawn for more than a thousand years. A map from the first half of the fourteenth century shows the irregular shape of the city’s outer wall (figure 3.1). The straight wall on the east, sharp bends of the north and south walls, and lengths of walls are confirmed by a twenty-first-century plan based on excavation (figure 3.2). Dimensions of the outer wall recorded
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3.1. Plan of Western Han Chang’an. From Li Haowen 1979, juan 1/5
3.2. Plan of Western Han Chang’an based on excavation
he could divide his time between Xingle Palace on the south side and Xianyang Palaces on the north. Xingle Palace had terraces the emperor mounted to observe the heavens and shoot swallows, as well as ponds, and pools. Twelve enormous bronze statues of men stood at a palace gate when Han sacked the city. Han emperor Liu Bang began refurbishing the former Qin palace in 202 BCE and finished in 200 BCE. Changle Palace was 7 square kilometers and occupied about one-sixth of the space inside the city. Major thoroughfares led in and out through gate-towers (que). In 200 BCE, just as work was winding down at Changle Palace, construction began at Weiyang Palace. In 198 BCE the Han emperor moved his primary residence to Weiyanggong, and Changlegong became mainly a residence for imperial women. A covered way joined the two complexes. According to Records of the Grand Historian, Liu Bang aspired for Weiyang Palace to be more grandiose than anything built by his Qin predecessors.5 It was completed under his successor. There were forty-three halls, thirteen ponds or pools, six hills, some of them presumably artificial, and ninety-five gates. Weiyanggong remained the premier palace in Han Chang’an. It
comprised front and back palace complexes, each with several buildings on a north-south axial line (figure 3.3). The formation is the next in the sequence of palatial architecture that begins in the Shang dynasty with complexes such as Panlongcheng (see figure 1.10), continues with palatial-style architecture in Zhouyuan such as at Fengchu (see figure 1.12), and culminates in the Three Front Halls and Back Halls of the Forbidden City (see figure i.1). The largest building foundation of the front palace complex of Weiyanggong measures 350 meters north to south by 200 meters east to west, large enough to hold thousands of men.6 The Weiyanggong site measures 2.15 by 2.25 kilometers. It occupied about one-seventh of the area inside the capital walls, so that by the time it was built, more than onethird of Chang’an comprised palaces. Its walls were between 7 and 8 meters thick. Fortified towers covered the four corners. An armory was built between Changle and Weiyang Palaces. Gui Palace, due north on the western side of Weiyanggong, was constructed during the reign of Han emperor Wudi (r. 141–87 BCE). Enclosed on three sides by streets and on the west by the city wall, Guigong occupied an area of 1.84 meters
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3.3. Reconstruction plan of Weiyanggong front hall complex, Western Han Chang’an
3.4. Theoretical reconstruction of exterior and interior sections of building with taixie foundation
north-to-south by 900 meters east-to-west and was further enclosed by its own rammed-earth wall that was 4 meters thick at the base.7 Seven palatial foundations were uncovered by the early twenty-first century. North Palace (Beigong) was begun under Liu Bang and was completed sometime before 163 BCE. It contained apartments for the empress dowager and elderly concubines or those who had fallen out of favor with the emperor. At certain times during the Western Han dynasty, the crown prince resided there. Beigong also was the location of ceremonies to the spirits during the reign of emperor Wudi.8 Little is known about the fifth intramural palace, Mingguanggong. It was built during the reign of Han Wudi and seems to have been abandoned during the Pingdi reign (1 BCE‒ 6 CE). The last Chang’an palace, Jianzhanggong, outside the walled city, was a pleasure palace of highly elaborated buildings and scenery and a ritual center. Its landscape included replicas of Isles of the Immortals, suggesting the emperor might have communicated with the spirits here.9 Many of the buildings named in premodern records of Han Chang’an’s palaces end with the suffix tai, meaning platform, as opposed to dian or tang, which translate as hall. The word taixie (literally, “platform kiosk”) occurs in literary sources beginning in the Warring States period. No Han wooden building survives, but excavated foundations from Chang’an palaces suggest that taixie refers to a timber-frame structure elevated on a tall platform with an earthen core, and thus that this kind of construction was employed in the final two centuries BCE (figure 3.4).
Western Han did not receive imperial burials.) Each imperial tomb consisted of four parts: the mounds, one for the emperor and a smaller one for the empress, located within a precinct known as the funerary precinct (lingyuan) that may have been walled; aboveground ritual halls; the funerary city (lingyi), believed to have been walled, where workers lived during tomb construction and where tomb caretakers continued to reside after imperial interment; and auxiliary tombs that could include burial plots awarded to officials for service to the emperor or servant/slave tombs. Sacrificial burial had terminated by this time. Changling, tomb complex of the Han founding emperor, who died in 195 BCE, and his empress, who died in 180 BCE, was the hub of all subsequent Western Han imperial burials. Its funerary precinct was 3.12 kilometers in perimeter. Traces of architecture at all corners but the northeastern suggest towers, probably parts of the enclosing wall. Other pieces of architecture and ceramic tiles marked with numbers are believed to be remains of ritual structures inside the funerary precinct.10 The funerary city north of the burial precinct was walled only on the north, south, and west sides, a situation described in records of the capital and confirmed by excavation.11 Auxiliary tombs were to the east. They included large tombs that belonged to loyal ministers of the first Han emperor as well as simple burials, presumably for servants. Yangjiawan tomb 4 is a large tomb that some believe belongs to the famous Han general Zhou Bo (d. 169) or his son. If this is true, then we surmise that auxiliary burial plots were awarded after an emperor’s demise, even as tombs of subsequent rulers already existed or were under construction. L-shaped in plan, Yangjiawan tomb 4 has numerous narrow burial pits at every side, a plan in use in Qin and Western Han but not later.12 Anling, the tomb complex of the second Han emperor Huidi and his wife, is due west of his parents’ graves. The names of the first two Han imperial tombs may be taken from
Imperial Tombs Han imperial tombs were in or near Chang’an, and they were equally integral to the construction of the city. Nine Western Han tombs form a coherent imperial unit that shields the capital to its north and northwest. Two provided responding forces to the southeast, all eleven of them within 30 kilometers of the capital. (Several short-lived rulers of
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the characters chang and an, which form the name of the capital, resulting in Changling and Anling; ling means royal tumulus.13 The placement positioned subsequent emperors right and left of Liu Bang in the manner of successive sons who, in a traditional Chinese-style house, reside according to birth order in rooms right and left of the central room in which homage is paid to the ancestors. The placement also suggests the implementation of the zhaomu system. Originating during the reigns of the sixth and seventh Zhou kings at the beginning of the tenth century BCE, and intended specifically for funerary temples, the zhaomu system prescribed that the founder of a dynastic line be positioned in the center, with the zhao (temple, and later, after the destruction of the temple, the tablet), for the second ruler, to the founder’s left, and the mu, for the third ruler, to the founder’s right. Subsequently the fourth and sixth rulers would be represented by zhao and thus to the left, and the fifth and seventh, as mu, would be to the right. Anling was appropriately placed to the ruler’s left (as he faced north), and the tomb of the third ruler was to the right, although as explained below, far to the south.14 Two puppet infant emperors reigned under the guard of the founding emperor Liu Bang’s widow, Empress Lü, when the second emperor predeceased his mother. The third Han emperor came to power only after eliminating competition from the empress’s relatives, ascending the throne in 180 BCE. He was buried thirty-seven years later in a tomb called Baling, named after the Ba River along whose bank it was situated. This first of two southeastern Han royal tombs may have been the result of a desire to be distant from the woman who had usurped power for the previous eight years and to counterbalance evil forces that might emanate were it closer to Empress Lü’s grave. Baling is the first imperial burial carved directly into natural rock.15 It nevertheless had the four components of a Han royal tomb. Yangling, the tomb of the fourth Han emperor, who reigned from 188 to 141 BCE, has received tremendous attention since the 1990s when hundreds of naked figurines (possibly originally clothed with perishable materials) were excavated in pits adjacent to the tumulus. 16 Excavation revealed workers and livestock among the funerary sculpture, the latter presumably for food in the afterlife. Narrow, parallel approach ramps of the kind leading up to Yangjiawan were dug on all four sides of the tumuli. Yangling has individual, squarish funerary precincts for the emperor and empress, his
larger and to the west. The mounds may have been planned to imitate the ruling pair sitting on a throne. Sacrificial halls were south of both mounds. A circular, stone compass divided into quadrants by bisecting lines was placed on an imaginary line that would have run between the two mounds. Maoling, the tomb of Western Han’s most famous emperor, Wudi (156–87 BCE), has not been excavated. Wudi’s tomb was positioned so far west beyond Anling that before the fall of the dynasty, three additional Han imperial tombs would be between it and Anling. Han Wudi reigned more than fifty-four years, more than twice as long as any other emperor of Western Han, and thus had a long time to spend on the construction of his tomb; perhaps he anticipated filling all the space to the east between his tomb and Anling with aboveground architecture or with auxiliary burials. Maoling’s fame is further enhanced by one auxiliary tomb, approximately 2 kilometers to the east, awarded by Wudi to his young military officer Huo Qubing. Huo Qubing rose from horse boy to grand marshal by age eighteen. By that time, Huo had led an army of eight thousand; two years later he would lead an army of ten thousand. His most illustrious victories were in the Northwest beyond Gansu, where he is credited with a decisive victory against northern peoples who had plagued the Han and earlier Chinese states for centuries. When Huo died in the area known through much of Chinese history as the Western Regions, Wudi recognized his valor with a tomb so close to his own and erected one of China’s most famous secular monumental statues in front of it, Horse Trampling the Barbarian. The statue became a symbol of China’s triumph over the threat of foreign peoples. Historical records state that large stone sculptures of animals were placed on Huo’s tumulus in imitation of exotic creatures who dwelt in the Qilian Mountains near Penglai, a mythical isle of the immortals in the territory of Huo’s victories; many of them are still present in the early-twentieth-century photograph (figure 3.5). Huo’s tumulus is believed to be a re-creation of Penglai, similar to the configuration of incense burners on whose tops exotic animals amid the Isles of the Immortals are often carved.17 In 2011 the tomb of Han Wudi’s grandson Liu He (92–59 BCE), who reigned as emperor for twenty-seven days before being dethroned, was opened in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. It contains a lacquer-framed mirror that may be the earliest “portrait” of Confucius.18
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3.5. Horse Trampling the Barbarian, tomb of Huo Qubing (d. 117 BCE), Maoling, Xi’an, Shaanxi
The most extensively excavated Han funerary city is at Duling, the tomb of the seventh Han emperor Xuandi (r. 74–49 BCE) and his empress, and the second imperial burial southeast of the capital.19 The Duling site measures approximately 4 kilometers north to south by about 3 kilometers east to west. The emperor’s funerary precinct was approximately 430 meters square, and his empress’s was about three-fourths that size. Ceremonial or sacrificial halls were due south of each mound. In addition to the two funerary precincts that originally were walled with gates at each side, there were dozens of auxiliary burials to the east, in the same positions relative to the mounds as those at Yangling. There was, in addition, a funerary town about 2,100 by 500 meters, located about 2.5 kilometers northwest of the funerary precinct, where workers lived during the years of construction and caretakers resided afterward. Its population is estimated to have exceeded 300,000.20 Southeast of the emperor’s tomb and southwest of the empress’s, and adjacent to each, were self-contained areas with buildings for funerary rites. Each had eastern and western gates and multiple entries for access from the south. Xuandi’s ceremonial precinct had a main hall for sacrifices and more than nine courtyards of buildings to its east. All the structures were elevated on pounded-earth platforms, and many had tile floors. The next three Han emperors were buried north of the city on the western side of Anling. This is the information available to determine whether Western Han imperial tombs realized the vision Qin Shi Huangdi had for his own tomb. Comparisons may begin with the mound. The First Emperor is buried under a mound that was built up beyond its original height. The tumuli of Han
founder Liu Bang and Han Wudi were natural mounds. Qin Shi Huangdi’s tumulus was enclosed by two concentric, rectangular walls, the plan we have observed in the necropolis of King Cuo of the Zhongshan kingdom (see figure 2.7) whereas at Changling the funerary precinct and the funerary city were separately walled, a system maintained through the Western Han dynasty. It is unknown whether the First Emperor had plans to extend his tomb complex to a funerary city and park to the extent Han emperors did. The walls of a Han imperial funerary precinct were pierced by four gates known as simamen, a term usually translated official gate, and a pair of que stood beyond the wall outside each gate. It is believed that the east sima gate, the one most often in the direction of the auxiliary tombs, was the most important.21 At the First Emperor’s tomb, the pits with terra-cotta warriors were to the east. The most important evidence of the realization of a Qin vision in Western Han Chang’an was uncovered in 1993. In that year a research team found that a straight line could be drawn northward from Ziwu Valley, south of the capital, through the south-central gate of Chang’an, continue along the longest street in the capital, which brought it between Changlegong and Weiyanggong in the southern half of the city, through the north city wall, between the tombs of the founding emperor of the Han dynasty and his wife, and onward to a bowl-shaped depression believed to be the location of Tianqi Shrine. 22 The distance between Ziwu Valley and the depression is 74 kilometers. Further research determined that the line could be extended almost eight times that distance, joining a Han military commandery on the Yangzi River in the South to a
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commandery today in Inner Mongolia at the northern bend of the Yellow River. There is little doubt that the funerary mounds of the dynastic founder and his wife were sited west and east, respectively, of the main thoroughfare of the city he had taken as his capital; that they were intended to correspond to Changle and Weiyang Palaces to the south; or that the water of Ziwu Valley provided a symbolic southern shield for the city. Further, a cross axis could be plotted to connect the remains of the First Emperor’s capital at Xianyang with the coast of Shandong province, where Qin Shi Huangdi had erected a stele to mark the eastern terminus of his empire (figure 3.6). Centered between the northern and southern and eastern and western boundaries of the empire, the Han capital was symbolically the center of the ruler’s domain and the pivot of the four quarters of the universe. This no doubt was the vision of the First Emperor, even if the early Han rulers conceived of it as their own. Ritual Architecture Fourteen foundations believed to be Han ritual buildings have been excavated at Chang’an.23 They are identified as Mingtang (Numimous Hall), Biyong (Jade-ring Moat), Lingtai (Spirit Altar), Taixue (Imperial Academy), Jiumiao (Nine Temples), Yuanqiu (Round Mound), and a pair of altars or temples for sacrifices to soil and grain. Mingtang is the most intriguing Chinese ritual structure. Among explanations of the Mingtang, its first character ming, translated here as numinous, is a straightforward one: “a building imitating the structure of the cosmos.”24 What this means, specifically, the configuration of rooms of the Mingtang, their symbolism, and how the architecture may have symbolized the heavens, is debated to this day. Texts about the Mingtang most frequently refer to rooms in groups of four, five, nine, or twelve. The number four is associated with the four directions, seasons, colors, animals, and other quadruples. Five is the number of xing (phases of the fundamental entity known as qi: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth). It is also the number of sides of a quadrilateral plus a center. Nine, four plus five, is a number associated with the Chinese emperor and is three squared. A three-squared surface, a magic square, divides into twelve units, three on each of its four sides, so that as one progresses around the perimeter, one can make twelve stops, one for each lunar month. Twelve also is the number of divisions, known as watches, of the day
3.6. Imaginary line from Ziwu Valley in the South to Tianqi Shrine in the North, running between Changle and Weiyang Palaces and the tombs of the first Han emperor and his empress
in China.25 These four numbers and the circle are combined in all proposed reconstructions of the Mingtang from any period. Records say that Western Zhou rulers constructed Mingtang and that Qin Shi Huangdi built a Mingtang that was the model for Western Han ritual structures. Remains south of Western Han Chang’an have been identified as either a Mingtang or a composite ritual hall in which the functions of Mingtang, Biyong, and Lingtai were performed, constructed by Wang Mang (45 BCE–23 CE), who usurped the Han throne and ruled from 9 to 23 CE and is known to have built ritual architecture south of the capital.26 An often-published reconstruction of this Mingtang has porch-like projections from each room on the first floor, five rooms on the second floor, and one room on the third level (figure 3.7). One of the fundamental tenets of any discussion of the Mingtang and some other ritual structures is the combination of circle and square, with the circle, which represents heaven,
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3.7. Theoretical reconstruction of Mingtang, early first century CE
Han Luoyang and Other Cities: Realistic Imperial Vision and Nonimperial Presence
above and the square, representing earth, below. The combination of the two shapes into one ground plan and the lack of explicit evidence such as an inscription found on-site to confirm what the architectural remains were has led to the suggestion of a composite ritual structure. The circular platform is an important justification for associations with Biyong, the “jadering moat,” the character bi being a jade ring in the possession only of high-ranking officials. Inscriptions of the Zhou dynasty describe Biyong as a circular (and perhaps artificial) lake where rituals were performed.27 The correspondence between this configuration and the function of Biyong as the place imperial princes were educated is unclear. The corner towers in the reconstruction are proposed to be lingtai, platforms that could be ascended to observe the heavens. The structural group known as the Nine Temples is more certainly associated with Wang Mang than the remains shown as figure 3.7, for nothing like the Nine Temples had previously been constructed. Until Wang Mang’s Xin dynasty, the maximum number of temples erected to commemorate a ruler’s ancestors was seven.28 Nor is there evidence of a Nine Temples complex after Han. The excavation site south of Chang’an identified as the Nine Temples is shown in figure 3.2. This unique configuration in Chinese architectural design is a rare example of an imperial architectural form that disappears. A Han ritual structure also stood in Chong’an, Fujian province. It is believed to be the ancestral temple of the state of Min that included space for the zhaomu tablets.29
Han Luoyang by any measure was neither as grandiose nor as ambitious, nor was it as large, as Chang’an, but its population was twice Chang’an’s. Luoyang became the primary Han capital after 23 CE, the year Wang Mang was murdered in Chang’an. Han emperor Guangwu (r. 25–57) moved his capital eastward as the Zhou had done a thousand years earlier, not to the Zhou capital site but to palaces that had been constructed in Qin times and used by the founding emperor of the Han dynasty. The outer wall of approximately 13 kilometers in perimeter took a roughly rectangular shape of 3:2 proportions, the Golden Ratio, and because of the Chinese units in which its size was rendered it was nicknamed “the 9:6 city.”30 Han Guangwu walled the city at the outset, presumably with the intent of positioning it between the Mang mountains in the North and the Luo River in the South. The city had only two palaces, a significant departure from the Qin and Western Han capitals, which were interconnected by a covered passageway that made secret imperial movement between them possible (figure 3.8). An important decision about imperial urbanism was taking place. If rulers of Western Han experimented with use of multiple palaces, it was resolved by the beginning of the first century CE that a Chinese emperor should reign from a single palace. Although two palace areas existed at Han Luoyang, one was the primary location of imperial residence and governance
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at any given time. After the Han dynasty, there never again would be more than one palace at the imperial city. The city wall had twelve gates, as prescribed in “Kaogongji” and as had been implemented at Han Chang’an, but at Luoyang they were distributed as three on the eastern and western walls, four on the south, and two on the north. Several of the most major streets, five that ran north-south and five east-west, emanated from the gates, with a continuous street that traversed the southern part of the city from an east to a west gate. Twenty-four streets are named in texts about Han Luoyang. Excavation has shown them to be between 20 and 40 meters wide.31 Luoyang through history is as important a city for excavation as Chang’an, but unlike the extensive information from Erlitou or Yanshi for the pre-Han period, the Eastern Han capital and its monuments are difficult to access. The palatial counterparts of Western Han Weiyanggong have not been theoretically drawn. The locations of the twelve Eastern Han imperial tombs are known, but they remain unexcavated. Five emperors were laid to rest in what is sometimes called the northern tomb group, east of present-day Mengjin county and north of the Mang mountains; the other six are south of Yanshi county. The last emperor, who began his reign in 189 at the age of eight and abdicated in 220, was buried outside Luoyang the year of his death in 234, probably near Jiaozuo in Henan. The first eleven tombs had mounds. Mingtang and Biyong were constructed at Han Luoyang, and the foundation of the Lingtai remains. It had a paved, ceramic-tile floor and a pounded-earth, square platform above it. Remains suggest that it was of taixie construction. Some believe that relief sculpture of the Eastern Han period offers clues about the appearance of ritual altars. Based on the assumption that altars were outside, combinations of trees, que, and men bearing offerings have led to the suggestion that a depiction on the wall of a late Eastern Han tomb in Dahuting in Mi county, Henan, and one on the wall of a tomb in Nanyang, Henan, show worship at altars (figure 3.9).32 Gardens had been integral to the Chinese concept of a palace at least since the time of the First Emperor, who had parkland with animals for his personal use.33 Palaces with adjacent gardens survive far south of Chang’an in locations where kingdoms continued to wield power in the second century BCE even though China had been unified. Palaces have been excavated from the Nanyue kingdom near Guangzhou in Guangdong
3.8. Plan of Eastern Han Luoyang based on excavation 3.9. Worshipers at outside altar, on rubbing of relief sculpture from tomb excavated in Nanyang, Henan province, Eastern Han dynasty
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to be represented by small-scale architecture that was used as burial goods and are seen in relief sculpture that lined walls of Han tombs (figure 3.10). Defense of China’s northern border, symbolized by the Great Wall, was a priority of Han China, following the intentions of the First Emperor; wubi often were located along the Great Wall. A few mud-brick lookout towers survive from the Han dynasty at strategic locations or passes along the Great Wall.
Han Tombs outside the Capitals The number of Han tombs has been estimated at 100,000, of which at least 20 percent had been opened by the beginning of the twenty-first century.36 In spite of this huge number, nonimperial tombs divide into a small number of types. One of the earliest is the vertical pit tomb, often with wooden, plank-lined chambers, a form with several millennia of history prior to the Han dynasty. The famous tombs of the Marquise of Dai (d. ca. 170 BCE), her husband (d. 186 BCE), and perhaps their son (d. 168 BCE), in Mawangdui, near Changsha, Henan province, are examples. Tomb 1, the marquise’s, was 19.5 by 17.8 meters and filled in with charcoal and clay to preserve its interior. The tomb received international attention in the early 1970s when excavation revealed her well-preserved corpse, silk garments, a facedown painting believed to be a guide for souls in the afterlife, nested lacquer coffins, and more than fourteen hundred burial goods. Tomb 3, whose occupant died in 168, contained some of China’s earliest silk maps, one military and one topographic, that use cartographic keys, and one map of a four-sided, walled city with orthogonal streets.37 A second type of tomb constructed in the Western Han period belonged to higher-ranking royalty. Examples survive in burials of kings (wang) and queens, sometimes called princes and princesses, of Chu in the vicinity of Xuzhou in Jiangsu province and of Liang in Mangdangshan, Yongcheng, Henan province. Large tombs with complicated plans are not surprising in Xuzhou, for the first emperor of the Western Han dynasty was born there. His younger brother was the first Han king of Chu. Subterranean Chu royal tombs carved into natural rock and accessed from ground level, all dated to the Western Han period, spread in and around the city today. One of the most carefully studied is at Beidongshan.38 The tomb is a rare example of a two-level, underground burial space (figure 3.11). Entered via an extremely long corridor,
3.10. Burial object with high central tower and four corner towers believed to represent a wubi, excavated in Leitai, Wuwei, Gansu
province and from the state of Min near Chong’an in Fujian.34 A shipyard dating to the Qin and early Han period also has been uncovered in Guangzhou. It was adjacent to the palace and gardens, suggesting it was controlled by the local ruler. 35 A strong national economy and unprecedented commerce gave rise to important cities outside the capitals in Han times. Some, such as Linzi and Handan, had their roots in urban centers of the Eastern Zhou period (see figures 2.3a, 2.3c). Others, also with earlier building periods, in today’s Nanjing in Jiangsu province, Hefei in Anhui, and Chengdu in Sichuan, have remained important Chinese cities since the Han. Nanyang in Henan, the location of the tomb whose relief is shown in figure 3.9, was about 1.4 kilometers square with an enclosing wall of 6 meters in width at the base. Military commanderies, introduced by the First Emperor, spread across the Han empire from Xinjiang to Mongolia to North Korea, some with fortified walls and defense systems. A type of construction known as wubi or wubao emerged in commanderies at this time. Wubi were walled compounds, often with corner towers that could be ascended for defensive lookout. They usually were surrounded by moats and included residential architecture, perhaps for the main clans associated with them and their service personnel. The fortified structures are believed
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3.11. Infrastructural drawing of tomb of Chu king, Beidongshan, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, second century BCE
the tomb is divided into three sections with side niches and rooms off the first and second, followed by a two-room rear section. Walls and ceilings are primarily stone with some clay and plaster. Twelve steps lead from the middle section to a large area 2.98 meters below it. An armory, storage chamber, two lavatories, storage for banquet utensils, entertainment hall, kitchen, courtyard with a well, and ice-storage room are arranged in four rows. The Mangdang mountains (shan), about 35 kilometers from the center of Yongcheng, in Henan, are the location of five pairs of tombs and at least four others, among which are those of kings and queens of Liang, also relatives of the ruling house of Han.39 As at Beidongshan, the Yongcheng-area tombs are carved right into natural rock and entered via long ramps. The tombs of King Xiao (r. 168–143 BCE), the oldest son of the third Han emperor and younger brother of the fourth emperor (buried at Baling and Yangling, respectively), and Xiao’s wife buried due south of him, are among the oldest. These two tombs plus their aboveground funerary precinct that originally was enclosed by an earthen wall of 900 meters north to south by 750 meters east to west, are at Bao’anshan. The aboveground sacrificial precinct included a screen wall, front and back halls believed to be for audience and residence, respectively, a funerary city for those who tended the sacrificial area, and a funerary precinct. Underground, the tombs are characterized by a
corridor that encloses the main area (figure 3.12). The tomb of Queen Li consists of thirty-four rooms, allowing for the kind of diversification of function at the Beidongshan tomb in Xuzhou. A third type of Western Han tomb used for royalty is also cut into natural rock, but the burial is at entry level. It can be described as a horizontal pit tomb, the type used at Baling. The tombs of Han king Liu Sheng (d. 113 BCE), a son of the fourth Han emperor Jingdi who was buried at Yangling, and Liu Sheng’s wife, Dou Wan, in Mancheng, Hebei, and the tomb of the King of Lu in Qufu, Shandong, are this type.40 Another type of tomb that appears in the Western Han period is (huangchang) ticou, wooden staves with the yellow flesh (exposed), that is, a wall of stacked wooden stakes that enclose the coffin or nested coffins at the center of a burial chamber.41 One thousand to fifteen hundred pieces of wood, each about a meter in length, are used to form this enclosure. Examples survive at Dabaotai in Beijing, Shuangdun in Anhui, Changsha in Hunan, and Yangzhou in Jiangsu, among other places (figure 3.13). Eventually the form is transformed into a stone structure. Brick tombs were widespread in the Han dynasty. Tombs made of hollow bricks are constructed earlier, and smaller, solid bricks are used later. Large numbers of both forms with paintings covering their walls and ceilings survive in the
41
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Side Section from North
Plan
Side Section from South
1
2
3.12. Plan and side sectional drawings of tomb 2, Bao’anshan, Yongcheng, Henan, Western Han period 3.13. Tomb 1, ticou structure, Western Han Tomb Museum, Yangzhou, Western Han 3.14. Infrastructural drawings of Luoyang tomb 61, from west to east (1) and east to west (2), early Eastern Han dynasty
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a. Plank-beam
e. Tongue-and-groove Joint
b. Diagonal-support, Plank-beam
f. Barrel Vault
c. Broken-line Wedge-shaped
d. Broken-line Wedge-shaped without insert
g. Domical Vault
3.15. Evolution of Chinese vaulted ceiling from Warring States period through Eastern Han
region of Luoyang,42 but examples are found across China. The tomb of Bu Qianqiu, dated to the late Western Han period in Luoyang, is an example. The underground tomb is entered by a ramp on the east with burial of husband and wife in the west. The western location may indicate an understanding of the Han association of that direction with death, further discussed below. North and south of the entry are side chambers with rooms adjacent to them on their eastern sides. Bu Qianqiu’s burial is the earliest evidence of two aspects of Chinese funerary culture that will have long histories: Bu and his wife are painted on the walls; a number is painted on each of twenty bricks that extend in sequence across the tomb.43 The markings, which in some tombs are a system other than numbers, indicate that painting was done outside the tomb, presumably in a workshop, and that pieces were carried into the tomb for proper arrangement. The system does not presume literacy, only that one craftsman be able to read numbers or markings. Workshop manufacture also suggests that there was choice in decoration, presumably that the owner in life or survivors after his death made those choices. The same plan is used in tomb 61 in Shaogou, Luoyang, also dated to the late Western Han period. In the Shaogou tomb, a pillar that supports a pediment stands roughly in the center of the main interior space (figure 3.14). This tomb is known for its mural Two Peaches Kill Three Knights and a scene on the back wall set in mountains that may depict a banquet the night before Liu Bang’s troops took the city of Chang’an.44 Both tombs have star groups on the ceiling to re-create the world outside the tomb in microcosm underground. A tomb pediment in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is believed to
have been part of a tomb of the same structure also from the Luoyang region.45 Tombs constructed with small, solid bricks in Zhu village in Luoyang, at Helinge’er in Inner Mongolia, and at Anping and Wangdu in Hebei represent funerary construction in the Eastern Han period. All are dated to the second century CE or later in the Han dynasty. Each tomb’s murals include processions of men, animals, or horses that move across its walls, and each has at least one barrel (or tunnel) vaulted ceiling, that is, an arched ceiling, constructed of brick or stone that may be intended to imitate wooden or plaster components. The ceilings sometimes are referred to as domes. A dome is a type of vault that is built on a circular base and for which curvature is even throughout. It can be segmented, semicircular, or bulbous in section. A ceiling that combines the vault and dome is known as a domical vault. In this kind of structure, a dome rises on a square or polygonal base, and the curved surfaces are usually separated by groins. Barrel vaults, domical vaults whose ribs meet at a point at the top and with a flat apex, and domes formed of concentric rings of bricks all existed in the Eastern Han period. Dated evidence from tombs suggests an evolution of the vault from an interior made of wooden planks, the kind used in the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, to the use of planks in segments to achieve a ceiling with diagonal sides and a flat apex, used in Western Han tombs in Luoyang (see figure 3.14), to smaller segments, first with wedges and then without them, to the use of tongues that interlock into grooves for stability, to barrel vaults, to domical vaults (figure 3.15). Some of the best examples of domical vaults survive in southeastern China, in Hong Kong and in Guangdong province.
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the wall to the top of the ceiling, so that the profile appears like a zigzag line. The same type of ceiling is found in stone tombs in Cangshan, Shandong province, dated 151 CE; Maocun in Xuzhou, dated 175; and Anqiu in Shandong, with a date only of Eastern Han.48 The Cangshan tomb is the smallest of the three, consisting of a main chamber and back area divided into two sections. The Anqiu tomb has nine interior rooms. Detailed, three-dimensional carving on its pillar surfaces distinguishes it from the others. The best-studied late Eastern Han tomb is no. 1 in Beizhai village, Yi’nan county, of southern Shandong.49 Its octagonal pillars, pronounced bracket-arms, and the superimposed quadrilaterals of three-dimensional ceilings above its chambers anticipate tomb construction of the next several centuries (figure 3.22). Lotus flowers painted at the top centers of ceiling sections in a late Eastern Han tomb at Dahuting in Mi county, Henan, are two-dimensional versions of the Yi’nan chamber ceilings.50 Han tombs also survive in Liaoning province. They include some of the earliest excavated Han tombs, uncovered during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in the early twentieth century. A stone subterranean tomb excavated in Liaoyang county of Liaoning in 2004 has the earliest evidence of an inverted-V-shaped brace, painted on a building among its murals. This feature will be a hallmark of Chinese and Japanese wooden construction through the eighth century.51
3.16. Plan of tomb in Anping, Hebei province, second century CE
The tombs in Anping, Wangdu, and Helinge’er all have barrel-vaulted chambers along their main axes and vaulted rooms at the sides of those chambers (figure 3.16).46 The Helinge’er tomb offers other important information about Han architecture. Entered on the east, the 19.85-meter-long interior consists of three main chambers with side niches north and south of the first and second rooms. The murals contain more than 50 scenes and more than 225 inscriptions. An impressively expansive re-creation of timber framing from the Han or any later period is painted on the north side-room of the front chamber. One observes floor, side, and ceiling beams, columns, and multitiered bracket sets (figure 3.17). Five labeled images of walled cities are painted in a combination of plan and frontal view (figure 3.18). Two wooden bridges supported by bracket sets also are painted, one of which is labeled Juyongguan, the name of a strategic pass of the Great Wall. Inscriptions tell us that the tomb occupant is en route from Fanyang, the city shown in figure 3.18, to accept his new position as colonel-protector of Ningcheng, also represented among the murals. Finally, one finds several examples of que, other towers, and structures that are likely to be granaries. Another type of Han tomb carved into natural rock is known as yamu (cliff tomb). Different from the Western Han period tombs for kings in Xuzhou, Yongcheng, and Mancheng, in the late Han period, the tomb type known as yamu is most popular in Sichuan.47 Yamu are distinguished by detailed imitation of architectural features in the stone interiors. The majority are located along rivers and gorges in the Chengdu region. Most are entered through long tunnels. Three to five interior rooms follow the tunnels, with branches to either side (figure 3.19). The caisson ceiling, a formation resembling a lantern ceiling and thus sometimes known as a lantern ceiling, and often formed by superimposed quadrilaterals, three-dimensional, multitier bracket sets, elongated bracket-arms, sometimes with pronounced curves or cloud-like patterns, fluted columns, and central pillars are present in the interiors (figures 3.20, 3.21). Among the three-dimensional ceilings in cliff tombs in Sichuan are those with layers of decreasing size from the top of
Additional Evidence of Han Architecture Not surprisingly, the only aboveground architecture that has weathered the two millennia since the Han dynasty is made of brick or stone. It is of two types: freestanding gate-towers or pillar-towers known as que, and offering shrines. About thirty Han que survive, primarily in Henan, Sichuan, and Shandong provinces, and there is one in Beijing.52 Fourteen are dated by inscription from 36 CE to 209–220. It is believed they all were built in pairs. Some, including those on the sacred peak Mount Song in Henan, dated 118, were at the entrances to shrines. Others, such as the Gao Yi que in Ya’an, Sichuan, dated 209, were erected along the approaches to tombs (figure 3.23). Han que divide into two main groups, the first made of stone with a squarish base and stones of diminishing size layer by layer upward to a roof that imitates ceramic tile; and the second presenting more as side-by-side towers, one taller than the other, so that the pair was nicknamed mother-and-child. Que
44
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3.17. Painting of pillars, beams, and bracket sets, north side room of front chamber, life-size model of Helinge’er tomb, Shengle Museum, Shengle, Inner Mongolia
3.18. Painting of walled town of Fanyang showing official architecture, south wall of central chamber, life-size model of Helinge’er tomb, Shengle Museum, Shengle, Inner Mongolia
Plan
Side Section
3.19. Plan and sectional drawing of tomb 1, Fengtaizui, Qijiang, Santai, Sichuan, Eastern Han
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3.22. Octagonal central pillar with long bracket-arms, tomb 1, Yi’nan, late Eastern Han
of both types are surfaces for narrative relief. Some believe que follow the structures of wooden towers that no longer survive, but this cannot be proved. Que were one of the most important forms of physical evidence of Han architecture in the centuries before excavation. The next important body of material used then that is still informational is mingqi. Mingqi refers to a wide variety of burial goods. Thousands of Han mingqi take the form of architecture. Sometimes they are called models, but there is no proof that they imitate specific buildings. Architectural mingqi may include specific and accurate building components such as bracket sets or roof tiles, but these features combine in fanciful or exaggerated ways. Decorative features sometimes include human figures and animals that further suggest that mingqi, especially those in the form of towers, were as much symbolic and even fanciful as they were realistic (fig 3.24). The majority of Han earthenware architecture in miniature comes from Eastern Han tombs of the Central Plain, the provinces of Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi, but they also have been found in Gansu, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Sichuan. Mingqi in the shapes of tall, slender towers with bowls for water at the bottom are known as shuixie (water kiosks).53 A noteworthy feature of the architectural mingqi is their individuality. Most Chinese funerary art, by contrast, was 3.20. Detail of left side of ceiling, central chamber, tomb 1, Balinpo, Qijiang, Santai, Sichuan, Eastern Han 3.21. Back chamber, tomb 1, Balinpo, Qijiang, Santai, Sichuan, showing fluted central pillar with three-dimensional bracket set with long, curved arms, Eastern Han.
3.23. Que, mother-and-child style, along approach to tomb of Gao Yi, Ya’an, Sichuan, 209
47
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3.25. Mingqi in shape of granary, earthenware, Eastern Han. Henan Provincial Museum 3.26. Mortuary shrine of Guo Ju, Xiaotangshan, Changqing county, Shandong, dated inscription of 129 CE
3.24. Miniature tower, earthenware with green glaze
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made in workshops, and interchangeability of mass-produced parts is a basic tenet not only of funerary art but of Chinese art and architecture more generally.54 The pottery towers are remarkable in that a component such as the leaf-like eave corner seen in figure 3.24 is found in many of them but never in precisely the same places or together with the same configuration of people, animals, doors, or windows. Mingqi may represent the individual taste of a tomb owner or his children even though they are standard features in Han burials. Two groups of architectural mingqi probably include a greater number of features of actual buildings than many others, even though no two from these groups are identical either. The first comprise pieces that assemble as residential courtyards with domestic animals and places for them to graze or feed, wells, and outhouses. The second group are granaries (figure 3.25). Granaries such as the one shown in figure 3.25 may suggest the appearance of a Western Han granary in Duanjiacheng, Huayin, Shaanxi province. When the six-room, imperial granary was uncovered about 130 kilometers from the Chang’an capital, excavators turned to mingqi to aid in the theoretical reconstruction.55 In addition to the main structure, administrators’ living quarters and a guard station were enclosed inside the walled compound in Huayin. Administrative quarters and guard stations also are painted in scenes with granaries on the Helinge’er tomb walls. Another type of small-scale, but not miniature, evidence that informs us about Han architecture is the offering shrine, a commemorative structure where descendants came to pay homage to their ancestors. The three best examples are in Shandong. The shrine to Zhu Wei in Jinxiang is the oldest, with a dated inscription of 50 CE. Typical of shrines dedicated to family ancestors, Zhu Wei’s has three stone walls and an open front divided into a two-part entry by a central stone pillar. A cap-block at the top of the pillar imitates the lowest member of a bracket set that would interface a column-top and lintel. Columns engaged in the walls divide the other three sides as well, with a single-step bracket replicated in stone on the two side walls. The stone roof imitates one made of ceramic tiles. The interior is covered with scenes of food preparation and offering. The shrine at Xiaotangshan, dedicated to Guo Ju, is similar in structure and better preserved (figure 3.26). Measuring 3.8 meters across the front, two meters in depth, and 2.1 meters tall, its roof is known as an overhanging eaves roof (xuanshan) because it consists of a main roof ridge and gables that cover the front and back, giving
3.27. Most common Chinese roof types: 1. Hipped roof; 2. Hip-gable roof; 3. Hip-gable roof without chiwei (decorating ends of main ridge); 4. Overhanging eaves roof with chiwei 5. Overhanging eaves roof; 6. Pyramidal roof
way to flat sides that come to a point at the top. The bluepainted pillars and lintel across the front were added, perhaps imitating the original structure, during repairs. Interior reliefs include food preparation, banquet scenes, horses and chariots, and performance. The shrine is dated to 129 CE by an inscription on an interior beam. The shrines to members of the Wu Family in Jiaxiang are no longer intact. Dated to the 140s, 150s, and 160s based on inscriptions on pillars and stele that have been studied at the site since the Qing dynasty, here, too, architecture is represented on pieces from the shrines.56 Details of mingqi and representations of architecture in relief sculpture are sometimes so specific that one assumes that even if a feature is not found in wooden architecture until several centuries later, its presence on a mingqi indicates it would have been present in a Han building. An example is the porch-like projection known as pingzuo that may be used on any story of a structure. More is assumed about bracket sets. Que, mingqi, and relief sculpture offer ample evidence of the use of caps and blocks in multitier bracket sets projecting perpendicular and parallel to the building plane, and diagonally from a wall corner to support the undersides of overhanging eaves. The latter type is known as cantilever bracketing, the formation shown in figure 2.9. Han bracket sets show the use of the cap-block (ludou), the keystone of the set, other blocks (dou), arms (gong) that join blocks, and as many as four or five layers of arms, known as tiao (steps or jumps). Bracket sets are placed above pillars, between pillars, and at corners. Han bracket sets can be divided into three types: chagong (inserted bracket-arms), in which the bracket-arms are inserted into a lintel, the eaves’ undersides, or
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3.28. Relief sculpture on rock at Kongwangshan, Lianyungang, Jiangsu, probably second century CE
the ceiling; henggong (horizontal bracket-arms), in which bracket-arms are on top of a beam and support another beam from its underside; and zhutou dougong (pillar-top bracket sets).57 From the small-scale evidence, we observe five roof types: si’a/e (simple hipped), xieshan (hip-gable combination), xuanshan (overhanging gable, the type used at Xiaotangshan Shrine), yingshan (flush gable), and sijiao cuanjian (pyramidal). They are among the most common Chinese roof types for the next two millennia (figure 3.27). The figures, birds, and animals on the roofs remain an intriguing question. Some believe they anticipate the corner decorations known as chiwei (owl’s tails), later as chiwen (openmouthed creatures) on roofs of important buildings in later times. Others believe they are evidence that the mingqi are fanciful. Yet others believe the creatures, particularly birds, symbolize the rising of the spirit to the heavens.
Buddhists gathered, studied, and translated texts into Chinese in architectural spaces in the Eastern Han period, presumably some of them in the capital Luoyang. How Buddhism was practiced in Han China is unclear, but there is ample evidence in art and architecture that Buddhism and its symbols were present. A Buddha image is carved on the lintel above the entry to a cliff tomb at Mahao, in Leshan, Sichuan province, a facade otherwise remarkably similar to the entry to the shrine of Guo Ju (see figure 3.26). The Buddha image also is believed to appear with Confucius and Laozi at a rock-carved site known as Kongwangshan in Lianyungang, Jiangsu (figure 3.28).58 Whenever and wherever Buddhism entered China, worship spaces that had originated in India had to be accommodated to Chinese settings. A long-standing belief has been that the que inspired a transformation from the circular relic mound with an egg-shaped dome known in South Asian construction by its Sanskrit name stupa into a four-sided, multitiered structure more compatible with Chinese timber-frame construction. It would be known in East Asia as a pagoda, a word that may have been derived from a Chinese, Persian, Sanskrit, or Portuguese name for the structure. We will read more about this process in the next two chapters. Evidence of Buddhist architecture in the Han dynasty is suggested by
China’s Earliest Buddhist Architecture According to legend, the Eastern Han emperor Mingdi (r. 57–85) dreamed of a golden image that subsequently led him to send emissaries to Western Regions in search of its explanation: it was a Buddha. Whether or not this occurred,
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3.29. Rubbing of stupa-like image and devotees, Wu family shrine, second century CE
3.30. Brick relief with carved pagoda-like structure with lotuses on either side, found in Shifang county, Sichuan, probably late Eastern Han
relief sculpture and tomb interiors. Worshipers making obeisance on the sides of a single-story, circular building with a domed roof in relief from the Wu family shrines and a quelike tower flanked by long-stemmed lotuses, floral symbols of the Buddha on a brick relief are important evidence of the representation of Buddhist architecture in China before the end of the Han dynasty (figures 3.29, 3.30). It is unknown whether either structure was simply a copied motif that carried little or no meaning; if the Buddhist symbolism of stupa and lotus were known; or if the imagery of Sichuan province developed locally, independent of outside influences. The cliff tombs at Mahao and elsewhere in Sichuan that contain relief sculpture of what appears to be Buddhist imagery are in the same regional group as those with central pillars, which, like the relief sculptures, may have been an independent structural invention in Sichuan or may have been inspired by central-pillar, Buddhist caves of South Asia.
position in the universe represented by the city Chang’an and its architecture in four directions beyond him. By the end of the Han dynasty, Buddhism entered this Chinese world order. It was to be present in cities of rulers, and there would be many of them; and unlike imperial architecture, Buddhist construction would stand in remote parts of China. Han urban life in provinces like Sichuan and Shandong, where elite families built tombs and offering shrines amid a burgeoning market economy, would collapse along with the supreme position of a single capital in a unified China. Religious architecture of pious populations seeking understanding in a world with little order would be the emblem of China’s next four centuries.
Through the Han dynasty, the ideological world of China’s rulers was grounded in native Chinese beliefs, sometimes with sources in classical texts. The most important three-dimensional realization of an imperial order was the ruler’s central
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CHAPTER 4
An Age of Turmoil Three Kingdoms, Two Jins, Sixteen States
In late September 189, civil war broke out in the Han capital Luoyang. Later the same month, the Chinese general Dong Zhuo orchestrated the replacement of the emperor with his half brother. In 192 Dong Zhuo was assassinated and Yuan Shao (d. 202), a descendant of the ruling family, had established himself at a city named Ye in Linzhang county of southern Hebei province. By 198 a former official of the Han dynasty named Cao Cao (155–220) stood out among other contenders for the Chinese throne. Cao Cao made Ye his power base in 204. Meanwhile, the Gongsun family formed a state in Liaoning province, and in northern Shanxi, non-Chinese northern tribesmen known as Xianbei were overtaking the non-Chinese Xiongnu. In the Southeast, the Sun family was able to fend off Cao Cao’s attacks, halting his ambition of securing all the former Han empire under his rule. Tracing their lineage to the state of Wu during the Warring States period, the Sun established a capital at Jianye, later known as Jiankang, today’s Nanjing. This city would be the political center in southeastern China for more than 350 years. In 220 Cao Cao’s son Cao Pi (187–226) established himself as ruler of the Wei kingdom. In 221 Liu Bei (161–223) declared himself emperor in Sichuan of a dynasty called Shu-Han to distinguish it from the previous Han dynasty. In 223 peace was negotiated between Liu Bei and Sun Quan (185–252). The period of Chinese history known as the Three Kingdoms began in 220 when Cao Pi ruled Wei, Liu Bei ruled Shu-Han, and Sun Quan ruled Wu.
Urbanism and Palaces in an Age of Disunion The two cities of the Three Kingdoms period about which we know the most are Ye and Luoyang, both associated with Cao Cao. Both can be reconstructed based on excavation and textual accounts. The third important city during the period is Jianye, known primarily through written records. Reappearance of First Millennium BCE Plans Ye had been the capital of Duke Huan (d. 643 BCE) of the state of Qi in the Spring and Autumn period. Subsequently it was a Han commandery. After it flourished under Wei (220–265) of the Three Kingdoms, Ye rose again as the capital of the state of Later Zhao from 335 to 350 and then of Former Yan from 357 to 370, both kingdoms of the Sixteen States; of Eastern Wei from 534 to 550; and of Northern Qi from 550 to 577. Through the fifth century, the area of Ye referred to as North City was the
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capital; beginning with Eastern Wei, imperial activities were centered in South City (figure 4.1). Excavation shows that Cao Cao’s city was between 2.4 and 2.6 kilometers east to west by 1.7 kilometers north to south. The size was smaller but proportionately close to the dimensions 7 by 5 li (1 li is approximately 0.5 kilometer) recorded in Li Daoyuan’s Shuijingzhu, a work mentioned in the previous chapter. A 2.1-kilometer main thoroughfare, 13 meters wide, crossed Ye between the east and west wall gates, and a 17-meter-wide road ran more than 700 meters northward from each of the three south wall gates. Foundation remains near the north center of the city are believed to be imperial palaces. Parkland was in the Northwest. Two parallel building axes are seen for the first time in a palace-city in Cao Cao’s capital at Ye. The multiple building lines would persist in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries and would affect urban planning in Japan. The north-center location of the palace-city had not appeared in Chinese imperial cities since Jiang in the Eastern Zhou period. There is no reason to suppose Jiang was Ye’s model, but Cao Cao’s city nevertheless marks a recurrence of one of the three plans implemented for state capitals of the final millennium BCE. Excavation confirms that Cao Cao’s Ye had seven outer-wall gates, three at the south, two on the north, and one each on the eastern and western sides. Texts inform us that city gates had three entries with two-story towers above them. When roads from those gates continued as three-lane thoroughfares, the central one was restricted to imperial passage. When water ran along the wall in front of a gate, passage across it was via a stone bridge. Ye had three main markets. An unusual feature of Ye is the area known as Santai, literally, three platforms, and perhaps best understood as elevated sectors, in the northwestern part of the city. Named Bronze Oriole, Golden Tiger, and Icy Well, they were constructed between 210 and 214. Bronze Oriole was the highest, 23–24 meters, followed by Golden Tiger at about 21 meters and Icy Well at 18.5 meters. Shuijingzhu tells us that Santai were massive, multiroom complexes of 145, 109, and 101 bays of rooms.1 Banquets sometimes occurred in the Santai part of the city, and arsenals and places for storing imperial objects were there. Records also inform us that Santai was available to Cao Cao for refuge at times of impending attack.2 Luoyang of the Wei kingdom had more obvious ties to a Han past.3 It is believed that when Cao Cao’s son, Cao Pi, took it as his capital in 220, no changes were made to the walls or
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4.1. Plan of Ye, Linzhang, Hebei, in second half of sixth century showing North City of Wei Kingdom (220–265) and South City of Eastern Wei– Northern Qi (534–577)
4.2. Plan of palace-city of Luoyang in Wei Kingdom, third century. 1. South Side Gate; 2. Changhe Gate; 3. South Side Gate; 4. Sima Gate; 5. East Side Gate; 6. Cloud Dragon Gate; 7. Tiger Spirit Gate; 8. West Side Gate; 9. Grand Secretariat; 10. Hall of State; 11. Great Ultimate Hall; 12. Respecting the Heavenly Way Hall; 13. Resplendent Brightness Hall; 14. Establishing Beginnings Hall; 15. Nine Dragons Hall; 16. Excellent Fortune Hall; 17. Listening to Grievances Tower; 18. East Hall; 19. West Hall; 20. Rising Cloud Terrace
twelve gates of the Eastern Han city (see figure 3.8). Cao Pi did alter the city inside the walls, and he ordered some rebuilding, presumably due to damage by Dong Zhuo’s attack in 190. Cao Pi used only the north palace of Luoyang. Whether he intended to follow the Eastern Han precedent of northern and southern palaces is not known, but thereby Wei Luoyang’s single palace-city was located in the north center of the capital, in the same place as its counterpart at Ye. The most important building in Wei-period Luoyang was Great Ultimate Hall (Taijidian), used for imperial ceremonies. Behind it were residential halls according to the “court in front, private chambers behind” dictum that would still be implemented in the Forbidden City in Beijing. The Grand Secretariat (Shangshusheng) and Hall of State (Chaotang) in front of it were southeast of Great Ultimate Hall on their own axis that began at a different gate of the south city wall than the approach to Great Ultimate Hall. The dual approach, one major thoroughfare to Great Ultimate Hall and the second
to the other two imperial complexes, was new: at Ye only one avenue led from the south central gate of the outer wall to the palace-city, and only after entering that inner enclosure was it possible to access the two parallel building groups. The second roadway perhaps signified a shared importance of architecture for holding imperial audiences and for conducting affairs of state; or perhaps it was a clear indication that certain of the emperor’s affairs were separate from those of his court. Luoyang had a third axial group, imperial residential quarters, to the west of Great Ultimate Hall (figure 4.2). Another unusual feature of third-century Luoyang was the enclosure of Great Ultimate Hall and the complex behind it by three concentric rectangles, the second of which also encompassed the building groups to its east and west and the last, the entire palace-city. Great Ultimate Halls would be the largest and most important buildings in subsequent palatial complexes through Chinese history. They and the palace-cities around them would always be compared to this one. A sixth-century painting of a
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4.3. Detail of mural, cave 127, Maijishan, Gansu, mid-sixth century
palatial complex from a cave-chapel in Gansu province may offer a glimpse of what the Great Ultimate complex looked like (figure 4.3). Like Ye, Luoyang of the Wei kingdom also had a three-part northwestern sector. It was known as Jinyongcheng (golden fortified city). Suggestions about its purposes range from imperial entertainment, to a place to capture or redirect forces from the mountains and water, to lookout across the mountains and along the city’s northern and western borders, to storage. Recent excavations suggest that one sector of Jinyongcheng may have remained from the Eastern Han city.4 In 229 Sun Quan moved his capital to Jianye, the third important capital of the Three Kingdoms period. Although he had declared himself emperor of the Wu kingdom, he continued to live in military barracks and only later began construction of palaces.5 Jianye was a city at the confluence of waterways, with the Jinhua River serving as a natural boundary on the south and a moat channeled around it on the other three sides. A long avenue approached it from the south. Construction of the main palace complex, Taichugong, began around 232, with major renovations occurring in 247. Building parts were transferred from a Wu capital in Wuchang, today Echeng, in Hubei province. Similar to the Wei capitals at Ye and Luoyang, Sun Quan’s palace-city was in the north center of an outer wall. When Sun Quan built a palace for the crown prince, it was east of his own palace. The eastern location of the crown prince’s palace would be another feature of Chinese imperial urban planning that would endure through the rest of the first millennium CE. An ancestral temple was built in Jianye after Sun Quan’s death in 252. An extraordinary feature
of the Wu kingdom capital is that its outer wall was enclosed by wooden and bamboo fencing. Freestanding city gates were made of mud-brick. Sun Quan also had a walled capital at Tieweng (iron parapet), today Zhenjiang, about 50 kilometers northeast of Jianye. In 265 Sima Yan (236–290) received the surrender of ShuHan, ousted the last ruler of the Wei kingdom, declared himself emperor of the Jin dynasty, and chose Luoyang for the Jin capital. In 280 the Wu kingdom fell to his control. In 307, however, Shi Le (274–333) and his forces sacked Ye. Shi had a major victory in Luoyang four years later, but he did not succeed at Jianye. In 317 the Jin ruler Sima Rui (276–323) moved south from Luoyang and established the Eastern Jin dynasty at Jiankang, the new name for Jianye beginning in 313. The brief period of unity under Jin is known as Western Jin (281–316). Luoyang’s plan at this time was so similar to that of the capital of the Wei kingdom that it is usually referred to as the WeiJin capital (ca. 220–316). The major emendations were new positions for the ancestral temple and altars to soil and grain. Eastern Jin would endure at Jiankang until 420. The century of Eastern Jin rule would produce some of the best-known talents in Chinese art and cultural history: Gu Kaizhi painted, Xie He promulgated six laws of Chinese painting aesthetics, Pei Xiu wrote about cartography, and the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove expounded neo-Daoist thought. Jiankang thus had two primary influences: from Wu kingdom Jianye on whose site it stood and from Luoyang from whence came its rulers. A map of Jianye-Jiankang during the Wu kingdom and subsequent period known as Six Dynasties (Western and Eastern Jin and four Southern
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4.4. Plan of Jianye-Jiankang from 222–589; superimposed on Nanjing during the Ming dynasty, identified by its wall
Dynasties [420–589]) shows that the palace-city was closest to the center of the city of Jianye and at certain times during this history was farther north, but still centered between the eastern and western outer city walls (figure 4.4). Jianye might be viewed as adhering to the model for Wangcheng described in “Kaogongji,” but later plans suggest a more north central location following the plans of the Wei capitals at Ye and Luoyang. In 307 Sima Rui repaired Taichugong, the main palace complex of Jianye, the city of his birth, so that he could reside in it. It is said that he modeled his capital after Luoyang.6 In 317 he built que at the front entry of the palace-city and changed the name of the main south gate of the city from Jiankang(men) to Xuanyang(men) (Manifest Brightness [Gate]), the name of the corresponding gate in Luoyang during Western Jin. Vermilion Bird (Zhuque) Road, the name of the equivalent thoroughfare in Luoyang, emanated southward from the palace-city of Jiankang beyond the south wall boundary. North of Xuanyang Gate, on the east and west, respectively, Sima Rui built an ancestral temple and altars to soil and grain. In 333 gardens were converted into an imperial granary inside the palace-city. In 337 the National Academy was constructed, and in 339 the walls of the palace-city were faced with brick, and towers were added at city gates.7 The arrangement, as well as the names of gates, followed those of Wei-Jin Luoyang, although, even with the additions, Eastern Jin Jiankang was smaller than Wei-Jin Luoyang. Moreover, it retained the bamboo fence outer wall with its fifty-six gates. The bamboo fencing would remain through the end of the fifth century. By all accounts, fourth-century Jiankang was both beautiful and spectacular. Vermilion Bird (Zhuque) Road was lined with
exotic plantings and flowering trees. Great Ultimate Hall was in front of the emperor’s residence; Respecting the Heavenly Way (Shiqian) Hall was in front of the empress’s residence. All four were three-building complexes consisting of a main hall and east and west side halls. At Wei-Jin Luoyang, the three-hall complexes also stood in a line from front to back. The placement of gates at the palace-cities of Wei-Jin Luoyang and Eastern Jin Jiankang, however, was different. At Luoyang, a gate was due south of each of the building axes, on-line with the main south gates of the palace-city. Jiankang had four south palace-city gates, two leading to building groups of the palace-city as at Luoyang and the other two beyond the palaces to the palace-city north wall. The added south gates are noteworthy because, as we have observed, Luoyang had an additional imperial residential complex due west and parallel to the building line of the main audience hall and residential palaces complex. It was self-contained, permitting no direct entrance or exit to or from the palace-city. The more marked division of the Luoyang palace-city into two by an east-west street was accomplished via a road that connected gates symmetrically positioned on the east and west side walls of the enclosures around the audience hall and imperial residences; the wall surrounding the three parallel axes of building complexes; and the palace-city wall itself. All had counterparts at Eastern Jin Jiankang. At both Wei-Jin Luoyang and Eastern Jin Jiankang, three main eastwest thoroughfares divided the city into four north-south sections, the one at Luoyang defined by eastern and western wall gates, whereas Jiankang’s passed only through the palace-city. Another similarity was the location of parkland north of both
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palace-cities. This, too, would be retained in Chinese imperial city planning as late as the Beijing Forbidden City. Eastern Jin Jiankang’s palace-city wall was faced with brick and had towers at each corner. The palace-city was further surrounded by a moat with trees planted along it. Ye and Luoyang and Jiankang would be reconstructed at each change of dynasty and sometimes when the ruler changed. At each juncture, historical precedent would result in a palace-city much like earlier palace-cities based on memories that had brought about transitions in the past. The fundamental defining features such as the principal building axes, wall positions, and names of halls often did not change. Through two more centuries of unrest, the palace-cities in China’s major capitals would change less than other architectural types in China. In and around these palace-cities, Chinese emperors and rulers who aspired to emulate Chinese emperors built Mingtang, ancestral temples, altars to the soil and grain, and other suburban ritual altars. The best evidence of ritual architecture in the fourth century is from Western and Eastern Jin. Physical remains in Luoyang, memories of earlier cities or times, and new construction were invoked in the building process. Initially Western Jin in Luoyang used the ritual structures of Cao Cao and the Wei kingdom, but in 287 the old buildings were demolished and construction began anew. Completed in 291, the Jin ancestral temple had seven rooms. The man in charge was named Chen Xie. Like all men involved in China’s premodern building industry, he was a court official. Chen’s title was chamberlain for palace construction (jiangzuo dajiang). Chen Xie was responsible for repairs on the old temple, even using bronze to help support the pillars. He also recovered an old measuring stick and memorialized the throne that the court should return to the ancient orthodoxy.8 When Sima Rui made himself prince of Jin in 317, the year before his formal self-proclamation as emperor, he began construction of an ancestral temple and altars to soil and grain in Jiankang. By the end of the dynasty, there was not enough space for the family tablets of each emperor, so in 391 the ancestral temple was enlarged to sixteen rooms. The new hall was long and narrow and had a roof of the si’a (four slopes emerging from a central ridge) type, a form seen in Han mingqi (see figure 3.24). The main roof ridge ends of the ancestral temple were decorated with chiwei (owl’s-tail-shaped ornaments), and the temple had particularly strong pillars lodged into the walls to help support
the roof’s weight, a stone floor, and a brick-paved courtyard in front.9 Eastern Jin Jiankang also had suburban altars. Upon the takeover of Wei by Jin, the emperor Wudi had joined the functions of the round and square mounds into one structure. In 319 Sima Rui, by then the emperor Yuandi, erected a suburban altar about 15 li south of Jiankang’s outer wall. Wu rulers of the Three Kingdoms period and Han before them also had erected altars south of their capital. A separate northern altar was built in Jiankang in 333. Eastern Jin also continued construction in Jinling, a successor to Tieweng. Cities of the Sixteen States In the third and fourth centuries, more than a dozen cities housed China’s most important imperial and ritual architecture. Most of them beyond Ye, Luoyang, and Jiankang were built by the Sixteen States (304–439): Former Zhao (304– 329) in Pingyang, Shanxi; Cheng (Han) (304–347) in Chengdu, Sichuan; Former Liang (314–376) in Guzang, Gansu; Later Zhao (319–352) in Xiangguo, Henan; Former Yan (337–370) in Longcheng, Liaoning; Former Qin (351–394) in Chang’an, Shaanxi; Later Yan (384–409) in Longcheng, Liaoning; Later Qin (384–417) in Yuanquan, Gansu; Western Qin (385–400; 409–431) in Yuanquan, Gansu; Later Liang (386–404) in Guzang, Gansu; Southern Liang (397–404; 408–414) in Ledu, Qinghai; Northern Liang (397–439) in Zhangye, Gansu; Southern Yan (399–410) in Guanggu, Shandong; Western Liang in Dunhuang, Gansu; Da Xia (407–431) in Tongwan, Shaanxi; Northern Yan (409–436) in Longcheng, Liaoning; and Western Yan (384–394) in Zhongshan, Hebei, the last usually considered a branch of Later Yan rather than a separate state. In the second century CE Xianbei leaders and others conquered and absorbed peoples from the Xiongnu, who had populated the same regions and been a threat to the Han and earlier rulers of China. In 258 the branch of the Xianbei known as Tuoba moved into south-central Inner Mongolia and took over a city 10 kilometers north of Helinge’er. It was Shengle, the first of three Northern Wei (386–534) capitals. Shengle had multiple, nonconcentric walls, the third type of city seen in the Zhou dynasty. Like some Zhou capitals with multiple walls, the enclosures dated to more than one period, in this case one wall to Han and one to the period of Tuoba construction. There was also later walling. The total space covered by Shengle’s walls is about 2.25 kilometers north to
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4.5. Detail of north wall of front chamber, Dingjiazha tomb 5, Jiuquan, Gansu, Sixteen States
south and about 1.55 kilometers east to west.10 Under Tuoba occupation, Shengle had an inner imperial sector, ancestral temple, and altars to soil and grain. By the fourth century a second Tuoba capital named Pingcheng, city of peace, today Datong in northern Shanxi, was underway. The fall of Ye to the Tuoba in 398 was surely a decisive moment.11 In that year the ruler Tuoba Gui (371–409) saw Ye and decided to move his capital farther south. The city he built, as we will see in the next chapter, had many more accommodations to a Chinese urban scheme than Shengle. The founders of the Sixteen States were primarily men of non-Chinese origin. Their desire to emulate Chinese architecture and customs is understandable. Han commanderies and colonies with Chinese buildings survived from Xinjiang to Korea in the third and fourth centuries. When they were destroyed by Sixteen States rulers, Han or earlier ruins were available for reuse. To the extent the rulers knew about Han, those walled cities symbolized vast imperial power. Sixteen States cities had at least two walled enclosures, usually a palace-city and an outer city. Outer city walls were often fortified, sometimes with crenellations of the kind painted on walls of Dingjiazha tomb 5, located in Jiuquan, Gansu province, and in all likelihood built for aristocracy of one of the Liang states of the late fourth to early fifth centuries (figure 4.5). Other times towers or gate-towers were positioned above walls for lookout and as vantage points from which to defend the city. Sixteen States rulers’ cities usually had an ancestral temple and altars for sacrifices to soil and grain south of the palace, structures that could only have been inspired by Chinese precedents. Pingyang, southwest of Linfen in Shanxi province, is an exemplary Sixteen Kingdoms city of a Xiongnu ruler. It
flourished only a decade, from 308 to 318, but the urban history of the site traces to the Zhou dynasty. It was used as a fortified center for a Xiongnu state in the late Western through early Eastern Han period. In 304 the Xiongnu leader Liu Yuan (251–310) declared himself king. In 308 he established a city and built palaces and government offices. In 311 his successor Liu Cong (r. 310–318) and the military general Shi Le took the Western Jin emperor to Pingyang as their captive.12 When Liu Cong died in 318, the city fell to Shi Le, who would go on to build capitals at Xiangguo and Ye. Shi Le’s state of Later Zhao lasted from 319 to 352. Pingyang had inner and outer cities, at least one altar, offices, markets, an ancestral temple, north and south palaces, and an eastern palace where imperial brothers and the crown prince lived, more than forty structures in all.13 By 326 Shi Le was engaged in reconstruction at the former Wei kingdom capital Ye. The move of the Later Zhao state to Ye occurred under Shi Le’s nephew Shi Hu (295–349), who executed a designer when one of his buildings collapsed.14 The outer walled boundary of Ye or Yecheng (Ye city, as it is known during this period) was the same as it had been in Wei times, and the thickness of its outer wall ranged from 15 to 18 meters. The walls were fortified with defensive towers positioned approximately every hundred paces and additional kiosks for lookout. Both outer and inner city walls were faced with brick. The seven gates, major thoroughfares that began at most of them, and the Santai were retained, all with the same names. The ancestral temple and soil and grain altars were built anew. Mansions for the aristocracy and military barracks that once were south of the palace-city were gone, and official bureaus were now positioned symmetrically along the center north-south road. The most noteworthy feature of Later Zhao
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placement of palaces in his capitals was dictated by the designs of early Ye and Luoyang, not Chang’an. Gansu province in the west had been Xiongnu territory and had Han commanderies. In 301 Zhang Gui (d. 314) established the Former Liang state there. Its capital Wolongcheng (reclining dragon city) in Guzang, Wuwei county, endured until 376 when Former Liang fell to Former Qin. Wolongcheng was about 3.5 by 2 kilometers.15 In 335, under the ruler Zhang Jun (307–346), the city is described as five “assemblages” (cuanju) of buildings, each with a palace. The clusters were not positioned along axes, as was a precedent in so many earlier cities. Rather, texts inform us that each of the four sides of the main palatial hall had a structure attached to it. To the east was Azure Hall where the emperor resided in the third moon of spring. Vermilion Hall on the south was for residence in the third moon of summer. On the west was White Hall, for the third moon of autumn. Black Hall on the north was for the third moon of winter. The colors, seasons, and directions confirm the use of the four-sided space-time continuum promulgated in Han times; and the positions of four sides around a center may have been in the form of the above-mentioned wubi, one of which was excavated in the same county of Gansu province (see figure 3.10). The formation of four groups of buildings around a center may be imitated on a kind of object that is common in the third and fourth centuries. Like mingqi, hunping, literally “spirit jars,” also known as duisuguan (figured jars), are smallscale evidence that is probably informative about Chinese architecture (figure 4.6). Hunping were used in funerary rites as a place for the spirit (hun) when the body was not present.16 The architecture on hunping presumably represents the physical structure where the spirit resides. Why so often pairs of que and four towers around a central one are on the lids is not explained in texts about the vessel or funeral ceremony. Their presence supports the idea of a universe of four symbolic directions and their associations, also suggested in the plan of Wolongcheng; the que mark the space as sacred or elite. Both the city and hunping suggest continuation of Han understandings of space. It is thus important that Wolongcheng is in Gansu and the majority of hunping have been excavated in the Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei region. In the age of the Sixteen States, one observes shared architectural forms or symbolism across territory that had been united under the Han empire.
4.6. Hunping, excavated in Nanjing, Jiangsu, Western or Eastern Jin. Museum of the Six Dynasties, Nanjing
Ye is five parallel building axes. Beginning at the west were palace complexes, accessible by a road from the outer city, then Kunhua (Posterity Magnificence) Hall complex, then, side-byside, the palatial halls and the government courtyards, both retained from the Wei kingdom, and, farthest east, the residence of the crown prince. It is unknown if the configuration was an expansion of three axial lines of imperial construction employed at Luoyang. Yecheng is the only East Asian city where this plan occurs. A city so full of palaces and other architecture connected with the ruling family had not been constructed on Chinese soil for half a millennium; Chang’an of the Western Han is the closest example (see figure 3.2). At Yecheng, about 40 percent of the city comprised palace space. Shi Hu had seen architecture and rebuilt architecture of Han Chang’an during his conquest of North China. Dong Zhuo had returned to Chang’an in 190 after destruction at Luoyang and is reported to have used some existing buildings and to have done refurbishing. His new palaces were destroyed along with his ambitions in 195. In 313 Sima Ye had established himself at Chang’an, but several other victories brought it to the Later Zhao state, then to Later Qin in 384, and to Da Xia in 417. Any of these remains may have inspired Shi Hu’s vision of a ruler’s city, even though the
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4.7. Wall of (Da) Xia capital, showing battlements, Tongwan, Shaanxi, early fifth century
Large sections of the early-fifth-century double-walled capital of the (Da) Xia state spread majestically in Tongwan in northern Shaanxi, offering a glimpse of the power of a wall to express imperial strength in an isolated region of North China (figure 4.7). Measuring 2.47 kilometers in perimeter, it had thirty-seven battlements, one roughly every 33 meters. The average length of a battlement was 19 meters, meaning that approximately two-thirds of the 16-meter-thick wall comprised fortifications.17 The wall had corner towers and a gate at each side. Records of Tongwan refer to elevated platforms and to ge (pavilions). Imperial seals have been excavated there. Records also present Tongwan as a city of tents. This practice would persist for a thousand more years: conquerors from the North would build Chinese walled cities and Chinese-style palaces but would reside in tents, the architecture of the lands of their births. One reads that Tongwan had more than 300,000 horses and ten million sheep and oxen,18 also indicating the coexistence of nomadic and sedentary lifestyles. Although both Tongwan and Guzang were established by non-Chinese conquerors from north of China, they present clear contrasts. Guzang may have been the most creatively planned Sixteen States city, and at the same time, it may have adhered more closely to Chinese textual or ideological
prescriptions than any other city of the period. Tongwan was the capital of a ruler who appropriated the symbolism of a Chinese wall and used its structural potential for defense for his empire but retained his native lifestyle inside it. Excavation and texts inform us that the three distinctive plans used in the Eastern Zhou period were used again in the third and early fourth centuries: multiple city walls at Shengle, the palace-city in the north center of an outer walled city at Ye and Luoyang, and a location closer to the actual center at Jianye. Among Sixteen States cities we also observe innovation, particularly at Yecheng, where five parallel axes of buildings comprised its north, and the five clusters of Wolongcheng. Mountain-Castles Another type of urban construction appears in continental East Asia in the fourth century: the mountain-castle (shancheng). Mountain-castles integrate natural mountains and man-made walls into fortified cities (figure 4.8). They were constructed by the Koguryŏ (Goguryeo) kingdom, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea that flourished contemporary to the Han and until the year 668 when the three were unified by the Silla kingdom. Today Koguryŏ architectural remains are in North Korea, northern South Korea, and Liaoning and
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4.8. Outer wall, Wandu mountain-castle, Ji’an, Jilin, third to fourth centuries
New Buildings for a Buddhist Age
Jilin provinces of China. More than 150 Koguryŏ walled towns have been excavated.19 Mountain-castles are a distinctive type among them. The palatial core of Wandu mountain-castle, located about 2.5 kilometers outside the city limits of Ji’an, is unique.20 The plan comprises four rows of buildings, the front one separated from the back three by a large courtyard with a single palatial hall, and with narrower divisions between the second through fourth rows. Building materials are primarily wood and stone. Ceramic roof tiles found here and at contemporary mountain-castles bear animal faces allying them with fourth-tosixth-century construction from Luoyang to Japan. Roof tiles with petal patterns also were used here and across East Asia at this time. Two octagonal foundations with quadrilateral centers on the right side of the building complex further distinguish Wandu mountain-castle. Approximately 4 meters on each side, the shapes have led some to suggest these are the remains of pagodas. However, Buddhism entered Koguryŏ officially in 352, about ten years after the population abandoned Wandu mountain-castle. The pair of remains also could be from funerary monuments, even though neither subterranean evidence nor precedents from other parts of Asia support this idea. Nor is there evidence of construction of octagonal towers in China or Korea in the fourth century. If the early-fourth-century date for the Wandu palatial sector is accurate, and if these are pagoda foundations, then the dates of Buddhism’s entry to Koguryŏ or of the abandonment of Wandu may not be as precise as texts report.
As we observed in chapter 3, images believed to be Buddhas and perhaps stupas were carved on the walls of cliff tombs and offering shrines and at the freestanding stone monument at Kongwangshan during the Han period (see figures 3.28– 3.30). Some believe that verbal descriptions by people from the West who had seen these kinds of buildings led to their construction in brick and stone in China. Buddhist architecture came to China in two other ways: stupas rose in towns and oases where merchants and monks stopped and settled along the routes between India and western China; and portable objects, both stupas and images, came eastward with devotees. The names futu (Buddhist shrine) and futuci (stupashrine), believed to be identifying Buddhist structures, are used in histories of the period. The materials of these shrines, and if they were large enough to accommodate worshipers or were portable, are unknown. By the Western Jin period, Luoyang had at least forty-two Buddhist establishments and thousands of monks, most of them from regions west of China.21 By the middle of the fourth century, Buddhist monasteries flourished in Jiankang.22 Stupas South of the Taklamakan Desert The oldest Buddhist architecture in China today is in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, landlocked territory that is west of China’s western province of Gansu and shares its other borders with Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tibet, and Qinghai
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province, the last due south of Gansu. Goods and information and people traversed these lands on the Silk Roads in the Han dynasty. Buddhism from India was practiced alongside West Asian religions such as Zoroastrianism along routes across the Xinjiang desert. Mud-brick stupas dated to the third and fourth centuries that demonstrate a stage in the evolution from Indian stupa to Chinese pagoda remain in the Silk Road towns of Loulan, Miran, Endere, Niya, Rewak, and a few others. Each was a dominant structure in a monastery that included other architecture and resident monks. Stupas and other ruins and artifacts from the Silk Roads came to international attention at the very beginning of the twentieth century through expeditions sponsored by the British, French, German, Russian, and Japanese governments or by wealthy patrons. Albert Grünwedel (1856–1935), Albert von Le Coq (1860–1930), Sir Aurel Stein (1862–1943), Sven Hedin (1865–1952), Ōtani Kōzui (1876–1948), and Paul Pelliot (1878–1945) were among the lead archaeologists. The stupas discovered and studied by Aurel Stein in the first years of the twentieth century, at Endere and Rewak, still are archetypical examples of mud-brick Buddhist structures in southern Xinjiang (figure 4.9). Elevated on multilayer, squarish platforms, often the four sides of the podiums are approached by stairs that lead to the base of the cylindrical structure. Originally the bases were enclosed by pillar-supported arcades whose surfaces were decorated with relief sculpture. The square outer enclosure, cylindrical drum (the part of a structure that supports a dome), and domed ceiling are all features that define the transition from early Indian stupas to those that will be built in China’s core provinces. Like the Endere stupa shown in figure 4.9, Loulan’s stupa was almost definitely that oasis’s most magnificent monument. Elevated on a three-layer, squarish, mud foundation, each side of the base is approximately 19.5 meters. Some 10.4 meters in height survive today. The dome was nearly 7 meters in diameter. The three main components—base, drum, and dome—suggest sources in stone stupas dated second to third centuries of the region of Uttar Pradesh in northern India known as Mathura. The architectural sources of Mathuran stupas probably lie in the Gandhāra region, today in Pakistan and slightly beyond its borders. Endere also had a circular stupa elevated on a trilevel, squarish base with a cylindrical dome of which more than 8 meters survive today. Niya’s stupa is the tallest structure among its ruins, although year by year the great complexity
4.9. Stupa elevated on high platform, Endere, Xinjiang, ca. third century
of Niya in the third century CE is revealed. Spreading on two sides of a river, in the 1990s Niya was the hub of more than a hundred excavation sites in a 150-square-kilometer area.23 An architectural compound of concentric quadrilateral enclosures in the form of the Chinese character hui 回 is believed to have had a stupa centered inside the two enclosures (figure 4.10). Like the tall stupa with a circular drum, this plan may have originated in monasteries of Gandhāra. In a Gandhāran monastery, the stupa was the dominant building, but it was never alone. Sometimes more than one stupa was present. Other Gandhāran monasteries were composed of multiple cloisters. At least three Gandhāran monasteries had a dominant stupa and an additional cloister on an axial line: Tokar-dara in the Swat Valley and Jaulian and Bhamala Monasteries, both in Taxila. This plan would become one of the three most important arrangements of early Buddhist monasteries in China, Korea, and Japan, discussed in the next chapter. In the same oases of southern Xinjiang where Buddhist stupas rose by the third century CE, burial continued according to customs of the Han dynasty. Xinjiang’s desert sands preserve wooden sarcophaguses with Chinese celestial symbols alongside textiles with green-eyed figures, a centaur, a cornucopia, and corpses of men and women with green eyes. The transformation to a Chinese Buddhist architectural system did not occur in Xinjiang; there, stupas and other architecture of Buddhist monasteries maintained ties to Gandhāran construction. The transformation would occur in mud-brick, but with imitation bracket sets, ceramic roof tiles, and other native Chinese components in the masonry. Some features of Indian Buddhist architecture, such as interior central pillars, and others that are exclusive to China and had been part of the Han buildings system, such as bracket sets, had been used in Han cliff tombs (see figures 3.19–3.21). The merging of building systems of desert Buddhism and
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4.10. Remains of architectural compound of two concentric enclosures, Niya, Xinjiang, ca. third century
Eastern Han China was a rare moment in Chinese architectural history when foreign structures were adapted into the Chinese system. The seeds were in place in the third century, but physical evidence of the convergence comes from the fourth and fifth centuries.
How or where Faliang or Lezun got the idea for worship in grottoes is not known. By the fifth century, rock-carved worship caves existed in the Kuche region, west as opposed to the eastern direction from which Faliang had come; south of the Tianshan mountain range and north of the Taklamakan desert on the northern Silk Route, roughly halfway between Turfan and Kashgar. Kizil and Kumtura are the major Buddhist cave-temple sites in this part of Xinjiang. Lacking dated inscriptions, the primary methodology for dating the Kucheregion caves through the 1970s was stylistic analysis. Since 1979, chemical study of selected caves at Kizil has shown that Buddhist grottoes were carved there in the fourth century, perhaps a little earlier.24 Three configurations among twelve Kizil caves are believed to date to the fourth century: central pillar, big Buddha image, and meditational.25 Cave 38 is of the first type, a single chamber with a rectangular ground plan and a barrel-vaulted ceiling measuring just under 6.5 meters from entrance to back wall and 4 meters in width. Its central pillar, roughly 1 meter from the back wall, rises less than half the 4-meter floor-to-ceiling height of the cave before merging with the ceiling and yielding vaulted passageways on either side around it (figure 4.11). The use of lapis lazuli and malachite for the painting of musicians above the entry of this cave may date the mural to the fifth century or even later, but the cave architecture represents the fourth century. At first glance, cave 48 appears to have a similar plan: a central pillar with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. Approximately the same depth as cave 38 but with extensions at the back sides, it too has vaulted passageways, in this case around a central, unexcavated space. In cave 48, however, the
Rock-Carved Buddhist Architecture in China The year 366 is widely recognized as the beginning of Buddhist cave construction in the Dunhuang region, an area with several major cave sites that date from the fourth through fourteenth centuries. The most famous caves at Dunhuang are the Mogao group. In that year, according to the Buddha Niche Stele of the Mogao Cave of Mr. Li of the Shengli Era of the Wuzhou Period, dedicated in 698, a Buddha niche was carved. The inscription on the stele states that the monk Lezun saw golden lights that reminded him of the Buddha, and so he climbed on scaffolding in order to dig a cave into the cliff, presumably for meditation and/or worship. Another Buddhist, Faliang, who hailed from the East, built a cave next to Lezun’s. Lezun’s and Faliang’s caves are among the three earliest Mogao caves: 268, 272, and 275. The three caves were carved at the time of one of the Liang states of the Sixteen States. The Mogao caves near Dunhuang are just one of the rockgroups carved in Gansu province during the rule of the Liang states. Buddhist cave-temples spread along the narrow part of the province known as the Hexi Corridor at sites in today’s Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan, Changma, and, of course, Dunhuang. The majority of fourth-century cave-temples have a central pillar, a feature not present in the three earliest Mogao caves.
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4.11. Interior of cave 38, Kizil, Xinjiang, showing central pillar, ca. fourth century
4.12. Interior of cave 77, Kizil, Xianjiang, showing trabeated vault, ca. fourth century
pillar is a backing for a large Buddha image (now gone), and the cave is known as a Big Buddha type. Cave 48 is dated by chemical analysis to the year 375, plus twenty-five or minus sixty years.26 Cave 47, which pairs with cave 48, may contain the oldest statue at Kizil.27 Kizil cave 6 is a meditational cave, the third type. Unelaborated on the interior and with one or more regularly or irregularly positioned niches, this kind of cave was primarily for a monk’s private meditation. The ceilings of the early Kizil caves exhibit trabeated vaults as well as barrel vaulting. Cave 77, of the Big Buddha type, employs both vault forms. The trabeated vault is shown in figure 4.12. Both vault forms also are found in Mogao caves of the late fourth to early fifth centuries. Kumtura, southeast of Kizil, has approximately seventy caves. Like Mogao, the construction history of Kumtura spans the fourth through fourteenth centuries. Kumtura cave GK 20, dated to ca. 400, is one of the earliest.28 Entered via an anteroom approximately 4 meters deep and 2 in width to which niches are attached near the side centers, the main, squarish interior space is approximately 5 meters on each side with a central dome. The dome displays eleven Buddhist figures. The adjacent cave, GK 21, is L-shaped. Thirteen Buddhist figures bedazzle its dome (figure 4.13). The origins of this kind of ceiling may trace to Han China, or it may be based on cave-temples to the west,
particularly in Bamiyan in Afghanistan, whose source may be as far west as ancient Rome.29 The stupa and the rock-carved cave-temple are two of the fundamental forms of early Buddhist worship in India that came to China by way of Central Asia. The Sanskrit word for rock-carved cave-temple is chaitya. Indian chaitya are distinguished by ogee (pointed-horseshoe)-shaped arches. These shapes are carved into or sculpted onto cave facades across China from the fourth century onward, notably in Mogao caves and at Yungang (figure 4.14). The third fundamental form of early Indian Buddhist architecture is the vihara, sometimes translated as monastery. The Gandhāran building groups referred to above were vihara. They included stupas, worship spaces, sometimes rock-carved, and residential spaces for monks. The transformation of vihara into a Chinese Buddhist monastery with wooden or other freestanding architecture alone or in addition to cave-temples in China is first documented in the fifth century. Evidence at the Yungang caves is mentioned below. The antecedents are in Xinjiang in the third and fourth centuries. At Duldul-Akur in the Kuche region, just across the Muzart River to Kizil’s southeast, a monastic complex was oriented toward the southeast, with the main entrance on the northeast leading directly to the smaller of two stupas
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4.15. Stupa, Duldul-Akur, Xinjiang, ca. fourth century
positioned on the opposite ends of a courtyard. One stupa stands today (figure 4.15). Wooden pieces found near the entrance appear to have supported a doorframe or arcade. One piece forms a scroll pattern at the ends and another presents rows of diamonds supported by triangles made of three, five, three, and five large and small pieces of wood. The first may mimic a bracket-arm and the second may represent a bracket set from the front.
Not every ruler had the same enthusiasm for Buddhism. In 258, for instance, Sun Xiu destroyed a stupa and monks were either secularized or killed.32 At first it was forbidden for Chinese to become monks, but the ban was lifted by the end of the Western Jin period. Chang’an had monasteries by this time where monks from India expounded on the scriptures. Also by the Western Jin, officials as well as rulers had become patrons of monasteries, and it had become a practice of those who could afford it to donate their residences for monastery use, thereby accruing merit for the next life and tax benefits in this life. Upon the fall of Western Jin at Luoyang, some monks remained, but others fled south to Jiankang, thereupon initiating a strong presence of Buddhism in the South. Sun Xiu’s actions were now long past; seven monasteries were established in Jiankang between 343 and 372.33 From then on the foreign religion flourished in the southern capital. By the fall of Eastern Jin in 420, many of the Sixteen States had readily adopted Buddhism. Buddhism of the third and fourth centuries has close ties to the lives of monks. In 310 the monk Fotudeng arrived in Luoyang. While the city was falling, Fotudeng became a trusted Buddhist master for the conqueror Shi Le. Shi Le became a great patron of monasteries for his capital of the Later Zhao state at Xiangguo in Hebei. Shi Le’s successor, Shi Hu, was an even more active patron. When Shi Hu moved the capital of Later Zhao to Ye, Fotudeng accompanied him, and monasteries were established there as well. Some 893 stupas were erected within the Later Zhao state.34 Upon Fotudeng’s death, his disciple Dao’an continued his mission. Dao’an helped establish monasteries in every region of China. If architecture
Buddhist Architecture in Metropolitan China Through the third century, Luoyang was the main center of Buddhist learning in China. Some of Luoyang’s fortytwo monasteries had originated in the Cao-Wei period and others in the Eastern Han dynasty. Jianye also had Buddhist institutions. Jianchusi, for instance, was established by Sun Quan in 247.30 Sun had invited monks to the palace to expound on the Buddhist law, and subsequently some kind of Buddhist building complex, named si in the texts, was erected.31 Originally si were government institutions; si is the final character in an inscription in the mural in Helinge’er tomb that identifies it as the official compound under the jurisdiction of the interred (see figure 3.18). By the third century, the word comes to be used in the Buddhist context. As mentioned above, si is translated as monastery, for usually monks were associated with si. 4.13. Ceiling of GK 21, Kumtura, Xianjiang, probably fourth century 4.14. Detail, cave 9, Yungang, Shanxi, showing row of Buddhas beneath chaitya-shaped arches, Northern Wei period
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Han, he wanted to continue the practice of auxiliary burial for high-ranking officials.38 A qindian (resting hall) was built aboveground long before Cao Cao died, objects the ruler had used in daily life plus horses and chariots were stored in it, and a bronze camel and stone dog were erected in front of the tomb.39 In 222, however, following the call for “meager burial” (bozang), Cao Pi had Cao Cao’s resting hall dismantled.40 This act marked an end to resting halls, funerary precincts, and funerary cities, the system exemplified by tomb complexes of Western Han royalty. Cao Pi’s tomb was carved into natural rock. It had neither tumulus, nor trees, nor a spirit path, nor funerary city, nor aboveground architecture. From the Wu kingdom, all that is known about imperial tombs is that Sun Quan’s was located in the Zijin mountains (the range in the vicinity of Nanjing known as the Purple Mountains). Hundreds of Wu tombs have been excavated in the vicinity of Nanjing, among which several belong to important officials. The tomb of the high-ranking military officer Zhu Ran (d. 249) of the Wu kingdom was found in Ma’anshan, Anhui, and the tomb of General Sun, dated to 249, was found in Wuchang, also in Anhui.41 Both are brick with two chambers joined by a corridor. Each has a domed front chamber and barrel-vaulted back chamber, a scheme that would be prevalent across China for the next several centuries. The dome in the Zhu Ran tomb is a brick pyramidal vault with a truncated top (figure 4.16). This kind of ceiling would flourish in Buddhist cave architecture of the next two centuries. Large numbers of Wei-Jin tombs have been uncovered in Gansu, both in the Hexi Corridor near Jiayuguan and near Dunhuang. Few have dated inscriptions. The tombs in or near Jiayuguan date from the third or early fourth century, and the groups near Dunhuang are from later in the fourth century. The Jiayuguan tombs are known for domestic scenes painted with fluid brushstrokes on bricks that were inserted into walls made of smaller bricks (figure 4.17).42 No tomb has more than three main chambers. Some have anterooms and others have side niches, but not necessarily in pairs. By the Western Jin period in the Dunhuang region, three main tomb chambers were less common, and fewer than three were the norm. No matter the number of primary rooms, niches were frequent, but no more symmetrically positioned than in the earlier period at Jiayuguan.43 All 117 tombs opened at the Qijiawan cemetery, 3.5 kilometers from Dunhuang and dated Western Jin to Sixteen States periods, are similar.44
4.16. Domed ceiling above front chamber, tomb of Zhu Ran, Ma’anshan, Anhui, brick, 249
of monasteries in North and South China was similar in the fourth century, a reason would be that the same monks established them. Tanxi Monastery in Xiangguo, enlarged on the site of an earlier monastery, had a five-story pagoda and monks’ quarters of more than four hundred rooms.35 When Later Zhao fell in 352, the centers of Buddhism became more numerous. Chang’an and the Hexi Corridor became especially important locations of Buddhist construction. The biography of Dao’an says that in 379 there was a five-story pagoda in Chang’an.36 Buddhist monasteries and cave-temples permanently altered the landscape in every region of China before the end of the fourth century. Except for a few mentions of pagodas or monks’ quarters of the kind cited here, however, we know little about their architecture. The majority of information about Chinese architecture in the third and fourth centuries comes from tombs.
Tombs In 222 the practice of “lavish burial” (houzang) was officially prohibited. The directive came from the emperor Cao Pi himself.37 Lavish, or extravagant, burial had already been discouraged under Eastern Han rule, but the third century was a turning point after which imperial tombs of the size and grandeur built for Western Han’s emperors, and perhaps even for some in Eastern Han (as mentioned above, little is known about Eastern Han imperial tombs), would disappear. Excesses in tomb architecture were discouraged just as Buddhism was becoming popular. There is little doubt of a relation between the Buddhist practice of cremation and the shift toward more modest burials in third-century China. Cao Cao gave explicit directives that his tomb, Gaoling, west of the Ye capital, be raised high on a foundation but without a mound or trees. Citing the precedent of Zhou and
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4.17. West wall of middle chamber, tomb 7, Jiayuguan, Gansu, Wei-Jin
The general locations and names of tombs of Western Jin emperors have been known through literary records since their interments, but because emperors were buried with neither mounds nor trees to mark their graves, few specific sites are known. The five Western Jin rulers are said to have been laid to rest in two groups in the mountain range Mangshan north of their capital in Luoyang. In the 1980s the tomb believed to belong to Sima Yan was excavated.45 It is a long and comparatively narrow single burial chamber (26.3 by 6 meters) with steep steps leading to the underground compartments (figure 4.18). Twenty-two smaller tombs, believed to be auxiliary burials, are in the vicinity. Monumental stone sculpture along aboveground paths leading to the entrance to a tomb and usually a funerary mound ensured that the locations of tombs of some fourth-century royalty and officials of the Southern Dynasties would be known. Seventy-four imperial, royal, or official tombs of the Six Dynasties period have been identified in the vicinity of Nanjing, of which sixty-two identifications are fairly certain.46 Ten Eastern Jin rulers were buried in mountainous terrain on the outskirts of Jiankang, four at Jiuhuashan and five at Zhongshan. These nine form an east-west line between the two alpine locations, and each of them backs onto a hill in the manner of their Western Jin predecessors. The tenth is in a third mountain range. The tomb of the emperor Mudi is
approximately 20 meters long, 8 meters wide, and 7 meters in height. Oriented roughly east to west, the floor, walls, and vaulted ceiling of the main rectangular chamber and anteroom are brick (figure 4.19).47 Excavators use the name die (blade with a short handle) to describe the single-chamber plan with a short approach. It is the pervasive style in South China in the third through fifth centuries. Sometimes the approach is not centered as it is here. When it is to one side, it takes the shape of a chopping knife and is named for the blade known as dao. An extraordinary cemetery was excavated at Digengpo in Gaotai county, Gansu, in 2007.48 Five carved tombs, three of the two-chamber plan associated with the fourth century, were revealed. All of them contain bold re-creations of elements of a timber frame. Tomb 3 has a truncated pyramidal ceiling with a central caisson connected by imitation ribs to the four walls of the front chamber. It also has a screen wall whose lower portion is a thirteen-tier segmented vault and upper portions with more than that number of horizontal and vertical layers of carved and painted bricks; and finally, bricks positioned in zigzag rows at the top and beneath the arch at the bottom (figure 4.20). The front chamber of tomb 1 has prominent triangular trusses and a pointed vault that is supported by parallel roof rafters. Beneath are enormous beams whose weight in a wooden building would be borne by the bracket-arms that support the rafters of the roof frame (figure 4.21). The truss will
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when the feature is known as yueliang ([crescent-] moon beam) or hongliang (rainbow beam). The screen wall in tomb 133, from the tomb complex Foyemiaowan near Dunhuang, supports the fourth-century date for the Digengpo tombs. Structurally similar to tomb interiors of the Wei-Jin period at Jiayuguan (see figure 4.17), the Digengpo group includes numerous tombs in which decorated bricks are inserted into the walls. Painting and sculpture are integrated into the entire wall surface as they are on the Digengpo screen wall (see figure 4.20), and truncated pyramidal ceilings contain eight-petal lotuses (figure 4.23). The Digengpo tomb interiors exhibit an ability to imitate timber framing not present at Foyemiaowan or Jiayuguan. The truss, columns, entasis, and beams in the Digengpo cemetery are not just decorative features. They are constructed in the manner of cliff-tombs in Sichuan and the Yi’nan tomb in Shandong in the Eastern Han period (see figures 3.19–3.22). The Digengpo tombs are fourth-century evidence that the subterranean imitation of the timber frame may indeed inform us of actual architecture. More important, the Digengpo tombs demonstrate that construction methods such as the crescent-shaped beam, roof truss, and entasis, once thought to represent the seventh century or later construction in China, were implemented three centuries earlier. The imitation of timber-frame architecture in tomb interiors, the care with which visual focal points such as a screen wall or ceiling are decorated, and the choice of structural elements irrelevant to the support of the space such as a curved beam or pattern on a bracket-arm, in contrast to a straight beam or an undecorated arm, suggest that the Gansu tombs belonged to people who could afford decoration. The limited number of rooms thus seems not to be the result of constrained finances, particularly in a desert environment where space should have been more affordable than in a city. Fourth-century Gansu was not yet a Buddhist world, but the smaller tomb size in this region might be related to austerities associated with Buddhist ideology that already were pervading China, including among its non-Buddhist population. Funerary inscriptions or similar information about Gansu tomb builders that might clarify why fourth-century tombs usually have only two main rooms is lacking. One surmises they were wealthy landowners, perhaps officials, or low-level royalty. These assumptions are based on similar, contemporary tombs with interior paintings from other regions. Two of the
4.18. Tomb 4, Mangshan, Henan, probably Western Jin; possibly tomb of Sima Yan (d. 290) 4.19. Yongpingling, tomb of the emperor Mudi (d. 361), Nanjing vicinity
appear in Buddhist cave-temples and in tombs in the fifth and sixth centuries and occasionally later. The Digengpo tomb is now the earliest example of this kind of roof truss. The pillars show clear, almost exaggerated, entasis, a gradual convex curvature at their centers, as well as support by a circular plinth (pillar base) on top of a square pedestal (figure 4.22). Entasis is a standard feature of Chinese and Japanese wooden construction in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, so that a Digengpo tomb also is the earliest example of this feature. Ceiling beams appear to be curved at the bottom and top. This kind of beam shape is yet another structural component that appears in a sixth-century cave-temple but is otherwise associated with the eighth century and later in the wooden tradition,
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4.20. Screen wall, tomb 3, Digengpo, Gaotai, Gansu, Wei-Jin
4.21. Interior of tomb 1, Digengpo, Gaotai, Gansu, Wei-Jin 4.22. Interior of tomb 3, Digengpo, Gaotai, Gansu, Wei-Jin
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Chapter 4
Anak tomb 3 is the oldest Koguryŏ tomb with murals. As such and because a Chinese general who achieved similar status in Koguryŏ is buried there, it represents transitional construction between eastern China, specifically Shandong province of the late Eastern Han period, the Yan states of the Sixteen States located northeast of Shandong in the third and fourth centuries, and a burgeoning tomb culture that would flourish in Koguryŏ northeast of those Yan states for the next three hundred years.49 The subjects of the Anak tomb 3 murals trace directly to Han funerary art and occur in other Koguryŏ tombs as well as countless Chinese tombs of the Han through the sixth century.50 The architecture, too, has clear ties to Chinese tomb construction (figure 4.24). The tomb begins with an admiration room (anteroom), has two main chambers north and south of each other behind it, side niches, and an enclosing arcade. The five rooms follow the arrangement of Han stone tombs of Shandong and Jiangsu such as Yi’nan tomb 1 (see figure 3.22). The dominance of two chambers joined by an arcade that had already become popular in Gansu and Jiangsu in the third and fourth centuries would be widespread in Koguryŏ tombs a century later. The stone interior of Anak tomb 3 is standard in its region. The earthen mound, however, marks the beginning of a transition: stone mounds are employed in Koguryŏ burials from the beginning of the kingdom through the seventh century, but beginning in the fourth century, they coexist with earthen mounds; Anak tomb 3, dated to the mid-fourth century, is an early example. Stone mounds would continue among post-Koguryŏ peoples of the region, including those of Parhae (Balhae) and Jin, both discussed in later chapters. The second dated Koguryŏ tomb, also in North Korea, has an inscription on the ceiling of the front chamber that converts to either 408 or 409, depending on conversion from the lunar calendar. Also beneath an earthen mound, a governor named Chin is buried in Tŏkhŭngni tomb. Unlike Dong Shou, Chin was Korean, but his portrayal and subjects of murals are similar to those in Anak tomb 3 (figure 4.25). Migration from Shandong to Koguryŏ continued to pass through the states of Yan that ruled most of Liaoning from the fall of Eastern Han until the conquest by Northern Wei in 436. Yan funerary construction is characterized by single-chamber stone tombs. The tomb at Yuantaizi near Chaoyang and Feng Sufu’s tomb in Beipiao, both in Liaoning, have received the
4.23. Ceiling, tomb 133, Foyemiaowan, Gansu, Western Jin 4.24. Drawing of interior of tomb 3, Anak, Hwanghae, North Korea, 357
best comparative examples come from the other side of North China, the Koguryŏ kingdom, the source of mountain-castles described above. A tomb in South Hwanghae province of North Korea is dated by an ink inscription in the tomb to the year 357. Known as Anak tomb 3, it has long been associated with Dong Shou (Korean: Tong Su), a Chinese general who pledged allegiance to Koguryŏ when his troops were defeated in 336. When Dong died approximately twenty years later, he held the titles supreme commander with special authority, general pacifying the east, and commandant-protector of the barbarians.
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An Age of Turmoil
4.25. Western side of interior of tomb, Tŏkhŭngni, Kangsŏ, P’yŏngan, North Korea, 409
most attention, in part because of murals and headgear that identify peoples of the region.51
Buddhist worship caves emerged during this period. As with tombs, their decoration imitated wooden architecture and their materials were more permanent than wood. Stone construction already had several hundred years of history in the Koguryŏ kingdom before the fourth century. The unique fourth-century structures of Koguryŏ were mountain-castles.
Architecture of third-century China—religious, in miniature, palatial, and funerary—from Xinjiang to Nanjing drew from a Gandhāran past for monasteries and from Han for other building forms. Every type of building except the que can be distinguished from first- or second-century CE predecessors. One of the places que are seen is on the lids of hunping, small-scale evidence of architecture made during this period. Capitals have only one palace-city and one main palatial complex. Often palace-city buildings are on parallel axes. Mud-brick stupas based on models from the West rose in oasis communities north and south of the Taklamakan Desert. Tombs in Gansu had irregular plans, often with irregularly shaped rooms. Tombs in Hubei and Anhui were simpler, with two rooms the standard, often one with a vaulted ceiling. The same ceiling types were used in Gansu. Tomb plans of the third century inform us that the grand world of the Han was on the wane. Han and Buddhist architecture coexisted but had not yet merged. The tomb plan, the towering stupa, the pagoda in a courtyard, and the dome, all constructed with confidence in the third century, were the forms through which the secular and Buddhist worlds merged beginning in the fourth century. In the fourth century the Jin built and maintained capitals first in the North and then in the South, and after the move south in 317, other kingdoms and states built cities in the North. The Western Jin emperors built tombs near Luoyang; the Eastern Jin royal tombs were near Jiankang. Rock-carved
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CHAPTER 5
Northern Dynasties and Southern Dynasties
The fifth and sixth centuries were as politically tumultuous as the third and fourth. By 439 the last of the Sixteen States had collapsed. Dynasties were fewer in number and larger in territory than in the previous two centuries. The non-Chinese rulers in the North embraced Buddhism as fervently as their southern Chinese counterparts. By the 580s rock-carved cave-temples and monasteries with tall pagodas and image halls spread across the eastern half of the Asian continent. At the same time, architecture that combined the use of earth and wood was almost completely replaced by wood-framed construction. Tombs continued toward simplification so that by the year 600 it was rare to find a tomb with more than two chambers, and usually there was only one.
Cities and Palaces Most of the Sixteen States fell to Northern Wei, whose predecessors, the Tuoba, a branch of the Xianbei, had built a capital at Shengle in 258. The decision to move their primary capital to Pingcheng in 398 marked the beginning of a century of focused incorporation of Chinese ideas and institutions into a polity that would function in many important ways as a Chinese dynasty. Chinese architecture, particularly Buddhist architecture, was an important force in the process of Sinification of a non-Chinese dynasty. Three cities and their palace complexes of the fifth and sixth centuries are well known through literary and archaeological documentation: Luoyang of Northern Wei, Ye of Eastern Wei–Northern Qi, and Jiankang of Liu-Song through Chen. Each was linked through history and memory to third- and fourth-century cities at the same sites, to a lesser extent to Pingcheng and Chang’an, and to one another. Pingcheng Pingcheng was only 100 kilometers south of Shengle, but the move there by Northern Wei signaled the end of a grasslands empire. Excavation of Pingcheng began in the 1930s and started again in the 1990s, and a fairly complete survey was conducted in the first decade of the twenty-first century.1 According to Weishu (History of Wei), the Northern Wei ruler Tuoba Gui (371–409) had seen Ye, and Pingcheng followed the designs of Ye, Luoyang, and Chang’an.2 Excavation confirms that the palace-city was in the north center of Pingcheng’s outer wall, its position in Three Kingdoms Ye.
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Tuoba Gui launched his building program in 398 by constructing palaces, an ancestral temple, and altars to soil and grain. He also built an arsenal and granaries. There was an eastern palace for the crown prince. South of the palace-city were offices, imperial altars, and aristocratic and nonnoble residences. In 399 a northern garden was begun. By the 420s the palace-city was walled and the area known as the outer city had been built around it. The Pingcheng outer wall had twelve gates, the same number as the Han capitals Chang’an and Luoyang. Beyond the palaces were wards whose populations ranged from sixty to seventy households for the smaller ones and four hundred to five hundred households for the larger ones. Pingcheng’s parks and pools contained exotic beasts, following the tradition of Chinese emperors since the First Emperor. Between 423 and 471 tens of thousands of people were relocated to Pingcheng, and construction continued in all sections and beyond its walls.3 The 460s also saw construction of five Buddhist caves at Yungang, whose chaitya arches were discussed in chapter 4 (see figure 4.14), about 15 kilometers outside the capital, and in 467 the establishment of Yongning Monastery. In 477 Pingcheng contained nearly one hundred Buddhist establishments with a total of two thousand monks or nuns.4 Several of the hundreds of Northern Wei tombs excavated at Pingcheng are discussed below. Upon assuming the Chinese title emperor, Tuoba Gui began building an ancestral temple, altars to soil and grain, and an altar of the emperor (dishe). The ancestral temple was completed in the final lunar month of 399. An altar to heaven was erected on the western side of the city. A round mound and square pool were built from 488 to 489. Between the fourth and tenth lunar months of 491, only two years before the move of the capital to Luoyang, Emperor Xiaowen (Xiaowendi) (r. 471–499) began building a Mingtang that was completed the next year. A site believed to be its remains was excavated in 1995–1996.5 Northern Wei Luoyang Although later historians sometimes attribute the collapse of Northern Wei to Xiaowendi’s move to Luoyang in 493, it was a moment of tremendous optimism. Between 495 and 496 the emperor constructed an ancestral temple, national academy, round mound, and square pool. The official Li Chong, who had guided construction of ritual architecture in Pingcheng, again
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1. Ford Brightness Gate 2. Manifest Brightness Gate 3. Peace and Prosperity Gate 4. Open to Brightness Gate 5. Azure Brightness Gate 6. East Brightness Gate 7. Establishing Spring Gate 8. Broad Boundless Gate 9. Great Xia Gate 10. Receiving Luminosity Gate 11. Changhe Gate 12. West Brightness Gate 13. West Luminosity Gate 14. Palace-city
15. Office of the Left Guard 16. Office of the Minister of Education 17. National Academy 18. Office of the Imperial Clan 19. Jingle Monastery 20. Ancestral Temple 21. Office of the Capital Protector 22. Office of the Right Guard 23. Office of the Grand Commandant 24. Construction Station 25. Office of the Nine Ranks
37. Reserve Land for the Eastern Palace 38. Capital Construction Office 39. Imperial Granary 40. Imperial Granary and Official Liaison Office 41. Luoyang Great Market 42. Luoyang Small Market 43. Remains of Eastern Han Lingtai 44. Remains of Eastern Han Biyong
26. Altars of Soil and Grain 27. Hutong Monastery 28. Station for Issuing Imperial Declaration 29. Yongning Monastery 30. Censorate 31. Armory 32. Jinyongcheng 33. Luoyang Little City 34. Flowery Park 35. Jinyang Hill from Cao-Wei Times 36. Listening to Grievances Lodge
45. Remains of Eastern Han National Academy 46. Sitong Market 47. White Elephant Ward 48. Lion Ward 49. Jinling Legation 50. Yanran Legation 51. Fusang Legation 52. Yanzi Legation 53. Muyi Ward 54. Muhua Ward 55. Guide Ward 56. Guizheng Ward 57. Military Review Field
58. Shouqiu Ward 59. Brightness Canal 60. Gu River 61. East Stone Bridge 62. Seven Li Bridge 63. Changfen Bridge 64. Yi River 65. Luo River 66. Remains of Eastern Han Mingtang 67. Round Mound
5.1. Plan of Northern Wei Luoyang showing expansion of Wei-Jin city in east and west directions, 493–534
city then grew, so that the proportions of the new outer wall extended beyond the Wei-Jin wall in both directions, changing it from 9 by 6 li (north-south by east-west) to approximately 15 by 20 li, the longer dimension then east to west and the palace area more centered than its north-central position in the past (figure 5.1). Expansion was necessary, for the population exceeded the capacity of the earlier walls, but the Mang mountains and Luo River remained natural boundaries on the north and south, respectively. The area enclosed by Luoyang’s outer walled city was about 50.4 square kilometers.8 It was divided into 220 four-sided wards where the majority of the city’s
assisted in the designs. The emperor Xuanwudi (r. 499–515) moved into the new palaces in 502.6 A fascinating passage in the History of Wei (Weishu) informs us that an official complained that wood intended for use in palace construction was diverted for use in boats for an imperial trip to Ye, and that material such as pounded earth was used for the palaces. Buildings excavated at Northern Wei Luoyang confirm mixed earth-and-wood construction.7 The 13-kilometer outer wall of Wei-Jin Luoyang and of Han Luoyang before it initially was maintained by Northern Wei, but the single palace-city was expanded (see figure 3.8). The
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population lived, more than 600,000 people, with three major markets, a remarkable 1,367 religious institutions, and government offices that lined the northward approach to Luoyang from south of the Luo River. One recalls that Luoyang’s palaces had been destroyed at the end of Eastern Han, and that when the Cao family returned to Luoyang in the third century, rebuilding as well as expansion occurred at the original site, and that Western Jin had used the Wei palaces. By the time Northern Wei returned to Luoyang nearly 180 years later, Jiankang had a history of lavish imperial construction. Emperor Xiaowendi, who made the move to Luoyang, sent emissaries to Jiankang to see palaces of what was at that time the Southern Qi dynasty (479–502). A similar activity had taken place in the early fourth century when builders of the first Jiankang had turned to Luoyang for models. In a sense, palace architecture of Luoyang now returned home. Retaining some walls that had existed since the Han period, construction of a new, splendid palace-city began in Luoyang almost immediately after the move in 493. Its outer boundary measured 660 meters east to west by 1,392 meters north to south.9 In 492 the emperor had Pingcheng’s Taihua Hall dismantled and pieces transferred to Luoyang for reconstruction in Great Ultimate Hall, the most important building in the palace-city. The new building would stand on the ruins of Great Ultimate Hall of Wei-Jin times. Before beginning construction, the official Jiang Shaoyou went south to personally study the palace-city at Jiankang. Further, he erected a model for the hall, a rare piece of evidence about the use of three-dimensional models in fifth-century construction. In the end, the design was not used. Jiang also was involved in renovations at Jinyongcheng, where construction or reconstruction also began upon the move of the capital.10 Xiaowendi moved into Jinyongcheng while the rest of construction was under way.11 The above-mentioned official Li Chong had been put in charge of conceiving a plan for the capital while the court was still in Pingcheng. He now offered designs and was involved in the construction of the Mingtang, Round Mound, Ancestral Temple, and palaces at Northern Wei Luoyang.12 Building lasted a full ten years, until 502. Thirty-two years later the palaces would be destroyed. Pieces from them, perhaps some that had earlier been used at Pingcheng, were moved for reuse in Eastern Wei palaces at Ye.
The names and functions of many pre–Northern Wei buildings at Luoyang were retained: Changhe Gate remained the main entry to the palace area; Great Ultimate Hall is believed to have been one bay wider than its counterpart at Jiankang,13 the palace-city Li Chong had traveled south to study. One might thus say that he was using architecture to assert the supremacy of Northern Wei and its new capital. Construction lasted until 513. Two features that cannot be documented in earlier extant architecture are a wooden balustrade, approached by more than one set of stairs from the front at Great Ultimate Hall; and an auxiliary structure, presumably with pillars across the front, that was attached to the front and functioned like a porch (fujie). Both would be retained in Hanyuan Hall, the counterpart to Great Ultimate Hall in Tang dynasty (618–907) Chang’an. Four residential palaces stood directly behind Great Ultimate Hall: each had a pair of smaller halls to the sides. This arrangement had been used at Wei-Jin Luoyang and at Jiankang. The Hall of State (Chaotang) complex at Northern Wei Luoyang also was relatively unchanged from the past. West of Great Ultimate Hall were additional palaces and parkland. Ye of the third century also had parkland adjacent to the palaces on the west (see figure 4.1). A stone whale that seemed to be jumping up from the ground and flying down at the same time backed against Angler’s Terrace, where the emperor came to escape heat in the summer.14 Another feature of Northern Wei Luoyang that existed in earlier imperial capitals was the span of streets across the palace-city. Four east-west streets and one north-south street ran the entire width and length, respectively. Luoyang in Wei times had three streets that stretched from the eastern to western palace-city walls; the fourth street (the northernmost) was added under Northern Wei. Both cities had only one continuous north-south thoroughfare on the western side of the city. At the Jiankang palace-city of the fourth and fifth centuries, an east-west street sequestered Great Ultimate Hall and the two palace compounds behind it from the rest of the city. At Northern Wei Luoyang, thoroughfares crossed the imperial audience and residential sectors. Because of the division, the courtyards and hall complexes behind Great Ultimate were known as North Palace. The street that divided them from South Palace was named Eternity Lane. Emperor Xiaowen built a new ancestral temple south of his palaces, just south of the ancestral temple of Western Jin and
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opposite the altars to soil and grain. The ancestral temple and twin altars stood in a row of government offices and religious buildings that lined the approach to the palace-city from the south. The same configuration would be used in the Beijing Forbidden City. The events that led to the fall of Luoyang began in the 520s. Between 523 and 525 non-Chinese groups in the North secured a foothold in the capital. The Erzhu were among them. The death of Emperor Xiaoming in 528 gave Erzhu Rong an opportunity to enter the capital. In the fourth lunar month of that year, thousands of Northern Wei aristocrats and their families were massacred and the empress dowager and her child were thrown into the Yellow River. Xiaoming’s successor killed Erzhu Rong in 530 but died himself only a few months later. At this moment, a stronger force, Gao Huan (496–547), managed to conquer much of northern Hebei and Shanxi, taking Ye as his power base by 532. He placed a descendant of the Northern Wei emperor on the throne while he completed his sweep of the remaining Erzhu. He then headed east, eventually establishing himself and the last Northern Wei leadership, who were under his control, at Ye in 534. At this point, the dynasty that had been called Northern Wei ceased to exist, and the aspiring rulers and much of the former population split into Eastern Wei (534–550), whose capital would be at Ye, and Western Wei (535–557), whose capital would be in Chang’an. Four hundred thousand households moved from Luoyang to Ye. In 535 pieces of the Luoyang palaces were disassembled and transferred for use at Ye. In 537 Luoyang was largely demolished. Gao Huan ordered the final destruction in 538.
Qi, and the Gao family officially ascended the throne. Ye became Northern Qi’s primary capital, and Jinyang, today Taiyuan, in central Shanxi, the city of Gao Huan’s birth, became the northern capital. The strong influence of the original Northern Wei Luoyang on sixth-century Ye is confirmed by excavation. The first correspondence is the proportion of roughly 3:2 for the northsouth to east-west dimensions. Measuring 3.46 kilometers north to south by 2.8 kilometers east to west, the outer wall of Ye was heavily fortified. It was surrounded by a moat and had fourteen gates, four at the east and west and three on the north and south. Major avenues joined all four gates of the eastern and western walls, blocked only by the palace-city or parkland. A major north-south axis through the city led from Vermilion Luminescence Gate of the south wall to the south-center entrance of the palace-city, and from the north outer wall gate, a road continued straight northward. Parkland extended the Eastern Wei–Northern Qi city into the North City. Twenty-eight government bureaus, all named after offices at Northern Wei Luoyang and Jiankang, were inside and outside Ye’s palace-city. North City now also had an arsenal. The population of Ye resided in 400 wards, 180 more than Northern Wei Luoyang even after its expansion to 20 by 15 li. Mansions of the wealthy were inside Ye. Gao Huan’s oldest son, Gao Cheng (521–549), had a mansion, as did imperial concubines and powerful officials. From 556 to 558, 300,000 craftsmen repaired palaces and the Santai area of North City. If records can be trusted, Northern Qi Ye had four thousand religious establishments and eighty thousand male and female members of the clergy.17 These staggering numbers, even if exaggerated, probably indicate that men and women of the cloth, if not their establishments, moved with the transfer of the capital from Luoyang. The palace-city of sixth-century Ye followed the palatial axis of Ye of the third and fourth centuries, but like the outer city, its proportions resembled those of Northern Wei Luoyang, from which building parts had been taken. The dimensions were about 780 meters east to west by 1,500 meters north to south. As at Northern Wei and Wei-Jin Luoyang, a gate was named Changhe. Also in the manner of Northern Wei Luoyang, Eastern Wei Ye’s palace-city had three concentrically enclosed spaces: the innermost containing Great Ultimate Hall and the main palaces; the second housing government offices; and the outermost featuring parkland and places of
Ye When Gao Huan arrived in Ye, the former capitals lay in ruins. He set himself up in temporary quarters as he transferred buildings and materials from Luoyang. The northern part of Ye was to maintain elements of the previous capitals, but the new city to the south would be more a reflection of Northern Wei Luoyang. For this fusion, Gao Huan asked a scholar named Li Yexing to investigate old records.15 The palaces and ancestral temple were built before Ye was walled. During a two-year period, 100,000 men are said to have worked nonstop on the imperial residences.16 In the first lunar month of 540, after five years of construction, Gao Huan and the court moved into his new city, thereafter referred to as South City. Seventeen years later, Eastern Wei was replaced by Northern
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still undetermined purposes. The gates of the eastern and western walls of the second enclosure were termini for wheeled vehicles. Ye also had the three-side-by-side-hall arrangement of palaces, five sets of them. Both Luoyang’s and Ye’s palace-cities began at Duan (Uprightness) Gate. Gao Huan never became emperor, but the city he designed made his aspirations clear: a tower above Changhe Gate could hold a thousand men; Great Ultimate Hall was enclosed by 120 pillars; and the gates and windows of its perimeter arcade were decorated with silver and gold. Although little is known about the ancestral temples of Eastern Wei and Northern Qi in the southeastern part of Ye, much is known about a ceremonial complex built following the death of Gao Huan in 547. It comprised four rooms of two bays each plus two additional bays on each side, all with hip-gable roofs and a corridor that wound around the complex. A main gate and two side gates were in front. Enclosed by two sets of walls, the buildings included an abstinence hall (presumably where descendants prepared for sacrifices), ritual shrines, kitchens, a residence for the temple master, and storage for vehicles and wheels.18
As had already become institutionalized, the crown prince lived in a palace to the east of the main palace. The emperor’s palace-city was enclosed by five gates.20 Jiankang The other important imperial architecture of the fifth and sixth centuries was in Jiankang. Hall and gate names were among the few changes from one dynasty to the next. Initially when Liu-Song established itself at Jiankang in 420, the rulers used the Eastern Jin palaces. In 443 the emperor Wendi began construction of two new gates; in 446 he built a park.21 In 480, under Southern Qi rule, three gates were added and towers were repaired. 22 Under both dynasties, imperial audiences were held in Great Ultimate Hall and the private chambers of royalty were in courtyards behind it, the front for the emperor and back for the empress. In 513 Emperor Wudi of the Liang dynasty (502–557) built a Mingtang for his palace-city and expanded Great Ultimate Hall to thirteen bays, thus increasing its size to that of the corresponding hall in Luoyang. The major emendations to the city under Chen (557–589) rule were improvements to mansions by wealthy aristocrats. Looking at Luoyang, Ye, and Jiankang together, several characteristics of Chinese imperial urbanism on the eve of unification by Sui in the 580s are notable. First is the strong division between the area of the palace-city focused on Great Ultimate Hall and the area south of it by a wide east-west thoroughfare. Second, the Hall of State and Secretariat were together in a precinct southeast of the palaces but within the palace-city. Third was concentric walling, with two walls at Jiankang and three at Luoyang and Ye, and with the imperial administrative sector always inside the second enclosure. Ye’s importance would wane upon unification. Luoyang and Jiankang’s successor, Nanjing, would remain large cities and at times be secondary capitals or very briefly primary imperial cities. Chang’an, only occasionally significant in the period between Han and Sui, would for three hundred years be the greatest capital China had ever seen.
Chang’an Chang’an had been a capital during the Sixteen States period, and Northern Wei had built a small, walled town there. In 534 Emperor Xiaowudi (r. 532–534) of Northern Wei fled westward and established himself in Chang’an as emperor of Western Wei. In 557 Western Wei fell to Northern Zhou (557–581). During the first fifteen years of Northern Zhou rule, palaces, ritual spaces, and gardens were constructed. In 572 Emperor Wudi (543–578) executed his regent uncle and others and destroyed many of the buildings constructed during the period of their protectorship. Promulgating a policy that was opposed to excessive decoration, Wudi urged a return to past buildings and encouraged construction in earth and wood. Wudi’s successor reigned for only about a year, between 578 and 580, and encouraged the same kind of modest construction.19 The final emperor of Northern Zhou relinquished control to his father-in-law Yang Jian (585–618), who served as regent for the emperor’s son. In 581 Yang Jian took power and established the capital of his dynasty Sui in Chang’an. It is not known how much of Western Han, Former Qin, or Later Zhao Chang’an remained when Yang Jian took control, but both Western Wei and Northern Zhou Chang’an were smaller than the Han city.
Tombs of Royalty If palaces and ritual architecture of China’s most important capitals of the fifth and sixth centuries give the impression that buildings and urban planning were shared across China, then,
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as had been the case in the third and fourth centuries from Koguryŏ to Gansu, tomb architecture emphasizes this point. Tomb of Empress Dowager Wenming When the Northern Wei emperor abdicated the throne in 471, Empress Dowager Wenming (née Feng) (d. 490) held tight control over the new emperor, her foster grandson Xiaowendi. The dowager’s influence lasted until her death. She was entombed north of Pingcheng at a site she named Yongguling (Eternally Solid Tomb), a name that suggests the permanence of funerary construction, in hills known as Fangshan, about 5 kilometers north of Datong. She selected the site while taking a walk with her grandson in the fourth lunar month of 481.23 Two stone buildings, Wenshishi (Chamber with Writings on Stone) and Lingquan (Spirit Spring) Hall, already stood there in 479. Xiaowendi built Jingxuan (Mirror of Darkness) Hall. It is unknown what these poetically named buildings looked like. Eternally Solid Tomb was excavated in 1976. The underground portion consists of two chambers joined by a passageway, the plan used in Gansu and Koguryŏ in the fourth century. Covered at ground level by an earthen mound whose base dimensions are 124 by 117 meters and of which 22.87 meters in height remain today, the total underground length, including an entry passageway, is 23.5 meters. The vaulted back burial chamber rises 7.3 meters. The tomb was robbed at least three times, but underground brickwork and relief carving remained intact (figure 5.2).24 Eternally Solid Tomb was the last architectural project of the Northern Wei ruling family in Pingcheng. When the dowager’s grandson died in 499, he was buried in Luoyang. Tombs of Jiankang Royalty Monumental stone mythological beasts, pillars, and tablets erected along the approach known as shendao (spirit path) are the dominant image of a Southern Dynasties tomb (figure 5.3). Often the columns are fluted. Royal tombs of Eastern Jin and Liu-Song are believed to be similar to the burials discussed here. Southern Qi emperors were buried in Danyang county east of Nanjing.25 The tomb of Xiao Daosheng (Southern Qi emperor Gaodi) was excavated in 1965. Measuring 15 by 6.2 meters and made of brick, the tomb includes an ovoid subterranean burial chamber, 9.4 by 4.9 meters with a 4.5-meter-high vaulted ceiling. The walls are constructed in nine layers. Two stone doors make the main burial chamber accessible from
5.2. Detail of archway, Yongguling, City Museum, Datong, Shanxi, 490 5.3. Sculpture from spirit path of Xiao Jing (477–523), marquis of Liang dynasty (502–557), Ganjiaxiang, Qixia, Nanjing
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into a hill and entered via flat ground from the north. During construction, a 45-by-9-meter area was carved into the rock, most of it the passageway into the tomb with a drainage ditch at its center. The antechamber and tomb were lined with five layers of mud brick. The main room was ovoid, 10 meters long, 6.7 meters wide, and 6.7 meters high. The ceiling was a simple barrel vault. The lintel above the entry had an inverted-Vshaped brace. Murals covered the interior walls and ceiling. Chen emperor Wudi’s tomb was of the same form. A few sixth-century spirit paths of Jiankang royalty have pillars supporting lion capitals (see figure 5.4). The sources of the pillars may be columns erected in India by the Buddhist king Aśoka (ca. 269–232 BCE). The lions might also be the kinds of decoration inspired by Buddhist art but without clear understanding of the Buddhist context, such as had been used in Chinese funerary art in the Han dynasty. Northern Wei, Eastern and Western Wei, Northern Qi, and Northern Zhou Tombs Like rulers of Eastern Han and Western Jin, emperors of Northern Wei were laid to rest beneath mounds in the Mang mountains north of Luoyang. The tomb of Emperor Xuanwu (483–515) was dug deeply into a hill. Named Jingling, the brick burial chamber has a domed ceiling, stone doors, and a paved stone floor (figure 5.5). Tombs of his predecessor, a successor, and a fourth tomb believed to belong to a relative are in the same group. Xuanwudi’s tomb has a brick obstruction named sealing door (fengmen) that appears in imperial burials by this time. It is part of the seven-component progression from the exterior entry to the innermost chamber: a long earthen ramp, a much shorter brick passageway, sealing door, the front entry path, second sealing door, back entry path, and finally a door for entry into the single tomb chamber. The number of doors and passageways is greater than those of earlier imperial burials, including the tomb of Dowager Wenming in Fangshan and Southern Dynasties tombs. The approach may have been intended to deter grave robbers, although, like most tombs excavated to date, this one had been looted. This reduction to one chamber, compared with the Fangshan tomb, had already taken place in the South and would be the norm among burials discussed below. The one- and two-room tombs of fifth- and sixth-century royalty pale in comparison with the expansive burials of Han emperors and officials. These more compact burials, like those
5.4. Pillar from spirit path of Xiao Jing, marquis of Liang dynasty (502–557), Ganjiaxiang, Qixia, Nanjing
the underground passageway. Above the doors and below the archway is the inverted-V-shaped brace that is so characteristic of architecture of the period. Mythical winged beasts known as tianlu and qilin survive from the spirit path. The entries to the tombs of several royalty of the Xiao family also have inverted-V-shaped braces decorating the lintels above them. A tomb in Huqiao village in Danyang, believed to belong to Xiao Baorong (488–502), is of the same plan and almost the same size, but with straighter interior walls defining a four-sided main chamber with truncated corners. The famous relief sculptures of the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove and Confucian Rong Qiqi in museums in Nanjing come from one-chambers tombs dated to the fifth century or earlier in this region. Tombs of princes of the Liang dynasty (502–557) uncovered at Ganjiaxiang, Qixia township, the location of figures 5.3 and 5.4, all have one long, main chamber. The tombs of Xiao Yan (Emperor Wu) (r. 502–549) and his successor Xiao Gang (Emperor Jianwen) (r. 549–551) are north and south of each other within the Danyang city limits. The tomb of Xiao Xiu (d. 518) is among a group of thirty-eight burials in Ganjia hamlet. At least four of the five Chen emperors received royal burial. Two Chen imperial tombs near Nanjing have been opened. Chen emperor Xu’s (Xuandi) tomb was dug
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5.5. Interior of Jingling, tomb of Emperor Xuanwu, d. 515, Mang mountains, north of Luoyang
observed in Gansu and Koguryŏ of the previous two centuries, some of which may also belong to royalty, might be explained by short reigns, but other factors must have been at work. By the fifth century, many rulers had turned some of their patronage to Buddhism. When Gao Huan died, his son Gao Cheng buried him at Foding (Buddha Ceiling) in the hills of Gushan where Gao Huan had built a villa for the ailing consort of the only Eastern Wei emperor, Xiao Jingdi (r. 534–550). Gao Cheng made a pretense of burying his father elsewhere and then secretly carved a grotto on the side of a cave in Gushan, placed the coffin inside, and sealed it, upon which the son had all the workers executed. Following the fall of Northern Qi, the son of one of those workers removed the stone that sealed the burial, took gold from inside the tomb, and fled.26 The Bei Qishu (History of Northern Qi) records that Gao Huan’s death was kept secret for six months, a statement that seems to support the possibility that in those months a tomb was surreptitiously carved at Gushan. Those who are skeptical believe Gao Huan’s remains lie in Ci county, adjacent to Ye in Hebei province, where other Eastern Wei and Northern Qi
rulers and aristocrats, whose other architecture is discussed below, are buried.27 Empress Yifu (d. 540), wife of Western Wei’s first emperor, Wendi (r. 535–551), and two attendants were buried beneath cave 43 at Maijishan near Tianshui in eastern Gansu province. The cave has a uniquely elaborated facade with a Buddha image and two Buddhist guardians above the entry (figure 5.6). It has been known through the ages that the Northern Zhou emperors are buried in the vicinity of Chang’an. Confession by a grave robber in 1993 led archaeologists to the tomb of one of them, the joint burial of Wudi and his wife in Xianyang, the city north of Chang’an where the First Emperor of Qin had built his capital in the late third century BCE.28 Oriented 10 degrees east of north, the tomb consists of a 3.9-meter ramp followed by five air shafts; pairs of side niches for the deposit of grave goods between the fourth and fifth air shafts; sealing door; large, rectangular main burial chamber; and back niche. In the second half of the sixth century, lesser royalty and high-ranking officials are buried in subterranean, single-chamber tombs with long approach ramps. Sometimes the tombs
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5.6. Facade of cave 43, Maijishan, Gansu, location of burial of Western Wei empress Yifu, d. 540
have niches at the sides or back. Some of these tombs are known for complicated mural programs that offer a sharp contrast to the simple architecture. They include the tombs of Northern Qi official Han Yi in Qi county of Shanxi; the Ruru princess in Ci county, Hebei; official Xu Xianxiu and the emperor’s brother-in-law Lou Rui, both in the suburbs of Taiyuan; official Li Xian in Guyuan, Ningxia; Sogdian official Yu Hong in Chang’an; and official Cui Fen in Linfen, Shandong, whose tomb has an unusually short approach ramp. Most of the tombs are joint husband-and-wife burials, and those interred are of both Chinese and non-Chinese ethnicities.
Tombs in Gansu, Koguryŏ, and Datong As in the South, tombs that belong to royalty and in some cases to high-ranking officials in North China have one room or two chambers joined by an arcade. The standardized architecture and number of shared subjects in the murals are such that only a very localized detail such as a figure’s headgear might indicate a tomb’s location. The unity in architectural style is especially impressive when one realizes that the same tomb plans, ceiling types, and decoration are used from the Sixteen States through the sixth century from western China to Korea.
5.7. Line drawing of interior of tomb 5, Dingjiazha, Gansu, showing murals on south and west walls of chambers, ca. 400 5.8. Side elevation and plan of tomb 1, Changchun tomb 1, Ji’an, ca. fifth century
Changchuan tomb 1 is smaller than Dingjiazha tomb 5, about 6.5 meters between the far sides of the front and back rooms compared to 8.64 meters at Changchuan tomb 1. Paintings are as similar as the architecture. Most prominent in each tomb is a deity who occupies a high, central position opposite the underground entry: in Dingjiazha tomb 5 it is the Queen Mother of the West and in Changchuan tomb 1 it is the Buddha. Local elements such as mud-earth structures with crenellations identify the desert environment in Gansu (see figure 4.5), and spotted, fur-bordered garments identify dancers of Koguryŏ in Changchuan tomb 1. The tomb occupant, food service and entertainment for him, life on his land, and the ethereal, godly world are painted in both tombs. These worlds are presented along horizontal registers with the human world below the heavenly. A prominent, flowering tree appears in both tombs. Every motif has sources in funerary decoration of Han China.
Jiuquan and Ji’an Dingjiazha tomb 5, 8 kilometers northwest of the center of Jiuquan in Gansu province of western China, and Changchuan tomb 1, about 22 kilometers northeast of Ji’an in Jilin province near China’s border with Korea, are as similar as any two tombs of the period.29 The tomb near Jiuquan is dated ca. 400 and believed to be the product of one of the Liang states of the Sixteen. Changchuan tomb 1 is from the Koguryŏ kingdom and probably dates to the fifth century. Both tombs consist of two chambers joined by an arcade, and in each tomb, a different kind of vaulted ceiling covers each room: a truncated pyramid and barrel vault in Gansu and layered ceilings of different numbers and sizes of layers in Jilin (figures 5.7, 5.8).
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5.9. Ceiling of main chamber, Tomb of the Stars 1, South P’yŏngan, North Korea, ca. late fifth century
Among approximately 130 Koguryŏ tombs with murals, only Anak tomb 3 and the Tŏkhŭngni tomb are dated (see figures 4.24, 4.25). The majority of Koguryŏ tombs have only one main chamber, yet ceilings are multilevel and complicated. Quadrilaterals and octagons routinely form cupolas and lanterns, sometimes positioned in stepped, pyramidal spaces with truncated corners. The ceilings of Tombs of the Stars 1 and 2 and Twin Pillars Tomb, all in North Korea, and Tomb of the Dancers in Ji’an are examples (figures 5.9, 5.10). Twin Pillars Tomb is among the many in which alternating one-step bracket sets and inverted-V-shaped braces are painted on the walls to re-create an interior architectural environment, and triangular shapes with decorated edges rise above lintels. All are features found in Buddhist cave-temples from the same time (see figure 5.19). Datong The Northern Wei capital Pingcheng lies between Koguryŏ and Gansu. Its fourth- and fifth-century tombs and their decoration are almost indistinguishable from those to the east and west. Among more than two hundred tombs studied by 2008, not one has more than two rooms.30 The tomb of Sima Jinlong, a member of a royal family who died in 484, has two main chambers and a side niche.31 The tomb of Song Shaozu, who died in 477, has one chamber and an extremely long approach ramp.32 Both tombs are known for expensive objects: Sima
5.10. Ling drawing of interior of Twin Pillars Tomb, South P’yŏngan, North Korea, ca. fifth century
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5.11. Interior of two-chamber tomb, Hudong, Datong, Shanxi, Northern Wei
5.12. Interior of Mogao cave 254, Gansu, Northern Wei
and murals.34 The core group of scenes on the walls and on sarcophaguses in Datong are those on the walls of Koguryŏ tombs and on a stone sarcophagus found in 1997 in a tomb in Zhijiabu, south of Pingcheng.35 A single-chamber tomb in Beichen village of Luoyang, uncovered in 1989, has the same imagery.36 One surmises that the owner of a tomb with murals had higher status than one without them. One anticipates that murals will be found in tombs still to be excavated of royalty of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and that they will have no more than two main rooms.
Jinlong’s for a lacquer screen illustrated with scenes from the “Admonitions of the Court Instructress,” a text instructing the behavior of women of the court; Song Shaozu was buried in a sarcophagus discussed below (see figure 5.36). A Northern Wei tomb found in Shaling, Datong, in 2006 similarly had both a lacquer wooden sarcophagus and murals of a quality previously unknown from the Pingcheng period of Northern Wei rule, yet it too has only one main chamber.33 A two-chamber tomb similar in plan to Song Shaozu’s was uncovered at Hudong, in Datong (figure 5.11). This tomb also had a lacquer sarcophagus
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Great Age of Buddhist Cave-Chapels In spite of the myriad tombs and splendid imperial capitals built in the fifth and sixth centuries, the architectural legacy of the two hundred years from Northern Wei to Sui is the Buddhist rock-carved worship cave. The three early Mogao caves discussed in chapter 4 are among the smallest of the nearly five hundred grottoes at the site, even though meditation, worship, and lecture remain three of the fundamental purposes of Buddhist cave-carving in China. One of the most important cave forms in fifth-century China is the central-pillar or central-pillar-pagoda cave. In South Asian Buddhist architecture, the pillar symbolizes the stupa and can be circumambulated in a cave interior as one would progress around a freestanding relic mound. A fifth-century, central-pillar cave in China sometimes has an anteroom with its own ceiling and side niches. Mogao caves 254 and 257 are examples (figure 5.12). A central-pillar cave may also have a simple quadrilateral floor plan and a flat ceiling. The form of the pillar varies. After the central pillar, the most frequently constructed cave type in fifth- and sixth-century China takes the vihara plan and is named vihara-style to recognize the early Indian monastery in which monks have cells for meditation and residence. Alternatively, this kind of cave is named after its purpose, sengfangku (monk’s residence cave). Mogao cave 285, dated to Western Wei, is an example of a grotto in which monks’ niches are along the perimeter (figure 5.13). As with the central-pillar cave, there is variety in the perimeter cells. Sometimes, for instance, a Buddha image or a stupa is placed in a niche. Big Buddha caves continue to be constructed in the fifth century. The monumental Buddhist statue may be positioned on the back wall or it might be incorporated onto the central pillar. Some Big Buddha caves are carved so that the main image is visible before entering. Buddha altar caves have altars with images, often U-shaped, usually near the back of the cave but not touching any wall. Another cave type named for interior construction is the screen cave (beipingku) in which a screen is somewhere near the back. Most screen caves date to the ninth century or later. Niepanku (parinirvāṇa cave) is named for the standard portrayal of the historical Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama
5.13. Section and plan of Mogao cave 285, Gansu, Western Wei
at the time of death. He is shown on his side surrounded by mourners. The fudou (inverted ladle) cave is named for its truncated pyramidal ceiling.37 It is as common in cave-temples as it is in tombs. Often, as in Mogao cave 285, a lotus is painted or carved on the apex (figure 5.14). Accommodations to the Chinese architectural system were inevitable when Indian Buddhist gods entered interior spaces. The lure of stone as a permanent material had been recognized for tomb construction in China before the arrival of Buddhism. The transformation of the Indian chaitya hall into a Chinese cave-chapel was an opportunity to reconfigure existing construction, for China would not abandon timber framing any more than had been the case in subterranean tombs in which architectural components were carved, sculpted, or painted. The result of this convergence was that some of the best fifth- and sixth-century examples of rock-carved imitations of wooden building components, fangmugou, survive in early cave-temples. Occasionally, real wooden pieces were used, but usually paint and plaster combined to imitate a timber frame and
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5.14. Interior of Mogao cave 285, Gansu, Western Wei
thereby establish that the house of the gods was a Chinese one. Gansu province is replete with Buddhist cave-temples that confirm the structural types found in Mogao caves. In some cases, evidence from the Hexi Corridor is earlier than comparable examples in the Dunhuang region. The period from the rise of the state of Northern Liang in 398 to the fall of the Western Qin state in 431 is especially important. Binglingsi, about 35 kilometers southwest of Yongjing near Gansu’s border with Qinghai, is one of the most important sites for this period. Cave 169, dated to the early 420s, is a massive cave, 26.75 by 8.56 meters and 15 meters high (figure 5.15). It is one among the 183 grottoes, 694 rock-carved images, 82 stucco statues, and more than 900 square meters of wall painting. Cave 1 also dates to Western Qin; caves 124, 125, 126, 128, and 132 are dated Northern Wei.38
Yungang Yungang has long been recognized as one of the major repositories of early Chinese Buddhist art and architecture. Located 22 kilometers west of Datong, the caves flourished under Northern Wei patronage when the capital was at Pingcheng. The Buddhist monk Tanyao was charged by the emperor with supervising the carving of five caves in the 460s. They are nos. 16–20. Each has an enormous Buddha associated with one of the Northern Wei emperors who ruled from Pingcheng. Four sets of Yungang caves that have associations with Northern Wei royal patrons were carved as commemorative pairs: caves 7 and 8 for Emperor Wencheng and his wife in 465 by their son; caves 9 and 10 for Emperor Xianwen and his wife by their son; caves 1 and 2, dedicated by Prince Liu Cheng of the Liu-Song court at Jiankang, who had come north, for his parents; and caves 5 and 6 by Empress Dowager Wenming
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5.15. Interior of cave 169, Binglingsi, Gansu, Western Qin, 420–424
5.16. Plans of caves 1–3 and 5–13, Yungang, fifth century
(interred in Yongguling), for her father and herself.39 Each of the pair shares a plan with its mate, but there are three different plans among the four pairs. The three plans are: a single chamber with a central pillar; two chambers joined by a corridor; and two chambers joined by a corridor with a central pillar in the back room (figure 5.16). Each form is also found in Mogao caves. Two styles of pagoda, in relief or as central pillars, two types of archways, one ceiling style, and inverted-V-shaped bracket sets characterize Yungang cave interiors. Except for a very few single-story structures, pagodas are multistory with replicas of ceramic-tile roof eaves on each story. The distinguishing feature of the two types of pagoda is whether the stories are of uniform size from base to top or if the profile tapers toward the top (figures 5.17, 5.18). Archways are either segmented, a style also observed in cave-temples near Luoyang
discussed below, or of the ogee style derived from Indian chaitya halls already observed in Yungang caves (see figures 4.14, 5.18). Roofs are hipped with parallel rafters, their undereaves supported by rafters that are four-sided or circular in section, sometimes with both types, and sometimes with lotus patterns on the ends (figure 5.19). Northern Wei patronage at Yungang dropped off sharply after the move of the capital to Luoyang in 493. Like Yungang in the fifth century, the most splendid cave-temples of sixth-century China received imperial patronage. They are located near the capitals of Luoyang, Ye, and Jinyang (Taiyuan). Imperial Caves near Luoyang Northern Wei emperor Xuanwudi (r. 499–515), a devout Buddhist, gave the initial order for cave excavation at Yique,
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5.19. Detail of Yungang cave 9 showing hip-roofed structure with parallel rafters, under-eave circular rafters with lotus patterns, alternating single-step bracket sets and inverted-V-shaped braces, and segmented arch above Buddha image on either side, 470–493
to be known as Longmen, 13 kilometers south of Luoyang. He began with Guyang Cave, a large, ovoid room with a small antechamber, a plan seen in many cave-temples and tombs in North and South China. The configuration of the Binyang caves is more noteworthy. At first two caves were planned, one for each of Xuanwudi’s deceased parents. A third cave, for the emperor himself, was initiated by the palace official Liu Teng between 508 and 512.40 Several features are typical of Longmen caves of the Northern Wei period. One is the segmented archway, also observed at Yungang. Second is the disappearance of central pillars. Northern Wei does not mark the termination of these columns. Rather, it seems that at Longmen one observes a desire for large, open spaces from which worshipers can view all the wall imagery. Third is the central ceiling lotus. It can dominate a flat ceiling or may appear in a truncated pyramidal ceiling, caisson ceiling, or ceiling whose structure includes imitation wooden members as observed in Mogao caves and tombs. Northern Wei Longmen caves also contain examples of timber-frame architecture replicated in stone (figure 5.20). Detail from a niche in Guyang Cave shows a hip-gable roof, inverted-V-shaped braces alternating with bracket sets, and a beast emblazoned atop the main roof ridge. These are familiar features in Yungang caves, but in this late-fifth-century structure the braces now have a strut bisecting the angle of 5.17. Central-pillar pagoda, interior of cave 2, Yungang, Northern Wei
5.20. Niche showing pillar-supported structure with alternating inverted-V-shaped braces and bracket sets beneath hip-gable roof, Guyang Cave, Longmen, ca. 490s
5.18. Pagoda whose layers taper from base to highest, cave 6, Yungang, Northern Wei
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the V, bracket sets have two tiers of arms, and a hip-gable roof contrasts with the simple hipped roofs that dominate relief sculpture at Yungang. The five cave-temples at Gongxian, about 50 kilometers east of Longmen, were completed as a group under Emperor Xiaowen, who, according to a stele at the site, was inspired to commission them when he stopped here in a rainstorm.41 In contrast to the Longmen caves, four of the five at Gongxian have central pillars. Both pointed, horseshoe-shaped (chaitya) arches and five-segmented arches crown images, and ceilings may have imitation lattices and or central lotuses. Xiangtangshan Xiangtangshan refers to two groups of caves, north and south, in the region of Gushan near the Ye capital in southern Hebei province. The cave-temples date to Eastern Wei and Northern Qi. The northern and southern groups are the most extensive and elaborate. A small cave site in the vicinity known as Shuiyusi may have been part of the original conception. The northern cave group is closely associated with Gao Huan, who built the above-mentioned villa for the consort of the Eastern Wei emperor at Gushan. Three of the nine northern caves are dated to the Northern Qi period. They are referred to as North, Middle, and South. Two have central pillars. North Cave dominates the three. It has been proposed as the location of Gao Huan’s burial. Some 12 meters square and 11 meters in height, the cave features a central pillar and every niche elaborated with motifs found nowhere else in China. They suggest sources far to the west (figure 5.21). Floral and flame patterns find comparisons among Sasanian relief of the same century and a century earlier. Other sections display scroll and vine and other floriated motifs observed in Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Ningxia in the fifth century.42 Middle Cave of the three at North Xiangtangshan has a unique structural feature: four octagonal pillars stand in two pairs on either side of the entry chamber. Today concealed, the columns recall earlier construction in stone at Yi’nan tomb 1 and Anak tomb 3
5.23. Ceiling of Middle Cave, Xiaonanhai, Anyang county, Henan, second half of sixth century
(see figures 3.22, 4.24). They are also found at cave-temples at Tianlongshan, discussed below. The seven caves of South Xiangtangshan are arranged in upper and lower levels. A wooden structure above the second row suggests there may at one time have been a third tier. It is possible the intent was to display multistory architecture such as pagodas on the cave facade. Decoration at South Xiangtangshan includes floriated flames and flowers of the kind carved at North Xiangtangshan. A lotus that emerges from two sides of a band, observed in other sixth-century decoration, also is found here. In nearby Anyang county, the location of the tombs of Shang kings, cave-temples with similar decoration are among approximately two hundred grottoes carved in the Northern Qi or Sui periods on facing sides of the Baoshan mountain range. The facades and interiors are small and focused and display highly decorated pagodas with prominent spires (cha[tras]), chaitya arches above the entries, and bundled lotus petals emerging from both ends of bands
5.21. Detail of south wall, North Cave, North Xiangtangshan, Hebei, Northern Qi 5.22. Pagodas carved in relief with high cha(tra), chaitya archways, and, on left, lotus petals emerging from two sides of band on columns, Baoshan, Anyang county, Henan, second half of sixth century
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5.24. Entryway showing alternating inverted-V-shaped braces with single-arm bracket sets and red-brown rafters painted under eaves, cave 16, Tianlongshan, sixth century with later repairs
on columns of the kind found in the Xiangtangshan grottoes (figure 5.22).43 When ceramic-tile roofs are indicated, inverted-V-shaped braces often alternate with simple onetier bracket sets. The Daliusheng cave-temple group, dated 546, and Dazhusheng group, dated 589, also are in Anyang county. Three small grottoes of Xiaonanhai are about 5 kilometers from Baoshan. Not as elaborated as Xiangtangshan caves or the facades of the Baoshan cliffs, each chapel is a single-chamber structure with an inverted-ladle-shaped ceiling with a lotus at its center (figure 5.23).44
but not as elaborately as at Xiangtangshan. Tianlongshan cave 9 contains a Big Buddha. Dated to the Tang period, the statue dominates the cave-temple complex as do similar statues at many Tang-period cave-temple sites. Cave 8 is the largest Tianlongshan cave. It has a central pillar and is dated by inscription to 584. With an antechamber that measures 4.3 meters across the front, 1.7 meters in depth, and 3 meters high, the main chamber is approximately 4 meters square. Maijishan The rock-carved grottoes at Maijishan, about 45 kilometers southeast of Tianshui in eastern Gansu province, are one of the most important sources of information about Chinese architecture before the Tang dynasty. Maijishan originally was a monolith whose grottoes and niches were carved more than 80 meters above the ground. In 734 an earthquake divided the rock into eastern and western cliffs. Fifty-four caves are on the east and 140 are on the west. Another fifteen grottoes, sometimes considered part of the site, yield a total number of 209.46 Maijishan’s six oldest cave-temples are single chamber and squarish, with U-shaped altars and Buddha niches but no central pillars. They date to Later Qin and Western Qin of the Sixteen States. Ninety-two caves are dated to the Northern Wei period. Cave 1 is a three-bay hall whose front facade is defined by four eight-sided pillars. Inside, a U-shaped altar spans the back wall to accommodate a Buddha in parinirvāṇa. Maijishan cave 28 pairs with cave 30, the latter dated to the Western Wei period. Both have facades like those of cave 1: four eight-sided columns capped by three layers of plates, the top plate the widest, define a three-bay structure, and a hipped roof designates superior
Tianlongshan Tianlongshan is located about 36 kilometers southwest of Taiyuan. Twenty-five caves spread about 0.5 kilometer across the Tianlong (Heavenly Dragon) mountains on more than one level, divided roughly evenly as thirteen on the western side and twelve on the eastern side. Six caves date from late Northern Wei to Northern Qi. 45 Each has a front facade believed to resemble timber-frame architecture of the period, with inverted-V-shaped braces alternating with single-step brackets across the lintel, a chaitya-style arch above the entry into the cave, eight-sided columns supporting the lintel, and imitation ceramic-tile roofs among its features. Sometimes the rafters that support the undersides of eaves are painted redbrown (figure 5.24). Most of the pre-Sui cave-temples at Tianlongshan have a single chamber with an entry but not complete antechamber. Sometimes with an altar but never a central pillar, and with niches for images in walls, this plan is the most common in the second half of the sixth century except at Xiangtangshan. Curtains and canopies decorate Buddha niches at Tianlongshan,
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status (figure 5.25). Also like cave 1, the pillars are of four wider and four more narrow faces, a feature traceable to Eastern Han stone tomb and shrine architecture such as Yi’nan tomb 1 or Zhu Wei’s shrine (see figure 3.22). The interiors of caves 28 and 30 are different from any interior structure discussed thus far: three nearly oval spaces, each displaying a Buddha on a platform, are behind a wide, rectangular antechamber. Cave 15 at Maijishan displays a triangular roof truss, like the one in Digengpo tomb 1 (see figure 4.21), and a vaulted ceiling framed by parallel rafters that join a main ridge along the center of the interior, a feature also found in Mogao cave 259. The ceiling of Maijishan cave 127 is the popular form in Northern Wei Mogao caves, the fudou, or truncated pyramid (see figure 5.14). The eight cylinders that frame this ceiling are decorated with bands with lotus petals emerging from either end. Observed at Xiangtangshan, the feature is found in secular and religious architecture of the fifth and sixth centuries. The multistructure complex with two hipped roofs, front and side gates with triple eaves, triple-eave corner towers, and triple-eave towers between the gates and corner towers that has been compared with the city of Ye is inside the frame (see figure 4.3). Cave 140 has a very early example of the “suspended fish” (xuanyu), a decorative piece hanging from the top of the gable end of the roof. Fifteen Maijishan caves date between 500 and 515, thirty-two date 516 to 534, seven have Western Wei dates, fourteen are dated Northern Zhou, and seven have Sui dates. The facade of Maijishan cave 4 provides extremely important information about sixth-century architecture. Dated to Northern Zhou, cave 4 presents the frontal view of a seven-bay hall with a simple hipped roof and a one-bay-deep porch (figure 5.26). The missing front row of pillars stood on octagonal pilasters whose traces are still visible. The ceiling of the entry, now exposed, is latticed. Curtains sculpted to hang from the tops and at the sides of the seven entrances are similar to their counterparts at Tianlongshan. Three triangles decorated with flame-like patterns recall those in the tombs of the Wrestlers and Dancers and Twin Pillars and in cave-temples in Yungang (see figures 5.10, 5.19). The interior ceiling of cave 4 is pyramidal with lotus petals emerging from two sides of bands and balls ornamented with two levels of lotus petals at the five joining points. Curtain-like rows of
5.25. Reconstruction of front facade, plan, and cross-section of cave 30, Maijishan, Gansu
deities “hang” from the pole-like features carved along the tops of the four walls. Cave 5 at Maijishan is dated to the Sui period. Its facade is simpler than cave 4’s, a three-bay structure with a large, central bay and smaller side bays. The chaitya arches above the entries and the alternating inverted-V-shaped braces and single-tier bracket sets have been observed in cave-temples and tombs across China. However, a new feature is present. Emerging perpendicular to the building plane from the center of each bracket set is a pointed projection. It is an early example of the shuatou (trifling head) that projects at the top of a bracket set from the cap-block or from a bracket-arm (see figure 5.26). Cave 3 has several features that
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5.26. Front facade of caves 4 and 5, Maijishan, Gansu, sixth century
with only a few images per cave.48 Some believe that the monks involved in Qixiasi had seen the Yungang caves.49 The cave-temples at Xumishan, approximately 55 kilometers northwest of Guyuan in Ningxia, are not precisely dated, but they include grottoes from the Northern Wei and Northern Zhou as well as later periods.50 The Northern Wei cave-temples have one- and two-chamber interiors with central pillars of as many as seven tiers of images on all four sides. Northern Zhou caves include central pillars and truncated pyramidal ceilings. The major cave-temple groups in eastern Gansu are the North Shikusi (rock-carved cave-temples), located about 150 kilometers northeast of Maijishan, a set of 282 caves of which 165 are dated to late Northern Wei and the latest date to the Song dynasty (960–1279), and a southern group known as Lotus Monastery cave-temples.51 Cave excavation continued to flourish in Xinjiang. Fifthcentury Kizil caves have one or two chambers, often extraordinary ceilings, and sometimes central pillars. Ceilings in caves 165, 166, and 167, all probably dated later than the fifth or sixth century, have five or six layers of superimposed quadrilaterals. As in tombs of the Koguryŏ kingdom where such ceilings proliferate, the elaboration is a sharp contrast to the simple spaces underneath them. Subashi, on the eastern and western sides of
are found in later Chinese wooden architecture. First is the curved beam. Second is a type of brace named timu, a brace that in its wooden form joins two components to help support a purlin. Additional Buddhist Cave-Temples Northern Wei royalty also built cave-temples in Liaoning. The site at Wanfotang (Ten Thousand Buddhas Halls) has seventeen caves.47 Emperor Xiaowen, who moved the capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang, opened Wanfotang between 495 and 502. Cave 1 is a central-pillar cave with nine perimeter niches, three on each side except the southern entrance. A column marks each corner of the four-sided structure. An image identified as the Buddhist layman Vimalakīrti framed by pillars and beams and an inverted-V-shaped brace that supports the roof frame are in cave 4. There is a triplet cave group at Wanfotang, as well. The Qixiasi cave-temples are dug into small hills adjacent to the monastery of that name about 22 kilometers northeast of Nanjing. The first niches were carved in 484 by a scholar-recluse who had served both the Liu-Song and Southern Qi courts. After his death in 485, a Buddhist monk carried on the work. Most of the 294 grottoes are small, single rooms
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5.27. Stone pagoda, Northern Liang. Jiuquan City Museum
the Kuche River, east of Kizil and northeast of Kumtura, has remains of stupas, courtyards, and cave-temples that may date to the sixth century. Simsim, about 45 kilometers northeast of Kuche, preserves ceilings similar to those of GK 20 and 21 at Kumtura and cave 167 at Kizil. Barrel-vaults, domes, and ribvaults are among the Simsim ceilings and at the Aai caves, east of Simsim.
5.28. Cao Tiandu pagoda, lower part, stone, 466. Taipei History Museum
another circular section with eight Buddhist deities; and a thirteen-layer top capped by a dome. The arches that frame the eight deities are often chaitya-style. Pointed arches with decorated top extensions that outline lotus petals above the row of Buddha images are found as well (figure 5.27).52 Four-sided votive pagodas also were made. Most possess an unmistakable feature of fifth-century Chinese architecture: parallel roof rafters on each roof tier beneath an imitation ceramic-tile roof. The form is a sharp contrast to the pagodas with octagonal and circular drums. The coexistence of similarly sized objects for the same purpose of two such different forms suggests both types stood in Liangzhou in the fifth century. Several of the four-sided stone votive stupas have dated inscriptions. Cao Tiandu donated a four-sided, nine-story votive pagoda in 466 (figure 5.28). The date places it in the
China’s Earliest Pagodas Miniature pagodas have been found in large numbers in the Liangzhou region of Gansu, where tombs and cave architecture flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries under the Liang kingdoms. Most of the small pagodas are stone and portable, presumably carried across Asia by monks or others who practiced Buddhism. It is not known if the small objects were brought to Liangzhou from points west, if they traveled eastward from Liangzhou, if they were made locally based on forms seen by Gansu craftsmen, or if they influenced centralpillars in caves and pagodas painted or sculpted on walls; all are possible. Some portable pagodas dated to the Northern Liang period consist of four layers: an octagonal base with an image on each side; a circular section above it with an inscription;
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5.30. Plan of central core of Yongning Monastery, Luoyang, 516–534
By 2017 ongoing excavation in the vicinity of the Pingcheng capital had identified several monasteries near or on top of the Yungang caves. Siyuan Buddha Monastery, north of the Pingcheng capital and south of Empress Dowager Wenming’s Yongguling in Fangshan, had been uncovered some ten years earlier.54 At Siyuan Buddha Monastery, a pagoda was centrally positioned on a double-layer platform, enclosed by two walls (figure 5.29). The plan is a logical successor to towering pagodas centered in their own courtyards in third-century Xinjiang (see figures 4.9, 4.10). Ceramic roof tiles and pieces of Buddhist sculpture uncovered at the site date to Northern Wei. Yongning (Eternal Quietude) Monastery is the first Buddhist establishment discussed in Yang Xuanzhi’s Record of Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang, the treatise that informs us that Luoyang had 1,367 religious institutions. Yongningsi was the most important imperial monastery in the Northern Wei capital. It has been more extensively excavated than any other Northern Wei monastery. The core ground plan can be confirmed: a front gate, pagoda, and Buddha hall on a northsouth line (figure 5.30). The monastery was constructed by Empress Dowager Hu (d. 528) in 516. It stood opposite the Office of the Grand Commandant on the west side of the imperial way, about 0.5 kilometer from the entrance to the palace-city (see figure 5.1–29).55 Record of Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang describes more than a thousand monks’ courtyards with single- and multistory halls painted in blue, all with carved windows, located amid greenery so that even the dwellings of Buddha’s paradise were no match for it.56 The pagoda, we are told, was four-sided and rose nine stories to a height of 40 zhang (about 100 meters!). The chatra was
5.29. Plan of building remains, probably pagoda, from Siyuan Buddhist Monastery, Fangshan, Shanxi, Northern Wei
same decade as the carving of Yungang caves 16 to 20, and the form is similar to pagodas in the round and in relief on the walls of Yungang grottoes from a decade or two later (see figures 5.17, 5.18). Early in the twentieth century this pagoda was housed in the Chongfu Monastery in Shuo county, Shanxi. In the late 1940s the lower portion was taken to Taipei, while the 49.5-centimeter top remained at the monastery in China.53 Another four-sided stone votive stupa was dedicated by Cao Tianhu in 496. There is no evidence the two Caos were related. The Cao Tianhu pagoda is three stories with a main Buddha image beneath a chaitya arch at the center of each side of each story, and one or two deities to each Buddha’s sides. In addition to parallel roof rafters and pillars that define bays on each level of the pagodas, the four corner pillars on the base are transformed into miniature towers, similar to those in the building complex painted in Maijishan cave 127 (see figure 4.3).
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composed of thirty golden plates capped by a golden jar inlaid with precious stones. Chains from which golden bells were suspended joined it to the pagoda. Each story of the pagoda had its own roof, with a total of 120 bells hanging from each of them. Each side had three vermilion, double-panel doors with golden knockers and six windows. Each door had five rows of golden nails, 5,400 in total. Today only a quadrilateral earthen mound nearly 100 meters square survives as the base of a 38.2-meter-square pagoda. Yongning Monastery burned to the ground in 534. Surviving Pagodas The pagoda has long been recognized as the structure through which one observes how builders of a millennialold architectural system of four-sided, wooden structures accommodated worship requirements from outside China. Since the pagoda was often made of materials such as brick or stone, it is not a coincidence that two of China’s oldest extant buildings are pagodas. By the sixth century pagodas were commonplace in cave-temples and in China’s cities and countryside. Nevertheless, for as long as pagodas were built, they would be the structures in a Chinese religious setting that signaled the foreign origins of Buddhism. In contrast to the Buddha image hall, which, once it became part of the core of a monastery, never left a central position, even if there was more than one, the shape of the pagoda and its locations in a monastery changed over the long history of the religion in China. The brick pagoda of Songyue Monastery is dated 523 (figure 5.31). It is the only dodecagonal building in China. Extensively repaired and refaced with plaster in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, it is the earliest freestanding example of miyan, or densely piled eaves-style architecture, a structural type with a tall shaft and very closely positioned, narrow eaves above it. The fifteen layers of eaves span more than 20 meters of the 39.8-meter structure. The shaft above the twelve-sided platform is about 10 meters. Next is another twelve-sided section marked by four large chaitya-arched entrances at the four cardinal directions and eight smaller, similarly shaped false entries. Before recent restoration, each face was divided from those it joins by a replica of an octagonal column with a lotus-shaped base and lotus-shaped capital. The narrow layers have window frames flanking each prominent entry but not actual windows. The top layer has
5.31. Pagoda, Songyue Monastery, Mount Song, Henan, brick, 523 with extensive refacing and restoration in late twentieth to early twenty-first centuries
a chaitya-arched double door on four sides and single-door frames on the other eight. During repair work of the 1980s, a digong was uncovered. Literally “underground palace,” digong can mean a subterranean tomb or a reliquary deposit beneath a pagoda. Here it is the depository. Materials found beneath the pagoda confirm the sixth-century date. The Songyuesi digong is a two-chamber space, similar in plan to cave-temples at Dunhuang, Maijishan, and Yungang and to tombs in Jiuquan, Pingcheng, and Koguryŏ. In other words, the two-chamber configuration that dominates fifth-century worship and funerary space is employed in the next century in a reliquary space whose objects glorify Buddhist death; and it anticipates a temple with an antechamber and worship space behind it or two freestanding buildings, worship hall in front and pagoda behind. Entered from the south side of the base, the original door to the Songyuesi digong is missing. A lintel about 12 centimeters wide and a segmented arch 32 centimeters in width with carvings of birds and floral patterns remains. Images and names of two monks are on the west wall of the digong along with inverted-V-shaped braces alternating with single-tier bracket sets, features that also decorate tomb interiors.
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5.32. Simenta, Shentong Monastery, Licheng, Shandong, granite, rebuilt in 611
Two tiangong also were found during repair of Songyue Monastery pagoda. Literally “heavenly palaces,” these repositories for relics are inside the chatra. One is positioned in the top section and the second is in the shaft. The tiangong relics date to the Song dynasty (960–1279). The dates do not change the Northern Wei date of the pagoda. This early brick pagoda of twelve sides may be a vestige of Chinese builders’ initial attempts to construct an Indian stupa. The earliest stupas, of course, were circular. Perhaps Empress Dowager Hu intended this towering monument on a sacred peak to recall or even replicate a South Asian source, but in brick, with pillars of the Chinese building system decorating the joining points of sides, it was accomplished in twelve segments. If there was a model, a portable stupa of Northern Liang such as figure 5.27 is a possibility, even if the closest existing template is octagonal. If the pagoda at Songyue Monastery mimicked a circular shape reminiscent of India’s early stupas, China’s other two earliest pagodas, Simenta (Four Entry Pagoda) in Licheng, Shandong, and the pagoda at Xiuding Monastery in Anyang county, suggest different, but ultimately also South Asian, sources. Buddhism was in China to stay, but China was far from consensus about how to build architecture to glorify the faith. Simenta (Four Entry Pagoda) is a granite structure elevated on a stone platform (figure 5.32). It is approached and, as the
name informs us, can be entered from all sides. Inside, the pagoda has a central pillar with Buddhist imagery on each face. The monastery of which it is a part, Shentongsi, was established by a monk in 351 during the rule of Former Qin. It is believed to be Shandong province’s oldest monastery. The monastery and the town of Licheng remained a regional center of Buddhism through the Tang dynasty. A Tang-period pagoda from Licheng is discussed in chapter 6. An inscription inside Simenta is dated 544. At one time it was believed to indicate the construction date, but during repairs of 1972, the year 611 was found carved into a brick at the top. The later date is assigned to the building. The plan and structure of Simenta resonate with architectural sources in central India, buildings only slightly earlier than it. The buildings are Brahmanical (Hindu). The Daśāvatāra temple dedicated to Viṣṇu in Deogarh in Uttar Pradesh, dated to the first half of the sixth century, and the contemporary Pārvatī temple in Nachna Kuthara, Madhya Pradesh, are foursided, stone buildings with central pillars containing imagery, but with one entry and windows on the other three sides. From the outside and in plan, both offer more formal similarities with Simenta than do known buildings that predate it in China. The chatra of Simenta recalls a form employed in painting and relief sculpture in fifth-century Mogao and Yungang caves, a base with corner projections (see figure 5.18); at Lingyan Monastery pagoda in Shandong, discussed in the
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to have had a ladle-shaped ceiling of the kind observed in sixth-century Mogao caves. The pagodas at Songyue, Shentong, and Xiuding Monasteries all retain or point to forms that would wane in popularity by the early Tang period, and they all trace to India. The link with South Asia does not raise doubt about the transmission of early Indian stupas across Xinjiang in the third century. Rather, it emphasizes the continued transmission of structures and, of course, ideas. Eastern Han Buddhists may have known about Indian stupas, pagodas in Xinjiang may remain evidence of South Asian sources, and portable, votive, stone pagodas may have inspired Songyue Monastery pagoda. The pagodas in Licheng and Anyang confirm that newer, current architectural forms from India, from the period when Brahmanical construction flourished, made their way eastward across Asia. This first century of extant Buddhist monumental construction in China, from the 520s to the 620s, confirms that the pagoda was fully implanted in China even though no single pagoda style was preferred.
5.33. Pagoda, Xiuding Monastery, Anyang county, Henan, sixth century with later repairs and changes
Northern Qi Monasteries with Pagodas The dominance of a pagoda in fifth- and early-sixth-century monasteries in Pingcheng, Luoyang, and on Mount Song is consistent with deep-rooted notions about the role of the stupa in early Buddhist architecture both in South Asia and in third-century Xinjiang. The Buddha hall has no counterpart in South Asian Buddhist architecture, but like cave-temples at Maijishan and Tianlongshan, the Chinese Buddha hall would house images on altars in a position comparable to the dais on which an emperor was enthroned. By the mid-sixth century, even as pagodas continued to soar above monasteries in cities and on mountains, Buddha halls were constructed on increasingly larger scale both near cave-temples and at locations where cave architecture was impossible. Evidence for this transformation is found in the Eastern Wei–Northern Qi capitals at Ye and Jinyang (Taiyuan). A rammed-earthen platform about 45 meters square and 4.5 meters in height was uncovered 1.3 kilometers south of wall remains of Eastern Wei–Northern Qi Ye in 2002. A central pillar rose from a subterranean pilaster into which it was implanted.58 Beyond the central core were two more concentric enclosures, the inner probably supported by twelve pillars (four on each side) and the outer, from which remains are less clear, by perhaps twenty pillars defining five bays on each side. Each side
next chapter, the chatra has expanded to eight projections resembling lotus petals. Simenta also suggests reasons for considering the four-sided, brick-faced pagoda at Xiuding Monastery in Anyang county to date no later than early Tang (figure 5.33) and thus be China’s third-earliest full-size pagoda. The first monastery on this site was founded by a monk in 494. During the Eastern Wei period, it was named Xiudingsi.57 The monastery was destroyed during Buddhist persecutions of 577 by Northern Zhou emperor Wudi. Buddhism returned to the region in the Sui dynasty. The current pagoda was rebuilt based on its sixth-century form between 627 and 650. Xiuding Monastery pagoda has an early-twentieth-century history that sadly is not unique for Chinese religious architecture. In the 1920s many of the exterior tiles were sold, eventually to make their ways to museums worldwide. By 1961, when the Chinese Cultural Relics Bureau noted the pagoda in a survey of the region, its exterior had been plastered over. Restoration between 1973 and 1978 produced the pagoda one sees today. The exterior relief sculpture includes figures and creatures that suggest comparison with sixth- and seventh-century imagery from Central and West Asia. The current roof is a truncated pyramid whose original underside is believed
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Type I: Combination earth and wood construction 1. Mogao cave 257, Dunhuang, Northern Wei 2. Mogao cave 285, Dunhuang, Western Wei 3. Mogao cave 296, Dunhuang, Northern Zhou 4. Yungang cave 6, Northern Wei
Type II: Mud-earth side and back walls and timber-frame front 1. Yungang cave 10, Northern Wei 2. Yungang cave 10, Northern Wei 3. Tianlongshan cave 1, Northern Qi 4. Tianlongshan cave 16, Northern Qi
Type III: Columns support a wooden framework, often including a front gallery 1. Maijishan cave 4, Northern Zhou 2. Maijishan cave 28, Northern Wei 3. Maijishan cave 30, Northern Wei 4. Guyang Cave, Longmen, Northern Wei 5. South Xiangtangshan cave 3, Northern Qi 6. South Xiangtangshan caves 1 and 2, Northern Qi 7. Central pillar pagoda, Yungang cave 21, Northern Wei
Type IV: Timber frame with purlins or architraves on top of columns and inverted V-shaped braces 1. Ning Mao sarcophagus, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2. Carving on stele, Qinyang, Henan, Eastern Wei 3. Tianlongshan cave 8, Northern Qi 4. Maijishan cave 4, Northern Zhou 5. Maijishan cave 4, Northern Zhou 6. Maijishan cave 27, Northern Zhou
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flanked by symmetrical buildings, an approach to the main hall, and side buildings along the enclosing arcade. Life-size Buddha images are carved into cliffs behind the pagoda and other freestanding Buddhist images remain in heavily damaged condition. The Tongzi Monastery site is evidence of the use of rock-carved and freestanding architecture together with sculpture and wooden halls in sixth-century Chinese Buddhist monasteries. According to History of the Northern Qi Dynasty, Gao Huan’s son Gao Yang (529–559) climbed to Tongzisi and ordered the excavation of a great Buddha into the cliff.60 By the second half of the sixth century, image halls thus were positioned along the main axial building lines of monasteries, where the most important structures in palatial architecture such as the Great Ultimate Hall and emperor’s residences stood in palace-cities, and the importance of the pagoda was shared with that of the Buddha hall.
Toward a Timber Frame Type V: Fully developed timber frame with wooden columns on all four sides of structure and bracket sets atop columns as well as between them on architrave 1. Mogao cave 420, Dunhuang, Sui 2. Longmen, Northern Wei 3. Miniature pottery structure found in Sui tomb, Henan 4. Maijishan cave 5, Sui
The transformation into a building system supported by timber framing occurred by the end of the sixth century. The process can be seen in five stages. From the period of the Sixteen States to Northern Wei, walls were made of rammed earth or earthen blocks, sometimes with timbers embedded in them. The timbers were known as bizhu (wall pillars) when they were placed vertically and bidai (wall belts) when they were positioned horizontally. This type of structure has thick walls into which framed doors and windows are fit. Inside, the timber frame is set lengthwise (across the building from side to side). Bracket sets and inverted-V-shaped braces are placed on top of the earthen walls (figure 5.34–1). Examples of this kind of construction are found in Mogao caves 257, 285, and 296, dated to the Northern Wei, Western Wei, and Northern Zhou periods, respectively (figure 5.14). The second stage occurs at the end of the fifth century when it is seen in relief in caves 9 and 10 at Yungang. It continues for a century, occurring at the entrances to Northern Qi caves 1 and 16 at Tianlongshan (see figures 5.24, 5.34–2). During this stage of development, the sides and back of the structure are still thick, mud-based walls, but the front uses a lengthwise framework with bracket sets and inverted-V-shaped braces that runs parallel to the eaves along the entire length of the building. Both ends of the framework are supported on the
5.34. Transformation from mud-earth construction to timber-frame construction, fifth to sixth centuries
of the pagoda was about 30 meters. The pagoda was approached from the south via a ramp about 2.3 meters in width with a brick apron on its south side. It is known as Zhaopengcheng Pagoda after the town where it was found. The monastery spanned between 432 or 453 meters on each of its four sides and was enclosed by a moat. The pagoda was centered from east to west and positioned about one-third of the way north along the north-south span of its enclosure. A courtyard of about 110 meters square was in the southwestern corner, and a symmetrical courtyard was on the southeast. The courtyards may have contained twin pagodas or bell and drum towers. The remnant of the monastery Tongzisi is in the western hills of Taiyuan.59 It was founded in 556, destroyed in 1117, and rebuilt or repaired several times since then. Today a randengta (burning lantern pagoda), a hexagonal stone structure on a tall base, is the only remaining building. It stands about 65 meters northeast of the ruins of the monastery. Like the Zhaopengcheng monastery, Tongzisi consists of a front gate
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8, and details of murals in caves 4 and 27 at Maijishan (see figures 4.3, 5.37). The final stage is a fully developed timberframe building in which wooden pillars are used on all four sides. As in the fourth stage, the architrave consists of several one-bay timbers lodged between column shafts. Bracket sets on top of columns are in the form of three-arms-onone-block or more complex forms; intercolumnar bracket sets consist of inverted-V-shaped braces and dwarf columns atop the architrave in each bay. Together with the columntop joist and the eave purlin, bracketing forms a lengthwise framework to support the roof structure (see figure 5.34–5).61 A detail of a mural in Mogao cave 420 also is an example. In the Song dynasty, we shall see that the framework shifts from lengthwise to crosswise.
A Buddhist Monument to Pious Deeds Another type of Buddhist structure stood in China in the Northern Qi period. Yicihui (Righteousness, Kindness, and Beneficence) Pillar was erected in Dingxing county of Hebei province in 570 to commemorate pious acts of the 520s through 550s. It stands 6.6 meters (figure 5.35).62 The years 525 to 528 witnessed the relocation of populations of North China and slaying, execution, destruction, and other tragedy. Dingxing suffered horrendously. When calm was restored, seven men gathered the human remains and gave them proper burial. This was the initial act of kindness. Thereafter acts of human kindness increased almost daily. Soon monks’ quarters and a place for education of young monks were constructed in order to foster acts of beneficence. This gave way to a society of aid for Buddhist believers. In 552 a pagoda and Buddha halls were erected. The years 555 and 557 again were times of desperation, yet relief continued. In 559 a local official presented a memorial to the emperor requesting that the society of relievers be praised and commended. In 567 the stone pillar was erected. Atop the pillar is another base, 1.26 by 1.05 meters and 28 centimeters in height. It supports a three-by-two-bay stone chamber, 79 by 69 centimeters at the base and with a fourslope roof. The 35-centimeter-high pillars of the small structure have clear evidence of entasis, a feature we observed in the fourth century. Each pillar has a cap-block supporting a plate above it, but there are no bracket sets. There are, however, a tie-beam that penetrates the columns, then an
5.35. Yicihui Pillar, Shizhu village, Dingxing county, Hebei, 570
gable walls, whereas the central part is propped up by one or two columns. The back and side walls are load bearing. In the third stage of development, columns are found only in the front of the building, but they support the lengthwise framework including a gallery across the front of the building. The facades of caves 4, 28, and 30 at Maijishan, caves 1, 2, and 3 at South Xiangtangshan, and the central pillar pagoda in cave 21 at Yungang are examples. All date from the Northern Wei to Northern Qi periods (see figures 5.34–3, 5.25). In the fourth phase, structures are supported exclusively by timber frames. This does not occur until the sixth century. By this point the front columns extend upward directly onto the eave purlin, dividing the lengthwise framework into several one-bay sections. The architrave, which was a one-piece component in the second and third stages, is now several one-bay timbers, and it has moved downward from a position inside the mortise hole of the column-top capblock. The architrave now provides bracing between columns. Buildings of this type are pure, timber-frame architecture or facsimiles of it (see figure 5.34–4). Examples include the Ning Mao sarcophagus, front facade of Tianlongshan cave
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5.36. Sarcophagus of Song Shaozu, excavated in Datong, Shanxi, 477. Shanxi Provincial Museum
5.36 and 5.34–2).63 The four front columns are eight-sided, the shape used in late Eastern Han stone tombs, Anak tomb 3 of the Koguryŏ kingdom, and Tianlongshan and Maijishan grottoes (see figures 3.22, 4.23, 5.6, 5.24, 5.25, 5.26). Above the columns is a lintel into which the cap-blocks of pillar-top bracket sets are joined. The bracket sets are single-step, and an inverted-V-shaped brace is positioned between the central two. The five roof purlins support a main roof ridge and a tripartite roof of which two sections are evenly positioned above the five rafters and a shorter section covers the front portico. The exterior of the sarcophagus is embellished with twenty-two animal-faced door knockers and about a hundred circular bosses. The sarcophagus of Ning Mao, who died in 527, is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (figure 5.37).64 Representative of the fourth phase of structural evolution in which the architrave provides bracing between columns, the coffin copies the three distinct sections and the three interlocking timber layers of a wooden Chinese building: elevation platform, weight-bearing pillars, and ceramic-tile roof; and pillar layer, bracket-set layer, and roof frame, respectively (see figure i.7). The roof is the type known as overhanging eaves in which two eaves emerge from a main ridgepole and extend over the front
architrave, next a column-top tie-beam, and last a brace that cushions the roof frame with decorative molding at the ends. Four-sided and circular-sectioned, decorated, parallel eave rafters and decorated ceramic roof tiles are carved into the stone. A Buddha sits in an open niche beneath a chaitya-style arch. It is unknown if commemorative pillars were widespread at this time or other times in China. For now, Yicihui Pillar is a unique monument that finds its closest structural parallels in pillars erected at the approaches to tombs (see figure 5.4).
Sarcophagus as Architecture Lacquer and stone sarcophaguses had imitated wooden architecture in China since the Warring States and Han periods. Several fifth- and sixth-century sarcophaguses exhibit features of timber-frame architecture that do not survive in wood until the Tang period and thus suggest that those details were part of fifth- and sixth-century construction. Song Shaozu and his wife were buried southeast of Datong in 477 in a 2.4-meter-high stone structure that is 3.48 meters across the front. It presents as a three-by-two-bay building (with a front portico), of type II described above (figures
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5.37. Sarcophagus of Ning Mao, excavated near Luoyang, 527. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
5.38. Back side of sarcophagus of Master Shi, excavated in Xi’an, 579
and back walls. Parallel rafters are positioned under the eaves and concealed except at the ends. Short purlins are perpendicular to the side ridges. The Xianbei official Shedi Huiluo and his wife were buried in a wooden sarcophagus in the 560s. The sarcophagus was elevated on a platform of 3.82 by 3.04 meters with twelve pillars lodged into the holes around the edge of the base to define a three-bay-square structure.65 The pillars were eightsided with corner pillars thicker than those on the sides. Simple cap-blocks were tenoned on top of the pillars, those on the corner pillars larger than those on the other columns.
Cushion braces of the kind carved on the structure atop Yicihui Pillar were used. Bracket sets were single step, with a block above each of three arms, a form known as “one set, three rises.” Further above them was the brace named timu. Inverted-V-shaped braces occurred between all the bracket sets above the lintel, those both above columns and between columns. Corner bracket sets were the most complicated. Finally, a decorative, inverted-V-shaped brace is added to each gable side and a suspended fish (xuanyu) hangs in front of the gable-end braces. These last two features are found on the Song Shaozu sarcophagus, in the tomb at Digengpo, and
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the mural in Maijishan cave 127 (see figures 4.3, 4.21, 5.36). The sarcophagus was found in pieces and has only been theoretically reconstructed. Several sixth-century sarcophaguses in the shapes of buildings were made for men with the title sabao, a Sogdian in the service of the Sui and then Tang government. The stone sarcophagus of Yu Hong, who died in Taiyuan in 592, was a simple, cubic structure with a hip-gable roof and relief sculpture that confirms his West Asian ethnicity. The coffin of Master Shi, who died in Xi’an in 579, presents imagery that confirms his Sogdian ethnicity, but its structure is more significant (figure 5.38). The stone sarcophagus has pillars and two-tier, pillar-top bracket sets on all four sides. The earliest extant timber-frame buildings with this kind of bracket sets date to the eighth century. Every block, the ones that cap a column and those at the ends of bracket-arms, has an additional plate known as a mindou on top of it. The roof is hip-gable. Architectural detail also is present on Sogdian funerary couches. Two couches, one in the Miho Museum and the other excavated in Anyang county, have mother-and-child que at the front. The funerary bed of sabao An Qie (d. 572) of Northern Zhou, excavated in Xi’an, has architecture on eight of its twelve panels. The structures range from timber frame to tent, identifiably Chinese to markedly non-Chinese (figure 5.39). When the Chinese system is rendered, as in figure 5.39, its details are clear and specific: hip-gable roofs, two sets of roof rafters, one circular and the other four-sided in section, and single-step bracket sets that alternate with inverted-V-shaped columns provide a framework for An Qie and his wife. Yet a tent is present on another panel. On the eve of reunification, architecture defined China even as its decoration alluded to the foreign origins of men who had controlled the North for three and a half centuries.66
5.39. Detail of funerary couch of An Qie showing Chinese structure with inverted-V-shaped braces and single-step bracket sets, excavated in Xi’an, 571
the most important monastery space with Buddha halls that were modeled after imperial palaces. For the next three hundred years this unified Chinese building system would flourish not just from Xinjiang to Korea but in Japan and Mongolia as well. And it is preserved in wood.
At the end of the sixth century a unified building system, as unified as it had been under Han rule, stretched from Xinjiang to Korea, a Chinese one that was blind to the ethnicities or histories of those who implemented it. South Asian stupas and chaitya arches had been integrated into the Chinese system of columns with entasis, bracket sets, inverted-V-shaped braces, trusses, circular and four-sided roof rafters, hipped and hipgable ceramic tile roofs, and, of course, pillars. Pagodas were in most cases four-sided, and before the year 600 they shared
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CHAPTER 6
Sui and Tang Architecture for Empires
The Sui-Tang period is often described as an age of cosmopolitanism, and indeed, from the end of the sixth century through the end of the ninth, Chinese traveled across Asia and people from all parts of the world made Chinese cities their homes. Countries and kingdoms outside turned to China’s cities and their political, religious, and cultural institutions as models for their own empires, devotion, and taste. Mercantilism, another appropriate description for the age, brought foreigners and their goods to China by land and sea. They came to Chang’an, and from there to Luoyang via the Silk Roads, and they came to China’s southeastern seaports, notably Guangzhou, and on to Yangzhou on the Yangzi River, which was joined to North China and the Yellow River by the Grand Canal, the major engineering feat of Sui China. Different from the past, in the seventh century most foreigners came to China not to conquer but to pay tribute, sell goods or work in other capacities, or proselytize. Descriptions and physical remains of the spaces where those activities took place are extensive. Tang is the earliest period from which eight major types of construction—city, palace, altar, temple, cave-temple, pagoda, tomb, and bridge—exist or can be reliably reconstructed. The short Sui and the long Tang dynasty that follows were both ages of rulers with grandiose visions. The two Sui emperors Wendi (r. 581–604) and his son Yangdi (r. 604–618) and Tang Gaozu (r. 618–626), Taizong (r. 626–649), Gaozong (r. 650–683), Empress Wu (r. 690–705), and Xuanzong (r. 712–756) all left legacies in monumental architecture.
Three Great Cities In the Sui and Tang dynasties, China’s capitals returned to their locations in Zhou and Han times. Chang’an, named Daxing (Great Flourishing) under Sui rule, had more than one million of China’s approximately fifty million people. Luoyang was China’s second largest city, with a population believed to have reached one million. Beyond the capitals, Yangzhou was China’s most important city. Its population is estimated at half a million.1 Daxing-Chang’an Sui Wendi began his new city in 582 about 10 kilometers southeast of Han Chang’an. The emperor started with the palace-city, followed with the imperial-city, and in less than a year, by February 8, 583, even before the final conquest of
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the Chen dynasty in southeastern China, a 36.7-kilometer (84-square-kilometer) outer wall was completed. The rammedearthen enclosure, of approximately 9–12 meters in thickness, was nearly rectangular, 9.7 kilometers east to west by 8.6 kilometers north to south. It jutted south at the southeastern corner to accommodate Qujiang Pond, a body of water that perhaps was intended to balance the natural forces of mountains north of the city. The palace- and imperial-cities were north and south of each other in the north center of the outer city. The palace-city comprised the imperial residences, offices that serviced the palace, and residence of the crown prince on the east. Its dimensions were 2.82 kilometers east to west by 1.49 kilometers north to south. The imperial-city where government offices were located had the same east-west dimension and was 1.84 kilometers north-south. North of the palace-city were imperial gardens. Daxing-Chang’an’s outer wall had fourteen gates, five on the north and three at each of the other three sides (figure 6.1). The orthogonal layout of the Sui-Tang capital is a distinguishing feature. Emanating from gates, fourteen longitudinal and eleven latitudinal streets crossed the city, blocked only by the palace- and imperial-cities. The major streets were divided into three lanes, the central one for imperial passages and those that flanked it for unidirectional travel. Every gate had three entries, except the south-central gate of the outer wall, which had five entries; it extended northward from along Vermilion Bird Avenue to the south-central gate of the palace-city. Vermilion Bird, the directional animal for the south, was the name that had been used for this south-central thoroughfare at Jiankang during the Southern Dynasties. Streets were lined with locust trees and had open drainage ditches. The widest street in Chang’an, 220 meters, divided the palace- and imperial-cities. Other streets were between 150 and 155 meters wide, with no major thoroughfare fewer than 100 meters across.2 The streets divided the city into 110 wall-enclosed wards, two of which served as the east and west markets on either side of the imperial-city to their north. Sizes of the wards were not uniform: those closest to Vermilion Bird Road were the smallest; those in the northern part of the city were larger than wards in the south. Entries to wards were guarded, opened at dawn and closed at dusk, and only the gates of nobility could face the street. Wards were further divided into at least four and as many as sixteen sectors by north-south and east-west streets. Markets opened at noon and closed at dusk. The eastern one
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administrative-city even though the Chinese name for it is huangcheng, literally "imperial-city," would become an institution of Chinese imperial urbanism from here on. In earlier times the bureaucracy had been accommodated by the Hall of State (Chaotang) and Grand Secretariat (Shangshusheng) inside the palace-city; now increased in size, it had its own wall-enclosed city separate from the emperor’s space. Chinese scholars sought to explain the new plan even during the Tang dynasty. In the early eighth century a correspondence between the first hexagram in the Book of Changes (Yijing) and six of the fourteen east-west streets of Chang’an was proposed. Sixty-four hexagrams, or configurations of solid or broken lines, the first of which is six unbroken lines, are prescribed in this divinatory text of China’s Classical Age.5 In the fourteenth century Li Haowen suggested that Sui Wendi added the separate imperial-city to further sequester himself from the local population.6 Even if this is not true, Sui-Tang Chang’an had less palace space compared to Han Chang’an, but it was still a city that served the emperor. Komai Kazuchika (1905– 1971) proposed that the placement of imperial sectors in the North was due to an association of the position with the North Star.7 Chen Yinke (1890–1961) suggested that the location was because the water supply was better in the North, and indeed, four canals were constructed at the Sui-Tang capital to address the problem of a water supply.8 Finally, names of officials involved in planning Daxing survive. Most important was Yuwen Kai, whose family had come to China from the West and would be in charge of other imperial construction projects, including the Grand Canal. Yuwen Kai would also be in charge of designing the Sui capital at Luoyang.9
6.1. Plan of Sui-Tang Daxing-Chang’an, 581–907
attracted a wealthier clientele, whereas the foreign populations tended to shop in the more crowded western market, where languages from across the Asian continent were heard among merchants and consumers. Mansions could be large enough to occupy an entire sector of a ward: one-sixteenth, one-quarter, or one-half. Each ward had at least two guarded gates, and some had four. Sui-Tang Chang’an was the emperor’s city, and the movement of his population was controlled.3 Wealthy and poor tended to self-identify by their residential ward, as did non-Chinese populations such as Persians or Sogdians. Religious institutions also were in the already subdivided sectors. Non-Chinese populations tended to live near the institutions of their native religions. Eighth-century Chang’an had more than two hundred Buddhist establishments, nearly fifty Daoist institutions, and religious architecture of Nestorian Christianity (the Church of the East), Manichaeism, and Zoroastrianism.4 Tang Chang’an can be seen both as following and as a break from earlier capital cities of China. The overriding symmetry, emphasized by two markets, and the strict adherence to a grid system were anticipated by imperial cities of the four previous centuries, including Luoyang, Ye, and to a lesser extent Jiankang. Yet planned from inception, Sui-Tang Chang’an achieved a more perfect grid than any of them. The clearly defined imperial-city, better thought of at this time as an
Luoyang Although the same man supervised the second Sui capital, in Luoyang, a city more associated with Wendi’s son Yangdi, and, like Daxing, rectangular, the bilateral symmetry of wards and markets with respect to the palace- and imperialcities in the North Center was not achieved for this new city located between the earlier Zhou and Han-Wei-Jin-Northern Wei capitals. The outer wall faces, beginning in the east and moving clockwise, were 7.3, 7.3, 6.1, and 6.8 kilometers with twelve gates divided as four at the north, three on the east and south sides, and two at the west. Major streets ran through the city, but no thoroughfare crossed it in entirety in either
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18.5 square kilometers of space. Approximately 1.8 by 1.4 kilometers, zicheng contained the architecture of a palace-city and an imperial-city and had one major north-south and one major east-west street extending its full length and width. The outer city was 4.2 kilometers north-south by 3.1 meters eastwest. Yangzhou’s outer city wall had eight gates; major streets that emanated from them extended through large parts of the city, but neither streets nor wards nor thoroughfares formed the grid system implemented at Chang’an and Luoyang. Like Luoyang, it was enclosed by a moat. Water and canals flowed through the city, with numerous bridges to accommodate the population (figure 6.2).12 Tang was a time of economic prosperity for Yangzhou. It was the headquarters of China’s salt monopoly and the major port of entry for foreign merchants. In addition to active commerce with Korea, large numbers of Arabs and Persians called this southern terminus of the Grand Canal home, more than at any other entrepôt to China except Guangzhou. 13 Pottery and glass excavated within the outer city wall attest to their presence. The foreign population led to hostility in 760 when large numbers of the foreigners were slaughtered in what is known as the An-Shi Rebellion. The city rebounded, maintaining its position as a hub of trade in tea, gemstones, aromatics, drugs, damask, and tapestry. Yangzhou was also a banking center, had an active gold market, was a producer of metalwork, felt hats, silk, linen, boats, and high-quality cabinets, a location of sugar refineries, and a city renowned for entertainment, parks, and gardens.14 Devastation came again in 879 when the troops of rebel Huang Chao (d. 884) came south, causing severe damage not only to Yangzhou but to much of the Tang dynasty. Ideally every Sui-Tang capital had designated areas for princes or other local leaders, government offices, sectors that served the rulers such as armories and granaries, and the ward system. Before the end of the Tang period, the ward system and other distinctive sectors had spilled beyond their boundaries.
6.2. Plan of Yangzhou in Tang dynasty
direction. There were 104 enclosed wards. More extraordinary, the Luo River that had run south of Luoyang from Han through Northern Wei times cut the city into north and south parts. The palace- and imperial-cities remained in the north, but topography and a water supply in the southwest forced the imperial sectors to the northwest; and there were three markets. Hanjia district, which included granaries, and East City due south of it extended the palace area beyond the imperial-city. Further east were forty-six kilns where bricks and tiles for architecture in the palace- and imperialcities were manufactured. 10 The poet Bai Juyi’s residence was excavated in Ludao ward in the southeastern corner of Luoyang in 1992–1993.11
Palace Architecture in and outside the Sui-Tang Capitals
Yangzhou Yangzhou’s history as a walled city began in the middle of the first millennium BCE. Sui Yangdi established an auxiliary capital there called Jiangdu that measured 6.03 kilometers north to south and 3.12 kilometers east to west. Tang Yangzhou had only two walled areas, a palace-city known as zicheng in the Northeast and the outer city occupying the rest of the
Even with its multicultural population, Chang’an was a city in service of the emperor. It is the only Chinese capital with two full-scale palace complexes, the palace-city built by Sui Wendi beginning in 582 and the palace-complex adjacent to
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1. Hanyuan Hall 2. Xuanzheng Hall 3. Zichen Hall 4. Taiye Pond 5. Linde Hall 6. Sanqing Hall 7. Xuanwu Gate 8. Chongxuan Gate
kilometers, nearly 2.7 times the area of Beijing’s Forbidden City.15 The number of buildings was fewer than at Northern Wei Luoyang or Eastern Wei–Northern Qi Ye. Three main building complexes, each with a front and back gate, were located south to north, following Chengtian (Continuing Heaven’s Mandate) Gate, the official entrance to the palace-city. Their names were Great Ultimate, Double Rituals (Liangyi [Heaven and Earth]), and Sweet Dew (Ganlu). Great Ultimate was twice the size of the complexes behind it. As in the previous four centuries, each main palace was flanked on either side by a smaller one. The most important government offices were east and west of Great Ultimate Hall and the courtyard in front of it: the Hall of State, Office of Historiography, Grand Secretariat, Visitors’ Bureau, and Institute for the Advancement of Literature. The central north gate was named Dark Warrior after the northern directional animal. Daminggong The palace known as Daminggong (Great Numinous Palace) was built on the grounds of an imperial garden and building remains from Sui times.16 In 634 Tang Taizong built Yong'angong (Palace of Eternal Peace) there as a residence for his father. The next year it was renamed Daminggong. In 662 the third Tang emperor Gaozong renovated it and moved his residence there. The emperor’s poor health in Taijigong is said to be the reason he liked the idea of positioning himself on higher ground, topography similar to the position of the palace-city in Tang Yangzhou. By all accounts Daminggong was the grandest architectural achievement of the Tang dynasty. Located on the auspiciously named Dragon Head (Longshou) plain, the trapezoidal compound is 3.11 square kilometers. It is one of the most extensively excavated sites of premodern China: nearly fifty building foundations have been uncovered over a fifty-year period. Most of them correspond to structures described in texts or located on plans preserved in premodern records. The enclosed space can be viewed as four parallel building areas (figure 6.3). Starting at the south, a rectangular section remains largely unexcavated. Its major feature is the avenue that leads from the south-center gate to Hanyuan (Enfolding Primacy) Hall, the location of the most important Tang imperial rituals. Measuring 75.9 by 41.3 meters and elevated on a 15.6-meter foundation, Hanyuan Hall or the two pavilions that joined it hosted the celebration of the New Year, two imperial audiences a month, and a recognition
6.3. Plan of Daminggong, Chang’an, ca. 662–881, on earlier architectural foundation
the outer wall to its northeast, Daminggong, begun under the second Tang emperor in 634. In addition, Xingqing Palace was designated in 714 and Huaqing Palace was begun 30 kilometers east of Chang’an in 644. Luoyang of course had a palace-city, and Sui and then Tang emperors had a palace named Renshougong (and then Jiuchenggong) just over 100 kilometers northwest of Chang’an. Imperial residences outside the capital where the emperor or his entourage stayed during their travels for business or pleasure were known as ligong, detached palaces, or xinggong, traveling palaces, the second name used by Qin Shi Huangdi. Taijigong Taijigong, Great Ultimate Palace, named Daxinggong in the Sui dynasty, was the name of the main palace complex in the Tang Chang’an palace-city. It was the middle section of an area of 4.2 square kilometers, about 5 percent of the capital city in Sui-Tang times. Under both Sui and Tang, the palacecity comprised three side-by-side complexes: Yetinggong for women of the court was to its west; the crown prince’s palace was in its usual place on the east. Taijigong occupied 1.9 square
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6.4. Theoretical reconstruction of Hanyuan Hall, Daminggong, Chang’an, ca. 662–881
ceremony for successful candidates in the national exams for service in the imperial bureaucracy. At Taijigong, these events had occurred at Chengtian Gate, a magnificent but not enormous structure. Hanyuan Hall is thought of as the focus of the outer court of a three-court system, the inner two courts farther north. Figure 6.4 is a reconstruction of Hanyuan Hall based on primary sources and extrapolation; some details remain speculative.17 Hanyuan Hall (#1; all numbers in this section are marked on figure 6.3) marks the beginning of the second parallel sector that ends at Zichen (Purple Palace) Hall (#3). Xuanzheng (Manifest Government) Hall (#2), focus of the first inner court (or central court) where the Tang emperor held court on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month, was between the two halls. In courtyards east and west between Xuanzheng and Zichen Halls were the Hall of State, Office of Historiography, Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Grand Secretariat, and Department of Palace Administration. Their presence here confirms that this northeastern palace had taken on all the functions of the original Sui-Tang palace-city. The large third area, the innermost court, began with residential chambers of the emperors and court women. Many of the halls were arranged in parallel rows, as we have observed at Northern Wei palace-cities and will see in the Beijing Forbidden City. Behind them was Taiye Pond (#4), which contained a re-creation of Mount Penglai, where immortals dwelt, rising from it. Four halls and a tower rose on either side of the pond. Linde (Unicorn Virtue) Hall (#5), due west of the pond, has been excavated through almost as many seasons as Hanyuan Hall. The seven-structure complex of 130.1 meters north-south by 77.55 meters east-west was where the emperor held banquets and entertained ambassadors from foreign lands. In 768 some 3,500 men were hosted here.18 In contrast to Hanyuan Hall, Linde Hall had three main, interconnected halls, each with its own hipped roof and the middle of which was two stories, all elevated together on a two-layer marble platform each of
whose layers was enclosed by a balustrade. As at Hanyuan Hall, “rainbow corridors” (covered arcades with convex roofs) joined parts of the hall complex, but here one led to a front pavilion and one led to a pavilion at the back. The variation in floor plans of Hanyuan and Linde Halls shows how standard components of a Tang palace hall could combine to form very different spaces. The results are an aspect of the modularity that characterizes premodern Chinese architecture. Far in the northwest of Daminggong was a Daoist building complex named Sanqing (Three Purities) Hall (#6), in the northern part of the third parallel axis. The 73-by-47-meter main hall had a hipped roof and was approached by long ramps from two sides. The final two structures along the main north-south building line are Xuanwu (Dark Warrior) (#7) and Chongxuan (Redoubled Mystery) (#8) Gates. They were at the front and back of the fourth section of Daminggong with the area known as “sandwich city” between them. Daminggong was almost completely destroyed during rebellions of the 880s. So far, every building of Daminggong is elevated on a rammed-earth platform faced with brick or stone that is surrounded by a stone balustrade. The mixed earth-wood construction of taixie has disappeared. Floors were paved with brick or stone and ramps and stairs were faced with brick, sometimes decorated with molded patterns. Buildings were timber frame, with architectural members painted shades of red and red-brown. Green paint was used on windows, and roof tiles were either gray or green glazed. Xingqinggong In 684 the emperor Ruizong (r. 684–690 and 710–712) granted Longqing ward as a mansion for his five sons. In 714 the third son, now the Xuanzong emperor (r. 712–755), converted the residence into a private palace.19 The ward and palace were renamed Xingqing. The living brothers received mansions nearby, perhaps evidence of good family relations or perhaps evidence that Xuanzong wanted to be close enough to watch
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6.5. Huaqinggong, Lishan, Lintong county, Shaanxi, 644 and later in Tang dynasty
their activities. Expansion in 726 led to the construction of a Hall of State, and further expansion occurred in the 730s and 753. Eventually Xingqing Palace was 1.25 by 1.03 kilometers, or 1.3 square kilometers, twice the area of the Forbidden City of Beijing. Its enclosure had seven gates: one each at the north and east, two on the west, and three on the south. A pond inside the palace grounds was not original, but it came to symbolize fulfillment of a prophecy that the Yellow Dragon would rise out of mist from it, a sign that the future emperor had resided there. The emperor and his consort Yang Guifei (719–756) enjoyed time in this palace. When An Lushan, who also was intimate with Yang Guifei and is mentioned again below, and his troops rebelled, causing the emperor to flee the capital for Sichuan in 756, it was said that dragons emerged from the pond and carried the ruler on his journey. The palace buildings may have been damaged in attacks on the capital in the 880s. The remains were dismantled in 904, and pieces from it were floated upstream to Luoyang where they were used for construction of the capital of the Later Liang dynasty (907–923). At least a dozen buildings at Xingqinggong are named in texts. Two of the most important were multistory (lou). Hua’e (Flower Calyx) Tower (lou) was where Xuanzong spent time with his brothers. The site of Qinzheng (Industrious Government) Tower was excavated in the 1950s. Its base measured 26.5 by 19 meters. The lantern festival was celebrated here on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and Xuanzong’s birthday was celebrated on the fifth day of the eighth moon.
Huaqinggong Huaqing Palace, officially a ligong, is located near the First Emperor’s tomb. It was the site of imperial hot springs, and in 644 the Tang emperor built a detached palace there.20 It was renamed Huaqinggong in 723. Because of the hot springs, it often was used as a winter palace even though the location is in Shaanxi. The palace is especially associated with Yang Guifei, who was known to bathe there with the emperor as well as the above-mentioned An Lushan, whose access to the palaces gave him information that made the An-Shi Rebellion possible. With its own palace-city, imperial-city, outer wall, and gardens, Huaqing Palace included the components of an imperial city. All four areas are shown in renderings of the palace from premodern local records (figure 6.5). Huaqinggong was excavated between 1982 and 1995 with an eye toward discovering where the famous concubine bathed. The oldest remains uncovered confirm the presence of the Neolithic Yangshao Culture. This is perhaps not surprising since Banpo is in the vicinity. Wooden building parts and a pool and hot springs confirm the site was used for these purposes in the Qin and Han dynasties. The outer wall of the Tang palace-complex was found, as were nine hot springs and four building foundations. The area with the intriguing name Constellation (xingchen) Baths had a main hall of seven bays across the front and five in depth, 28.8 by 21.3 meters. The bathing pool inside the main hall took the shape of the Big Dipper. Another building was named Emperor’s Inscription Pavilion. West of the Constellation Baths, it housed a stele inscribed
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6.6. Plan of Renshougong/ Jiuchenggong, Linyou county, Shaanxi, 593–836
by the second Tang emperor in 644. Just 2.3 meters northwest of Constellation Baths were the baths of the crown prince, an indication that this kind of pleasure area was not laid out according to rules for construction of a palace-city. There were also Food Serving Baths, Lotus Flower Baths, Spring Season Baths, a library, a theater, and baths for performers, among other buildings. The location near hot springs of course afforded unique pleasures.
retreat at Chengde, discussed in chapter 15. Also like imperial cities of the past, a major thoroughfare cut through the terrain from the southwestern corner to the enclosed palace-city, and another thoroughfare ran east-west. Just west of the joining point of the two roadways were the remains of palace 3 (as on map), a structure that took the shape of Hanyuan Hall and the gate-towers that flanked it. The main palace, no. 1, approached by three gates and an enclosing courtyard framed by two of them, also was U-shaped; its gate-towers were multibodied que, also similar to those of Hanyuandian. All main structures faced south, as was expected for imperial architecture, but placement of the halls was along an east-west axis. The alignment has no known earlier history in Chinese imperial construction. Sui-Tang’s Luoyang palace-city, known as Luoyanggong and as eastern capital palace (Dongdugong), has not been as extensively excavated as the palaces described already.22 Every building and its location is known through records of the Tang period and later. The most important changes between the Sui and Tang Luoyang are the placement of a Mingtang, constructed by Empress Wu in a courtyard on the main axis of the palace-city, the omission of a Great Ultimate Hall, and a reduced number of residential palaces. Excavation suggests
Renshougong The Sui-Tang detached palace Renshougong-Jiuchenggong was equally unique, in this case due to the topography of its location. Designed by Yuwen Kai, who was responsible for palace construction in the Sui capitals Daxing and Luoyang, it was located in terrain one would expect for an imperial retreat for escaping the summer heat (figure 6.6). Sui Wendi came here seven times, sometimes spending as much as half his year at the resort palace.21 The third Tang emperor Gaozong and Wu Zetian came eight times. Modeled after a Chinese imperial city, Renshougong had four gates in its outer enclosure, one at each direction, but the outer wall was more irregular than any royal design before the Tang dynasty; the closest counterpart would be the eighteenth-century summer
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6.7. Main Hall, Nanchan Monastery, Wutai, Shanxi, 782 with later repairs
the Mingtang was a multistory, octagonal structure. Other Sui-Tang palaces were Cuiweigong, about 50 kilometers south of Chang’an, begun by the second Tang emperor in 625; Yuhuagong, a summer palace built in 647 about 130 kilometers north of Chang’an in Yijun county that was converted into a Buddhist monastery in 651; Shangyanggong in the Luoyang capital; Jiangdugong in the Yangzhou capital; and some twenty smaller ones.
of stairs from the front. The only windows also are in front. Bracket sets are used only on top of pillars, both inside and outside the hall, and at the hall corners. Bracket-arms project only parallel or perpendicular to the building plane. Beams span the upper portion of the hall in both directions. The longest of them penetrate the tops of the columns to span the entire length or width of the hall. Those that span the hall’s depth are four-rafter beams, more accurately named rafter-length beams, for the description refers to the four intervals between the five roof purlins. The wooden members that support the roof are smooth, or “finished,” because they are exposed inside the hall with no ceiling to hide them. The second and third oldest wooden halls are in southern Shanxi. Five Dragons Temple (Wulongmiao), also known as Prince Guangren Temple (Guangrenwangmiao), dedicated to the spirit of a spring, has been dated by inscription to 831, although inscriptions found in 2014 are dated to 929 and 933. It is in Ruicheng. The temple is five bays across the front, but the two end units are especially narrow. Like Nanchan Monastery hall, Five Dragons Temple is three bays deep. It has doors in the central front and back bays, windows on either side of the front facade, and a combination hip-gable roof. Also like the hall at Nanchan Monastery, it is supported by a single exterior ring of pillars, and its bracket sets project only perpendicular and parallel to the building plane and are found only on top of the pillars. The bracket sets of both buildings are a form known as five-puzuo, puzuo being a Song-dynasty term for bracket set and five the rank out of a possible eight; no bracket set lower than
Sacred Wooden Architecture Four wooden buildings survive from the Tang dynasty. All four are in Shanxi, the province where more than 70 percent of China’s pre-fourteenth-century architecture remains. The oldest and newest are on the sacred Buddhist peak Wutaishan in the northern part of the province. All have evidence of significant repair. The Buddha hall at Nanchan Monastery, dated by an inscription on a beam to 782, is the oldest wooden structure in China. Heavy damage by an earthquake in 1966 allowed an opportunity to study it piece by piece. The only significant repairs before then were in the eleventh century. Nanchan Monastery Main Hall is three-by-three bays, 11.75 meters across the front and 10 meters deep (figure 6.7).23 The twelve peripheral columns that define those bays also support the structure; there are no interior columns. The central, front bay is the widest in the hall; the side bays are of uniform size. The pillars have no plinths (bases). Rather they stand on a low foundation platform that is approached only by one set
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6.8. Interior, Main Hall, Five Dragons Temple, Ruicheng, Shanxi, 831 with recent repairs
6.9. Main Hall, Tiantai Hermitage, Pingshun, Shanxi, 808–832
four-puzuo formation is known. Finally, braces named “camel’shump-shaped” are placed on a cross-beam to support the roof truss. With no ceiling, the wooden support system under the roof is exposed, so its components are “finished.” Five Dragons Temple was extensively repaired in 1958 (figure 6.8).24 The third Tang wooden building is a three-bay-square hall at Tiantai Hermitage (Tiantai’an), in a mountainous region of Pingshun county in southeastern Shanxi (figure 6.9). The hall is a rare example of a nearly square building, measuring 6.95 meters on each side. Like the other Tang halls, it is supported by twelve exterior columns. They are tall and slender, with a height to diameter ratio of 9.9:1, and they all exhibit entasis. Here and at the other two Tang buildings, the columns also present “rise” (shengqi): those that define the central bay are shortest, the corner columns are tallest, and the columns increase in height symmetrically from the center outward. The
Tiantai Hermitage hall is the smallest of the Tang buildings. Its central front bay is only 3.144 meters across the front, and its brackets are the simplest, with just one cap-block and three arms, each set tenoned to the pillar beneath it. The roof is hip-gable and its frame is exposed. All three features are found at Nanchansi Main Hall. A stele on site offers a date range of 808 to 832.25 East Hall of Foguang Monastery, dated 857, is the grandest Tang building and one of the most important structures in China. Its prestige is linked to Liang Sicheng, the man discussed in the introduction who receives much of the credit for shaping the modern study of Chinese architecture: Liang and his research team came upon this building on mule-back in June 1937; for nearly two decades it was the oldest known building in China. The structure is indeed archetypical: it represents what is known in Chinese as diantang, an eminent hall.
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1. Plinth (Zhuchu) 2. Eave Column (Yanzhu) 3. Interior Column (Neiyanzhu) 4. Architrave/Connecting Beam/Girder (Lan’e) 5. Cap(ital)-block (Ludou) 6. Transverse Bracket-arm (Huagong) 7. Bracket-arm Parallel to the Building Plane on the Lowest Tier (Nidaogong [Plaster-channel Bracket-arm]) 8. Pillar-top Tie-beam (Zhutougong) 9. Down-pointing Cantilever (Xia’ang) 10. “Mocking” Head (Shuatou [Piece Parallel to Transverse Bracket-arm with Front Exposed]) 11. Order Bracket-arm (Linggong [Longitudinal
19. Half Camel’s-hump-shaped Brace (Bantuofeng) 20. Joist (Sufang) 21. (Crescent[-moon]-shaped) Four-rafter-span (Exposed) Tie-beam (Sichuan Mingfu) 22. Camel’s-hump-shaped Brace (Tuofeng) 23. Lattice Ceiling (Ping’an) 24. Exposed Tie-beam/Unfinished Tie-beam (Caorufu) 25. Support above Exposed Tie-beam (Jiaobei) 26. Four-rafter-length Tie-beam (Sichuanfu) 27. Cross-beam (Pingliang) 28. Brace Connecting Cross-beam with Purlin (Tuojiao)
Bracket-arm]) (Single Arm Positioned Independently) 12. “Melon” Bracket-arm/Oval Bracket-arm (Guazigong [a Longitudinal Bracket-arm]) 13. Extended Bracket-arm/Long Bracket-arm (Mangong [Longest Bracket-arm in a Set]) 14. Luohan Tie-beam (Luohanfang) 15. Brace Between Longitudinal Bracket-arm and Eave Purlin (Timu) 16. Tie-beam of Ceiling (Pingqifang) 17. Piece on which Another Beam Rests (Yacaofang) 18. (Crescent[-moon]-shaped) Two-rafter-span (Exposed) Tie-beam (Mingrufu)
29. Inverted-V-shaped Truss (Chashou) 30. (Roof) Ridge Purlin (Jituan) 31. Upper Roof Purlin (Shangpingtuan) 32. Intermediate Roof Purlin (Zhongpingtuan) 33. Lower Roof Purlin (Xiapingtuan) 34. (Eave) Rafter (Chuan) 35. Eave Rafter (Yanchuan) 36. Flying (Eave) Rafter (Feizichuan) 37. Roof Board (Wangban) 38. Board onto which Bracket Sets Attached (Gongyanbi[Ban]) 39. Ox-spine Tie-beam (Niujifang)
6.10. Infrastructural drawing of East Hall showing only four bays across the front and back, Foguang Monastery, Wutai, Shanxi, 857
The other three extant wooden buildings of the Tang dynasty are simpler halls, tingtang. East Hall, so named because it faces west on the eastern side of the monastery, is a single-story structure supported by thirty-six wooden pillars, eight across and five in depth, minus four that were eliminated from the interior to make room for the altar. Its base dimensions are 34 by 17.66 meters (figure 6.10).26 The widest bay is in the central front; the remaining six pillars across the front are placed symmetrically in decreasing intervals toward the hall sides, exhibiting “rise” as well as a shorter bay-length from the center outward. The five central front bays have doors; the outer ones have slat windows. There are no other doors, and the only other windows are a pair on either side of the back. The front and back columns join architraves. Atop each of those columns is an enormous bracket set consisting of four tiers of arms and two diagonal members known as cantilevers (see figure 6.10–9). The top-to-bottom
length of these bracket sets is approximately half the height of the columns beneath them (about 2.5 and 5 meters, respectively). Slightly less complicated and smaller bracket sets are positioned between the columns. Crescent-shaped cross-beams extend between the inner rows of columns in the front and back of the hall (#18). The pillars of the exterior exhibit batter (lean slightly inward) and entasis. The hall has a lattice ceiling that conceals unfinished members of the roof frame. Just under the main roof ridge is an inverted-V-shaped truss known as chashou (see figure 6.10–29). More than twenty Buddhist statues are on the altar in the back center of the hall, and murals cover the interior walls, the paintings being the reason for so few doors or windows. The eminence of East Hall according to the Chinese building system is evident when compared with the other three Tang halls. Foguangsi’s hall has two complete rings of columns; the other buildings have only one. Foguangsi’s hall has the most
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6.11. Pavilion and pagoda, Kaiyuan Monastery, Zhengding, Hebei, mid-eighth century with later repairs
complicated bracket sets extant in China up to this time, a seven-puzuo formation. Intercolumnar bracket sets are found here, whereas struts or no wooden members are positioned between column-top brackets at the other Tang buildings. Foguangsi East Hall has a ceiling; the other halls have exposed roof frames. At the humbler halls, two cross-beams with camel’s-hump-shaped braces on the lower one support the roof frame. East Hall has a simple hipped roof. The hip-gable roofs of the other halls, as mentioned above, denote lesser status in spite of the apparent greater complexity. The distinguishing features, such as the roof, of East Hall compared to the other Tang buildings are not due to its later date. They are consistent with an inherent ranking system in Chinese timber construction that is generated by proportional relations between fundamental building parts. This system is the subject of chapter 9. Enough Tang wooden architecture remains to confirm not only the features that distinguish more and less eminent construction but the modules on which those features are based as well. The module of Nanchan Monastery Main Hall is approximately 26 by 17 centimeters. These numbers convert to fourth rank out of eight, with eight the highest. The module is only 18 by 12 at the Tiantai’an hall, similar proportions but smaller in size because of its very humble status. The average modular unit at Foguangsi East Hall is 30 by 20.5 centimeters, approximately seventh rank. The two rectangular rings of columns, defining inner and outer cao, the parts of the building inside the inner columns and between the inner and outer sets, respectively, also are features described in the twelfth-century manual discussed in chapter 9. Between 843 and 845 the emperor Wuzong (814–846; r. 840–846) launched a widespread persecution of Buddhist
monasteries and nunneries. According to the seventh-century text Fayuan zhulin (Pearl forest in the Dharma garden), in the Sui dynasty there were 3,985 religious institutions and 236,200 monks or nuns.27 According to Song Minqiu’s (1910– 1079) Chang’anzhi (Record of Chang’an) and Liangjing xinji (New record of the two capitals [Chang’an and Luoyang]), in Chang’an alone, ninety-six Buddhist monasteries were established between Sui and the reigns of the first three Tang rulers plus Wu Zetian.28 Ascending the throne in 840 as an anti-Buddhist, Wuzong prohibited new religious establishments, and by 844 all monasteries in Chang’an and Luoyang were destroyed except two on each side of each capital. Tang huiyao (Important documents of the Tang) says that more than 4,600 monasteries were razed and more than 40,000 clergy were secularized.29 The Japanese monk Ennin (793/94–864), who was in China during this period, confirms these numbers, writing in addition that 260,500 monks and nuns had been in China before the travesty began.30 Rebuilding commenced with the reign of (the second) Xuanzong (r. 846–859), but by the 880s the Xizong emperor (r. 873–888) was embroiled in trying to hold on to his capital and empire. It was during this period that Daminggong was ravaged. The three early Tang buildings are among the very few that survived the 840s. East Hall of Foguang Monastery was rebuilt to replace a multilevel pavilion. Qinglong Monastery in Xinchang ward of Chang’an also was rebuilt after the Huichang persecutions. Excavation in the 1960s and 1970s, and further study of the site in the 1980s, revealed two distinct plans for the building known as foundation 4. The earlier structure had front and back sections, known as outer and inner halls, respectively, the inner space without an altar and for the performance of esoteric Buddhist ceremonies focused on the twin Mandala of
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6.12. Jianzhen Memorial Hall, Daming Monastery, Yangzhou, designed in 1963 by Liang Sicheng.
the Womb and Diamond Worlds. The later structure had inner and outer cao with a central altar, the plan of the contemporary East Hall of Foguangsi.31 No one has proposed a reconstruction of the pavilion of Foguang Monastery that predated the Buddhist persecutions of the 840s. Perhaps this is because only one pavilion associated with the Tang period survives, and it is not in its original form. It stands at Kaiyuan Monastery in Zhengding, Hebei province, facing west toward a brick pagoda that faces south (figure 6.11). In the Kaiyuan period of the Tang dynasty (713–742), Kaiyuan Monastery, whose name is a reference to the period, had twin pagodas, the one restored as it stands today and the second replaced by the pavilion.
age fourteen entered Daming Monastery. He eventually rose to chief abbot. Between 743 and 751 Jianzhen made five failed attempts to cross the East China Sea to honor the invitation of a Japanese emissary to come and preach. The three-year ordeal of the fifth trip left him blind. In 754 Jianzhen successfully reached Nara. In 759 he founded the monastery Tōshōdaiji, where he died in 763.32 The hall designed by Liang Sicheng was inspired by the main Buddha hall at Tōshōdaiji, which, by inference, would have been modeled after the main image hall at Daming Monastery in Yangzhou. The Jianzhen Memorial Hall is five bays across the front and only two bays deep, with an additional open front bay that serves as an arcade (figure 6.12). Three front bays have doors; the end bays have windows. In contrast to the hall in Nara, which is 28 meters across the front, the commemorative hall is only 18 meters. As in the Japanese hall, rainbow-shapedbeams, camel’s-hump-shaped braces on top of those beams, and a lattice ceiling are all present, and struts, not bracket sets, are across the facade between columns. Bracket sets have two distinct levels, and they project parallel and perpendicular to the building plane. Corner brackets have cantilevers. The hall is heavily polychromed inside and out, according to Chinese tradition of the Tang dynasty.33
An Ideal Tang Buddhist Hall With four wooden religious structures, ten times that number of pagodas (to be discussed below), supporting evidence in relief sculpture and murals, and extensive documentation about palaces and cities, it is not surprising that one might posit an ideal Tang building. This was done in 1963 when Liang Sicheng designed a memorial hall for the Buddhist monk Jianzhen (688–763) at Daming Monastery in Yangzhou. Jianzhen (Ganjin in Japanese) was born in Yangzhou and at
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6.13. Great Wild Goose Pagoda, Ci’en Monastery, 64 meters, Xi’an, 704
Exemplary Tang Pagodas
Goose Pagoda (Dayanta) in Xi’an (figure 6.13). The building sometimes is associated with the date 648, and other times with 704. Its superimposed stories of diminishing perimeter from base to roof are of the form known as louge, literally, tower-pavilion. The shape is common in pagodas in the Yungang caves (see figures 5.17, 5.18). Xi’an’s other famous Tang louge pagoda is at Xingjiao Monastery. It stands 21 meters and was built in 669 and rebuilt in 828. A shaft plus four stories above, it is tall for a funerary pagoda, but perhaps the height is understandable because it is dedicated to the memory of the famous Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang (602–664), who left the Tang capital Chang’an in 629 for a pilgrimage to sacred Buddhist sites between China and India and returned to China in 645.
At least forty brick pagodas, or close replicas of them, survive from the Sui and Tang dynasties. This number is a tiny fraction of the total at that time. No matter the material— stone, brick, or wood—the pagoda was a symbol of the Buddha’s death. As in pre-Tang times, often it was constructed above a reliquary crypt (digong). The majority of Sui-Tang pagodas were four-sided or circular, and some were hexagonal or octagonal. Simenta and Xiudingsi pagoda both officially date to the Tang period but represent earlier styles (see figures 5.32, 5.33). By the later seventh and eighth centuries, two forms of tall pagodas became common. One is represented by Great Wild
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6.14. Pagoda of Yongtai Monastery, approx. 20 meters, Mount Song, Henan, 706
6.15. Pagoda of Huishan Monastery, approximately 9 meters, Mount Song, Henan, 746
The alternate form of four-sided Tang pagoda is miyan, densely positioned eaves. Two miyan-style pagodas survive from the Tang dynasty on the sacred Buddhist peak Mount Song, the location of Songyue Monastery pagoda (see figure 5.31), itself of the miyan style. The pagoda at Fawang Monastery was built in 620 and rebuilt in 770; Yongtai Monastery Pagoda was rebuilt in 706 (figure 6.14). Another Tang pagoda on Mount Song was constructed above the ashes of the chief abbot of Huishan Monastery in 746. It is octagonal with a main story whose faces originally were all articulated with doors or windows and with inverted-V-shaped braces on lintels at the top of each side (figure 6.15). A 10-meter, single-story Tang funerary pagoda at Baoguo Monastery in Yuncheng, Shanxi, on a tall base with narrow layers beneath the chatra takes a circular form but has a hexagonal interior. It was dedicated to the monk Fanzhou in 822 (figure 6.16). As at Huishan Monastery, an entry or window is carved in eight positions on the exterior. It is one of two pagodas with this form in Yuncheng. The other was constructed at Zhaofu Monastery in 866. In the Liao dynasty, we shall observe that both circular and octagonal ground plans are associated with Buddhist death. Probably this also was true in the Tang dynasty. Three extraordinary pagodas from the Tang dynasty are in Shandong. The single-story funerary pagoda above the remains of the monk Huichong at Lingyan Monastery in Changqing,
just over 30 kilometers southeast of Ji’nan, mentioned in chapter 5, with a base of 2.2 meters square, is a four-entry pagoda with a false upper story articulated on the exterior and a fourprong chatra above it. The chatra expands as a lotus petal. The other two pagodas are in Licheng, the location of Four-Entry Pagoda (see figure 5.32). One is at Nine-Pagoda Monastery, named for its pagoda, an octagonal brick structure on a tall foundation with one entry, densely positioned, stylized undereaves, and covered by an eight-eave roof. Above that roof are nine more pagodas, a tall central one flanked by eight threestory pagodas, one at the top of each roof ridge (figure 6.17). The structure stands 13.3 meters and is the only example of this form known from the Tang dynasty. The other pagoda in Licheng is 4 meters square and elevated on a three-story foundation for a total height of about 10.8 meters. The four entries, one on each side of the shaft, are flanked by guardian deities and, on the east and west faces, by monks as well. Inside this highly elaborated shaft, a Buddha sits on each side of the central pillar, merging the iconography of exterior guardians and attendants of the deities inside.34 The name of the pagoda, Dragon (and) Tiger (Longhu), may refer to creatures that coil on the exterior. The re-creation of Buddhist paradise, here in three dimensions, is standard imagery in China from the sixth century onward. Representations of scenes known as bianxiang, transformation images, on which one fixated a gaze with the hope
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6.16. Pagoda of Chan Master Fanzhou, approximately 10 meters, Yuncheng, Shanxi, 822
6.17. Nine-Pagoda Pagoda, Nine Pagoda Monastery, 13.3 meters, Licheng, Shandong, Tang period
of becoming part of the Buddhist world in front of him, are among the important Tang paintings in Mogao caves. Paintings of architecture are especially helpful in determining the locations of pagodas and halls, for no more than one Tang building survives at any Buddhist or Daoist monastery. Even with the large amount of information from excavations, scenes such as the one in cave 217 are important supporting evidence for understanding timber-frame palatial-style architecture of the seventh and eighth centuries (see figure i.5). The use of palace-style architecture, with the Buddha in the place of the ruler, confirms that through the Tang period China’s imperial tradition was the inspiration for the most eminent religious construction.35 Some pagodas soared at the centers of their monasteries as they had in the fifth and sixth centuries. Funerary pagodas, shorter than the four-sided pagodas in Xi’an or on Mount Song, were sometimes in their own precincts off to a side of a monastery. Twin pagodas, located on either side in front of the Buddha hall, existed by the end of the sixth century, based on evidence from Northern Qi monasteries, and in the seventh century in stone examples in Korea.36 A pair of stone pagodas from the early seventh century stands in front of the main
Buddha hall at Lingquan Monastery near Baoshan in Henan, mentioned in chapter 5, and another pair in Henan remains at Fosheng Monastery in Jun county.
Tombs Tomb architecture of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries changed little compared to the previous two centuries. Of the two Sui emperors, only Wendi had an imperial tomb, and of the twenty-one rulers of the Tang dynasty, eighteen had royal tombs spread 140 kilometers east to west north of Chang’an. Fourteen of the eighteen are buried beneath natural hills, and the others are under man-made mounds. The other three Tang emperors are Shangdi, who reigned only in 710, and the last two Tang emperors: Zhaozong (r. 888–904), who is buried in a royal tomb in Henan, and Aidi (r. 904–907); Tang’s last ruler did not receive an imperial mausoleum. Empress Wu is buried with her husband the Gaozong emperor. To date, no Sui or Tang emperor’s tomb has been excavated. The tombs of the second and third Tang emperors, Taizong (d. 649) and Gaozong (d. 683), have features that are considered standard in Tang imperial tomb architecture. Above
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6.18. Spirit path, approach to Qianling, tomb of Emperor Gaozong (d. 684) and Empress Wu Zetian (buried 706), Qian county, Shaanxi
ground, the Tang royal tomb was approached by a long, straight spirit path lined with pairs of statues that may have included que, pillars, animals, and officials (figure 6.18). The statues were as large as their counterparts at the tomb of Southern Dynasties rulers in the vicinity of Nanjing (see figures 5.3, 5.4), but here as in the Northern Dynasties, men were among them. Burial was beneath a mound at the end of the path. Two walls enclosed the funerary precinct. Above ground, imperial tomb complexes could extend many kilometers in any direction to include auxiliary tombs of members of the royal family as well as meritorious officials. One extrapolates information about what may lie underground from excavated tombs of Northern Zhou rulers, since the Sui imperial line was descended from Northern Zhou, from tombs of emperors of the first half of the tenth century discussed in the next chapter, and from burials of Tang princes and princesses. In all cases, emperors and their empresses were interred under the same mound, even in the extreme case of Wu Zetian, who usurped the throne following the death of her husband Gaozong. One recalls that Han emperors and empresses were buried beneath separate mounds next to each other. Burials of Gaozong’s descendants were especially
meaningful. To the extent possible, Empress Wu had murdered or forced to commit suicide princes and princesses in line to succeed Gaozong. Upon her death in 705, many of the bodies were exhumed and reburied in ling (royal tombs). Ling had one wall around the mound as opposed to two for emperor-empress tombs. Below ground, to date most Tang princely tombs have two chambers connected by an arcade and murals that include architecture of the capital Chang’an. Other elements of architecture in murals include lattice ceilings with individual lotuses in each lattice and details such as inverted-Vshaped braces on lintels, elements of fangmugou that create in microcosm the world of the living. Guards, courtiers and court ladies, and servants, some whose specific tasks are identifiable by objects or animals they hold or that surround them, also are painted. Burial was in stone sarcophaguses in the shape of temples. The sarcophagus of Princess Li Jingxun (Li Xiaohai), who died in 608, is a three-by-two-bay stone structure with a hip-gable roof and a door and windows only on the front facade. Each main feature appears in the Main Hall of Nanchan Monastery (see figures 6.7, 6.19). Tomb plans similar to those of Tang princes and princesses are found in Guyuan, in southern Ningxia Hui Autonomous
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6.19. Stone sarcophagus of Li Jingxun (Li Xiaohai), 608, excavated in Xi’an Beilin Museum
Region. Five that date from the last quarter of the sixth century through the third quarter of the seventh century belonged to Sogdians of the Shi family.37 Two similar tombs, whose contents are discussed below, have been excavated in Mongolia. All are approached by a diagonal ramp from ground level to the subterranean portion and have one or two main chambers, air shafts, and vaulted ceilings.
Five Extraordinary Buildings From the large body of surviving Sui-Tang architecture, five more structures are exceptional. First is the Mingtang of the usurper empress Wu Zetian that survives only as an excavation site. In 687 she tore down a palace hall on the main axial line of the capital in Luoyang, and the following spring she built a three-story, timber-frame Mingtang slightly to the south. It was 86.4 meters high, thirteen bays totaling 88.2 meters on each side, and it took twelve months to complete. As in Han times, the function of the Biyong is believed to have been included in the structure. No one theoretical reconstruction is more convincing than the others, but two points are important: towering wooden buildings were constructed in Tang China, probably pagodas among them, and octagonal halls existed. Through history, octagonal plans are frequent in reconstructions of Mingtang based on excavation sites and texts, but the first period from which octagonal timber construction can be confirmed is the Tang dynasty. In addition to the Mingtang in Luoyang, a Tiantang (hall for imperial supplications to the heavens), due north of the Mingtang, had an octagonal ground plan. A third octagonal wooden hall was excavated on the western side of the palace-city of SuiTang Luoyang, about 375 meters from the western enclosing wall. Approximately 13.2 meters in diameter and raised on a pounded earth platform, the hall was supported by twelve pillars, eight on the exterior and four at the corners of its center.
6.20. Interior, Thunder Sound Cave, Yunju Monastery, Fangshan, Beijing
This formation is the same as the support system for an octagonal hall at the monastery Eizanji in Gojō, in Nara prefecture of Japan, dated to the 760s. The octagonal Yumedono (Hall of Dreams) was built in 739 on the eastern side of the monastery Hōryūji with eight interior and eight exterior pillars. An earlier octagonal hall had been constructed on the west side of Hōryūji in 718; the current structure dates to 1249. Octagonal halls also stood at the monastery Kōfukuji in Nara, erected in 721 and 814, and both surviving in reconstructed versions. Based on evidence in Japan, one assumes that octagonal wooden halls, probably commemorative as they were at Hōryūji and Eizanji, stood at Chinese monasteries in the Tang dynasty.38 The second extraordinary structure is Thunder Sound Cave (Leiyindong), located in the mountains of Fangshan, southwest of Beijing.39 It was built between 605 and 616. The single-chamber cave has a quadrilateral ground plan whose north wall is the longest, 11.82 meters, with the other wall dimensions 10.07 meters (east), 8.3 meters (south), and 7.66 meters (west) (figure 6.20). If the intent was for a cubic interior, builders compensated for the irregularity by positioning four interior columns base to roof, roughly equidistant from the outer walls and each other. The pillar placement is like those of the octagonal hall in Luoyang or of the Eizanji octagonal hall, so that the four
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6.21. Anji Bridge, Zhao county, Hebei, 581
irregular outer sides present as a three-bay square interior. In 740 Princess Jinxian constructed a pagoda behind the cave. The cave and pagoda on a line follow a basic sixth-century monastery plan of Buddha hall and pagoda along the central axis. Thunder Sound Cave, like the neighboring monastery Yunjusi, is best known as a repository of a huge number of sutras carved in stone. Some of them are seen along the walls in figure 6.20. The monk Jingwan (d. 639) conceived the project. In 611 Sui emperor Yangdi came to the prefecture adjacent to Fangshan and from there planned the attack on Korea that was to prove unsuccessful, a significant cause of the fall of Sui in 618. More than one million troops, bearers, and grooms accompanied him, as did his wife. It is believed that the empress’s brother told her about Jingwan, thus leading to imperial patronage. A third extraordinary construction project conceived by imperial Tang patronage was the monastery today known as Famensi in Shaanxi province.40 Located about 120 kilometers west of Chang’an, Famen Monastery had been enormous in the Northern Wei dynasty, destroyed during persecution of the Northern Zhou emperor Wuzong, built under Sui, burned, and rebuilt in the seventh and eighth centuries, again to suffer during the Huichang persecutions. The pagoda and other architecture have been rebuilt many times since then. The importance of the monastery lies in its role at the Tang court.
Although many pagodas had reliquary crypts beneath them, Famensi is one of very few monasteries believed to contain relics of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni. During the Tang dynasty there were at least eight spectacular processions during which relics from Famensi were transported to the capital Chang’an for imperial viewings and back again. This led to a famous diatribe by court official Han Yu (768–824), who declared the transport and worship of the relics to be a frivolous gimmick and a deceitful and exotic spectacle. Han Yu was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later reduced to banishment, and ultimately the official returned to the capital. Excavation in 1987 revealed four finger bones, one of which tested as human. Some of the relics, including finger bones, were buried in miniature, four-sided pagodas that reflect the style of the Tang period. Sui-Tang is also the age of the world’s first open spandrel bridge (figure 6.21). The spandrel, or space between two arches, here takes the form of a segmented arch, a feature in Chinese tomb construction since the Han dynasty (see figure 3.15). The bridge in Zhao county, about 300 kilometers southwest of Beijing near Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, is known as Anji (Safe Passage) Bridge, Zhaoxian (Zhao county) Bridge, and Dashi (Great Stone) Bridge. It has the additional earliest known spandrel openings on either
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6.22. Iron men and oxen, used as anchors for pontoon bridge in Pujin (Puzhou), Yongji, Shanxi, 720 with recent repairs
damage.41 Dragons on ceilings are believed to have the same ability. Prior to construction of Anji Bridge, Chinese bridges were made of wooden planks elevated on pillars or of conjoined boats on top of which wooden or stone planks were raised. This second means of crossing water is known as a pontoon bridge. According to legend, King Wen (1152–1056) of the Zhou dynasty joined together boats with wooden boards to make passage across waterways possible. The remains of a dramatic pontoon bridge, the fifth monument, survive from the Tang dynasty in Pujin, Yongji county, in southern Shanxi province. In the year 720, life-size, cast-iron oxen and men were erected in Puzhou, Yongji, to anchor this bridge. According to records, this kind of bridge had been constructed on this spot in 541 BCE, and the military leader Cao Cao (155–220) had crossed the Yellow River here. Until 720, bridges across this point in the Yellow River had been destroyed every winter by water and ice and were rebuilt at tremendous expense in the spring. In 720 the emperor Xuanzong erected four iron oxen, two herdsmen, and two sets of mountains on each side of the crossing point and then anchored the pontoon bridge with iron chains, as opposed to the rope and bamboo that had held boats together in
side of the main spandrel. The spandrels lighten the load of the bridge by about 15.3 percent, thus reducing the pressure on the abutments, and they allow rising water to pass through them, reducing the flow-through capacity by about 20 percent, before water rises to affect passage on the top. The main arch comprises twenty-eight segments, each made of forty-three stone voussoirs, or wedges, of 1.03 by 0.7–1.09 by 0.2–0.4 meters. Double-dovetailed pieces of iron hold the voussoirs in place. Nine stone rods piece the twenty-eight segments of the arch together, and stone slabs one-third of a meter in thickness add extra support underneath; six of them are cut so that they hook around the outer side. Stone for the bridge was moved from mountains about 30 kilometers away across icy surfaces in the winter. Anji Bridge has a firm construction date, 581, at the very beginning of the Sui dynasty when ambitions for large-scale construction projects were high. The court official Li Chun, affiliated with the construction bureau, is credited with the design. In the twelfth century the bridge was copied in the nearby Small Stone (Xiaoshi) Bridge. According to legend, the dragons carved on the sides of the pedestrian balustrade and in a few spots on the arch protected it from water
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previous centuries. Only in 1066 was the bridge damaged by severe flood, but the four oxen that had been cast into the river were rescued. In 1222 the invading Jurchen army, whose architecture is discussed in chapter 10, burned the bridge, but the statues survive (figure 6.22).42
approach to those palaces by Vermilion Bird Road; and have designated market areas, often one on the east and one on the west. Some of the Japanese cities also had a main hall of audience named Daigokuden (Great Ultimate Hall) (Taijidian) and parkland behind the palace.43 The Parhae (Balhae; Ch: Bohai) kingdom (698–926) offers evidence of Chinese-style urban planning second only to Japan’s. Rising in the aftermath of the Koguryŏ kingdom in North Korea, eastern Russia, Mongolia, Jilin, and Heilongjiang, Parhae had five capitals. The first was in Dunhua, Jilin province. From there the capital moved to Helong prefecture, also in Jilin, which was the central capital. In 755 the northern capital was built at a place now called Bohaizhen (Parhae town) in Ning’an, Heilongjiang. Thirty years later came a move to the eastern capital in Hunchun, Jilin, and last, in 794, the main capital returned to Ning’an. The other two capitals were the western capital in Linjiang, Jilin, and the southern capital in Pukch'ŏngh, North Korea. The capital in Ning’an, formerly known as Longquanfu, and the eastern capital are the most extensively excavated (figure 6.23). More like Chang’an and Luoyang than like the Japanese imperial cities, the Parhae capitals had inner and outer walls in addition to a walled palace-city. They also had a long avenue that ran from the central gate of the southern outer wall to the second wall and then to the main entrance of the palace-city, dividing all walled areas into eastern and western sectors. Tang China aided the Bai people, centered in Yunnan, in establishing a kingdom in 738 known as Nanzhao that endured until 902. Rock-carved caves at Shizhongshan contain a few examples of eighth- to ninth-century Nanzhao architecture.44 Three pagodas discussed in the next chapter, which are associated with the Dali kingdom, may have initially been built under Nanzhao rule (see figure 7.10). Chinese-style cities, building complexes, individual structures, and representations of Chinese architecture in relief and in painting were also constructed at Türk and Uyghur sites in Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Siberia. In Xinjiang, the Tang built garrison towns from east to west. Gaochang (known as Qoço under Uyghur occupation after 850), 30 kilometers southeast of Turfan, and nearby sites such as Jiaohe have the most extensive remains of Tang construction. The majority is Buddhist, including pagodas and rock-carved caves with murals. There are also city walls. Tang-style, quadruple-bodied que remain in relief at a mud-brick gate from the city of Beiting
Tang Architecture outside the Empire At its time of greatest expansion, the Tang empire spread from today’s Xinjiang autonomous region in the west to Korea in the east. Its borders touched the empires or kingdoms of Koguryŏ and then Parhae, the Türk and then Uighur khanates, Sogdiana, Tibet, and Nanzhao. Each of these groups and peoples from beyond their borders were represented by merchants or ambassadors in Chang’an, and most of them engaged in war with China at some point during the Tang dynasty. In times of peace and war, each empire or kingdom or state at China’s borders turned to China for models of urbanism and architecture as persistently as had their nonChinese predecessors during the four previous centuries. The most extensive Chinese-inspired remains outside China are in Japan. Japan, of course, was never part of a Chinese empire, but there was continuous travel between China and Japan in the sixth through ninth centuries. Between 607 and 894, the Japanese periods of Asuka, Nara, and Heian, more than twenty kentōshi, or official missions, traveled from Japan to the Tang court. During 150 years of this period, from the mid-seventh century through the end of the eighth century, the Japanese built at least seven capitals, at Naniwa, today Osaka, where there were both seventh- and eighth-century versions of the palaces; in Ōtsu, especially in the 650s and 660; in Asuka, known as the Fujiwara capital, from 593 to 694, where there were seven palaces; in Nara, Japan’s most famous eighth-century capital; at Kuni, which flourished only in the 740s; very briefly in the 740s at Shigaraki; at Nagaoka from about 784 to 793; and finally, the capital of the Heian period (794–1185), the city today called Kyoto, the most perfect implementation of the plan. Every one of these cities was based on the plan of Sui-Tang Chang’an. Evidence suggests that every Japanese capital was intended to be a rectangular city with north-south and east-west streets that ran its entire length and width except where they were blocked by the palace or government offices; be divided into four-sided wards; have palaces in the north center; have an
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6.25. Three-bay structure elevated on high foundation and enclosed by balustrade, above archway at entrance to subterranean portion of tomb, Bayannuur, Bulgan province, Mongolia, second half of seventh century (?)
(Uyghur: Besh-Baliq), about 150 kilometers north of Turfan (figure 6.24).45 Türk and Uyghur construction in Mongolia and Siberia suggests close knowledge of Chinese buildings. Among the ruins of the most important eastern Uyghur city in Mongolia, Ordu-Baligh (Karabalg[h]asun), are marble stele with dragons along their tops and roof tiles with central lotus petals encircled by a roundel pattern. Roof tiles have been assessed as the possible work of Chinese craftsmen.46 At Por-Bajin, on an island in Lake Tere-Khol in Tuva, in eastern Siberia, circular and convex Chinese roof tiles and a U-shaped building arrangement around an open courtyard fronted by a gate suggest Chinese construction. Some of the best evidence of Tang architecture in Mongolia is in the above-mentioned tombs with long approach ramps and air shafts. A tomb excavated in Zaamar, Tov province, in 2009 contained Tang figurines and a stele identifying the owner as Pugu Yitu, a local leader who served the Tang. A tomb excavated in Bayaannur, Bulgan province, in 2011, had the same kinds of figurines and two three-bay Chinese structures with central double doors, grill windows on either side, hip-gable roofs, and inverted V-shaped braces that alternate with single-step bracket sets among its murals (figure 6.25). The building is painted above an archway, just as this kind of structure appears in the tombs of Princess Changle (d. 643), Prince Yide (reburied ca. 706), and Prince Zhanghuai (reburied ca. 706) in Chang’an. Men wearing the headgear of
Chinese officials and the directional animals dragon and tiger, on the east and west, respectively, are in murals of the underground approach ramp.47 In the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, architecture across East Asia, not just east to west from Japan to Xinjiang but also north to south from Mongolia to Yunnan, was dominated by Chinese forms. In some instances, such as in Turfan in Xinjiang or Nanzhao in Yunnan, a Chinese military presence would have been an obvious reason for the choice of Chinese construction. In Japan, however, an independent empire intentionally imitated Chinese architectural models. The intense use of Chinese city plans, palaces, and monasteries would begin to break down in the tenth century, just as China again broke apart. An empire in China would never be as strong again until the thirteenth century, and it would not be a Chinese empire. As for Sui-Tang, it holds the place for China’s oldest surviving wooden architecture, a planned city designed for a population of one million, the emergence of the palace-city as distinct from an imperial-city, engineering feats that made passage across and along waterways more possible than anywhere else in the world in the year 600, and for distinguished architect-engineers whose names are still known.
6.23. Stone pillar bases from palace gate, Parhae north capital at Longquanfu, Ning’an, Heilongjiang, ca. 755 6.24. Relief sculpture of quadruple-bodied que, gateway of city wall, Beiting, on wall of pounded brick-and-earthen layers, near Jimsar, Xinjiang, 744–840s
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CHAPTER 7
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
In the tenth century seventeen powers ruled from more than twenty capital cities in territory that had once been controlled by Tang. China had weathered disunity and nonnative dynasties in the past. This time the split was of comparatively short duration and the rulers were both Chinese and non-Chinese. From the fall of Tang in 907 until unification of most of China in 960 under the Song dynasty, five dynasties and ten kingdoms rose, and by 979 the last of them had fallen; the fifteen polities give the period its name. By 907 the Khitan, a sixteenth polity, who would establish the Liao dynasty, had ascended in the North. Buildings of the Song dynasty, the seventeenth, and all but one of Liao’s wooden halls are discussed in the next chapter. Here we focus on construction from ca. 925 through the 960s. Whereas only four wooden buildings survive from the Tang dynasty, and all of them are in Shanxi, more than twice that number remain from the period 925–966, in Hebei as well as Shanxi in the North and one in Fujian in the South. The buildings associated with the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms are West Side Hall (Xipeidian) of Longmen Monastery in Pingshun, Shanxi, dated 925; Great Buddha Hall (Dafodian) of Dayunyuan, also in Pingshun, dated 940; Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall of Zhenguo Monastery in Haodong, Shanxi, dated 963; Great Buddha Hall of Hualin Monastery in Fuzhou, Fujian, dated 964; Wenshu (Mañjuśrī) Hall of Geyuan Monastery in Laiyuan, Hebei, dated 966 and sometimes labeled a Liao building; and two halls in Zhangzi, Shanxi province, one at Jade Emperor Temple (Yuhuangmiao) and one at Biyun Monastery; the pavilion at Kaiyuan Monastery in Zhengding, Hebei (see figure 6.11); and Great Achievement (Dacheng) Hall at the Confucian Temple, also in Zhengding, are likely to date from the tenth century as well. As in the Tang dynasty, the number of survivals from the first half of the tenth century is still extremely small compared to what records suggest. The period of disunion after the fall of Tang saw a renewed flourishing of Buddhist architecture. Chan (meditational) Buddhism, which had first become popular in the Tang dynasty, was increasingly popular in the tenth century. It is estimated that by the ninth century, 80–90 percent of China’s monasteries were Chan.1 The architectural needs of Chan monasteries were different from those of other Buddhist sects. For example, pagodas were not as important in Chan monasteries as they had been in the past. According to Henanzhi (Record of Henan province), of the Yuan period, about thirty Chan monasteries
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were constructed in Luoyang under the dynasties Later Liang (907–923), Later Tang (923–936), and Later Jin (936–947). 2 Later Zhou (951–960), however, were persecutors. On May 30, 955, the second ruler of Later Zhou, Shizong (r. 954–959), ordered widespread destruction of Buddhist monuments. It is estimated that under Later Zhou there were 2,694 Buddhist establishments, but 33,036 had been destroyed or abandoned.3 These numbers are not so different from the figures under Wuzong of the Tang dynasty. Physical evidence of Chinese wooden architecture through the 960s in large part is the luck of survival. As for the Tang period, the majority of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms architecture remains in Shanxi province, 71 percent of the total. The number is consistent with the fact that 70 percent of all Chinese wooden architecture dated before 1368, the beginning of the Ming dynasty, is in Shanxi, including the seven oldest buildings.4 Theories about why so much survives here include the religiosity of the province, remote mountainous locations of so many buildings that have protected them from invasion or persecution, and history of poverty that has worked against new construction. None has been proved. Traveling in Shanxi, one is inclined to believe that the longheld theory that the remote, mountainous locations contributed to the survival of Shanxi temples probably holds true.
Humble Halls for Aspiring Rulers, 963–966 Three wooden buildings date from the period 963–966. Not only is it unusual even in later periods for three dated buildings to remain from such a short time span, these three are especially informative because they are from three different polities in three different regions of China. All three represent a type of building uniquely associated with this period of disunion: a humble hall with selected elements of grandeur. Ten Thousand Buddhas (Wanfo) Hall of Zhenguo Monastery in Haodong village, 13 kilometers north of Pingyao in Shanxi, was built by Northern Han (951–979) patronage in 963. The hall is squarish, 11.57 by 10.77 meters at the base and three bays square, supported by twelve perimeter pillars with no columns inside (figure 7.1). There are a door and windows at the front and only a door at the back. This is the arrangement of the main Buddha hall of Nanchan Monastery, dated 782, one of the structurally simplest buildings extant in China (see figure 6.7). Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall has purlins that span a distance of
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7.1. Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall, Zhenguo Monastery, Haodong, Pingyao, Shanxi, 963
thickness ratio of about 7.5:1.6 The pillars exhibit a “rise” of half a centimeter, those at the two front ends 3.47 meters high. Columns have entasis and batter (incline slightly inward). The projection of the eaves is about half the heights of the columns. Camel’s-hump-shaped braces rest on rafters, and there is an inverted-V-shaped truss. We have observed all these features in Tang buildings. Tingtang, halls that are not eminent, rarely have higher than fifth rank (five-puzuo) bracket sets according to the eight-rank system prescribed in Yingzao fashi. However, the exterior pillar-top bracket sets of Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall are of seven-puzuo formation, the most eminent type extant in wooden buildings. This is a sharp contrast to the features that define tingtang. Interior bracketing is five-puzuo, with two tiers of bracket-arms, and touxin (literally “stolen heart,” because the additional perpendicular projection sometimes found at the bottom of a bracket to help support bracket-arms parallel to the building set is missing). Intercolumnar bracket sets also are of the five-puzuo, two-tier, touxin formation. Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall is thus an uncomfortably proportioned building. Its exterior brackets are too large, far too complicated, and too grand for a three-bay-square hall with a hip-gable roof and no ceiling. Their eminence is a mismatch in a building that in every other way is a tingtang. Perhaps the Northern Han patrons sought to proclaim their royal grandeur through recognizably prominent bracketing, but on a humble building frame not nearly as costly as these brackets symbolize. The second building of the 960s, Daxiongbao Hall of Hualin Monastery in Fuzhou, Fujian province, was constructed during
six rafters, a single-eave, hip-gable roof, and bracket sets that are about 1.85 meters tall, or whose length is more than onethird the distance from base to roof. This proportion is a key measurement in determining a building’s date: the larger the proportion of bracket set length to column beneath it, the earlier the building’s date, with the ratio at East Hall of Foguang Monastery the largest, about 1:2, and that of Qing architecture in the Forbidden City about 1:6.5 The most important means of assessing a Chinese building based on the measurements of its wooden members is by comparison with prescriptions in the twelfth-century architectural manual Yingzao fashi (Building standards), a main subject of chapter 9. The use of modules prescribed in the text, through which sizes of building pieces and proportional relations between them can be generated, was mentioned in chapter 6 in discussion of East Hall of Foguang Monastery. The structure of Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall corresponds to the definition of a hall of secondary importance (tingtang), as does the Main Hall of Nanchan Monastery. A primary feature of tingtang shared by these two halls is the lack of interior pillars. A second feature is the hip-gable roof. Third is the exposed roof frame. The basic module by which the sizes of wooden pieces are generated at Ten Thousand Buddha Hall is 22 by 16 centimeters. This hall also has a subsidiary modular unit, zhi, of 10 centimeters. These dimensions also correspond to tingtang construction. Further, columns are planted directly into the building foundation, without pilasters, yet another feature of humbler Chinese architecture. The exterior columns of Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall are 3.42 meters with diameters of 46 centimeters, or a height to
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building plane. The combination of elements corresponds to seven-puzuo. The placement of arms in only the two directions as well as touxin formation indicate that the set is “early” in the history of Chinese construction, in other words, tenth century or Tang. The curved beam found here was observed in East Hall of Foguang Monastery. It, too, is a feature associated with early Chinese architecture. Enormous bracket sets and the three-bay-square plan are used at Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall of Zhenguosi. Also like the Zhenguo Monastery hall, some 1,400 kilometers to the north, Daxiongbao Hall has no ceiling. Again we observe a simple structure, one only slightly more complicated inside than those at Zhenguosi (see figure 7.1) and Nanchansi (see figure 6.7), because it has four interior columns, which on the exterior proclaim eminence by enormous wooden bracket sets that would draw a viewer’s attention more than any other feature. Some see the structure of Hualin Monastery’s Daxiongbao Hall differently. It can be argued that the An-Shi Rebellions of 755–763 (An, a reference to An Lushan), which drove the Xuanzong emperor to flee Chang’an for Sichuan, were the beginnings of such widespread economic decline that North China never recovered. The Southeast, by contrast, with its coastal cities that maintained strong trade relations with merchants from South and West Asia along the Silk Road of the Sea, preserved and then strengthened its economy as a result. If architectural patronage reflects economic stability, then Tang’s most lavish architectural traditions might have flourished in the South in the ninth century, and by the tenth century even more innovative architectural styles with features such as three cantilevers might have emerged. Seeing architecture as a reflection of society, one might also consider whether Daxiongbao Hall of Hualinsi represents Wu-Yue (907–978) rule. Wu-Yue has been called a kingdom of learned and cultivated men, known for “high standards of learning, wealth, and cultural development.”8 Min (909–949), however, the kingdom that ruled Fuzhou before it came under Wu-Yue control, by contrast has been described as depraved.9 Descriptions of Min’s architecture suggest luxury and exoticism. A pagoda dedicated in 941 by Wang Yanxi, who murdered his father, may have stood twenty-three years later when Hualinsi was constructed. The pagoda was seven stories. Its first story was dedicated by Yanxi to the Buddha; the second by Lady Li, nineteenth daughter of the empress, to Maitreya, Buddha
7.2. Daxiongbao Hall, Hualin Monastery, Fuzhou, Fujian, rebuilt as believed to appear in 964
the rule of the Wu-Yue kingdom (907–978), whose capital was at Hangzhou (figure 7.2).7 Daxiongbao (Treasure Hall of the Great Hero [Mahavira]) is a name given only to a highly important Buddha hall. Rebuilt and significantly altered many times since the tenth century, particularly in Southern Song, Ming, and Qing times, Daxiongbao Hall today is a squarish, single-story building, three bays across the front and three bays deep, the central bay the widest in both dimensions, with a hip-gable roof. The longest beam is eight rafter-lengths, and rufu (two-rafter connecting beams) join the front and back sections; the hall is framed in concentric units of quadrilaterals known as jia (horizontally projected frames) and chuliangjia (protruding frames) (figure 7.3); pillars are placed on pilasters; columns are shuttle-shaped (suozhu); and pillars exhibit a “rise” of about 8 centimeters, from about 4.55 to slightly higher than 4.62 meters. The bracket sets are a most noticeable and noteworthy feature of Daxiongbao Hall. They are enormous in comparison to both the heights of pillars that support them and the size of the hall, and they are complicated in comparison to almost any extant bracketing from the tenth century or earlier in China, including those across the front facade of Foguang Monastery East Hall or Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall that are likewise large compared to the pillars (see figures 6.10, 7.1). First and most significant, corner sets (usually the most complicated in a building) as well as column-top brackets and even intercolumnar sets have three diagonal descending projections. Known as ang (cantilevers), in the corner sets all three descend from inside the bracket; across the front of the building, some are decorative. Projections of the latter type are known as “false” ang. They often are decorative elements in later Chinese architecture, especially in the Yuan (1267–1368) dynasty and afterward. The Hualinsi hall is a rare example of a building in which three structurally functional ang are used. All bracket sets also have at least two levels of bracket-arms and are touxin. The piling of arms is both lateral and perpendicular to the
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7.3. Side section of Daxiongbao Hall, Hualin Monastery, Fuzhou, Fujian
of the Future; the third by Wang Yacheng, prince of Min, and his wife to the Buddha of the Western Paradise, Amitabha; the fourth by Lady Wang and a minister to Prabhutaratna; the fifth by a vice-legate, commissioner, three palace ladies of the Wang family, and three princesses to Bhaisyajaguru, the healing Buddha; the sixth by Lady Shang to the Buddha Nageśvara (Nagaraja, known as the King of Snakes); and the seventh by minister Li Zhen and his wife and other male and female nobility to Śākyamuni.10 The kingdom of Min had palaces named Changchun (Everlasting Spring) and Shuijing (Crystal).11 The second, also known as the southern palace, was built for the empress and destroyed in an attack on August 29, 939. Crystal Palace consisted of more than a hundred chambers. A fudao, covered passageway that allowed for travel on upper and lower levels, connected it with the outer city. Palace women paraded along the fudao, offering the population quite a view.12 Who lived in the palaces is not clear. The ruling family included Prince Wang Shenzhi; his son Wang Yanhan, who was killed by his brother Yanbing in a plot with his brother Yanjun, the last who proclaimed himself emperor of Min in 933; Wang Jipeng, who ascended the throne in 935 after he murdered his father Yanjun; the next emperor Wang Yanxi, who also murdered his father; and the next ruler Wang Yanzheng, who lived until 945. The final ruler of Min was the warlord Liu Congxiao, who ruled less than a year until the territory fell to Wu-Yue.13
A local record of this “depraved kingdom” offers a rare description of architecture: “kingposts that supported the rafters were made of coral; lintels and tiles were made of glass; beams were sandalwood and wood of the kind known as nanmu; screens were pearl; and pillars and pilasters were decorated with gold leaf.”14 Min was a kingdom in the South on the sea, so construction with coral is possible. Lavish decoration might even be expected for a kingdom whose forty-year duration was filled with intrigue. One still cannot prove that the Hualinsi Buddha hall was more reserved, reflecting the high standards of Wu-Yue, than a comparable main hall of a monastery of Min, but the almost unique descriptions of palatial architecture for Min suggest that according to documents and later historians who used them, the palaces and pagoda were what one might expect for an intense and extravagant lifestyle. The third building of the 960s is Mañjuśrī Hall of Geyuan Monastery in Laiyuan, Hebei. The date 966 is carved on an octagonal stone pillar on-site. Because of its location in Hebei near the Shanxi border, the building has been associated with Liao, who occupied this territory at the time. Written records say the monastery was founded in Later Han (947–950) and repaired in 966.15 There were repairs in 1324–1327, 1377, 1568, and under the Kangxi (r. 1662–1722), Qianlong (r. 1736–1796), and Guangxu (r. 1875–1908) reigns of the Qing dynasty. We have already seen that two patrons of the Five Dynasties period displayed grandeur through large, complicated architectural features, but in most other respects their buildings
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7.4. Mañjuśrī Hall, Geyuan Monastery, Laiyuan, Hebei, 966
were humble halls. Geyuansi’s hall to the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī is humble inside and out. It is three bays square and very nearly square, 16 by 15.67 meters, without the elaborate bracket sets we have seen at Zhenguosi and Hualinsi (figure 7.4). The hall has a four-rafter beam and the rufu (two-bay extension beam) used at Hualinsi’s main Buddha hall, two interior columns (Daxiongbao Hall has four), and the hip-gable roof present at Zhenguosi and Hualinsi. Different from the other two halls of the 960s, bracket sets are five-puzuo and six-puzuo and have jixin (the “added heart” at the front). There are camel’s-humpshaped braces, a feature noted in Tang buildings (see figures 6.8, 6.10–22). There are also zhaqian (short posts that span one rafter-length, sometimes positioned diagonally and sometimes joining posts to interior columns), a component that will continue to be present for the next several centuries. As in Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall, and in contrast to Daxiongbao Hall of Hualin Monastery, all beams are straight. This feature allies the building with architecture of North China after the Tang dynasty. Comparison of the three halls constructed between 963 and 966 suggests that the criteria for defining eminence or lack of it were known to Shanxi, Fujian, and Hebei in the 960s. Further, it shows that during this period of political turmoil, all three groups constructed humble buildings to glorify and worship the Buddha, buildings of but three bays across the front, with hip-gable roofs, and without ceilings. At the same time, Northern Han and Wu-Yue appear to have sought self-aggrandizement through Chinese construction’s most identifiable feature, the bracket set. Even if Wu-Yue’s architecture was not as outlandish as Min’s, if grand buildings
with hipped roofs, ceilings, and bracket sets of seven-puzuo, such as East Hall of Foguang Monastery, were constructed in the 960s, only bracketing survives as evidence.
Tenth-Century Timber Architecture before 960 Two buildings in Pingshun county of southern Shanxi remain from before the year 960. Both are more humble even than the three buildings discussed above. One is at Dayunyuan, a monastery constructed in 938 near the beginning of the tenyear reign of the Later Jin.16 Similar in structure to Mañjuśrī Hall of Geyuansi, it has received less attention, perhaps because Geyuansi has been associated with Liao, a dynasty of much longer duration and more significant impact on Chinese history. Nothing in the annals of Later Jin suggests a remarkable occurrence between 938 when Dayunyuan was founded and 940 when its Great Buddha Hall was completed. The hall was repaired in the 1470s and later in the Ming dynasty and in the Qing. Like the three halls of the 960s, Nanchansi, and the other two early Tang wooden buildings, it is three bays square, in this case, 11.8 by 10.1 meters (figure 7.5). It stands on a 0.9-meterhigh foundation and has a hip-gable roof with ceramic tile decoration. Like Mañjuśrī Hall of Geyuansi, Great Buddha Hall has a twelve-pillar perimeter and two interior pillars. It also follows precedents of Tang construction: a central bay of 4.09 meters and narrower end bays, of 3.855 meters; pillars of 2.9 meters in height on either side of the central bay that rise about 0.08 meter at the corner positions. All pillars are 30 centimeters in diameter. Pillars have entasis and batter. There are
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7.5. Great Buddha Hall, Dayunyuan, Pingshun, Shanxi, 940
an architrave (lan’e) and a pupaifang (additional tie-beam above the architrave), neither of which projects beyond the corners of the building. Above the pupaifang are a post and zhaqian. The longest beam has a six-rafter span. Camel’s-hump-shaped braces are above a great beam. Bracketing is five-puzuo or sixpuzuo, and of touxin formation; three-step bracket sets are at the corners. Inside, pillar-top brackets are four-puzuo and single-step. The module is 22 by 16 or 20 by 13.5 centimeters, corresponding to the fourth rank in Yingzao fashi. The hall has no ceiling. Great Buddha Hall contains the only religious murals in situ from the Five Dynasties period. The subjects include Vimalakirti, the wealthy disciple of Śākyamuni Buddha with whom Mañjuśrī debates the meaning of life, and the Western Paradise of the Buddha. Relief sculpture and dragon-headed decoration also survive here. The other pre-960s dated building in Pingshun is the West Side Hall of Longmen Monastery. Founded in the 550s of the Northern Qi and reaching its apogee during the two-hundred-year period from Later Tang through Jin (1115–1234), Longmensi was repaired or received additions in Yuan, Ming, and Qing times. West Side Hall dates to 925 of Later Tang, Daxiongbao Hall to 1098, the gatehouse to the Jin, and other buildings are from later times.17 West Side Hall is dedicated to the bodhisattva Guanyin. West Side Hall is three bays across the front but so small that there are only eight exterior pillars, four in front and four in back. Even though there are no side pillars except those at the corners, it is sometimes referred to as two bays deep. The dimensions are 10.08 (three equally sized bays of 3.36 meters each) by 6.72 meters. The diameters of the pillars
range between 25 and 48 centimeters. The depth of the sides is spanned by four-rafter beams. There are an architrave, camel’shump-shaped braces, and dwarf pillars (shuzhu) on the beams. Its roof is the simplest of those observed so far, the type known as overhanging gable (xuanshan) because eaves hang from the central roof ridge across the front and back, with no roof on the sides. Longmen Monastery’s arrangement is a little unusual: it is oriented north-south with three parallel axes. In 2008 two tenth-century buildings in Zhangzi in southern Shanxi were identified. The first, the front hall of Yuhuangmiao (Jade Emperor Temple) in Bu village, was missing its front wall at the time of the survey. The second is the Main Hall of Biyunsi (Azure Cloud Monastery) in Xiaozhang village. Reconstruction of both relies heavily on Great Buddha Hall of Dayunyuan, other buildings discussed above, and buildings discussed in chapters 9 and 10.18 Like Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall, Daxiongbao Hall of Hualinsi, and Great Buddha Hall of Dayunyuan, the tenth-century hall at Yuhuangmiao has two-rafter and four-rafter beams. Dayunyuan Buddha hall and Yuhuangmiao hall have camel’shump-shaped braces, but at Dayunyuan the shape is close to a curve whereas at Yuhuangmiao it is elongated with sides straightened into a trapezoidal form. West Side Hall and the hall of Yuhuangmiao use kingposts, and the Zhangzi temple has the unusual feature of a curved beam (figure 7.6). Although pieces at Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall are embellished more than those at Yuhuangmiao, piece by piece the ceiling frame is the same. However, bracketing of the size and complexity employed at Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall and Daxiongbao Hall of Hualinsi does not exist in Zhangzi.
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7.6. Interior showing two-rafter beams, curved beam, and camel’s-humpshaped brace, Yuhuangmiao hall, Zhangzi, Shanxi
Official and Royal Tombs
Chinese halls dated between 907 and 964 inform us that Five Dynasties architecture follows Tang to the extent that there is almost no detectable feature that stands uniquely for the tenth century. One or another of the buildings may have idiosyncratic aspects such as three cantilevers or decoration on a camel’s-hump-shaped brace. The coherence of architecture of China’s tenth century, and further, that the majority of construction during the first two-thirds of this century had a humble timber frame even when bracket sets were huge and elaborate, are underscored by building facades. We have seen that the rock-carved facade of Tianlongshan cave 16 replicates a lintel and inverted-V-shaped braces and has roof rafters painted on the undersides of eaves that we believe correspond to actual buildings of the sixth century (see figure 5.24). Sometimes wooden parts were part of cave entrances. Among twenty-two facades studied at the Mogao caves, four have wooden components dated to the tenth century.19 Mogao caves 427, 431, 437, and 444 have bracket sets more than half the heights of the columns beneath them, bracket sets of two or three tiers, and slat windows, and those with rafters have two sets, the lower circular in section and the upper four-sided (figure 7.7). Corner bracket sets may have two cantilevers. All four facades are three bays across the front, and none has intercolumnar bracketing.
The same kinds of facades are carved in brick or stone at entrances to tombs of wealthy men and women of the tenth century. Four nonroyal tombs are representative. The upper levels of entries to the tomb of Feng Hui in Bin county and the tomb of Li Maozhen (d. 924) and his wife in Baoji, both in Shaanxi, present as three-bay structures fronted by balustrades and with door panels or slat windows (figure 7.8).20 Underground servants, entertainers, architecture to set the scene, occasional passages of landscape, and constellations on the ceilings cover the walls of both tombs as well as the walls of the tomb of the corrupt official Wang Chuzhi, who was buried in Quyang, Hebei, in 923. The plans of the tombs, however, are not uniform. Oriented roughly north-south with a southern entry, Wang Chuzhi’s tomb has three adjoining spaces along its main axis. A narrow, sloping path leads underground, followed by a large, squarish main tomb chamber where the epitaphs were placed, with two side niches known as “ear chambers” (ershi), and last, the burial chamber. Li Maozhen’s tomb retains the connective corridor between front and back underground chambers common in Tang tombs, but it equally follows the Wang Chuzhi scheme in that Li and his wife’s front chamber is a conjoined two-compartment space, and each chamber
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has a set of ershi. The connective corridor leads to an eightsided, domed burial room whose four main walls open to the corridor or side or back niches, and with four short sides at the intermediate directions. This complexity of plan has not been present underground since the third and fourth centuries, nor have tomb walls been covered with such a complicated combination of painting and relief on every wall surface. The same features characterize royal burial. Kangling, tomb of the wife of the second ruler of the Wu-Yue kingdom, who died in 940 and was buried near Lin’an in Zhejiang, has three adjoining rooms and an ear chamber attached to the back one.21 Tombs of royalty of the Southern Tang kingdom (937–975), Li Bian (r. 937–943) and Li Jing (r. 943–961), in Nanjing comprise three main chambers, each with at least one ear chamber and the back room with two or three on each side (figure 7.9).22 The walls possess more relief sculpture than paint. Bold, segmented-vaulted corridors connect front and back chambers, with armed guards standing watch in front of the burial room. Bracket sets are in three-dimensional relief, which is then painted; eight-sided pillars are decorated with scroll-and-vine and honeysuckle patterns; and corner pillars express one long and three shorter sides with bracket-arms spanning either side of a corner. Walls retain architectural and other relief, a drainage ditch is molded onto the floor of Li Bian’s tomb, and a panoply of constellations including the black bird in the sun and toad in the moon are painted on part of the ceiling, another part of which is latticed. The tomb of Wang Jian (847–918) of the Former Shu kingdom (907–925) in Chengdu, Sichuan, is at this time unique. The ceiling above the entire space is made of thirteen segmented, stone arches, five above the main chamber, three above the front and back rooms, and one above each connective corridor. One ascends three steps from
7.7. Facade of Mogao cave 437, Dunhuang, showing three-step bracket sets, bracketing nearly half the height of the column beneath it, roof rafters with circular and four-sided sections, all in wood, and sculpted decoration on the roof ridge 7.8. Entry to tomb of Feng Hui, Bin county, Shaanxi, Five Dynasties period
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7.9. Interior of tomb of Li Jing, Nanjing, 961
chamber to chamber, with a stone support for the coffin bed and coffin in the central area and a seated statue of the interred in the back room. Attending the coffin are twelve guards in the round, six on each side but not symmetrically posed. They are shown only from the waist up. Twenty-two female musicians, as well as dancers, dragons, lotus petals, and other ornamentation, all in relief, decorate the coffin sides. For now, the interior and its decoration have neither a clear precedent nor successor, but one keeps in mind that the tombs of Tang emperors and empresses have not been opened.
architectural decoration in China’s southeastern ports such as Quanzhou, discussed in chapter 12. In the tenth century Buddha halls and pagodas across China and as far southwest as Yunnan were constructed in the shadow of Tang architecture. Details of rural temples of Shanxi or any other province at any period may exhibit the skill of a craftsman or an idiosyncrasy of the day, locally, regionally, or across vast distances, but only with few exceptions, such as the tomb of a king in Sichuan, does one observe creativity. Among survivals, the tenth century’s most complex structure is the Buddha hall at Hualin Monastery in Fuzhou, a building that preserves the enormous bracket sets and curved beams of Tang. After fifty years of continuation of the Chinese building tradition with such little change, perhaps Chinese architecture was poised for exploitation to its limits by the Khitan, a Northeast Asian empire who had already confronted the walls and monasteries and tombs of China while five dynasties and ten kingdoms vied for power to their south.
Architecture of the Dali Kingdom The Dali kingdom rose in 937 and endured until falling to the Mongols in 1253. It was comparable to its territorial predecessor Nanzhao, and to Parhae and the earlier Koguryŏ kingdom in its receptivity to Chinese architecture, particularly Buddhist architecture, while maintaining political autonomy. The miyan-style pagoda of the three white pagodas that stand today at Chongsheng Monastery in Dali, Yunnan, is dated to the tenth century (figure 7.10). The Buddhist cave-temples of Shizhongshan in the Sibao mountains in Yunnan, mentioned in chapter 6, were carved around 850. The seven-story stone pillar dated to the Dali kingdom in Kśitigarbha Monastery in Kunming exhibits the Sino-Indian imagery that characterizes
7.10. Pagodas, Chongsheng Monastery, Dali, Yunnan, brick, central pagoda dated tenth century
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CHAPTER 8
Grandeur and Magnificence under Liao and Western Xia
The four and a half centuries from 907 to 1368 are a period when increasingly large parts of China are ruled by non-Chinese dynasties. Until the 1980s Liao and the dynasties Jin (discussed in chapter 10) and Yuan (discussed in chapter 12), often were referred to as barbarian dynasties, that unfortunate translation of the Chinese character hu that is used in standard histories since Han times to refer to peoples not of Han Chinese ethnicity.1 In spite of the label, Liao and Jin and Yuan each has its own sets of volumes among the twenty-four standard histories of China, the official narratives written by historians at later Chinese courts. In terms of architecture, the inclusion is appropriate, for Liao, Jin, and Yuan architecture in large part follows the Chinese building tradition. Western Xia, often referred to by the European word Tangut, also the name of its language, does not have its own standard history, but its architecture, too relies heavily on China’s. Although the Western Xia (1038–1227) kingdom endured until 1227, its architecture is discussed here, for, like Liao, the kingdom is a North Asian polity, and when Liao fell, some of its population migrated westward to Western Xia territory. Liao is sometimes referred to as a grasslands empire. Still today, when China’s population has spread and urbanized across every part of the republic, much Liao as well as Western Xia architecture remains in isolation across steppe, desert, plain, and grassland (figure 8.1). No matter the location, Liao and Western Xia builders conceived of architecture in superlatives: Liao were patrons of the tallest wooden pagoda in China and the largest extant Buddha hall. The Western Xia royal cemetery contained 360 mounds. The structural complexity and grandeur was not merely based on the Chinese building system: it challenged its limits. Founded by a man named Abaoji (872–926), the Liao dynasty can be traced to three dates used as its official beginning: 907, when the Tang fell and Abaoji assumed the title of khaghan (supreme khan); 916, when he was formally “enthroned”; and 947, the year Abaoji’s son Deguang, the second Liao ruler, died and Abaoji’s vision of an empire of northern administration for the largely non-Chinese population and southern administration for sedentary peoples, including the Chinese, was realized.
century the Khitan were the most numerous among the nomadic and seminomadic tribes that confederated into the Liao empire. Although the History of Liao (Liaoshi) tells us that the predynastic Khitan practiced sky burial (left corpses on tree trunks to decay), Abaoji’s biography says that his body was placed in a miao (temple) and buried in Zuling (ancestral royal tomb) in Zuzhou (ancestral prefecture).2
The Ancestral Prefecture
Stone House The ancestral precinct was enclosed by a six-sided wall. Oriented about 45 degrees east of due north, and approximately 600 meters on its long, straight side and 300 on the short sides, the wall included three portions that were straight and two segments that formed the second long wall. The precinct is said to have been the birthplace of Abaoji’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, and excavation confirms fortified, L-shaped barbicans (known in Chinese as wengcheng) on the outer wall. A main gate named Daxia (Great Summer) was the beginning of a long, straight road leading to a main cross street that bisected it. The name Great Summer and its location as the starting point for a major thoroughfare through the city suggest a plan based on a Chinese urban model in which Vermilion Bird Road, named for the directional animal of summer, is located at the south. The broad central road led to palaces, the most important of which took the gong formation associated with imperial or equivalently important Chinese construction. Adjacent to the gong-shaped remains is one of China’s most enigmatic structures, the stone house (shishi). Oriented southwestward like the city, so that its entrance is parallel to the main gate, the structure today known as stone house consists of seven huge stones, each weighing several tons and measuring at least 30 square meters, with a T-shaped entry (figure 8.2). The architectural form is known as dolmen, a megalithic structure whose best-known examples are at Stonehenge in England, but with other examples not only in the United Kingdom and Ireland but on the Japanese island Kyushu and in Korea, China’s northeastern provinces, and the eastern portions of Inner Mongolia. Proposed dates for dolmen range from the Neolithic period onward. The Chinese name shishi occurs in the Chinese histories and in Buddhist
The name Qidan (Khitan or Kitan in European languages) appears in Chinese texts by the fourth century; by the tenth
8.1. White Pagoda (Baita), 64 meters high plus 7.43-meter chatra, Qingzhou, Balinyouqi, Inner Mongolia, 1047–1049
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texts. Shishi can refer to a rock-carved cave-temple, a stone burial chamber such as Yongguling, the tomb of the Empress Dowager Feng (see figure 5.2), and it can refer to a stone shrine such as the Han offering shrine at Xiaotangshan (see figure 3.26). The proposed purposes of the Zuzhou stone house are an ancestral shrine, a tower (lou) erected by Abaoji that is named in Liaoshi, a place of incarceration, and a burial shrine. The enigma is that neither this shishi nor anything like it is mentioned in any record about Abaoji. The link to Abaoji is solely because of the location. It is plausible that the structure dates centuries earlier than the Liao period, and its preexistence may be the reason Zuling was built here.3 The other reason for seeing the stone house as Abaoji’s is that so little Liao architecture has any resemblance to what one might fancy a building of the seminomadic Khitan. Abaoji’s tomb Zuling, located about 2.5 kilometers northwest of Zuzhou, is a mounded, subterranean burial entered via a segmented-brick archway, a structure that follows the Chinese imperial tradition (figure 8.3).4
Magnificent Halls—Liao Style Magnificent monasteries and palaces are described in Tang texts, but until the tenth century, no structure except East Hall of Foguang Monastery exhibits China’s highest building standards. Four Liao buildings possess some of them. This is impressive, especially by comparison with Tang and extant early-tenth-century buildings, for only ten wooden Liao structures survive. Mañjuśrī Hall of Geyuan Monastery in Laiyuan, Hebei, discussed in chapter 7, is the earliest dated Liao
8.2. Stone House, Zuzhou, Balinzuoqi, Inner Mongolia, Liao period or earlier 8.3. Entrance to Zuling, tomb of Abaoji, Balinzuoqi, Inner Mongolia, 926
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8.4. Guanyin Pavilion, Dule Monastery, Ji county, Hebei, 984
building, designated Liao because of its location. The second dated Liao Buddhist structure is Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara) Pavilion of Dule Monastery in Ji county, Hebei, dated 984, one of the four extraordinary buildings. The pavilion is raised on a polished stone base of 26.72 by 20.62 meters and about 1.06 meters in height. A platform known as yuetai projects in front. The pavilion rises more than an additional 21 meters, with an open interior built to contain a 16-meter statue of the bodhisattva and two much smaller attendants (figures 8.4, 8.5). To achieve the space, the Guanyin Pavilion was constructed as two stories with a mezzanine level. More than a thousand wooden pieces and twenty-four varieties of bracket sets are used. The statue is placed so that when the upper-story central doors are open, as seen in figure 8.4, the eyes of the deity project to a reliquary pagoda 380 meters to the south.5 The pagoda was built later in the Liao dynasty, intentionally positioned to receive the bodhisattva’s gaze. Ge is the Chinese word translated as pavilion. It is not known when the first ge was constructed. Ge is one of several Chinese words for a tall building other than ta, the word for pagoda. The other common word is lou, mentioned in earlier chapters, usually translated as tower. In the tenth century a
pagoda, pavilion, or Buddha hall could be the most important structure in a monastery. In chapter 10 we review the major configurations of monasteries of the tenth through thirteenth centuries. The Buddha hall at Fengguo Monastery in Yi county, Liaoning, built in 1019, is known as Daxiongbao Hall, a name for a most important Buddha hall that we have noted also was used at Hualin Monastery in Fuzhou. Fengguo Monastery’s Daxiongbao Hall measures 48.2 meters (nearly 160 feet) across the front, is 25.13 meters in depth, and is elevated on a 3-meter-high platform with base dimensions of 55.8 by 25.91 meters. The approach platform is 37 by 15 meters (figure 8.6).6 The hall contains seven oversized Buddhas, perhaps the Seven Buddhas of the Past. Perhaps they were intended to represent the Liao rulers up to the current one plus the father of the dynastic founder.7 The bracket sets above columns across the front of Daxiongbao Hall are seven-puzuo. The intercolumnar sets between each column are equally complex. More than twenty-three kinds of cross-beams or tie-beams are used. A noteworthy feature is the height of interior columns, higher than those around the perimeter of the building.
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8.6. Daxiongbao Hall, Fengguo Monastery, 48.2 by 25.13 meters, Yi county, Liaoning, 1019
Daxiongbao Hall of Fengguo Monastery is not the largest Liao building. That distinction is held by Daxiongbao Hall of Huayan Monastery in Datong, the eastern capital of the Liao and subsequent Jin dynasty (figure 8.7).8 Because of renovation in ca. 1140, the hall is best dated Liao-Jin. It is elevated on a 4-meter-high platform. The hall itself measures 53.75 by 29 meters and is approached by a 32.42-by-18.48-meter yuetai. Bracket sets, however, are of only five fundamental components. Yet they have a distinguishing feature of the Liao and Jin periods of which some of the best examples are in Datong: bracket sets are fan-shaped (figure 8.8). That is, they project, or fan out, at several angles other than parallel or perpendicular to the building facade. Neither Guanyin Pavilion nor the Daxiongbao halls prepares one for the greatest achievement in Liao wooden construction, the Timber Pagoda of 1056 (see figures i.3, 8.9). The pagoda is more than 67 meters high, with five stories, four mezzanine levels, six sets of roof eaves on the exterior, and fifty-four types of bracket set. It is a highly complicated version of Guanyin Pavilion in which two stories and one mezzanine level are found. Each interior level of the Timber Pagoda has an individual iconographic program of deities, so that a composite mandala is achieved by statuary through the five levels. Further, the year of construction falls in the period calculated by Buddhologists as mofa (termination of the Dharma, or Buddhist Law), making plausible an interpretation of the
pagoda as a monumental symbol of Buddhist death intended to counteract impending universal doom. The pagoda has yet further associations: it was built by the eighth Liao emperor, Daozong (r. 1055–1101), for the Empress Dowager Qin’ai in the place where she had been born. The location declared his decision to honor his grandfather’s primary wife, not the birth mother of his recently deceased father, the seventh Liao emperor Xingzong (r. 1031–1055). A trove of scriptures and other relics are buried underneath in a digong (reliquary) or inside statues on the interior levels.9 In spite of the enormity of the two Daxiongbao halls and Timber Pagoda, Guanyin Pavilion conforms most closely of the four to the type of building known as diantang, eminent hall, discussed further in chapter 9. The structural type is also represented by the Tang-period East Hall of Foguang Monastery (see figure 6.10). The Liao Daxiongbao halls, owing to the greater height of interior columns compared to those on the exterior, forms of bracket sets, use of connective beams, and the module by which their parts are generated, possess features that also ally them with less eminent construction according to the Chinese standards. The building type can perhaps be called hybrid, a combination of components of China’s most important buildings and those of lesser importance. Although only Guanyin Pavilion has a majority of diantang elements, both the pavilion and Timber Pagoda, whose modular basis for building parts is less than that of a diantang, challenge the Chinese building system through construction of mezzanine levels and resulting interior
8.5. Interior of Guanyin Pavilion, Dule Monastery, Ji county, Hebei, 984
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8.7. Air view of Daxiongbao Hall, Huayan Monastery, 53.75 by 29 meters, Datong, Shanxi, ca. 1140
One assumes that Liao attempted other wooden pagodas and massive halls to glorify the gods of Buddhism, but the other surviving Liao buildings are much humbler: the recently restored Main Hall of Kaishan Monastery in Xincheng, Hebei, dated 1033;10 the sutra repository of Huayan Monastery, dated 1038; and the Main Hall and a pavilion for the bodhisattva Puxian (Samantabhadra) at Shanhua Monastery. The Main Hall and the pavilion were both first built in the eleventh century, and the latter was rebuilt in 1154. Another five buildings—a Buddha hall at Guangji Monastery in Baodi, Hebei, dated 1025; one at Huayansi dated 1038; and three from the early twelfth century at Kaiyuan Monastery in Yi county, Hebei—were destroyed in wars of the 1930s and 1940s. Interestingly, the Shanmen (front gate) of Dule Monastery has features that correspond to diantang construction. One more feature of Liao architecture is exhibited in both extant and destroyed buildings: the intricate manipulation of wood. Known in Chinese as xiaomuzuo, small-scale wood carpentry, it manifests itself in ceilings, cabinetry, and other miniature wooden design features. The ceiling of Guanyin Pavilion is an example (see figure 8.5). So are the sutra cabinets recessed onto the walls of the sutra repository at Huayan Monastery and the ceilings of all three of the now lost halls of Kaiyuan Monastery (figure 8.10). The details of the sutra cabinets include a feature known as tiangong louge (heavenly palace tower-pavilions), the word tiangong also used to refer to a repository in the chatra of a pagoda such as the one at Songyue Monastery mentioned in chapter 5.
8.8. Fan-shaped bracket sets, front facade, Sansheng Hall, Shanhua Monastery, Datong, Shanxi, ca. 1128
construction. Even the three-level frame of Guanyin Pavilion is unprecedented in existing previous Chinese architecture. If a five-story, nine-level pagoda was attempted before 1056, there is no record of it. The sheer size of the Daxiongbao halls exhibits a similar kind of grandeur that characterizes Liao construction. That this magnificence was accomplished without compliance with the highest Chinese standards also is a Liao trademark.
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8.9. Line drawing of Timber Pagoda, Ying county, Shanxi, 67.31 meters, 1056
8.10. Interior of Sutra Library, Huayan Monastery, 1038
Liao Pagodas
structure plus the chatra at the top, was built in 1047 by the same empress dowager who had been born in Ying county, the location of the Timber Pagoda (see figure 8.1). By 1047 her husband, the emperor Shengzong (r. 982–1031), was already buried in the hills about 14 kilometers to the northwest. Xingzong also would be interred at the site, as would his successor Daozong. The funerary significance of the pagoda is confirmed by a tiangong in the chatra, as well as a digong. The Great Pagoda (Data) today in Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia, once the site of the Liao central capital, soars more than 73 meters (figure 8.12). The Great Pagoda was built between 1007 and 1098 and restored in the Jin dynasty and under Manchu rule during the final Chinese dynasty, Qing, when swastikas, symbols of Buddhism’s Indo-Aryan origins, were added along the perimeter of the base. The imagery on the shaft is shared with that of many octagonal Liao pagodas of miyan-style: the four Buddhas of the world quarters and the four Esoteric Buddhas, each beneath a canopy, are at the center of one face, flanked by bodhisattvas, with flying divinities known as apsaras and often with pagodas, usually of miyan style, symmetrically placed with respect to the main deity.
The Liao building system in wood is echoed in masonry pagodas, both in massive size and in replication of details of timber framing. Liao pagodas have two primary ground plans: squarish and octagonal. The four-sided plan is best represented by Chaoyang North and South Pagodas and the pagoda at Yunjie Monastery on Mount Fenghuang in Chaoyang county (figure 8.11). Late-twentieth-century excavation of the reliquary crypt of Chaoyang North Pagoda confirmed its date to be 1043–1044.11 All three Chaoyang pagodas are miyan-style, the form of Songyue Monastery Pagoda and Yongtai Monastery Pagoda with a tall shaft and densely placed eaves above it (see figures 5.31, 6.14). All other extant Liao pagodas of miyan style are octagonal. Important examples of octagonal miyan pagodas are in the Liao capital Shangjing, today in Balinzuoqi, Inner Mongolia; in Jinzhou, Fuxin, and Kelaqinzuoqi in Liaoning; and at Jueshan Monastery in Lingqui, Shanxi. The majority of louge-style Liao pagodas are eight-sided. The famous Timber Pagoda is the only wooden example. The 71.43meter White Pagoda in Qingzhou, Balinyouqi, a 64-meter
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8.11. North Pagoda, 38.7 meters, Chaoyang, Liaoning, 1043–1044
8.12. Great Pagoda (Data), 73.12 meters, Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia, eleventh century with later repairs
These images or close variants of them are also on the four faces of the North Pagoda in Chaoyang, on the pagoda of Tianning Monastery in Beijing, and on the lower two stories of Wanbu Huayanjing Pagoda in Huhehaote, both also Liao buildings. Replicas of bracket sets of five or more fundamental components and fan-shaped brackets observed in Datong are found in relief on the exterior surfaces. Liao pagodas also come in a third variety, huata (flowery pagoda). Tuoli Pagoda at Fangshan, just south of Beijing, is the most famous Liao example.
burials with Chinese paintings on their walls were made in 923.12 Tomb 1 is believed to belong to a Khitan prince, a member of the Yelü clan, the name taken by the household of Abaoji. Representations of Chinese and Khitan officials and perhaps the prince himself are painted on the walls. Later in the tenth century and in the eleventh, Chinese and Khitan officials are depicted on the walls of the eastern of the above-mentioned tombs of Liao emperors in Qingzhou.13 The most extraordinary painting on a Baoshan tomb shows the Queen Mother of the West descending from the heavens to greet the soul of Western Han emperor Wudi. Belonging to a female, Baoshan tomb 2 contains murals of the gifting of brocade, recitation of a Buddhist sutra by Tang consort Yang Guifei (mentioned in chapter 6 as the woman who brought about the temporary fall of the Tang dynasty), and an inscription that makes reference to a palindrome. The single-chamber tomb also contains a shishi, in this case a stone container for the corpse that was placed on a platform known as a funerary bed. The Liao tomb in Yemaotai, Faku county, Liaoning, discussed below, also contains a stone sarcophagus. Yet another remarkable feature of the Baoshan murals is
Liao Tombs Hundreds of Liao tombs have been opened and hundreds more await excavation. The best known are those with murals or extraordinary artifacts. In addition to the above-mentioned royal tombs in Qingzhou (Qing prefecture), three tombs and two cemeteries represent Liao funerary architecture. The oldest are two tombs in Baoshan, Chifeng county, Inner Mongolia. Constructed during Abaoji’s reign, they offer clear evidence that in this part of Mongolia, Chinese-style
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8.13. Dome of tomb of Zhang Shiqing, Xiabali cemetery, Xuanhua, Hebei, 1116
banana and bamboo plants, neither of which grow anywhere near Chifeng county. The earliest Liao spirit path also belongs to a member of the Yelü clan. Yelü Cong was buried beneath a mound approached by a spirit path in Chifeng county in 979.14 The male and female corpses in another well-known Liao tomb also lie on a funerary bed, but without further enclosure, in a domed, circular tomb chamber. The princess of the state of Chen and her husband Xiao Shaoju, she the daughter of an emperor and he the brother of an empress, were buried in 1018 in silver-wire bodysuits, their faces covered with gilded masks, their heads and feet with gilded or silver crowns and boots. These signature Khitan burial garments were surrounded by a host of objects in amber, jade, and other stones and metals of high value.15 Eight people believed to be relatives of Xiao Shaoju, Xiao the consort clan that provided wives for many Yelü royalty, are probably buried in a cemetery in Kulunqi, in eastern Inner Mongolia. Like all the Liao tombs discussed in this chapter, the eight in Kulunqi have a main chamber approached by a long ramp from ground level. Only one has a second room, but some have ear chambers. Imitation wooden architecture is painted on the walls in Kulunqi and the other Liao burials
discussed thus far. Kulunqi tomb 1 has fan-shaped bracket sets of the kind used in Buddhist halls in Datong as well as two sets of roof rafters, the upper four-sided in section and the lower circular, and imitation ceramic-tile roof eaves.16 Members of the Yelü and Xiao clans buried in Gushan, Fuxin county, Liaoning, are in tombs with similar plans and murals.17 As in the Qingzhou tombs and at Baoshan, murals include depictions of Khitan and Chinese officials and servants. Among the approximately twenty tombs uncovered in the cemetery at Xiabali in Xuanhua, Hebei province, all but one have one main chamber. Like other Liao tombs, the main chamber may be quadrilateral, hexagonal, circular, or octagonal.18 Most of the tombs in this cemetery belong to members of the Zhang family, and at least one belongs to a man surnamed Han, all Chinese living under Liao rule. Inscriptions in the tombs provide information about the occupants. Zhang Shiqing, for instance, is described as a devout Buddhist who read the Lotus Sutra “more than 100,000 times,” donated food to the government during the famine of 1085–1088, and donated funds for construction of Buddhist and Daoist monasteries. The dome above the back chamber of Zhang Shiqing’s tomb is another feature that is considered a signature of Liao architecture, another example of how Liao takes the Chinese
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Sarcophagus Architecture A different kind of container for a corpse was uncovered at Yemaotai tomb 7 in Faku county, Liaoning.21 A wooden sarcophagus stood in the back of a single chamber tomb with ear chambers and a long approach ramp. A stone sarcophagus that contained the bones of an elderly woman whose body was covered with silk embroidered with gold thread was inside it. She wore a belt from which were suspended precious objects, held a crystal ball, and had a silver plug in her nose, and more than ten pieces of silk garments were in the coffin. This kind of belt is part of the burial garb of men and women of the Koguryŏ and Parhae kingdoms; its use here allies her with a Northeast Asian practice. The other objects are standard elements of a Chinese burial. Two paintings were suspended on the inside walls of the outer (wooden) sarcophagus. Both are now among the few tenth- to eleventh-century Chinese paintings with confirmed dates, because the sarcophagus had not been opened until twentieth-century excavation. A table with more than ten vessels for offerings, some of them containing food, also was inside. The belt is noteworthy, for it is evidence that for this woman for whom both architecture and tomb accoutrements were so clearly Chinese, a nonChinese, regional practice was maintained. The 2.15-by-1.25-meter wooden structure is three bays across the front, two in depth, and 88 centimeters high (figure 8.14). It is supported by ten exterior pillars. The wide, central front bay has a double door, and there are slat windows in the side bays. It is approached by two steps and enclosed by a balustrade with inlaid decoration. The ten posts of the balustrade are in front of the pillars. The roof eaves project at 45-degree angles, significantly sharper than the projection on an actual building, which is rarely more than 28 degrees. Animal heads are attached to either end of the main ridge. Bamboo nails were used in constructing the roof. Whereas the bamboo and southern plants painted on the walls of other Liao tombs are evidence of an awareness of South China, the nails confirm not only that pieces from the South were used by the Liao but that in this timber-frame structure at least, support was not exclusively by wood joinery. Among the many sarcophaguses in the shapes of architecture known since the Han dynasty, the one from Yemaotai and Master Shi’s sarcophagus from Xi’an (see figure 5.38) bear the greatest number of specific building components that replicate actual pieces. In fact, study alongside the twelfth-century architectural manual Yingzao fashi, a
8.14. Outer coffin, tomb 7, Yemaotai, Faku county, Liaoning, 3.01 by 2.2 meters at the base, 2.29 meters high, Liao period
building system to new heights. At the center of the dome was a bronze mirror, a standard feature of tombs of the period in North China under Song rule as well, perhaps to be interpreted as an interface between the world of the tomb and outside it. A lotus with two layers of nine petals each is painted around it. Moving outward, one finds Ursa Major, the sun with a blackbird, and moon. Next comes a concentric ring with the twenty-eight lunar lodges, the twenty-eight configurations of heavenly bodies through which the Chinese grouped the stars. Last are the twelve signs of the Western zodiac (figure 8.13). Star groups are found on ceilings in Chinese tombs since the Han dynasty, but the Western zodiac is unprecedented. Yet it is standard at the Xuanhua cemetery. Tombs 1 (Zhang Shiqing’s), 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 10 have domes with concentric rings of decoration that may include the lunar lodges, floral motifs, other heavenly bodies, and/or figures associated with the zodiac. Tombs 2 and 5 have representations of the twelve figures of the Chinese zodiac, and tomb 2 has both the Western and Chinese zodiacs among its rings. It is possible that the immediate source of the Western zodiac signs was the Star (Big Dipper) Mandala, for examples contemporary to the Liao period survive in Japan in the collection of the monastery Hōryūji and in the Hermitage among Buddhist paintings excavated at Khara-khoto.19 A burial practice in the Xiabali cemetery also is associated exclusively with the Liao period. As devout Buddhists, Zhang Shiqing and other members of his family were cremated. His ashes were placed in a wooden mannequin. Examples of wooden mannequins for cremated remains have been excavated in Beijing and across Inner Mongolia during the Liao period, in the same territory where metal-wire suits of the kind worn by the Princess of Chenguo and her husband were found.20 In two tombs in the Xuanhua cemetery, the mannequins were placed on a coffin bed inside a wooden container. In Xuanhua tomb 7, the wooden box was inscribed with Buddhist sutras in Sanskrit.
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8.15. East Pagoda, Baisikou, Hongguang, Helan mountains, Ningxia, Western Xia
main subject of the next chapter, confirms that the Yemaotai coffin conforms to the description for a jiuji xiaozhang (small container with nine roof spines [a hip-gable roof]).22 At least a dozen other Liao tombs contained wooden sarcophaguses shaped like buildings. The majority are today in museums in Liaoning and Inner Mongolia. A sarcophagus with wooden, plank walls and a hip-gable roof with parallel roof rafters was uncovered in tomb 3 in Daiqintala, Keyouzhongqi, Inner Mongolia. Supported by four pillars across the front and back and two additional ones at each side, it has bracket sets both above and between the pillars. A similar sarcophagus, with no intercolumnar brackets but with large and small, scalloped wooden decoration across the eave ends on all four sides, is in the museum in Balinyouqi. Another similar sarcophagus was found in 1988 in Beipiao, Liaoning. One with a hip-gable roof
and no bracket sets was uncovered in a tomb in Wengniuteqi. The pillar arrangements and roof types of these three sarcophaguses are those of the Liao halls at Geyuan Monastery and the three destroyed halls from Kaiyuan Monastery, less eminent halls of the type known as tingtang, discussed more in chapter 9. These three sarcophaguses also have platform floors on which coffin beds were placed. A stone sarcophagus was uncovered in a tomb in Zhangkang village, Jinzhou, Liaoning.23
Octagonal Construction: Liao and Western Xia Buildings remain across the expanse of the Western Xia empire, in Ningxia, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia.24 Owing to widespread damage in Ningxia during warfare and political turmoil at the end of the Qing dynasty and in the twentieth
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Ningxia also possesses a unique manifestation of pagoda architecture. The One Hundred Eight Pagodas in Qingtongxia on the east bank of the Yellow River are a composite pagoda (figure 8.16). The twelve levels begin with nineteen pagodas at the bottom and decrease upward by two pagodas at most levels until the single, uppermost structure. Each pagoda has an octagonal base and is of the form seen at Hongfu Monastery, the upside-down bowl style that characterizes Buddhist pagoda construction in Tibet, discussed in chapter 16. During repairs in 1987, pages of sutras and statues were found. The monument that offers the most points for comparison is the mound of pagodas in Khara-khoto (figure 8.17), a Western Xia walled city in Ejina(qi) (Banner) in western Inner Mongolia. Enclosed by a heavily fortified wall of 421 meters east to west by 374 meters north to south, Khara-khoto was first excavated by European teams in the first, second, and third decades of the twentieth century, and in the 1980s by Chinese teams. Nearly ten thousand objects have been uncovered, many of them painted or printed, and many of those Buddhist.25 Whereas design features of Buddhist architecture from Tibet, which bordered Western Xia to the southwest, are apparent in pagodas, imperial funerary architecture demonstrates a blending of contemporary China (the Song dynasty) and elements of Western Xia’s own design. The Western Xia royal cemetery occupies an area of 50 square kilometers in the Helan mountains north of Yinchuan. The dynastic founder, who comes to be known as Li Yuanhao, built additional mounds daily, up to a total number of 360, to elude future grave robbers, and as an added precaution forced all workers to commit suicide after the tombs of his grandfather, father, and himself were built. Today there are 9 tombs of rulers, more than 270 auxiliary tombs, walled enclosures, and ancestral temples.26 Three of the royal tombs have been excavated.
8.16. One Hundred Eight Pagodas, Qingtongxia, Ningxia, Western Xia 8.17. Khara-khoto (Ejinaqi), Inner Mongolia, Western Xia
century, fewer than ten Western Xia pagodas survive. The pair of fourteen- and thirteen-story, miyan-style pagodas at Baisikou, Hongguang, in the Helan mountains in northern Ningxia, 41 and 39 meters high, respectively, although almost entirely rebuilt in 1988, exemplify the Western Xia pagoda as it is known from survivals (figure 8.15). The 28.29-meter octagonal pagoda at Hongfu Monastery, also in Helan county, tapers from base to roof in Tibetan style, with louge and miyan sections. It, too, was rebuilt in 1988. The 64.5-meter, octagonal pagoda of Chengtian Monastery, in a park in downtown Yinchuan, was built in 1050 and has been repaired many times since. In Gansu, Western Xia pagodas remain at Huguo Monastery in Wuwei and at Wofu (Reclining Buddha) Monastery in Zhangye.
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8.18. Mound, Western Xia tomb, Yinchuan, Ningxia
Above ground the nine imperial Western Xia tombs begin with que. Behind them are pavilions that contain stele. There follow spirit paths with statues of men and beasts. Next is a gateway, the front central one of an inner walled complex with a gate at the center of each of its four walls and corner towers. Behind the gate, and inside the wall, is an offering hall. The passage to the underground tomb begins there. At the three excavated tombs, the passageway and burial were north and slightly west of the axis defined by the que, pavilions, spirit path, front gate, and offering hall. There is no record why the axis deviated, but we should note that west and north are the directions associated with autumn and winter (decay and death) in the Chinese worldview since the Han dynasty, and that it is possible the orientation was in recognition of these associations, for directly behind the underground burial chamber is an aboveground octagonal hall, earthen and supported by a timber frame. The approach to the burial and this structure are those of a Chinese tomb complex (figure 8.18). We have observed the que, stele pavilions, spirit path, double enclosing walls, and offering halls in Tang imperial tombs (see figure 6.18). We shall see them again in the eleventh- and early-twelfth-century tombs of Northern Song rulers discussed in chapter 10. Underground, too, the tombs closely resemble those of Song.27 The mark of distinction of the Western Xia tomb is the octagonal structure. The use of octagonal architecture has a long history in China and to the west. We have seen octagonal ground plans in a Tang pagoda, in Liao pagodas and tombs, and in Western Xia pagodas and funerary architecture (see figures i.3, 6.15, 8.1, 8.9, 8.12, 8.15, 8.18). We have noted eight-sided construction in the Mingtang in Tang Luoyang and at a building in Luoyang of unexplained purpose, and in contemporary architecture of Nara-period Japan. We shall observe it in the ground plans
of Song pagodas. The number eight has associations for civilizations on every continent. If a general point can be made, it is that often an eight-sided building or dome is associated with death or commemoration, the pagoda, of course, a symbol of Buddhist death.28 Liao builders, and Jin who reuse their monuments, place eight deities on the exterior faces of a pagoda and as statues in composite sculptural mandalas. Only Western Xia builders raise octagonal structures inside imperial funerary precincts. On two sides of North Asia, Liao and Western Xia creatively adapted the Chinese architectural system for their own self-identities. For both empires, architecture is massive, bold, powerful, decisive, and sometimes ingenious. Neither Liao nor Western Xia came up with eight-sided buildings, timber-framed halls, or tombs with spirit paths and diagonal ramps leading to underground burial chambers. Borrowing from China, the grasslands empire of Liao gets credit for the tallest wooden and brick buildings, the wooden one with the most different kinds of bracket sets, and the largest buildings constructed in East Asia up to that time. Although few today can identify themselves as Khitan or Tangut, the names are immortalized in architecture.
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CHAPTER 9
The Chinese Building Standards
The word architect has not been used yet in this book, and it is not appropriately used regarding China until the twentieth century. For most of Chinese imperial history, the men named in association with major construction projects such as Anji Bridge and the Grand Canal were officials, often members of the Directorate of Construction or its equivalent, but in all cases men with official titles who, even if they had knowledge or training in architecture, also passed the appropriate levels of scholarship and statecraft to merit salaries at certain ranks.1 They were first and foremost servants of the state, and the extent of their direct supervision of or involvement in construction or preconstruction design is unclear. It is believed that through the nineteenth century the assemblage of buildings in China was accomplished by carpenters, stonemasons, brick-makers, metalworkers, painters, and other who followed the instructions of supervisors, some of whom probably were literate and all of whom knew the basic rules and regulations of the building industry. Those rules and regulations were articulated in Yingzao fashi. “Building Standards” is a frequent translation of this title of China’s most famous architectural treatise of the Song court. It is one of only two architectural manuals focused on the court tradition that survive in full from premodern China. The other is from the eighteenth century and discussed in chapter 13. Yingzao fashi explains the major and minor details of Song imperial construction. Its further significance is that, when earlier and later buildings are compared with its stipulations, it can be confirmed that they employed the same standards. Yingzao fashi is the basis for understanding the Chinese building system of the ninth through fourteenth centuries. At the same time, no building has a complete one-to-one correspondence with prescriptions in the Song text. Although lost buildings may have had closer correspondences to the prescribed measurements, one must keep in mind that wooden pieces are cut and joined by hand, and the practicalities of handcrafted construction may have resulted in discrepancies. In addition to the lack of recognized architects, two other aspects of the Chinese building tradition have been emphasized in previous chapters. Chinese buildings share general features such as elevation on platforms, support by pillars, bracket sets, and ceramic-tile roofs, even structures made of brick that imitate wooden halls, and Chinese buildings are composed of standardized parts. Buildings from Han mingqi to Daxiongbao halls of the Liao dynasty confirm that Chinese
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architecture is a system of archetypes, with large, symmetrically conceived structures such as East Hall of Foguangsi, Guanyin Pavilion of Dule Monastery, and the Hall of Great Harmony in the Forbidden City representing the most splendid among them. Chinese architecture, in other words, is archetypical but not chronotypic, that is, there are standard models, and these ideal structures exhibit remarkably little change over time. Second, among the archetypes are halls that have been called eminent, such as these three (see figures i.1, 6.10, 8.4), and halls that have been described as humble, such as the Main Hall of Nanchan Monastery and Great Buddha Hall of Dayunyuan (see figures 6.7, 7.5). The elements of the archetype, the division of Chinese buildings into eminent and less eminent forms, and the modular basis underlying this division are explained in Yingzao fashi. The court official Li Jie, who is credited in the preface for being in charge of the project, appears to have been an exceptional official in his bureau because of his strong interest in construction. Typical of a Song literatus, he wrote about geography, famous men, paleography, musical instruments, horses, and board games; studied the classics and philology; and was a skilled painter and calligrapher. Records kept at the Chinese court were the basis for the compilation, but remarkably, 3,272 of the 3,555 entries in Yingzao fashi were gathered from oral accounts of craftsmen.2 And indeed, in addition to the technical vocabulary of the official building tradition and references in the text to classical literature, Yingzao fashi also includes definitions and discussion of craftsmen’s jargon. It is unknown if a director of construction sought knowledge from craftsmen. As for the treatise, if there was a time when one might have expected it, it was the Song dynasty, an age of encyclopedic compilations. Four compendia often known as the “Great Books of Song” had been issued early in the dynasty: Taiping guangji (Compendium of the Taiping era) in 976, Taiping yulan (Read by the emperor in the Taiping era) in 982, Wenyuan yinghua (Finest flowers from the world of letters) in 986, and Cefu yuangui (Outstanding models from the storehouse of literature) in 1013. Wujing zongyao (Essentials of the military classics), an illustrated collection of important military techniques, had been compiled in 1044, and Xuanhe huapu (Catalogue of paintings of the Xuanhe era), the record of the Huizong emperor’s painting collection, was compiled in 1120. Yingzao fashi was first completed in 1091. In 1097 Li Jie, still only an assistant in the Directorate of Construction,
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was asked to revise it. Presented to the court in 1100 and printed for dissemination in 1103, the manuscript was lost when the Song capital Bianliang (today Kaifeng) was pillaged in the fall of the dynasty to Jin armies in 1126. When the Song dynasty regrouped in the South, the first emperor ruling from Hangzhou offered rewards for old books and manuscripts that had been lost when fleeing the capital in the North. Yingzao fashi was one of the texts that came to the court at this time. In 1145 it was reissued. Only a few pages from the 1103 version survive. Evidence that Yingzao fashi was followed in construction begins with measuring buildings and comparing the measurements and proportional relationships between building parts with stipulations in the text. In discussion of architecture of Song, Jin, and Yuan that follows, and with references to Tang and Liao buildings, we will confirm how closely some of them conform to prescriptions in the text. Yet there is no record of any building, neither stele nor a textual account, that says Yingzao fashi was used to guide its construction. Rather, it is likely that the information in this manual was known at the court and transmitted beyond there to overseers or master craftsmen, and from them to apprentices, through the generations, and in the transmission, craftsmen’s jargon, such as camel’s-hump-shaped brace, a building part name used in previous chapters, came into use. Yingzao fashi was “rediscovered” in 1919 when Zhu Qiqian, a former official of the Qing dynasty who was involved in the restoration of the Forbidden City, went south and was shown a manuscript copy. Zhu had it photolithographed. It was reprinted the following year. One of the most lavish editions was made in 1925 (figure 9.1). It includes annotations to the illustrated sections (figures 9.2, 9.3). Further research showed that there was more than one edition from the period between Song and the twentieth century and that there were discrepancies among them. Zhu organized a research group on Yingzao fashi, the study of which became a major pursuit of the Society for Research on Chinese Architecture, largely sponsored by Zhu. Research on Yingzao fashi is ongoing. All writing about Chinese buildings of the “middle period,” the name often used by Sinologists to refer to the Tang through Yuan dynasties, seeks correspondences between Yingzao fashi and structures of that period. Yingzao fashi consists of an introduction by Li Jie and thirty-four juan, or chapters. The first two chapters list forty-nine
9.1. Decorative patterns for ceilings or inlay, Li Jie, Yingzao fashi, 1925 edition, juan 30/18b–19a 9.2. Diagram of diantang with 8-puzuo bracket sets of double-cao construction, with explanatory notes of 1925 edition in red, Li Jie, Yingzao fashi, juan 31/3a–b 9.3. Diagram of six formations of bracket sets from 4-puzuo to 8-puzuo, Li Jie, Yingzao fashi, juan 30/6a–b
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9.4. Structural framework of Guanyin Pavilion, a diange structure
Roof Frame
Upper Level Bracket Sets
Inner Cao
Upper Level Pillar Layer
Outer Cao Mezzanine Level Bracket Sets
Mezzanine Level Pillar Layer
Lower Level Bracket Sets
Inner Cao Base Level Pillar Layer
Outer Cao
Fundamentals of the Chinese Timber Frame
terms used in Chinese construction with quotes about them from literary sources as early as the Zhou dynasty. This textual basis confirms the erudite nature of the treatise, and that its intended audience was China’s scholar class. Chapters 3–16 are about specific architectural components. Chapters 17–25 address labor units, or how much work a skilled artisan should accomplish in a day, with different amounts calculated according to seasons or other conditions that might affect productivity. Next are three chapters on material for each type of work that include the proportions of ingredients for mortar, plaster, pigments, and glazes. The final six chapters are illustrations, including plans, elevations, and diagrams of structures and building parts.
Yingzao fashi provides regulations for buildings of many materials, but the focus is wooden architecture. A fundamental principle of the Chinese timber frame expounded in the work is that Chinese architecture is a ranked system. The rank, or status, of a building is more evident than its date. In other words, eminent structures of two different dynasties will have more shared features than eminent and humble buildings of the same dynasty. Yingzao fashi distinguishes four types of construction. Diantang is a palatial-style hall; East Hall of Foguangsi (see figure 6.10) and the structure illustrated in figure 9.2 are examples. When diantang have more than
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9.5. Tingtang structure with three configurations of longitudinal beam framework
one level, they are known as diange. Pillars always provide the major support. Sometimes side walls and the back wall offer support, but the front and back of a building always rely on the pillars. In diange such as Guanyin Pavilion of Dule Monastery or the Timber Pagoda in Ying county, multiple levels of columns and bracketing are employed, but there is only one roof frame (see figures 8.4, 8.9, 9.4). Tingtang are halls of lower rank than diantang. Tingtang architecture is conceived in vertical frameworks positioned in sequence. The frameworks are joined by purlins, rafters, and other braces (figure 9.5). Yuwu, the third type, is an ordinary building, or ordinary residence, usually without bracket sets; and doujian tingxie is a pointed-roofed pavilion. The most common types among extant architecture of the ninth through fourteenth centuries are diantang and tingtang. Three other terms are often used to describe a timber-frame structure. Tailiang, for which a descriptive translation is column-beam-and-strut, is the type most often used in palatial and religious architecture. In a tailiang structure, vertical pillars interlock with horizontal beams, and smaller wooden pieces, or struts, are placed vertically or occasionally diagonally for added support (figure 9.6). The chuandou structure consists of columns and tie-beams, the beams in both the transversal and longitudinal directions. It is never used in diantang construction and often is found in residential architecture (figures 9.7, 9.8). Miliang pingding, column-and-beam, flat roof, is the third
(figure 9.9). This structural type is the rarest. It is found only in vernacular architecture. Chapters 4 and 5 of Yingzao fashi deal with damuzuo, largescale timber framing. This term is used in contrast to smallscale carpentry, xiaomuzuo, the categorization for ceiling design, cabinetry, and altars discussed in chapters 6–11 of the treatise. We used the word xiaomuzuo in chapter 8 to characterize the woodwork of cabinets in the Sutra Library of Huayan Monastery (see figure 8.10). Principles for the placement of pillars also are specified in Yingzao fashi. For example, the majority of Chinese structures have an even number of columns across the front, meaning there are an odd number of intervals, or bays (jian), between them. Bay is a two-dimensional unit that refers to the space between two columns and the area behind it up to the next set of columns. The distance between the columns that define the central bay is the widest across the front of a building. This interval is known as mingjian. The pillars on either side of the mingjian are positioned symmetrically, and the intervals between them are smaller than those of the mingjian. The sizes of bays decrease symmetrically and proportionately from mingjian outward, so that the bays that flank mingjian are the second longest in a structure, those that flank the flanking bays (in halls large enough for them to exist) are the third longest, and the end bays always are the shortest. The proportional relationships between bays and the heights of pillars are provided
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9.6. Tailiang (column-beam-and-strut) framework
1. Architrave 2. Logitudinal Tie-beam 3. Rafter 4. Purlin 5. Strut 6. Transversal Tie-beam 7. Beam 8. Column 9. Bay
9.7. Chuandou (column-and-tie-beam) framework
Longitudinal Tie-beam
Transversal Tie-beam
Column
in modular ratios articulated in Yingzao fashi. “Rise” (shengqi), mentioned in chapters 6 and 7, whereby the columns that flank mingjian are the shortest across the front facade and those at the corners are the tallest, also is stipulated in Yingzao fashi. The basic module for a Song building is the cross-section of the joist or bracket-arm. The module is known as cai, a wooden piece with a height to width ratio of 3:2. According to Yingzao fashi, “concerning all rules in wooden construction, cai is the ultimate in importance.” One-fifteenth of the height of the cai is a modular subunit of length called fen. The height
of the cai measures 15 fen and the width measures 10 fen. The subsidiary unit of cai known as zhi is also a module of timber whose rectangular cross-section is of standardized height and width. A zhi is 6 fen tall. The total height of cai plus zhi thus measures 21 fen, and this two-piece module is known as zucai, “full standard unit.” The Song cai-fen system promulgated in Yingzao fashi has eight different grades (figure 9.10). The six highest grades are for large- and medium-scale architecture. The large measurements of a building such as width across the front, depth, and column height, and small measurements such
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as the cross-sections of architectural members like bracket set components, beams, and joists, are controlled by the selected cai and fen, but they are always expressed in the modular unit fen. Yingzao fashi does not specify absolute measurements, only the cai, fen, and proportional relationships. In other words, the number of fen for each component is fixed, but the actual size of the fen varies according to the selected grade. The eight grades are linked to the eminence of a building. The first to third grades are used in large-scale architecture, the fourth to sixth grades in middle-scale architecture, and the seventh and eighth grades for small, pavilion-like buildings. The fen of the eight grades measure between 0.6 and 0.3 cun, cun a unit of measure so small it can be thought of as corresponding to an inch in the British system. The differences between proportional widths of sequential grades 1 to 3 and 6 to 8 is 0.05 cun. Like cai and fen, the cun and other units of length in the system prescribed in Yingzao fashi are not specific measurements. Rather they are units that relate proportionally to other units but whose actual lengths may change. Cun also has a proportional relationship to a longer measurement. It is one-tenth of a zhang. In the British system one might think of the relationship as that between inch and foot. Broader proportional relationships also are specified in Yingzao fashi. For example, the distance between bracket sets across the front facade of a building is set at 125 fen, but it may be reduced or enlarged by 25 fen and in rare cases more. In diantang of the Song dynasty, the standard bay width is set at 250 fen, twice the distance between bracket sets, but may increase to 375 fen (three times that distance) depending on the placement of bracketing. The building depth is calculated on the basis of the horizontally projected rafter length. The system seems to have been in place long before the twelfth century. The building-shaped sarcophagus of the official Shedi Huiluo, who died in 562, and his wife, now in the Shanxi Provincial Museum, mentioned in chapter 5, has bracket pieces with a height to width ratio of 15:9.5. Considering the damage caused by water in the course of nearly sixteen centuries, the height to width ratio of the cai can be regarded as 15:10. The dimensions of the cai in three of the Tang buildings, as mentioned in chapter 6, are 25 by 16.66 centimeters for the Main Hall of Nanchan Monastery, 30 by 20.5 centimeters for East Hall of Foguang Monastery, and 18 by 12 centimeters for the Main Hall of Tiantai Hermitage. Again the height to width ratio of the cai of all three buildings is close to 15:10,
1. Column 2. Purlin 3. Rafter 4. Tie-beam
9.8. Chuandou structure, Chengdu region, Sichuan 9.9. Miliang pingding (column-and-beam, flat roof) framework
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9.10. Eight grades of timber units based on cai and zhi according to Yingzao fashi
even though the grade of timber pieces used in Foguangsi East Hall renders it a diantang and the other two buildings are humbler tingtang (see figures 6.7–6.10). Further, the heights of the columns on either side of the mingjian of East Hall are 250 fen, and the width of the central bay is 252 fen. The measurements are close enough to support the statement in Yingzao fashi that “the [height of] exterior pillars do[es] not exceed the width of the bay.” Also at East Hall, the distance between the tops of the exterior columns across the front of the building is the same as the distance from the column top to the middle roof purlin. The same proportions are observed at the Main Hall of Nanchan Monastery, but the actual measurements are smaller. Equivalent proportional relationships are found in the front gate and Guanyin Pavilion at Dule Monastery (see figure 8.4); the mid-eleventh-century Main Hall of the Liao monastery Shanhuasi in Datong; and the Song halls at Baoguo Monastery in Ningbo, Zhejiang, built 1013 (see figure 10.8), and Chuzu Hermitage of Shaolin Monastery in Dengfeng, Henan, built 1125 (see figure 10.12), both discussed in the next chapter. Measurement of building pieces indicates that the depth to width ratio of beams in the Song period is smaller than in the Tang, but in the case of purlins, the diameter to span ratio is
larger than in the Tang period. A smaller depth to width ratio indicates a technological advance between Tang and Song such that less material could be used. The modular system also allowed for prefabrication of individual components, on-site assemblage, and simple replacement of single pieces. The main construction tools were zhanggan (1-zhang-long rods). The values of cai and fen were marked as modular units on the long wooden measuring sticks, and some fen figures of prefabricated components were marked or carved on the rods as well. Craftsmen used mnemonic devices such as rhymes to memorize the relevant fen figure for each component. When a craftsman received instructions, in addition to the module (cai and/or fen), he usually received two other directives, such as seven-bays-by-four or five-bays-by-three and four rafters or five rafters. The first directive referred to the number of jian between pillars across the front and on the side, respectively, so that the exterior of a seven-by-four-bay building, such as East Hall of Foguang Monastery, would have twenty-four exterior pillars, eight across the front, eight across the back, and five on each side; the corner pillars double-count in this calculation (see figure 6.10). The rafter number is often more difficult to visualize. Rafters are placed between the purlins; in other words, a four-rafter building has five purlins between
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9.11. Eighteen frameworks for large-scale tingtang in Yingzao fashi
which there are four rafter-spans (see figure i.6). Asymmetry is frequent, however, so that in a cross-section, a seven-purlin structure may have as few as two and as many as seven pillars, and the installation of a front arcade or porch might yield an additional purlin and rafter that has no counterpart on the back of the building (see figure 9.5). Yingzao fashi stipulates eighteen manipulations of columns, beams, purlins, and rafters in the timber frame for a tingtang structure (figure 9.11). As for the positioning of rafters, they may be parallel, the formation observed most often thus far, in Yungang caves, East Hall of Foguang Monastery, Timber Pagoda, and Daxiongbao Hall of
Fengguo Monastery, or they may be fan-shaped (see figures i.3, 5.19, 6.10, 8.6, 9.12). Yingzao fashi also stipulates four layouts, or floor plans, for diantang or diange. They are prescribed in terms of cao, a character that may be translated “trough” but should be understood as column-row axis or the area defined or enclosed by (two rows of) columns. Yingzao fashi designates and illustrates dancao (single cao), shuangcao (double cao), fenxin doudicao (compartmentalized cao), and jinxiang doudicao (concentric cao) (figure 9.13). The four layouts contain visual markers for columns as well as parallel lines that are grouped in fours and
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9.13. Four cao. Yingzao fashi, juan 31, 2:796–97 1. Dancao (single cao) 2. Shuangcao (double cao) 3. Fenxin doudicao (compartmentalized cao) 4. Jixiang doudicao (concentric cao)
When that second ring or additional rings of columns are added (with the further stipulation that the innermost cao be at least two bays deep), the design becomes jinxiang doudicao (4). In this case, the outer cao is a surrounding corridor of the kind in dancao and shuangcao construction. In the Tang and Song dynasties, concentric column rings are one bay apart, but in the Yuan period, concentric column rings often have enlarged distances in the front and on both sides, so that they are two bays apart. The cao structure is not visible on the exterior of a building.
Bracket Sets and Roofs 9.12. Parallel compared to fan-shaped rafters in Chinese roof
Brackets sets and roofs are exterior features that define structural rank. Bracket sets are often the feature of a Chinese building that an observer finds most intriguing, yet in spite of the apparent complexity, the set consists of only two main parts: dou (block) and gong (arm). The characters combine as dougong, the Qing-period name for a bracket set. Puzuo is the name used in Yingzao fashi. Figure 9.3 shows sectional drawings of six formations of bracket set from eight-puzuo for use in an eminent structure to four-puzuo for a humble building. There are many more variations. As noted in chapter 8, Timber Pagoda of the Liao period has fifty-six different bracket set formations. The forms shown in figure 9.3 serve as basic guides for the principle that a more complicated structure should use more complicated bracketing. Whereas blocks and arms alone may suffice for a four-puzuo set, from five-puzuo upward one usually finds, as is the case in the drawing, at least one diagonal member known as ang, which sometimes is translated as cantilever. The cap-block (ludou) is another feature in all the brackets in this figure. It is the bottom block of a bracket set that, when placed on top of the column, usually is tenoned to it. Systems for calculating the puzuo number vary. Some count tiers of bracket-arms plus two; others count transversal plus perpendicular tiers of arms plus the number of ang.
placed at axial positions between columns for the positioning of architraves and joists. Dancao (1) is a design in which a longitudinal row of interior columns is added at a one-bay distance from the front or rear eaves columns. The architraves and column-top joists atop the architraves form the inner cao line which, in combination with the concentric ring of exterior front-, rear-, and gable-side columns, divides the interior of the hall into a wide and a narrow space. Shuangcao (2) is a design in which a longitudinal row of interior columns is added at a one-bay distance from the columns across the front and the back of the structure. The interior is divided into three compartments, including a wider, inner cao and narrower, outer cao on either side of it. Fenxin doudicao (3) is a design in which a longitudinal row of interior columns is added in the center of the hall. This forms the inner cao line that divides the interior space into front and rear longitudinal parts. As shown in the illustration, a nine-by-four-bay hall of fenxin doudicao form can be further divided into six three-by-two-bay sections. Doudicao refers to a design for halls of at least four bays in depth in which additional longitudinal and crosswise colonnades can be added to create a second column ring concentric to the exterior columns.
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9.14. Song bracket set with components labeled
Each bracket-arm is given a name in Yingzao fashi. An arm that projects perpendicular to the building plane is called huagong, literally flower-arm. An arm parallel to the building plane on the lowest tier is nidaogong (literally plaster-channel arm); an arm joined by blocks to the nidaogong is mangong, extended-arm or long-arm; one at the same level but in front of mangong is guazigong, literally melon-arm, an example of craftsmen’s jargon, and usually called oval-arm in English; and the arms highest in the set are linggong, order-arms or lead bracket-arms, ling now believed to be an erroneous transcription in some version of the text for its homophone, which would translate as “single arm.” Linggong sometimes carry longitudinal joists. A formation with transverse arms is known as jixin, “added heart” or “accounted heart.” One without these arms is called touxin, “stolen heart.” Another feature that may be part of a bracket set is called shuatou, “mocking head,” or a decorative “nose,” a projection at the front end of a bracket set. Like camel’s-hump-shaped brace, jixin, touxin, and shuatou are examples of terminology used in Yingzao fashi that would be easy for a craftsman to remember (figure 9.14). Bracket sets are found outside as well as inside buildings. Both out and in, they occur at corners, on top of pillars, and between pillars on architraves, the architrave (lan’e), a feature that can penetrate pillars or be placed on top of them. In general, bracket sets on the exterior of a building are more complicated than those inside, those at the corners are more complicated than other bracket sets, and those on top of pillars
are more complicated than intercolumnar (between columns) bracket sets. Three features of bracket sets suggest a building’s date. First is the number of sets between columns. The earliest extant use of intercolumnar brackets is at East Hall of Foguang Monastery, dated 857 (see figure 6.10). The single set used there is found in architecture of the tenth century and Liao period. As early as the tenth century, two sets may occur intercolumnarly, especially in the central bay of a structure (see figure 10.12). By the Yuan dynasty, two intercolumnar sets are common across a building facade (see figures 12.1, 12.2, 12.3). By the final Chinese dynasty, Qing, six intercolumnar sets are often used and as many as eight may be found (see figure i.2). Second is the height of the bracket set with respect to the column beneath it. In the Tang dynasty, again using East Hall of Foguang Monastery as the example, the height of the bracket set is about one-half the height of the column beneath it, or one-third the height from the base of the building to the top of the bracket set. By the Qing dynasty, the ratio of the bracket set height to column-plus-bracket-set height is about 1:6. Finally, the enormous bracket sets used in Tang and tenth-century buildings contain all structurally necessary parts. As bracketing becomes smaller, it also becomes more decorative. Beginning in the Yuan dynasty, one finds purely decorative features such as imitation cantilevers, and by the Qing dynasty, “tails” that project from brackets sets in the form of cantilevers are usually decorative. Another feature that occurs in Qing architecture is
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1. Eaves Pillar (Yanzhu) 2. Architrave (Efang) 3. Flat Tie-beam (Pingbanfang) 4. Sparrow Brace (Queti) 5. Cap-block (Zuodou) 6. Transverse Bracket-arm (Qiao) 7. Cantilever (ang) 8. Pointed Projecting Beam-head (Tiaojian Liangdou) 9. Grasshopper Head (Mazhatou)
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10. Central, Longitudinal (Oval) Bracket-arm (Zhengxin Guagong) 11. Central, Longitudinal Bracket-arm (Zhengxin Wangong) 12. Exterior-thrusting, Longitudinal (Oval) Bracket-arm (Waizhuai Guagong) 13. Exterior-thrusting, Longitudinal Bracket-arm (Waizhuai Wangong) 14. Interior-thrusting [Closer to Building Plane], Longitudinal (Oval) Bracket-arm (Lizhuai Guagong)
15. Inner-thrusting, Longitudinal Bracket-arm (Lizhuai Wangong) 16. Exterior-thrusting, Longitudinal, Mutual Bracket-arm (Waizhuai Xianggong) 17. Inner-thrusting, Longitudinal, Mutual Bracket-arm (Lizhuai Xianggong) 18. Central Purlin (Zhengxinheng) 19. Eave Purlin (Tiaoyanheng) 20. Ceiling-upholding Tie-beam (Jingkoufang) 21. Attached Frame (Tiejia) 22. Propped-up Rafter (Zhichuan)
23. Ceiling Board (Tianhuaban) 24. Eave Rafter (Yanchuan) 25. Flying Rafter (Feichuan) 26. Eave Joiner (Lianyan) 27. Eave Tile Opening (Wakou) 28. Uplooking Board (Wangban) 29. Board Cover (Gaitouban) 30. Bracket Cushion Board (Gongdianban) 31. Plinth (Zhuchu)
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the queti, a beak-shaped brace that abuts the architrave to offer additional support (figure 9.15; queti is #4). In contrast to bracket sets, the most eminent roof type does not have the greatest number of parts. Figure 3.27 shows the most common roof types in Chinese architecture, most of which are used since the Han dynasty. The simple hipped roof, known as si’a and as wuding, is reserved for the most important Chinese buildings (1). It appears, for instance, on the Hall of Great Harmony in the Forbidden City and on East Hall of Foguang Monastery (see figures i.1, 6.10). Next in eminence is the roof that combines the hip with gable ends, xieshan(ding) (2, 3) (see figures 6.7, 7.5). The overhanging gabled roof (xuanshan) (4) follows in eminence, followed by the flush-gable roof (yingshan) (5). Last is the pyramidal roof that can be used only above square structures, often pavilions (6). The hipped, hip-gable, and pyramidal roof can have more than one layer of eaves. The Hall of Supreme Harmony is an example of a double-eave, hipped roof. As shown in figure 3.27, chiwei, literally owl’s tails, may embellish the ends of the main ridge, known also as the roof spine, in hipped and hip-gable roofs (1, 2). By the Ming period, the feature is known as chiwen (wen meaning openmouth) to reflect the fact that it sometimes is made as an open-mouthed creature. The other creatures, occasionally men, positioned on the ends of roof ridges, also are features of Ming and Qing architecture. Every building detail discussed here, particularly columns, beams, bracket sets, and ceilings, is often imitated in brick or stone architecture. In those cases, the presentation is known as fangmugou, imitation of the timber frame (or timber skeleton). We have already turned to this kind of evidence to fill in information about pre-Tang buildings. We shall continue to observe it in subterranean tomb architecture and in pagodas.
architecture (see figures i.5, 4.3). In the Song dynasty, jiehua was recognized as a genre of Chinese painting. Song examples offer strong evidence that measuring devices were employed. The painting known as Water Mill in the Shanghai Museum and Zhang Zeduan’s twelfth-century Qingming Festival on the River, which also survives in later versions, are two of the most important and best-studied examples of jiehua.3 Several passages from scholarly writing of the Song dynasty confirm that those involved in the building tradition, including Yu Hao (act. 965–989), whose treatise Mujing (Wood classic) survives only in fragments and is considered a precursor of Yingzao fashi, were aware of the significance of jiehua.4 An eleventh-century monk writes of a meeting between Yu Hao and Guo Zhongshu (ca. 910–977), “the first celebrated Northern Song exponent of jiehua.” According to the text, prior to building a thirteen-story pagoda at Kaibao Monastery, Yu Hao “prepared a plan of a thirteen-story structure,” and Guo then “used a reduced-size design to check the accuracy of the pagoda’s measurements.”5 Guo found an error that Yu subsequently confirmed.6 The interest in jiehua in the tenth century is not surprising, for the straight-edged measuring device is modular. And indeed, the recurrent theme of Yingzao fashi, whether detailing the form of a sutra cabinet, the frame of tingtang, the plan of diantang, or bracket set components, is that Chinese architecture, as the tradition was disseminated from the court, is modular. The portable manual made it possible to maintain the official Chinese building tradition across great distances and in later centuries, and to cost-effectively replace components without tearing down larger sections of buildings.
Jiehua Like imitation of architectural details in brick or stone, the type of painting known as jiehua expands our knowledge of the Chinese building tradition. Sometimes translated as ruled-line painting, and other times as boundary painting, jiehua has already been used to enhance our understanding of 9.15. Qing bracket set, showing queti beneath the architrave, with components labeled
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CHAPTER 10
Song Elegance and Jin Opulence
Historically China has often seen itself as North China and South China, often a distinction that focuses on life and culture along the Yellow River in the North and the Yangzi River in the South. In the Song dynasty, the words “north” and “south” have additional meanings. There is only one Song dynasty; its dates are 960–1279. However, in 1126 the Song emperor Huizong was captured by the northern people known as Jurchen. In 1127 North China fell to them. The Jurchen took Huizong, one successor, and other members of his family and court, a total of several thousand people, thousands of kilometers to the northeast to a still undetermined place in Heilongjiang, Jilin, or perhaps eastern Inner Mongolia. The next year the Song capital, known as Bianjing and Bianliang (today Kaifeng), fell and became a capital of the Jurchen dynasty, named Jin in Chinese, and the remnant of Song fled south. After several brief stops, the Song reestablished itself in Lin’an, literally “temporary security,” today Hangzhou. Historians came to refer to the Song dynasty as Northern Song (960–1127) and Southern Song (1127–1279), the former when the entire empire was ruled from Bianjing and the latter when the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) controlled North China and Song territory was about half the size it had been in the year 1000 and was ruled from Lin’an. Northern Song China is frequently characterized as a society with a flourishing elite culture represented by scholar-officials, poets, essayists, and calligraphers such as Su Shi (Su Dongpo) (1037–1101) and Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072); a period in which officials such as Wang Anshi (1021–1086) made serious attempts to redefine Chinese government and economic policy; the age of the rise of monumental monochrome ink landscape painting; and a period that culminated in the codification of art, architecture, and ideas through encyclopedic writings such as Yingzao fashi.1 It was also an age of cosmopolitanism, not so much in the sense of Tang Chang’an, which was a multicultural, multiethnic city, but rather in terms of cities of commerce and citizens of lofty intellectual ambition whose literate interests ranged far and wide. Song cities are discussed in chapter 11. In 1004–1005 Song China signed for peace with Liao. The C/ Shanyuan Treaty ceded sixteen prefectures of North China to Liao. The peace held until the capture of Huizong.
Religious Architecture North and South, 960–1127 Regionalism exists in Chinese architecture from the mid-tenth century through the first quarter of the twelfth century, as
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it does in Chinese painting. We see these differences clearly in eminent architecture. We begin with Song China’s most eminent building. Female Veneration Sage Mother Hall is dedicated to a female spirit that, since the Zhou dynasty, has been associated with rain and the Jin Springs. The site commemorates the state of Jin, more specifically its founder. Sage Mother Hall is the oldest of more than thirty structures in the building complex located 25 kilometers southwest of Taiyuan, near the center of Shanxi province. With additions over the centuries, Jinci is almost unique in Chinese building complexes: it has more than one focal building and axis; it is associated with both a female spirit and a male ruler, sometimes labeling it Daoist and other times Confucian; and its altar holds more Song statues of women than any structure, except a cave-temple complex, in China. Sage Mother Hall was built in the eleventh century, in all likelihood between 1038 and 1087.2 It is a major focal point in the Jinci complex, approached by a marble, cruciform bridge that follows an offering hall constructed in 1168, the second oldest building of Jinci today. Water still flows beneath the bridge and through the site (figure 10.1). The building is a seven-by-six-bay diantang with two sets of roof eaves. Its framework follows the prescriptions for diantang in Yingzao fashi, and its bracket sets include seven-puzuo examples. Less typical for this kind of structure, the roof is hip-gable. The lower eaves cover a veranda two bays in width across the front and one bay wide on the other sides. In addition to the unique flow of water in front, Sage Mother Hall is the only Song building where dragons wind around the front columns. One reads of this feature in descriptions of later buildings3 and sees it at the Hall of Great Achievement at the Confucian Temple in Qufu, discussed in chapter 14. A second feature is rare: an eight-rafter beam, meaning it spans the distance between nine roof purlins, extending the entire width between the lowest rafter of the front and back eaves. This is the longest rafter-span in Chinese construction (rafter-span, not actual measurement of the distance). Features that follow Yingzao fashi are that the central front and back bays are the widest in the building, and columns “rise” from those that flank the central bays to those on the outer ends of the outermost bays. Features associated with beams and columns of the ninth to fourteenth centuries that we shall observe in
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Song Elegance and Jin Opulence
10.1. Sage Mother Hall, Jin shrines, Xishan (Western Hills), Shanxi, 1038–1087
other halls of the Northern Song period are that all beams are straight; columns are chamfered or shuttle-shaped or narrower in circumference at the top than near the center; and columns exhibit batter or lean toward the center of the building, with those that lean least flanking the central bay to those that lean most flanking the end bays. Other features that occur in wooden buildings of the Song and Tang and the first half of the tenth century as well are that the architrave penetrates the six front columns that define the central five bays, and a pupai-tiebeam is placed above the architrave. Houtumiao in Wanrong (formerly known as Fenyin), southern Shanxi province, is a building complex often considered alongside Jinci. It is dedicated to Houtu, sometimes translated as goddess of the earth, other times as Earth Queen, and it has a multimillennial history of association with rulers. The First Emperor (Qin Shi Huangdi) was its initial patron. He visited six times to perform sacrifices to the deity, a tradition carried on by emperors through the Tang dynasty. It is said the ritual also was enacted beneath present-day Qiufenglou (Autumn Wind Tower), a structure discussed in chapter 14. In the early eleventh century the status of the imperial ritual was elevated and the buildings were renovated. A stele first carved in 1137 shows the temple complex as it is believed to have looked in the eleventh century (figure 10.2). From the stele and its inscription, we know that eight courtyards of buildings comprised an area of 1102 by 524 meters with the major structures along the north-south axis. It is noteworthy that the north wall is curved. Longxing Monastery The Song building with the most similarities to Sage Mother Hall is at Longxing Monastery in Zhengding, Hebei province.
10.2. Stele with diagram of Houtumiao, Houtumiao, Wanrong county, Shanxi, first carved in 1137
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10.3. Longxing Monastery
Longxing Monastery has five buildings directly behind a central entry gate, a long axial arrangement like that of Houtumiao. The plan is standard in imperial architecture. The strict axial line and clear courtyards of Houtumiao and Longxingsi strongly contrast and thus emphasize the organic growth that occurred at Jinci. More Song buildings survive at Longxing Monastery than at any other temple complex in China (figure 10.3).4 The tallest building is Foxiang (Buddha’s Fragrance) Pavilion, also known as Dabei (Great Compassion) Pavilion, associated with the date 971, although it was repaired in 1944 and substantially repaired again in the 1990s. Construction followed an attack on Zhengding by Liao troops during which the bronze image of the bodhisattva Guanyin inside the pavilion was destroyed. We can thus confirm that Liao troops saw Song monasteries in North China. In response to the attack, the Song emperor commissioned Liaodi (Anticipating the Enemy) Pagoda, built 60 kilometers to the north (see figure 10.25), discussed below, as well as the 13-zhang, 5-chi-high (approximately 24-meter) Foxiang Pavilion, whose interior was dominated by an image of Guanyin taller than the bodhisattva inside the Guanyin Pavilion at Dule Monastery (see figure 8.5). It is not certain that the Liao emperor knew about Longxing Monastery, but it is possible that during the decades of warfare between Liao and Song there would have been competition in architectural achievement. Since the Guanyin Pavilion at Dule Monastery was constructed thirteen years after Foxiang Pavilion and yet its Guanyin statue is smaller, the theory that
the Guanyin inside the pavilion in Ji county survives from the Tang dynasty may be plausible. This shared awareness of buildings and possible competition is especially interesting because key structural features of Guanyin Pavilion and Dabei Pavilion are so different. Guanyin Pavilion of Dule Monastery, we have noted, has an open, two-story central interior that frames the bodhisattva in a hexagon and covers it with an octagonal caisson ceiling (zaojing). Like Guanyin Pavilion, Foxiang Pavilion has a mezzanine level (pingzuo), but the statue stands in an open space without a ceiling. Straight, rigid beams and posts support the uppermost beams and then support the exposed roof frame. This structural rigidity will characterize Song timber construction, especially in North China; we see it in a second pavilion at Longxing Monastery discussed below (figure 10.4). We shall observe the use of curved beams only in South China under Northern Song rule, and only in Liao architecture does an interior open beneath a ceiling of intricate xiaomuzuo to achieve a dramatic space such as that of Guanyin Pavilion. The structural rigidity of Foxiang Pavilion frames the Pavilion to Cishi (the bodhisattva Maitreya) and the Pavilion of the Revolving Sutra Cabinet, which form a symmetrical pair in front of the huge pavilion (figure 10.4). The three-pavilion arrangement was also used at the Xiangguo Monastery, now destroyed, in the Northern Song capital Bianjing (see figure 11.4).5 The grouping may be an imperial plan of the tenth to eleventh centuries, for it is also implemented at the Liao monastery Shanhuasi in Datong. All three Longxingsi pavilions are dated around 971, but the date of 971 for the Sutra Cabinet
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Pavilion is firmer than for Cishi Pavilion. The paired pavilions are close to identical on the exterior: they measure 13.98 by 13.3 meters at the base, and from ground level to the top of the chiwen on their roof spines, their heights are 23.05 meters. Both are three bays square, have an arcade covered by its own eaves that extends in front, and, like ge of Liao and Song discussed already, have a pingzuo, or mezzanine level. Pillars are placed in pilasters, are shuttle-shaped, and exhibit rise and batter. Like Foxiang Pavilion, neither smaller pavilion at Longxingsi has a ceiling. The interior cabinet that gives the Sutra Library its names is an example of xiaomuzuo, also seen in the cabinetry in the library at Huayan Monastery in Datong (see figure 8.10). An expression of the style of the times, even though the bracket sets on the Song cabinet consist of more than four levels, no more than two are placed between the columns (figure 10.5). Only a few revolving cabinets, said to have been invented by Fu Xi in 544, survive.6 The only curved, diagonal timber known in Song buildings in North China is in the front part of the cabinet pavilion. The gem of Longxing Monastery is Moni Hall, a unique, cruciform structure and the only Song building wider than Sage Mother Hall. Dedicated to the Buddha Śākyamuni, it stands near the center of the main monastery axis, a focal point behind the entry gate and a recently reconstructed hall dedicated to Śākyamuni’s six predecessors (who together with Śākyamuni are the Seven Historical Buddhas) and in front of a rebuilt ordination platform. Moni Hall is dated 1052, the year recorded on two wooden pieces inside. Seven bays square and with base dimensions of 33.29 by 27.12 meters, the hall rises 22 meters on a brick podium that is 1.2 meters high. A baosha, or portico, projects from the center of each side, extending the longer east-west dimension to 43.56 meters and the depth to 34.93 meters. The wooden pieces of the hall were studied in the 1930s, leading to confirmation that bracket sets, struts, and braces were consistent with descriptions in Yingzao fashi, and further leading architectural historian Liang Sicheng to comment that the visual effect was that of architecture in a painting but rare in an actual building (figure 10.6).7 One feature of bracket sets confirms their date as Northern Song. The end of the descending cantilever is concave and roughly pentagonal in section (figure 10.7). It combines the two end-tip cuts of descending cantilevers described in Yingzao fashi, qinmian, or lute-face, and pizhu, or split-bamboo. The same cantilever tip is found at Sage Mother Hall as well as in
10.4. Side section of Cishi Pavilion, Longxing Monastery, 971 10.5. Revolving sutra cabinet, Pavilion of the Revolving Sutra Cabinet, Longxing Monastery, Zhengding, Hebei, 971
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Daxiongbao Hall is the oldest surviving building in a sprawling, spectacularly sited, mountain monastery whose history began in the Eastern Han dynasty. Most of the architecture was added or rebuilt in the Qing dynasty, and even Daxiongbao Hall retains only its three central bays from the Song period; two front bays and side bays are Qing additions.9 In addition to the use of qinmian cantilever tips, a defining detail of an early- as opposed to later-eleventh-century structure, four other features distinguish this building. All are observed inside (figure 10.8). Most striking are three zaojing (caisson ceilings), each in its own bay, across the front of the original Song structure. Most buildings, even eminent ones, have only one zaojing; among pre-fifteenth-century architecture we shall see three again only in Sanqing (Three Purities) Hall of Yongle Daoist Monastery (see figure 12.2). The interior is even more extraordinary because the back bays have exposed-rafter construction. That is, they are not covered by a ceiling that would be expected in an eminent building. Second, pillars are of a type known as gualeng (melon-wheel)-shaped. The name is another example of craftsmen’s jargon that is used in Yingzao fashi, melon a reference to the cross-section of eight lobes, rather than the flat faces of most octagonal columns. The Baoguo Monastery hall is one of the only places in China where this formation described in the construction manual can be seen in wood. Stone examples are found in Song buildings in Fuzhou in Fujian, Suzhou in Jiangsu, and Changhua county in Zhejiang. Other columns of Daxiongbao Hall are shuttle-shaped, tapering toward the top, another Song feature observed at Sage Mother Hall. Third, the bracket sets
10.6. Moni Hall, Longxing Monastery, Zhengding, Hebei, 1052 10.7. Bracket sets of Moni Hall, Longxing Monastery, Zhengding, Hebei, showing pentagonal section, 1052
some eleventh-century buildings in southern Shanxi.8 In general, the straight slice of the tip is a feature of ninth-to-earlyeleventh-century cantilever ends, with the detail appearing on bracket sets of East Hall of Foguang Monastery. Eminent Architecture in South China Qinmian cantilever tips are one of the features that distinguishes the most eminent building that survives in South China from the eleventh century, Daxiongbao Hall of Baoguo Monastery in Yuyao, near Ningbo, Zhejiang province. Dated 1013,
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at Daxiongbao Hall project with a clear perpendicular thrust. Although there are only three sets of huagong (bracket-arms perpendicular to the building plane), the thrust is decisive. It is as notable as the bold projection of perpendicular bracket-arms at Daxiongbao Hall of the Liao-period Fengguo Monastery in Yi county, Liaoning (see figure 8.6). Like the bracket sets in the Liao building, those at Daxiongbao Hall in the South have two downward-slanting cantilevers. That the two buildings are contemporary suggests that Liao and Song shared certain features. Last, Baoguo Monastery’s Daxiongbao Hall has curved, or rainbow-shaped, beams. The use of curved beams in South China in the early eleventh century recalls their use in the ninth-century East Hall of Foguang Monastery (see figure 6.10, #21). As we have noted, earlier predecessors are assumed because curved beams are used in Japan in the mid-eighth century in the main Buddha hall at the monastery Tōshōdaiji in Nara, and they are carved in the stone interior of cave 3 at Maijishan in the sixth century. The curved beams, as well as the huge bracket sets with three or more tiers, also are used in the tenth-century Daxiongbao Hall at Hualinsi in Fuzhou, where one finds three cantilevers in bracket sets (see figures 7.2, 7.3). We saw in chapter 7 that huge bracket sets continue to identify an eminent hall in the first half of the tenth century in both North and South China, yet at Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall of Zhenguo Monastery the beams are straight, whereas at Daxiongbao Hall of Hualinsi they curve (see figures 7.1–7.3). Although Tang architecture survives only in North China, it existed across the country. The bracket sets and beams in Daxiongbao Hall of Baoguo Monastery seem to indicate that aspects of the Tang building tradition survived in the Southeast as late as the eleventh century. The difference between the timber frames of the Daxiongbao Halls of Hualinsi and Baoguosi compared to those of Moni Hall or any of the pavilions of Longxing Monastery shows that the break between northern and southern Chinese architectural styles that began in the first half of the tenth century continued. If it is true that builders in the South continued to rely on Tang models, then this reliance may explain why the Liao Daxiongbao Hall of Fengguo Monastery and the Song Daxiongbao Hall of Baoguo Monastery both exhibit bracket sets with strong vertical thrusts even though the straight timbers and corresponding structural rigidity of the three pavilions at Longxing Monastery (see figure 10.4) are never found in South China under Northern Song rule: even as North and
10.8. Interior of Daxiongbao Hall, Baoguo Monastery, showing three zaojing, melon-wheel-shaped columns, three-tier, vertically projecting bracket sets, and curved beams, Yuyao, Zhejiang, 1013
South Chinese builders strove to construct distinctive regional elements, neither would fully abandon the Tang heritage. Sanqing (Three Purities) Hall at Xuanmiaoguan in Putian, Fujian province, built in 1016 with many repairs as recently as the twenty-first century, shares important features with Daxiongbao Hall of Baoguosi and Daxiongbao Hall of Hualinsi. The suffix guan designates a Daoist monastery. The Three Purities are the dedicatees of some of Daoism’s most important buildings. The use of curved beams and bracket sets with three perpendicular tiers of arms and two cantilevers indicates that the southern architectural style of Northern Song is more clearly defined than a Buddhist or Daoist affiliation.10 South China’s three most important buildings of the tenth and eleventh centuries, at Hualinsi and Xuanmiaoguan in Fujian and at Baoguosi in Zhejiang, represent a style that was transmitted to Japan in the late twelfth century. It is known in Japanese as Dai Butsuyō (Great Buddha Style). The Japanese monk Shunjōbō Chōgen supervised construction of the Great
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10.9. Hall of Divine Kings, North Jixiang Monastery, Lingchuan, Shanxi, 978.
South Gate at the monastery Tōdaiji in Nara and the Pure Land Hall at the monastery Jōdōji in Hyōgō,11 both of which exhibit bracket sets with many tiers of arms and strong, vertical thrusts. Only one other Northern Song wooden building in South China is noteworthy. Daxiongbao Hall stands at Mei’an (Plum Hermitage), a small complex in Zhaoqing, central Guangdong province, that traces its origins to Huineng (638–713), the sixth patriarch of the Chan sect of Buddhism.12 The monk is said to have liked plum blossoms and planted them there each time he visited. A stele inscription of 1581 states both that the name Mei’an is to commemorate Huineng’s acts and that the monk Zhiyuan was in charge of construction in 996. Only Daxiongbao Hall survives from that period. Although restored, the bracket sets with two down-slanting cantilevers with lutefaced tips and curved beams exhibit features consistent with a very early Song date. The beams and bracket formations link Zhaoqing’s Daxiongbao hall to those of Hualin Monastery in Fuzhou and Baoguo Monastery in Yuyao, yet the cantilever tips suggest that details of Northern Song architecture still had some presence in South China.
ones are Middle Hall of Chongming Monastery in Gaoping, 971; Hall of Divine Kings and Middle Hall of North Jixiang Monastery in Lingchuan county, 978; Front Hall of Youxian Monastery, just south of Gaoping, 990–995; City God Temple, Ruicheng, 1008–1016; Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall, Chongqing Monastery, Zhangzi, 1016–1079; Middle Hall of South Jixiang Monastery, a few kilometers south of North Jixiang Monastery in Lingchuan, 1030; the Main Hall of the Daoist Monastery of the Two Female Immortals (Erxianguan) in Lingchuan, 1063; Daxiongbao Hall of Kaihua Monastery in Gaoping, 1073, with murals signed 1096; Yuanjue Hall of Faxing Monastery in Zhangzi, 1080; Daxiongbao Hall of Yuanqi Monastery in Lucheng, 1087; Śākyamuni Hall of Qinglian Monastery in Jincheng, 1089; the Main Hall of the Daoist Monastery of the Two Female Immortals (Erxianguan) in Jincheng, 1097; Daxiongbao Hall of Longmen Monastery, the location of West Side Hall of 925, dated 1098; Sage Mother Hall of Sage Mother Temple (Shengmumiao), in Pingshun, 1100; Tangdi Hall of Chengtang Temple, Jincheng, 1108; Jade Emperor Hall of Yuhuang (Jade Emperor) Temple in Jincheng, 1110; Śākyamuni Hall of Chongshou Monastery in Jincheng, 1119; Chengtang Main Hall of Guandi Temple in Yangquan, 1122; and Dragon King (Longwang) Hall of Yinggan Temple in Wuxiang, of 1123.13
Additional Northern Song Architecture in the North Among approximately one hundred Northern Song wooden buildings, in addition to those already discussed, the dated
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10.10. Śākyamuni Hall, Qinglian Monastery, Jincheng, Shanxi, 1089
The majority of buildings listed in the previous paragraph as well as monasteries with Tang or Song histories that today retain only later buildings are in the part of Shanxi province known as Jindongnan, the southeastern section that borders Henan province. The largest city in Jindongnan is Changzhi, small by Chinese standards, with a population of under one million at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Hall of Divine Kings of North Jixiang Monastery, Middle Hall of Chongming Monastery, and Daxiongbao Hall of Youxian Monastery are typical: they are three or five bays across the front with hip-gable roofs, exposed ceiling rafters, and five-puzuo bracketing (figures 10.9, 10.10). As in the tenth century, among extant Northern Song buildings fewer than 10 percent exhibit features of eminent construction. In the small villages of southeastern Shanxi in the Song dynasty, it is possible that no buildings exhibited the highest standards of Yingzao fashi, and if this is true, the focus of the standards on the imperial tradition is confirmed. If any art form opens for investigation the world of China’s nonelite, what their meager incomes supported, where monks
they turned to lived, and what they saw at the ends of village roads, it is architecture, particularly in places that still today are remote villages that can be challenging to access. Two of the small structures deserve more attention. One is the main building of Erxianguan in Xiaonan village of Jincheng. We have already noted the importance of the Sage Mother in devotion during the Song dynasty. The Two Female Immortals (Erxian) were widely worshiped in southern Shanxi, with, as the list indicates, several Song buildings dedicated to them still in existence. The two female immortals and their eight female attendants in Jincheng are elevated on a spectacular, canopied altar, a xiaomuzuo structure, with unfinished wooden pillars at the front (figure 10.11). Befitting the small temple in a rustic location, the structure around the interior is tingtang. The Main Hall of Chuzu’an (First Patriarch Hermitage), a subtemple of Shaolin Monastery in Dengfeng county, Henan, the only confirmed Song building in that province, is the second. The name Chuzu refers to a reported visit in 537
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10.11. Altar, cabinetry, and ceiling, interior of Erxian Daoist Monastery, Jincheng, Shanxi, 1097
by Bodhidharma, the legendary Indian founder of Chan Buddhism. Its location at the famous training ground for some of China’s most renowned monk-warriors as well as its proximity to the sacred central peak Songshan (location of Songyue Monastery and Huishan Monastery) meant that it was studied in the 1930s, unlike the small temples of Shanxi. The date 1125 carved on a stone pillar makes it one of the buildings with the closest date to Yingzao fashi.14 Comparisons between the Chuzu’an hall and descriptions for a three-bay, six-rafter tingtang in Yingzao fashi indeed show many correspondences. The hall is nearly square, 11.14 by 10.70 meters with a hip-gable roof (figure 10.12). Typical of the Song period, two intercolumnar bracket sets are positioned in the central bay and only one set is used between other pillars. Doors are at the front and back, and windows are found in the bays that flank the front door. The pillars’ height to diameter ratio is 7:1, and the corner pillars rise 7 centimeters compared to the heights of the front-central bay pillars. The cai is 18.5 by 11.5 centimeters, just under 3:2, with a zhi of 7 centimeters. These details correspond to sixth grade in Yingzao fashi. One finds four types of bracket sets: above columns, between columns, at corners on the exterior, and inside. Each is a variant of five-puzuo. The roof frame is exposed. Exterior front pillars are eight-sided and stone. Bald figures, many borne on lotus blossoms, decorate the front pillars together with birds and floral and vine patterns. The decoration indicates that small, non-diantang structures still could receive great attention from patrons and craftsmen.
Although we have seen that architectural components in North and South China under Liao and Song can be distinctive, among all religious temples complexes of the tenth through thirteenth centuries, only several basic plans are used. One is traceable to China’s oldest monasteries: it has a towering pagoda as its focus. This is the plan of the monastery that houses the Timber Pagoda (see figure i.3). Second is the same plan but with a focal pavilion rather than pagoda. Dule Monastery is an example (see figure 8.4). Third is a monastery in which pagoda, pavilion, or both rise on the central axis, but the importance of the tall structure is shared by a Buddha hall in front of or behind it. Longxing Monastery is an example of this plan (see figure 10.3). The fourth plan has a pair of pagodas or pavilions on the sides of the main building line and sometimes two pairs (see figure 10.3). Individual or paired, the octagonal masonry pagoda was common in this period; Song examples are discussed below. Last is a monastery with seven main structures believed to be arranged in accordance with the human body, a type that flourished in Chan Buddhist monasteries, especially in southeastern China, discussed further below (figure 10.13). According to written records, all five plans were implemented at Tang monasteries, but the dearth of Tang architecture has meant that the earliest period from which one can see examples of all of them is post-Tang. Among the new features of post-Tang architecture are the use of two bracket sets between columns and the formation known as a fan-shaped or cluster brackets often used in LiaoJin architecture in Datong (see figures 8.8, 10.12). Another
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10.12. Main Hall, Chuzu’an, Shaolin Monastery, Dengfeng, Henan, 1125
period feature is the elimination of columns from a building’s interior so that as few as two are found in a structure supported by twenty or more exterior pillars; this type of building is discussed below (see figure 10.18). Diagonal and curved beams and excessively long tie-beams, spanning up to nine bays, are more numerous in tenth- through thirteenth-century building frames than in the past. Almost every Buddhist monastery of the tenth through twelfth centuries has a main image hall. It can be known as Daxiongbao Hall, as dadian (great hall), or as zhengdian (main hall). The hall invariably is on the main axial building line. The entrance to the Song or Liao monastery often is via a shanmen, literally “mountain gate.” The name is intended to indicate that the structure is more than just a simple entryway or pillar-supported opening. It could, in fact, have three stories and be seven bays across the front. Another building found at Liao and Song monasteries, although none survives from that period today, is a Law (fa) Hall for preaching the Buddhist Law, or Dharma. One stood at Fengguo Monastery in Yixian, Liaoning. A hall for the scriptures, or sutra repository, a structure with an older history in China but for which the earliest examples date to the tenth-eleventh centuries, also is common (see figures 8.10, 10.5). Luohan Hall is another building type in Song and Liao monasteries. It was dedicated to eminent beings who traveled through China as monks, often in groups of sixteen or five hundred; legends about the pious acts and adventures of luohan, arhat in Sanskrit, were abundant. A Luohan hall was
built at Jingci Monastery on Mount Tiantai in Zhejiang in 954, destroyed, and rebuilt in the 1150s. The covered arcade that joins the front monastery gate and encloses the major buildings, also with a long pre-tenth-century history, remains as well.
Religious Architecture, 1127–1279 Song and Liao China fell to the Jurchen, whose dynasty is named Jin, at the same time, between 1126 and 1127. More than a hundred Jin wooden religious halls still stand, although Jin Buddhist or Daoist structure can be adequately discussed in a few paragraphs. Many fewer timber buildings remain from Southern Song, perhaps due to the widespread devastation of South China during the Mongol conquests. The Mongols were the victors over Jin, as well as Song, conquering North China a full forty-five years before the final fall of Song in 1279. As for the previous centuries, the majority of the buildings of this period survive in Shanxi, and a remarkable number of them have been relatively untouched since the twelfth or thirteenth century. The Southern Song Monastery and Its Architecture One building type is most often associated with Southern Song China. It is the abbot’s hall, a particularly important feature of large, Chan Buddhist monasteries (see figure 10.13). Chan, or meditational, Buddhism was present in Tang China, but it became extremely important in the Southern
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10.13. Plan of Lingyin Monastery, Wushan shichatu, 1248
1. Shanmen 2. Buddha Hall 3. Law Hall 4. Kitchens 5. Bathing Halls and Privies 6. Sutra Library 7. Bell Tower 8. Abbot’s Quarters
Song dynasty when monasteries of the Five Mountains and Ten Monasteries System were built. In this name, five is the number of most important monasteries, designated “mountains” because they were located on mountains, and ten is the number of secondarily important monasteries. The Southern Song government designated both the five-building complexes and the monks in charge of them among a group of approximately sixty significant Chan monasteries.15 The five were Wanshou Chan Monastery on Mount Jing, Lingyin Chan Monastery on North Mountain, Bao’enguangxiao Chan Monastery on South Mountain, all in the vicinity of Hangzhou; and Tiantongjingde Chan Monastery on Mount Taibai and Guangli Chan Monastery on Ayuwang (Asoka) Mountain, both in Mingzhou, Zhejiang. The Ten Monasteries expanded the horizons of government sponsorship. Although six also were located in Zhejiang, three were in Jiangsu and one was in Fujian. Ten of the next tier were in Zhejiang and nine were in Jiangsu, but the other sixteen spread from Fujian to Guangdong, Jiangxi, Hubei, Anhui, Henan, and Hebei, with eight in Jiangxi. Many Chan monasteries corresponded to the seven-hall plan mentioned above. Its arrangement is known because of the survival of the Wushan shichatu (Five mountains, ten monasteries illustrated), dated 1248. The plan of Lingyin Monastery (see figure 10.13) shows the seven most common structures in a Chan monastery of Southern Song China: the Shanmen (#1), Buddha Hall (#2), and Law Hall (#3) along the main southnorth line, together with the abbot’s quarters, the Buddha Hall at the center, or “heart,” kitchens (#4) and bathing halls and privies (#5) flanking the heart like “hands,” and the Sutra Library (#6) and bell tower (#7) flanking the Shanmen like “feet.” The manuscript that is the source of figure 10.13 is housed in the monastery Tōfukuji in Kyoto. It includes other illustrations such as a side-sectional drawing of the Law Hall of Jingshan Monastery and a frontal elevation of the bell tower from Hedong Monastery (figure 10.14). The eaves of the bell tower curve deeply, with animal-faced figures from whose
10.14. Bell tower, Hedong Monastery, Wushan shichatu, 1248
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10.15. Main Hall, Guandi Temple, Guangrao, Shandong, 1128
mouths ornaments are suspended at each eave end, large fish projecting from the ends of the main roof ridge, and cusped windows of the kind associated with late Song and later architecture that one observes today in Ming-period buildings. The Law Hall has three-tier bracket sets with two down-sloping cantilevers and curved beams. Only a handful of Southern Song wooden religious buildings survive. The Main Hall of Guandi Temple in Guangrao, Shandong, is three bays square, 12.63 by 10.7 meters at the base and 13.39 meters high, with five-puzuo bracket sets with two cantilevers, straight beams, the longest of which span six rafter-lengths, and a hip-gable roof. Typical of the period, it has two intercolumnar bracket sets in the front central bay and one in each of the bays that flank it (figure 10.15). Sanqing (Three Purities) Hall at the Daoist monastery Xuanmiaoguan in Suzhou was first built in the Northern Song period but is dated to its rebuilding in 1176. The nine-by-six-bay structure has two sets of deeply sloping eaves that characterize architecture of southeastern China (figure 10.16). It has the equally characteristic four-plus tiers of bracket-arms and curved beams crossing its front and back bays. All other beams and struts are straight. Another building associated with the Southern Song dynasty is the small pavilion, Feitian (Apsara) Sutra Repository, at Yunyan Monastery in Jiangyou, Sichuan, dated from its rebuilding in 1180/1181. Inside, an octagonal prism rotated a wooden column. The 10-meter-high structure with six layers of bracket sets in twenty varieties was portable.
Jin Religious Architecture: Lackluster yet Opulent The gracefully and dramatically sloping eaves of Southern Song buildings clearly impressed the compiler of Wushan shichatu in 1248. Perhaps multistory construction also impressed him (see figure 10.14). Jin buildings offer a sharp contrast: the many Jin halls that remain today, more than sixty in Shanxi alone, are strikingly nondescript. Most are three to five bays across the front like the Northern Song buildings in Shanxi discussed above. Only one large monastery survives. Whether Chongfusi in Shuo county, northern Shanxi, was uniquely large or whether its most complicated buildings with eminent features were rare in the twelfth century is unknown, but it is so different from the rest that the distinction is plausible. Founded in 655, the monastery was an official residence in the Liao dynasty. Of the ten main structures of the 36,000-square-meter monastery, two remain from the Jin period when it was converted to a Pure Land Buddhist monastery and the rest date to the Ming period or later.16 The transformation was by imperial decree, and thus we view Chongfusi as the height of Jin religious construction. Mituo (Amitabha) Hall is a seven-by-four-bay structure elevated on a 2.53-meter platform with a yuetai extension in front and approached by front stairs.17 It is dated 1143. It measures 41.23 by 22.70 meters at the base. Fan-shaped bracket sets are the first feature that defines the building as from North China and of the Liao or Jin period: we have observed these bracket clusters at Huayansi and Shanhuasi in Datong, both Liao monasteries used and rebuilt in the Jin period (see figure
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10.16. Hall of Three Purities, Xuanmiaoguan, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 1176 with later repairs
8.8). The cai of the bracket sets is 26 by 18 centimeters, close to a 3:2 ratio, and the zhi is 10.5 centimeters, numbers that correspond to second rank in Yingzao fashi. Some of the bracket sets are seven-puzuo, with four tiers of perpendicular bracket-arms, like the cai, suggesting imperial patronage (figure 10.17). A feature known as a sublintel (you’e), positioned directly beneath the architrave, is also used here. The hall dedicated to the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (Wenshu) also is seven bays by four, but it is a much smaller building that pairs with a hall dedicated to Samantabhadra (Puxian) facing inward on either side of the third courtyard of the monastery. Standing on a lower platform than Mituo Hall, 83 centimeters high, and approached by only five steps, the building has only four interior pillars. Elimination of pillars from what would constitute a complete column grid is a feature of Jin architecture. The elimination is excessive in Mañjuśrī Hall of Foguang Monastery on Mount Wutai (location of East Hall), built in 1137. The hall is seven bays across the front and eight rafter-lengths in depth (but only four bays), with an overhanging gabled roof, and only two pillars stand inside (figure 10.18). Diagonal braces and excessively long lintels aid in the support of the exposed roof frame. Fan-shaped bracketing marks the hall as Liao-Jin period. Besides Mañjuśrī Hall of Foguang Monastery, the Buddhist halls at Chongfusi, and the Datong monastery buildings, almost
every other extant Jin structure—more than one hundred—is three or five bays across the front. Those best known are due to what is inside. Daxiongbao Hall of Jingtu Monastery in Ying county, Shanxi, about 0.5 kilometer from the Timber Pagoda, is three bays square with a single-eave, hip-gable roof. Bracket sets are only four-puzuo with only one cantilever. Standing outside, one would never anticipate the heavenly palaces and storied pavilions (tiangong louge) of the zaojing that is probably the most complicated example of xiaomuzuo from the Jin dynasty (figure 10.19). Similarly, another hall dedicated to Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva associated with the sacred Buddhist peak Wutai, at Yanshan Monastery in Fanzhi in northern Shanxi, is five bays across the front, but with extremely narrow end bays, and has four-puzuo bracket sets. One is hardly prepared for the detailed architecture (jiehua) in the murals in which the Buddhist biographical narratives are portrayed (figure 10.20). The paintings are signed and dated by court painter Wang Kui and his workshop in 1167.18 One could describe halls at Cixiang Monastery in Pingyao of 1123–1134, Wu Zetian Monastery in Wenshui of 1145, Two Female Immortals (Erxian) Daoist Monastery in 10.17. Interior of Mituo Hall, Chongfu Monastery, Shuo county, Shanxi, 1143 10.18. Mañjuśrī Hall, Foguang Monastery, Mount Wutai, Shanxi, 1137
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bracket sets, which so many of these halls have. If Jin wooden halls have an identity, it is, perhaps, the contrast between opulent interior decor and uninspired exterior.19 Cave-Temples The tenth to thirteenth centuries are a time of intense cavetemple excavation, particularly in Sichuan, especially the region between the independent municipality Chongqing and Sichuan’s capital Chengdu. Excavation of monumental Buddhist images into natural rock in Sichuan began in 713 at Leshan, opposite the sacred Buddhist peak Emeishan, whose architecture is discussed in chapter 14. Ninety years later, a 71-meter seated Buddha was carved, initially by a monk and eventually finished by his disciples. A Buddha in parinirvāṇa, reclining in the position Siddhartha Gautama is said to have taken at death, also was carved in Leshan in the Tang period. As had occurred in the mid-eighth century, at the end of the ninth century the Tang emperor and his general Wang Jian fled to Chengdu, seeking safety from uprisings in Chang’an. Wang’s tomb was mentioned in chapter 7. In 892 the local military leader Wei Junjing, officially the prefect of Changzhou, began excavation of Buddhist caves at Beishan, 2 kilometers north of Dazu and about 100 kilometers northwest of Chongqing. Wei’s hope was to receive the Buddha’s aid in keeping his position, for the Tang emperor and his generals were now a threat to him. Wei Junjing had his own image carved in a cave in 895. From then until the end of the Song dynasty, local leaders, monks, and the general laity would be patrons of the Sichuan caves. Tens of thousands of images would be carved in hundreds of caves. Their subjects would reflect the nonimperial agendas of this population. The major sites are Beishan, Baodingshan, and Nanshan, all in the vicinity of Dazu. The 500-meter Buddha Bend at Baodingshan is the most dramatic point in the Dazu complex. It is located in a col, the lowest point between two cliffs (figure 10.21). Baodingshan had been a center of Esoteric Buddhism since the late Tang dynasty, and one section of caves had been carved in the late ninth to tenth centuries. The majority of carving was supervised by the monk Zhao Zhifeng between 1179 and 1249. Scenes range from the parinirvāṇa (shown in figure 10.21) to doctrinal instruction, including complete enlightenment, in which bodhisattvas receive instructions from Buddhas; the revolving wheel of the law, which, held by the king, depicts
10.19. Ceiling, Daxiongbao Hall, Jingtu Monastery, Ying county, Shanxi
Gaoping of 1156–1161, a hall at the Temple to the Eastern Peak in Jincheng of 1161–1189, Great Achievement Hall at the Confucian Temple in Pingyao of 1163, the Offering Hall at the Jin Shrines in Taiyuan dated 1168, Great Ultimate Hall at the Temple to the Northern Peak in Jincheng of 1178, the Hall of the Three Buddhas at Bu’er Monastery in Yangqu county of ca. 1195, the Hall of the Jade Emperor at Taifu Daoist Monastery in Fenyang dated 1200, the Main Hall of Guanwang Temple in Dingxiang of 1208, Daxiongbao Hall at Yanqing Monastery in Wutai, Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall at Chongqing Monastery in Zhangzi county, or the Back Hall of South Jixiang Monastery, Lingchuan county, all in Shanxi; stele pavilions at the Confucian Temple in Qufu, Shandong, dated 1195; the Hall of the Three Purities at Fengxiang Daoist Monastery, Jiyuan county, Henan; or several halls dated Jin or thirteenth century in Hancheng, Shaanxi, among many others. One comes to the conclusion already suggested: little about Jin timber-frame construction overwhelms. Occasionally, therefore, one is shocked upon entering an otherwise humble hall with four- or five-puzuo
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10.20. Detail of wall, South Hall, Yanshan Monastery, Fanzhi, Shanxi, 1167. Painted by Wang Kui and workshop
the six stations of existence from immortality to hell, with instructions how actions determine fate; the brutalities of hell; and boundless parental love. The sensitive humanity of figures engaged in mundane activities such as a feeding chickens or a mother holding her bed-wetting child contrast with representation at all other cave sites in China.20 The probing beyond the image to a level of psychological or emotional depth corresponds to a deeper level of intricacy in Jin xiaomuzuo. This human engagement beyond the obvious image may be compared to the intricacy of wooden detail that characterizes twelfth- to early-thirteenth-century architecture and decoration.21 About two hundred caves are carved in Anyue county, Sichuan, to Dazu’s northwest. Carving began earlier there, in the sixth century, with new caves added through the Song dynasty. The Yuanjue caves and five sites to the south may have inspired carving at Dazu, for they are likely to have been on the same pilgrimage route.22
her son Emperor Xiaoming (510–528) to climb the pagoda of Yongning Monastery, but the official Cui Guang advised against it, warning about the potential danger of ascent.23 We are certain only that in Northern Wei times ceremonies were performed at ground level. However, Empress Hu’s request seems to have been precedent setting. By the Tang dynasty it was possible to climb up a pagoda. Beginning in the tenth century, a majority of pagodas were octagonal, but hexagonal and four-sided pagodas also were built. They include both miyan and louge structures. As mentioned above, Song and Liao pagodas appear in the same locations in their monasteries. At least eighty-five pagodas survive in Song territory from the mid-tenth century until the fall of Northern Song.24 There is a sharp drop in pagoda construction under Southern Song patronage because the pagoda was not important in Chan monasteries. Four Song pagodas remain in Suzhou. The pagoda at the top of Tiger Hill, often known as Tiger Hill Pagoda, is part of Yunyan Monastery (figure 10.22). Built between 959 and 961, the seven-story, octagonal, louge-style pagoda is 47.5 meters high. As we have observed in Liao pagodas, wooden pillars, bracket sets, and door frames are imitated in brick on the exterior. Every story has an interior gallery, and stairs provide access to the top level. Tiger Hill Pagoda suffered destruction seven times. During repairs of 1956–1957, a reliquary deposit with gilded ritual objects, porcelain, stone statues, and silk was uncovered beneath it.25 The twin pagodas of Luohanyuan
Song Pagodas As in Liao territory, Song pagodas towered above the landscape. Beginning in the tenth century, pagoda interiors often could be ascended. There are inferences that one could climb to the top of a pagoda in earlier times. Southern Dynasties poems mention ascent of multistory buildings and platforms, but not specifically of pagodas. History of Wei records that in 519 Northern Wei dowager empress Hu led
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10.21. Buddha Bend, Baodingshan, Dazu, 1179–1249
(monastery) in Suzhou, known as the luohan pagodas, are seven-story, louge structures, with deeply curving eaves (figure 10.23). Built in 982, each is 30 meters high, of which the pagoda is about 20 meters and the iron chatra is about 10. The interiors are hollow cylinders with wooden ladder-stairs that at one time offered access to every level. Between 1009 and 1030 the octagonal louge-style pagoda of mixed brick and wooden construction with broadly sloping eaves was built at Ruiguang Monastery in Suzhou. Severely damaged eleven times, it stands today as a 43.2-meter structure. Its treasury, remarkably, was deposited in the third story.26 Longhua Pagoda in Shanghai, built in 977, has a similar profile. It is seven stories, of louge structure, and 40.4 meters in height. In contrast to the pagodas in Suzhou, Longhua Pagoda combines brick and wood and has an enclosing balustrade and deeply curved eaves. Another important pair of Song pagodas is at Guangjiao Monastery in Xuancheng, Anhui province, dated by some to 976–977 and by others to 1096. They are seven stories, foursided, 20 meters high, and louge style. The eastern is 2.65 meters on each side, and the sides of the western pagoda are 2.35 meters. Like the twin pagodas in Suzhou, each pagoda interior is a hollow cylinder in which a staircase originally provided access to the top. As in Longhua Pagoda, wooden building parts combine with brick. A similar pagoda, four-sided with nine stories, louge-style, mixed brick-and-wood construction with wooden verandas, balustrades, and eaves, stands at Xingshengjiao Monastery in Songjiang, Shanghai. It is 48.5 meters and was built in 1068–1077.
A six-story, octagonal pagoda with an unusual exterior was erected at Xiude Monastery in Quyang, Hebei, in 1019. The first story is tall and undecorated and the second story is half the pagoda’s height, comprising five rows of small pagodas. The pagoda has one entry on the first story, behind which is a Buddha image. The thirteen-story, octagonal “Iron” Pagoda in the Northern Song capital got its nickname from the glaze of its exterior brick that shines like iron (figure 10.24). Every layer and the imitation columns that divide the sides of the 54.66meter structure are covered with glazed bricks decorated with Buddhist and floral imagery. An actual iron pagoda was constructed at Yuquan Monastery in Dangyang, Hubei, in 1062. It is thirteen stories, 17.9 meters tall, and weighs 3,830 kilograms. Like masonry pagodas, the Yuquan Monastery pagoda imitates wooden architecture. Every story has bracket sets supporting two sets of roof eaves. Every story also has an entry on four sides with a Buddha image on the alternate sides. The octagonal pagoda at Ganlu Monastery on Mount Beigu, just north Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, also is iron. First built in the Tang dynasty and rebuilt in the Ming, the core of the pagoda and its style are of the period 1078–1086. A much smaller octagonal pagoda covered with dark glazed tiles stands 6.38 meters high at Yongquan Monastery on Gushan, a 10.22. Tiger Hill Pagoda, Yunyan Monastery, 47.5 meters, Suzhou, 959–961 with later repairs 10.23. Twin Pagodas, Luohanyuan, each 30 meters, Suzhou, 982 with many later repairs
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10.24. “Iron” Pagoda, 54.66 meters, Kaifeng, Northern Song
10.25. Detail of Liaodi Pagoda during restoration in 1987, 84 meters, Ding county, Hebei, 1055
mountain about 10 kilometers east of Fuzhou. It was built in 1082 as one of a pair. Song China’s tallest pagoda was built in 1055 at Kaiyuan Monastery in Ding county, Hebei. The eleven-story, 84-meter, octagonal structure is one of the few surviving Song pagodas commissioned by an emperor (figure 10.25). In 1101 the emperor Zhenzong ordered its construction; fifty-four years later it was completed under Renzong. As mentioned in chapter 8, the pagoda is known as Liaodi, looking out for the enemy, because it is believed to have been a lookout for Liao invaders coming from the North. As with many louge pagodas, the perimeter of each story tapers from lowest to highest layer. Liaodi Pagoda is accessible from four sides of the first story. The entries lead to an octagonal interior corridor with four niches on each layer. Staircases spiral through the pagoda providing access to the top. Sheli Pagoda at Kaifu Monastery in Jing county, Hebei, follows the same form. Originally built in the Northern Wei period, the 63.85-meter, thirteen-story, brick, louge structure that tapers in perimeter from base to roof preserves its form of 1079. A stairway winds
around the interior leading to the top story. Each story can be entered from four sides. A 57-meter pagoda also stands at Liurong Monastery in Guangzhou. Like other tall Song pagodas, it is octagonal and has nine stories. Lingyan Monastery in Shandong has a Song example of a forest of pagodas (talin). Song pagodas also are included in the pagoda forest at Shaolin Monastery in Dengfeng, adjacent to the above-mentioned Chuzu Hermitage (figure 10.26). In the Dengfeng forest, most of the pagodas are funerary, so that the average height among the approximately two hundred structures is 15 meters. The Lingyan Monastery pagoda forest includes a nine-story, louge-style, octagonal pagoda that stands 54 meters. All China’s important Southern Song pagodas are of course in the South. The earliest dated one is the 76-meter pagoda at Bao’en Monastery in Suzhou, built between 1131 and 1162. It is second in height only to Liaodi Pagoda among Song structures (figure 10.27). Although it combines brick and wood, the many wooden parts have required repair. The octagonal, nine-story structure is the tallest by more than a factor of two
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10.26. Pagoda Forest, Shaolin Monastery, Dengfeng, Henan, Song and later
among three pagodas built during the period 1131–1162 under the first Southern Song emperor. An arcade makes it possible to walk along the interior of every story, with stairs providing access to each of them. The other two important Southern Song pagodas also are octagonal: a five-story, stone structure of 21.65 meters stands in Jinjiang, Fujian, and a seven-story pagoda in Dazu has nine interior levels. Feiying Pagoda, in Huzhou, Zhejiang, also is from this period. Dated 1154, it is a brick structure with wooden bracket sets. The pagoda contains a smaller pagoda inside it. Hangzhou’s most renowned pagoda is the wood-andbrick, 59.89-meter Six Harmonies (Liuhe) Pagoda that faces Qiantang River at Kaihua Monastery. It was built in 1163 but completely rebuilt at the end of the Qing dynasty. Today the pagoda has thirteen exterior stories and seven interior levels; the Song version was seven stories inside and outside. An interior corridor is accessible from each side of each level. Spiral staircases lead to the top story. On the other side of Hangzhou, facing West Lake, the interior construction of Leifeng Pagoda is visible. Having collapsed in 1924, the underground reliquary was unearthed in 2000–2001. It includes ritual objects of gold, silver, and other precious materials, Buddhist statues, and bricks dated to 972 of the Wu-Yue kingdom of the Ten Kingdoms.27 Finally, the twin pagodas at Kaiyuan Monastery in Quanzhou, Fujian province, have been known outside China since 1935 when a book about them was published in English.28 They stand east and west of the main hall of the monastery, a temple complex with a long history whose important Ming building is discussed in chapter 14 (see figure 14.6). A pair of wooden pagodas, built in 916 and burned to the ground in
the 930s, were replaced with the present buildings. Both are five stories and entirely brick, even their gracefully sloping eaves, bracket sets beneath them, and all other components inside and out. The west pagoda, also known as Renshou Pagoda, was built in 1128 and stands 44.06 meters. The east pagoda was not completed until 1238. It is 48.24 meters tall and known as Zhenguo Pagoda. Buddhist images flank every door and window of every story, offering a complex, composite iconography on par with that of the exteriors of Liao masonry pagodas. Like Liao pagodas to the north, Song pagodas tower above urban monasteries and in more isolated settings on top of mountains. They are almost exclusively louge style. Most Song pagodas are brick, but, different from their Liao counterparts, wooden pieces, particularly bracket sets, often are used. Reliquaries were buried as often beneath Song pagodas as under pagodas of Liao. More Song than Liao pagodas are at monasteries with histories in the Tang dynasty. As many as thirteen pagodas are dated to the Jin period.29 They stand in Henan, Shanxi, Liaoning, Jilin, and Beijing. Most are at Liao monasteries that were restored under Jin rule. The majority are octagonal, but four-sided and hexagonal structures also exist. Those at former Liao monasteries exhibit the miyan style, no examples of which are known in the Song dynasty. A funerary pagoda in the Pagoda Forest at Shaolin Monastery has a Jin date. Jin reconstructions of Liao pagodas include the White Pagoda in Liaoyang, 71 meters high with thirteen sets of eaves, dated to its repair in 1189; the thirteen-eave pagoda at Chongshou Monastery in Tieling, Liaoning; and the 30-meter pagoda at Yuanjue Monastery in Hunchun, Jilin, of 1158. The seven-level, hexagonal,
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10.27. Pagoda, Bao’en Monastery, 76 meters, Suzhou, 1131–1162
Secular Architecture
miyan-style pagoda in the Changping district of Beijing is dated 1145–1209. The nine-level, miyan-style pagoda in Zhengding, Hebei, which rises 33 meters, is dated 1166–1189. Two four-sided pagodas built in the 1170s with thirteen layers of closely positioned eaves, 30 and 35 meters in height, are in Henan, the former at Tianning Monastery in Qinyang and the latter at Baima (White Horse) Monastery in Luoyang, a temple complex whose history began in the Han dynasty. Like Buddhist halls of the Jin, pagodas largely follow those of Liao or Song, with little that distinguishes them. Jin tomb builders, however, were highly creative.
Tombs provide the vast majority of remains of secular architecture of Song and Jin. The wealth of material greatly contrasts palatial and ritual remains, for with few exceptions, such as a pleasure garden discussed in chapter 11, the Mongols destroyed Jin and Southern Song imperial architecture. A few imperial sites in Shangcheng district of Hangzhou remain. The residence of Song Ningzong’s wife (r. 1194–1224), the empress Gongsheng, is rare evidence of Song palatial architecture. The 1,260 square meters that include six courtyards of buildings,
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ponds, wells, and gardens have yielded aspects of construction such as elimination of interior pillars, patterns of laying floor tiles, and countless ceramics that confirm a Song date.30 The Southern Song ancestral temple (Taimiao), 30,000 square meters, was begun in 1134, soon after the move of the capital to Lin’an. The main hall, hall for tablets of the four ancestors of the first emperor, his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, abstinence hall where emperors prepared for ceremonies by abstaining from certain foods, and hall where jade tablets and seals were stored have been identified based on textual descriptions. The complex was repaired and rebuilt many times during the Song dynasty, but like everything in the Southern Song imperial capital, the ancestral temple was obliterated by the Mongols.31
enclosed by a wall, with a gate at each side and corner towers, and approached by a spirit path. Behind the upper palace is the xiagong (lower palace), the area where objects used in sacrifices to the emperor, including the tablets with the ruler’s names, are kept. At some tombs, the xiagong is in front of the empress’s tomb; at other tombs, it is behind. Every tomb is approached by a spirit path, an emperor’s more extensive than an empress’s. Most paths begin with pairs of que followed by pairs of columns, and then animals and officials. Song spirit paths are distinguished by auspicious birds on stele and foreigners among the monumental figures (figure 10.28). Offering halls of imperial Song tombs have been reconstructed based on textual descriptions and Yingzao fashi.32 Underground a Song imperial tomb is approached by a very long passageway (mudao) behind which is one or two chambers. When there are two, they are connected by a corridor. As mentioned in chapter 8, the plan was probably the inspiration for Western Xia royal tombs. The Song royal tomb probably also was an important influence on nonimperial tombs. Three Song tombs in Baisha, Henan province, about 35 kilometers southeast of the sacred central peak Songshan and 70 kilometers southeast of Luoyang, came to light in 1951 and remain the group with which all subsequently excavated Song tombs are compared.33 All three tombs are approached by a stepped passageway that leads to an antechamber. Tomb 1 has a four-sided chamber connected by a corridor to a hexagonal room behind it. Tombs 2 and 3 have only an antechamber, corridor, and hexagonal main chamber. The tombs include replication of timber pieces from floor to vaulted ceiling, with bracket sets that not only follow specifications in Yingzao fashi, but whose painted decoration is consistent with illustrations in the treatise of graded colors that decorate architectural members, and details such as slat windows, roof tiles, and door studs (figure 10.29). The occupant and his family being served and entertained, interior furnishings, and a female looking out a partially open door are prominent among the murals in all three tombs. All the scenes are found in funerary decoration of the Han dynasty and continue in tombs through the fourteenth century and sometimes later. An inscription in the first tomb provides the date 1099. A coin in the second tomb dates to the reign of the Huizong (r. 1100–1125). A tomb in Heishangou village, in Dengfeng, dated 1097, and one in Luoyang and several in Licun, all in Henan,
Northern Song Tombs As for imperial tombs, the location of every imperial tomb of all Northern and Southern Song and Jin is known. Few have been excavated. The number of nonimperial burials is in the hundreds, with many still to be uncovered. Seven of the nine Northern Song emperors, all but the final two who were taken captive by the Jin, and the father of the founding emperor of Northern Song are buried in a 160-square-kilometer area in Gongyi, Henan province, on the road between Luoyang and the Northern Song capital Bianjing (Kaifeng). Twenty-two empresses are buried there as well, each beneath her own tumulus, with an empress usually northwest of her husband. In addition, following the system of Han, Tang, and Western Xia, more than a thousand auxiliary tombs are in the same area. The tombs divide roughly into three groups. The ancestral father, founding emperor, and second emperor are buried farthest south in a southeast-northwest line. The tomb of the third Song emperor is northeast of this group. The fourth and fifth Song emperors are together to the northeast. The sixth and seventh emperors are southeast of all the others. Every tomb has a similar plan and structure. The similarities can probably be explained by the speed with which Song tombs were constructed compared to Tang imperial tombs. Song tombs were begun only after the ruler or empress or dowager had died. Perhaps due to speed and perhaps related to the amount spent, a Song emperor’s tomb was about half the size of a Tang prince’s tomb. Aboveground is the shanggong (upper palace), near the center of which is the tomb mound,
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10.28. Yongdingling, tomb of Northern Song emperor Zhenzong, d. 1022, Gong county, Henan
are single-chamber and have murals with many of the same themes found in the Baisha tombs.34 Seventy-eight Northern Song tombs, dated by ceramics found in them, were uncovered in a cemetery in Sanmenxia between 2002 and 2003.35 Brick ceilings of Northern Song tombs in Luoyang share features with the three wooden cupola ceilings at Daxiongbao Hall of Baoguo Monastery (see figures 10.8, 10.30). In addition to the subjects of paintings at Baisha, stories of filial piety are widely used in Northern Song tombs. They will continue as themes on Jin and Yuan tomb walls. Song tombs in Changzhi, Shanxi, are similar. Dated SongJin, they have one main, quadrilateral, hexagonal, or octagonal chamber with between two and five side or ear chambers. The intensity of painted interior decoration of some of the tombs is comparable only to what remains in Baisha, and like the Baisha tombs, the imitation of architectural detail, particularly bracket sets and painted decoration on them, often finds a one-to-one correspondence with bracketing described in Yingzao fashi.36
Southern Song Tombs Southern Song imperial tombs no longer survive, but extensive documentation provides information about them.37 The first six Southern Song emperors were laid to rest at a place called Shanghuangshan (supreme imperial mountain), which subsequently came to be known as Cuangongshan (assembled palaces mountain), in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province. Huizong’s remains were returned to the Southern Song in 1142, whereupon he received a tomb in Shaoxing, making a total of seven emperor tombs at that site. Empresses and princes also were buried at the foot of Cuangongshan. Spirit paths were never constructed because, until the end, the imperial family held hope of return to their capital in Henan province. In 1285 Mongol troops desecrated the tombs. Today the site is marked, but only a few mounds represent what was there from the mid-twelfth through late thirteenth centuries. Still, more sculpture from spirit paths survives from the Southern Song period than from many previous dynasties.
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10.29. Interior showing fangmugou (imitation of wooden building parts) tomb 1, Baisha, Henan, 1099
Hundreds of statues of officials and animals from spirit paths of high-ranking Southern Song officials are gathered in twenty-eight groups around Dongqian Lake in Yindong, today in Ningbo. Most belonged to tombs of the Shi family, which traces its origins to the Western Zhou dynasty.38 In 939 the family moved to this region of Zhejiang province. From then until the fall of Song, officials of every generation and their wives were buried beneath mounds approached by spirit paths (figure 10.31). Southern Song tombs survive across the expanse of the empire. Several Zhejiang tombs have distinctive plans.39 One, in Tonglu county, has an extremely long, stepped, underground approach leading to the central space that is divided into three chambers, two that are adjacent and one to the west. A corridor, lined with stone on the outer side and brick inside, encloses the circular room (figure 10.32). A tomb in Longyou is simpler but has the same feature of a corridor enclosing the interior burial space. In Huzhou, three stone tombs of sizes just adequate to contain a corpse share an underground entry and large open space in front of the shared burial sector. A tomb in Jinhua has a standard single chamber, but it is
enclosed underground by an octagonal brick wall, then a circular wall, and finally a stone octagonal wall, most of which no longer remains. Animal statues, presumably from spirit paths, ceramic building parts intended to imitate wooden ones, and relief sculpture were found among all these tombs except three humble ones in Huzhou, where the main burial objects were coins. A larger tomb in Yunhe has a rectangular front chamber joined to the circular burial chamber by a corridor. In Sichuan, the location of Dazu and the surrounding caves, six stone tombs, all joint-husband-and-wife burials, were excavated in Lu county in 2002. Two are dated to the late twelfth century, and all are believed to be of this period or later.40 Also in Sichuan, the tombs of An Bing, two wives, and a granddaughter were excavated in Huaying. Underground construction is primarily stone. Stone pilasters, roof tiles, and figures from spirit paths remain aboveground, and complete interior chambers with relief that imitates architectural members as well as glazed figures, bronze objects, and porcelain survive underground. An Bing died in 1221.41 In 1243 Huang Sheng, the wife of a member of the imperial family, died at the age of seventeen and was buried in a
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10.30. Cupola ceiling, tomb 2, Luoyang, Northern Song
brick-and-stone tomb just outside Fuzhou, Fujian province. More than 350 items of clothing or cloth are among the 436 burial objects.42 In 1274 Zhou Shi was buried in a brick-andstone tomb in De’an, Jiangxi, in which her corpse and more than 408 objects were preserved. Garments, entire bolts, and smaller pieces of silk made up 80 percent of the burial goods.43 The latter two tombs provide extremely important information about textiles and weaving in Song China. The state of preservation confirms that techniques to keep interior chambers airtight, such as sealing the joining points of brick or stone surfaces with lime, was accomplished by the thirteenth century, and that the architectural decoration, whether in imitation of timber members or floral, had persisted for centuries.
The family cemetery of Wanyan Xiyi (d. 1140), the man who invented Jurchen script at the request of the second Jin emperor Wuqimai (r. 1123–1135), is in Shulan county, Jilin. It is one of five tombs built into mountains in a 13.64-square-kilometer area. Underground each was entirely stone. Wanyan Xiyi’s tomb was a single-chamber, stone replica of a hippedroof structure with an octagonal caisson ceiling. His remains were found in a stone box. All five tombs had their own spirit paths consisting of pairs of tigers, sheep, pillars, and civil and military officials. Parts of them remain in situ in Shulan today (figure 10.33). Simple wooden coffins in simple pits were the norm for burials in Heilongjiang in the twelfth century. Twenty-five tombs in Aolimi, about 9 kilometers northwest of the Songhua River near Suibin, were simple pit tombs. Twelve tombs in Yongsheng, just north of Aolimi, were also pit tombs, the largest 3.05 by 1.4 meters. Nothing aboveground marks any of them. Twelve tombs excavated in Zhongxing in the Suibin River Valley include one with a double coffin but some in which the corpses were placed directly into the earth. In 1155 the fourth Jin ruler Hailingwang (1149–1161) ordered the destruction of imperial tombs and their aboveground architecture in the vicinity of the first Jin capital in Heilongjiang. At the same time, Hailingwang commenced construction of tombs for the first two emperors, whose corpses were moved,
Jin Tombs Tombs have been excavated in almost every county of the Jin empire. They cluster in the vicinities of the first Jin capital in eastern Heilongjiang along the Songhua River, near Beijing, and in the region of Southern Shanxi known as Jinnan. The tomb of Wanyan Yan, Prince of Qi, and his wife is about 38 kilometers northwest of Acheng, in Heilongjiang. Like the Song tombs just discussed, the tomb is replete with clothing. This is especially impressive because the tomb is a simple, vertical pit in which husband and wife are buried together in a wooden coffin of 2.21 by 1.26 meters at the base and 90 centimeters high, which was just large enough to contain the two corpses, each side constructed with between seven and twelve wooden planks. A silver plaque of 48.5 by 17 centimeters in the center of the lid of the inner coffin identifies the male as the Prince of Qi.44
10.31. Remains of Southern Song tombs, Yindong, Ningbo, Zhejiang, Southern Song 10.32. Tomb, Xiangshanqiao, Tonglu, Zhejiang, Southern Song
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his father, and nine other imperial ancestors at the base of the mountain known as Dafangshan, in Fangshan, the county south of Beijing where Thunder Sound Cave, discussed in chapter 6, is located (see figure 6.20). Hailingwang was laid to rest near these ancestors, as was his son (who did not succeed him to the throne). Eventually, the first seven Jin emperors, their ancestors, their wives, and some of their children were buried in a 60-square-kilometer area in the hills and valleys of Fangshan between the 1150s and the beginning of the thirteenth century.45 The eighth Jin ruler, the emperor Xuanzong (r. 1209–1213), died near the Jin southern capital Bianjing (Kaifeng) and was buried there. The last Jin ruler did not receive a royal tomb. Many of the Jin royal tombs survived into the Ming dynasty. Destruction was rampant in the late Ming period. Reconstruction, including a wall around part of the tomb area, took place under Manchu rule, probably inspired by the symbolic or emotional attachment the Manchus had to their forbears in Heilongjiang and Jilin, part of the territory known in the first half of the twentieth century as Manchuria. The enclosing walls, marble approaches, and large animal sculpture at the Fangshan site, as well as porcelain and jade, may date later than the Jin period (figure 10.34). Numerous nonroyal Jin tombs also have been excavated in the vicinity of Beijing. Four were found in the Fengtai district, adjacent to Fangshan, in 1980 and 1981.46 One contained a stone coffin with a coffin bed. Another was an earthen pit tomb with a lacquered wooden coffin. A third had cremated remains in a lacquer box on a coffin bed inside a wooden coffin. The last was the joint burial of a husband and wife of the imperial Jin clan, who were together in a stone inner coffin enclosed by a jade outer coffin. Their rank was equivalent to those of the Prince of Qi and his wife. In spite of the variety of methods for treatment of corporeal remains, in all cases simplicity in burial space appears to have been the norm for this level of Jin royalty. One of the architecturally most extraordinary Jin tombs was uncovered in Xincheng county, southwest of Fangshan. It belonged to Shi Li’ai, who died in 1143, and his wife. The tomb is approached by a 50-meter-long spirit path that culminates in a mound of about 15 meters square. Entered via a diagonal ramp, there are four underground chambers, more than in any excavated Jin tomb to date. A four-sided room with epitaphs that identify the deceased in the front center is joined by a corridor to an octagonal room behind it and connected to smaller
ear chambers on either side. Shi Li’ai’s fourth son, Shi Feng, is buried 29.34 meters to the west in a more standard Jin tomb. Predeceasing his father in 1112, Shi Feng was interred with his wife in a stone coffin in a single-chamber pit tomb. Shi Li’ai and his wife’s tomb walls were covered with white lime and painted. A guard in official dress and holding a spear is painted on either side of the entry, on the south. Quotidian scenes are on walls beneath an open curtain on the east and a hanging curtain on the north. A coffin bed is believed to be painted at the bottom of the north wall scene.47 A Jin tomb uncovered in Tongxian, just east of Beijing, contained a six-piece stone sarcophagus whose parts were notched together. Its occupant, the official Shi Zongbi (1114–1175), was moved there for burial two years after his demise. A companion tomb probably belonged to a female. Two Jin tombs found in the Haidian district of Beijing had stone coffins. Excavators believe a wooden coffin may have been inside the stone ones. Jin tombs made of brick and covered with murals also remain in Beijing. A tomb in the western suburb Shijingshan has a long approach to the underground antechamber with an octagonal room behind it. Scenes from the occupant’s life are of the style and quality of Liao murals in tombs in Xuanhua discussed in chapter 8. As in other Liao and Song tombs, screens painted on the walls provide spatial division such that the two-dimensional rendering made it possible to view space more three-dimensionally. The twelve animals that symbolize the Chinese zodiac, another subject in Xuanhua tombs, also are present (see figure 8.13). A tomb in Yanqing county near Beijing has the same plan. The underground approach is 12.3 meters long, and the main chamber is 3.5 meters in diameter and 2.8 meters high. Both Beijing tombs have columns with bracket sets above them painted at each wall seam.48 A cemetery in Longquanwu, Beijing, excavated in 2005, contains more than thirty Liao or Jin tombs. The majority have a single, circular chamber. Sometimes stone is mixed with brick to help support the underground structure. Most have domed ceilings. Most of the remaining burial goods are unglazed pottery. Excavated coins are the main means of determining tomb dates, even though they only provide an earliest possible date. The subjects painted on walls of the Beijing tombs are the same ones carved in brick on the walls of Jin China’s most distinctive funerary spaces, in Jinnan, the southern part of Shanxi, also known as the Pingyang region. They also are found
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10.33. Remains of spirit path, family cemetery of Wanyan Xiyi, d. 1140, Shulan, Jilin
in the above-mentioned Jin tombs in Changzhi. Tombs in southern Shanxi remain in Linfen, Yuncheng, and Yongji prefectures and in the towns of Houma, Jishan, Macun, Xinjiang, Wenxi, and Xiangfen.49 Most are entered from ground level via a stepped or inclined diagonal ramp. The actual entry is a double-leaf door. Only occasionally are southern Shanxi tombs simple pits. In subterranean tombs approached by entry ramps with rectangular room plans, the entry is usually on the east side of the south wall, but in square tombs, the entry is at the center. Rooms may also be octagonal, but whatever their shape, almost without exception the underground space is a single room that sometimes has the additional feature of two small corner extensions or niches. Elaborately decorated interiors in which brick is transformed to imitate wooden construction contrast with the one-room burials. The intense elaboration of every architectural feature in the one-room, constricted space is as overwhelming as the contrast between the humble exterior of a Jin temple, such as the Daxiongbao Hall of Jingtu Monastery and its ceiling decoration (see figure 10.19). The practice of fangmugou (imitation of the timber frame) is as accomplished in Jin-period southern Shanxi tombs as in any brick example in China. Often, as shown in the Tomb of Dong Ming, decoration is so excessive that the outside of a bracket-arm is more decorated than a wooden prototype (figure 10.35). Northern Song prototypes are assumed (see figures 10.29, 10.30). Although we have observed imitation of the Chinese wooden structure in paint and relief since the Han dynasty, it exists nowhere in earlier China to the extent it is found in southern Shanxi in the Jin period. This is not because Jin had a broader-based knowledge or deeper understanding of Yingzao fashi or the Chinese timber frame. It is, rather, because of a creative ability of Jin craftsmen to add an overlay of decoration beyond that of other Chinese builders. Screens represented in figure 10.35, for example, present individualized lattice patterns and diverse floral patterns. The lattices not only are decorative; each alters
10.34. Remains of approach to aboveground architecture, Jin imperial tombs, Fangshan, Beijing, second half of twelfth century to 1208 with later repairs
the view behind it in the manner of windows of varying patterns used in Chinese gardens discussed in chapter 16. The potential for the deceased to be involved in his tomb by experiencing the décor is emphasized in a tomb such as Dong Ming’s. His early-thirteenth-century tomb in Houma has one of the most obvious examples of a stage and actors among all Chinese tombs, in this case the principal participants in the type of performance known as zaju. The four or five participants in zaju, the Southern Song name for this kind of drama and the one more often used in Western literature, and in yuanben, the Jin name, also stand in Miaopu tomb 1 and Huayu tomb 3 and were uncovered at the remains of a Jin tomb on the grounds of a chemical factory, all in Jishan, and they are in high relief in a tomb in Podi village in Yuanqu county.50 The interred often are represented in a Jin tomb. Although their positions are not always within viewing range of the performers, who may include musicians and acrobats as well as a dramatic troupe, the implication is that activity occurs, perhaps even performance for the deceased, in the funerary environment. Other standard funerary scenes from the occupants’ life, a woman looking from behind a partially open door, and stories of filial piety also are on the walls of Jin tombs in southern
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10.35. South wall, tomb of Dong Ming, Houma, Shanxi, 1210
Shanxi. The filial piety images often number twenty-four. They group well in the frequently installed octagonal, vaulted ceilings, as do the eight Daoist immortals. As we have observed through two millennia of tomb construction, architecture and decoration work in unison. The emphasis on stages in Jin tombs in Shanxi may reflect reality. The Pingyang region was a center of zaju and yuanben in the Jin and subsequent Yuan period. This area had open-air stages in many of its towns and villages. Sometimes they were on the grounds of monasteries. A comparison of the stage in Dong Ming’s tomb and one that survives from the Yuan period in Linfen county (see figure 12.15) shows
the Jin interior structure to be more elaborated than the actual building. Twenty-four stages dated from the Song through the Yuan dynasty still stand in Shanxi. All approximately square in ground plan, they range in size from 5 to 9.31 meters on a side.51 Bridges If stages represent a simple construction type, bridges of the tenth to thirteenth centuries demonstrate technological advancement. China’s most famous bridge of this period is Marco Polo Bridge, in part because of its location in Beijing and in part because of its significance in modern history. The
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10.36. Lugou (Marco Polo) Bridge, Fengtai district, Beijing, 1189–1192
Chinese name is Lugouqiao (Reed Gulch Bridge). The bridge was described by Marco Polo, giving way to one of its names, but it has attracted international attention because it was the setting from July 7 to 9, 1937, for the first battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War: the fight became known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Built in only three years, from 1189 to 1192, Lugou Bridge spans 266.5 meters and is 9.3 meters wide (figure 10.36). It is still the longest multiple-arch bridge in North China. Eleven semicircular, segmented arches support it, the widest, the central one, spanning 21.6 meters. The bridge gained further fame because it is one of the “eight great wonders” of Beijing and is depicted in paintings and prints of this subject. Nearly five hundred lions are positioned above the same number of posts of the marble balustrade that lines both sides. Many have been restored, as has the bridge. The original ones are among the finest examples of Jin marble sculpture, comparable to what was destroyed at the Jin imperial tombs in Fangshan.
of these features survives in earlier architecture. Opulent, or exhibiting an excess of decoration, has been used to describe interior space of Jin Buddhist halls such as Daxiongbao Hall of Jingtu Monastery and Jin tombs in southern Shanxi. The word also is appropriate to describe xiaomuzuo in Northern Song China, such as is found in the hall of Erxianguan in Jincheng or the revolving sutra cabinet in the pavilion named for it at Longxing Monastery, but compared to Liao examples such as the sutra cabinets in the Sutra Library at Huayan Monastery, Song and especially Jin small-scale carpentry is more noticeable because it occurs in wooden halls that are often small or whose primarily straight timbers are largely nondescript, and in single-chamber tombs. Humanism exhibits itself in several ways in Southern Song and Jin architecture. We observe subjects with strong appeal to a nonroyal population, such as performance in southern Shanxi, children alongside parents at the Dazu caves, figures looking into or beyond the tomb through an open door, and scenes of moral virtue known as filial piety. This awareness of human heights and foibles occurs in the decades when China is on the verge of crushing defeat by the Mongols. One cannot know if the architectural decorators sensed impending doom, but neither buildings nor their decoration would again exhibit this kind of introspection for many centuries to come.
The words “elegance,” “opulence,” and “humanism” have been used in this long chapter about three centuries from which so many buildings survive and so much is known about them compared to earlier periods; and for which Yingzao fashi figures prominently in understanding them. Song buildings, both north and south, are elegant. This aesthetic trait is observed in gracefully sloping roof eaves and curved beams in South China during the Northern Song period, in the porticos and overall structure of Moni Hall at Longxing Monastery, and in the marble, cruciform approach to Sage Mother Hall. None
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CHAPTER 11
The Chinese City between Tang and Ming
Each of China’s Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms had a capital. Liao ruled from five capitals; Jin used four of them in addition to two others. Song had a primary capital during the Northern Song period in addition to lesser capitals; Southern Song had one most important capital. Western Xia had two preeminent cities. The final dynasty whose cities are discussed here is Yuan, whose architecture is the subject of the next chapter. Yuan had four important capitals and built or used cities across Mongolia, Russia, and North China. During the period discussed in this chapter, ca. 900 to 1368, the year the Mongols fall to the Chinese dynasty Ming (1368–1644), Hangzhou, then known as Lin’an, and Beijing, known as Dadu, were internationally recognized as among the greatest cities in the world. Like Chang’an and Luoyang in Tang times, every capital or other major city of this period is described by people who saw it or in contemporary records by scholars who did not. Plans of many of the cities are preserved in historical records, particularly records known as difangzhi (records of places, often called gazetteers in English). Sometimes excavation has contradicted the texts and images. Archaeology is the reason knowledge about Liao and Jin cities has increased so greatly since the 1980s, for locations in regions that remain largely unsettled and uncultivated provide a welcome opportunity for excavation. One continues to rely on written sources for knowledge of cities that are beneath huge metropolises where excavation is impossible.
Urbanism on the Grasslands As so many other nomads and seminomads had done in the past, the Khitan established capitals and other urban centers as they moved closer to China in their processes of confederation. In 918 Liao’s first ruler Abaoji, whose ancestral precinct and tomb are discussed in chapter 8, established a walled city that after 938 would be known as Shangjing, “upper capital” or “superior capital.” It was one of hundreds of cities used by the Khitan during the two centuries of their ascendency.1 Liao Shangjing, today in Balinzuoqi, Inner Mongolia, is an example of a double-city, a type known in China since the Zhou dynasty. In this case, the walls were north and south of each other, sharing a wall and separated by a river (figure 11.1). The History of Liao informs us that the northern city was named Huangcheng (imperial city) and the southern enclosed area, Hancheng (city of the Han [Chinese]). It further informs us that the northern city was more heavily fortified, with both
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wengcheng (additional walled enclosures that abutted the outer wall) and mamian (battlements that permitted entry into the city), and that a city gate afforded entry at approximately the center of each wall. Excavation has confirmed all this. Alignment was northeast-southwest. The perimeter of the entire area shown in figure 11.1 is 9.325 kilometers, a more accurate measurement than those taken in the first half of the twentieth century by Japanese or European investigators, although the shapes and locations of walls in plans such as figure 11.1 are unchanged.2 Wall pieces as high as 9 meters remain from Huangcheng, whereas the highest portions of Hancheng are 4 meters. Further, pieces of Huangcheng are 15 meters thick, whereas the widest sections of Hancheng are 12 meters. The clearly more fortified Huangcheng suggests that the ruling population sequestered and protected itself more heavily than the walled population to the south, so that were attack to come from the south, the non-Khitan would be the first defense for the city. In spite of the designation Han, Parhae and other non-Khitan lived and worked in the southwestern city. Liao Shangjing was the location of active excavation in the second decade of the twenty-first century, with remains of a six-sided pagoda and two similar, smaller pagodas flanking it, and reliquary deposits beneath, among the most important discoveries.3 Much of Huangcheng was destroyed by Jin invasions. In 919 Abaoji designated a second capital in territory that had been the southern of five capitals of the Parhae empire, whose official end would come in 926. This eastern capital of Liao also was a two-walled city, the northern portion known as Bencheng, or native city, and the southern, again designated for its Chinese and other non-Khitan populations, as Hancheng. It also goes by the name Waicheng, or outer city, another signifier of its distance from the native Khitan population. Today the city is in Liaoyang in Liaoning province. A heavily restored white pagoda dated to Liao-Jin times is the most important remain of the Liao period. Liao’s southern capital came next, founded in the 940s on a site today in Xuanwu district of Beijing. Like the eastern Liao capital, and different from Shangjing, the southern capital had an earlier urban history. It had been known as Jicheng and Yuzhou, the first the name of a walled city of the Zhou dynasty. In Liao times the capital also was called Yanjing. The perimeter of the outer wall was 36 li (about 18 kilometers) and it had eight gates, two at each side. The southern gate on the western wall led to the palace-city that was in the unusual position of
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11.2. Plan of Liao central capital, Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia, founded in 1007. Liao Central Capital Museum, Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia
towers (figure 11.2). The outermost wall was 4,200 meters eastto-west by 3,500 meters north-to-south, consistent with the 30 li recorded in written accounts of the city as the perimeter. The Laoha River ran through the outer city along the southeastern corner of the imperial-city. Although a nearby water supply was crucial to a premodern city’s existence, it is probably coincidence that water also ran through the southeastern corner of Tang Chang’an. Among Liao capitals, the central one had the most references to Tang. Influences may have come from Parhae capitals as opposed to directly from China. The last Liao capital, the western capital (Xijing), was established in 1044 in the city that is today Datong. This was six years after construction of the Sutra Library at Huayan Monastery (see figure 8.10). History of Liao tells us that the western capital was 20 li (about 10 kilometers) in circumference with four gates. Huayan Monastery would have been inside the city near its west gate. Two cities in Inner Mongolia that were not capitals have yielded important information about the function of walled settlements in this empire. A city believed to be Liao Yongzhou whose outer wall is between 525 and 545 meters on each side is located at the meeting point of the Yellow and Tu Rivers about 10 kilometers from Bayintala in Wengniute Banner. Similar ceramic roof tiles, some with dragons and lotuses and some with animal faces, were excavated at Ling’anzhou in Kulun(qi) (Banner). Its four walls were between 540 and 700 meters in length. The outer wall of Raozhou in the vicinity of Balinzuoqi was about 700 by 1,400 meters.4 Studied alongside Khitan walled towns of Mongolia such as Chintolgoi, KharbukhynBalgas, Ulaan-Kherem, and Khermen-Denj, the sites make it even more certain that walled enclosures were important in the Liao vision of empire.5 The Western Xia walled cities were on the other side of Asia. The capital was Xingqing, today Yinchuan. The most
11.1. Plan of Shangjing, capital of the Liao dynasty, Balinzuoqi, Inner Mongolia, established in 918
southwest in the capital. Yanshou Monastery once stood in the area that was the palace-city, where Liulichang and the pagoda from Tianning Monastery are today, the pagoda, although restored, still on its Liao site. The Liao southern capital was divided into twenty-six wards whose names are recorded, fewer than but based on the Tang system. Records also suggest that the architecture of the palaces of Liao’s southernmost capital followed Tang precedents. The Liao central capital (Zhongjing), named for its location in the empire, and today in Ningcheng county near Inner Mongolia’s border with Liaoning, was not founded until 1007. Its mammoth Great Pagoda is the tallest extant Liao building (see figure 8.12). Surveyed by Europeans in 1920, the city was excavated from 1959 to 1960. It comprised a palace-city in the north center that was accessible by three south gates, an imperial-city that shared its north wall and enclosed it on three sides, and an enormous outer city with three distinct sectors, one of them divided into two halves. A major thoroughfare ran from the south center gate of the outer city, named Vermilion Summer Gate as a structure positioned in the South should be, through the south gate of the imperial-city and on to the south gate of the palace-city. Names of other gates and buildings also made reference to Chinese concepts, such as civil official on one side and military official on the other. There were four corner
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11.3. Zhang Zeduan, The Qingming Festival on the River, early twelfth century, detail
famous Western Xia city, Khara-khoto, literally black city, is in Ejina Banner, Alashan, in the Ordos region of western Inner Mongolia. The site was known to expeditionaries in the early twentieth century, notably Piotr Koslov of Russia, the Hungarian Aurel Stein who excavated for the British, and Swedes Folke Bergman and Sven Hedin, all of whom excavated between 1908 and 1931. The 421-by-374-meter outer wall was heavily fortified. Remains of Buddhist architecture, statues, and manuscripts found more than a hundred years ago confirm it was a Buddhist capital (see figure 8.17).6
and life in them, particularly entertainment for its residents in wine shops, restaurants, teahouses, and theaters, are described in one-time resident Meng Yuanlao’s (fl. 1090–1150) Dongjing menghualu (Record of dreaming splendor in the eastern capital). Images of the city are captured in paintings attributed to court painter Zhang Zeduan, who was active in the first half of the twelfth century (figure 11.3). The sophisticated city also had a fire department with fourteen stations, and services for the aged, orphaned, and infirm.8 In 960 when it fell to Song, Bianliang was a triply walled city. The outer wall expanded with population growth to a length of at least 30 kilometers, but still the city was smaller in area than Tang Chang’an and had more people. The expansion is one explanation for the irregular outer wall shape. In fact, the Song capital is one of the cities for which the term luocheng, literally spread-out wall, is used to refer to its outermost enclosure. It is believed that the plan shown in figure 11.4 is a reasonable approximation of its shape early in the Song dynasty. A palace-city where the ruler lived is believed to have been within the imperial-city whose purpose was for administration; it was inside the outermost wall that included residential as well as other space. The major imperial monastery Xiangguosi, no Song part of which survives today, was within the imperial-city. Later maps indicate that the palace-city was due center of a square outer wall. It is likely that such a configuration relies too heavily on an understanding that all post-Zhou cities followed the idealized plan of Wangcheng, the ruler’s city prescribed in the Rituals of Zhou (see figure 2.1).9 Excavation offers more reliable evidence about a feature of imperial Bianliang known as the imperial way (yudao). A three-lane approach from the imperial-city to the palace-city predated the Tang dynasty. Central passage was restricted to imperial use; the two outer lanes were for one-way progression to and from the palace-city. A unique feature of the Northern
Metropolises of Millions The capitals of the Northern and Southern Song dynasties were the most populated cities in the world at the time. Both have been major urban centers of China since then. Northern Song Bianliang Today’s Kaifeng, known as Bianliang and Bianjing in the Song dynasty, was home to the Iron Pagoda (see figure 10.24). Its population in the Northern Song dynasty was well over 1.5 million; at least ten Northern Song cities had more than 100,000 residents.7 A city was founded on this site by the state of Wei in 364 BCE of the Warring States period. After conquest by the troops of the First Emperor, the city was not important again until the Sui dynasty, when it was connected to North and South China by the Grand Canal. It was the capital of Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou of the Five Dynasties, from 936 to 960, and upon unification by Song it became its capital. Officially the city was known as the eastern capital, Dongjing, and Luoyang was the western capital. Bianliang always was the primary Northern Song capital with the largest population of any tenth- or eleventh-century city in China. Its buildings
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Song capital was a magical mountain known as genyue that was begun in the second decade of the twelfth century during the Huizong reign. It was the showpiece of the emperor’s pleasure park. Destroyed in February 1127 during Jin invasions, parts of genyue were brought north where they were incorporated into the design of a ritual island of the conquering Jin dynasty that would later be used in the Mongol capital, for the rock was believed to possess the power of wangqi, rulership.10 Southern Song Hangzhou: China’s Most Beautiful City Hangzhou not only was enormous, it was gorgeous. It is the subject of one of China’s most often-quoted eight-character phrases, “Above is heaven, below Suzhou and Hangzhou.” Like most Chinese cities, Hangzhou’s history is much older than the Song dynasty. The archaeological record includes the jade-producing Liangzhu Culture of the fourth and third millennia BCE. Hangzhou was walled at the end of the sixth century CE. By the Tang dynasty it had become a city of the elite and a home of poets and painters. Tang poet Bai Juyi (772–846) was governor, as was the poet-painter-calligrapher-scholar-official Su Shi (1037–1101) in the Northern Song dynasty. Records attest to a Muslim presence in Tang-dynasty Hangzhou whose mercantile population burgeoned in the Song dynasty. Hangzhou’s immediate pre-Song history was as the capital of Wu-Yue, of the Ten Kingdoms. When descendants of Emperor Huizong moved their capital here in 1127, it was with the hope they would return north. The name Lin’an, “temporary security,” was a reference to this hope. Its beauty had already been realized much earlier, for the topography of West Lake and nearby mountains led to the unusual configuration along the water: the city has a rough north-south axis, but the shapes of the palace-city, imperial-city, and outer city were long and narrow. From the seventh century on, the walled city expanded north and south between West Lake on the west and Qiantang River on the east. As at Bianliang, the city quickly grew outside the Song walls in this metropolis of many markets and abundant places for luxurious dining and leisure. It is no wonder Marco Polo called this city of canals and bridges and hot springs that could accommodate more than one hundred bathers the greatest city on earth. Six Harmonies and Leifeng Pagodas were standing then. Hangzhou was just one of China’s southeastern coastal cities that flourished in the Northern and Southern Song dynasties.
11.4. Plan of Bianliang, Henan, Northern Song, 960–1127
Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton), Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Mingzhou, and Yangzhou were others. Quanzhou has been called the emporium of the world.11 All of them had international populations among their short- and longer-term resident merchants.
Jin Capitals Like Parhae and Liao, the Jin ruled their empire from five capitals. Because of expansion southwestward, a total of six sites were used. In addition to the four that had belonged to Liao, a fifth was a former Song capital. Perhaps because so many had previously functioned as imperial cities, all six were established as Jin capitals during the first thirty years of the dynasty. The second Jin ruler, Wuqimai (r. 1123–1135), was the first to use a capital city. Taking the Liao name for its first capital, Wuqimai began work at Jin Shangjing in 1124. He built this new city near the native lands of his own Wanyan clan, about 30 kilometers southeast of Harbin in Heilongjiang. Among peoples who came into contact with China, only Parhae had built monasteries and cities this far northeast, and they never established a Chinese dynasty. Today known as Acheng and in the Jin dynasty as Baicheng (white city), the site was first excavated at the end of the Qing dynasty. Soviet and Japanese excavation occurred in the early twentieth century, followed by much more recent Chinese surveying. The plan and locations of major buildings are well known. Jin Shangjing was oriented almost perfectly north-south. It was a well-fortified, double-city whose parts had the same western boundary (figure 11.5). With mamian (fortifications)
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Jin city or to the first Liao capital that would be destroyed by Jin in 1153. In 1125, as construction at Shangjing was just getting underway, Wuqimai established his western capital at Datong. Liao architecture and the wall were reused. The eastern capital, built on the former Liao capital at Liaoyang, followed in 1144 during the reign of the third Jin emperor. The majority of Jin capital construction occurred during the twelve-year reign of Hailingwang, 1149–1161, much of it in 1153. In that year, Hailingwang destroyed remains at the Liao central capital and began his own construction there. Great Pagoda (Data) was restored during this period. Hailingwang also destroyed Jin’s first capital in Heilongjiang; as mentioned in chapter 10, imperial tombs were dug up and moved southward to Fangshan in the vicinity of Beijing. Further, he destroyed and rebuilt the Liao southern capital. The southward shift of his capitals was because the northern part of the former Song empire was now under Jin control. The Liao central capital became the new Jin northern capital, known as Jin Shangjing; the Liao southern capital Yanjing, today Beijing, became Jin’s central capital Zhongdu; and the Jin southern capital was at Kaifeng, where the Northern Song capital Bianliang had stood. The Liao eastern and western capitals remained Jin’s. Jin Zhongdu encompassed and expanded the Liao southern capital. The outer wall of the Liao capital was 16–17 li and the Jin wall was 35–36 li. The west, south, and east walls are beneath Beijing neighborhoods today, including Yongdingmen, Xuanwumen, and Fengtai district. Their lengths in Jin times are estimated as 4,530, 4,750, and 4,510 meters, respectively. The north wall probably measured 4,900 meters. Each side had three gates for a total of twelve with two north-south streets and two east-west streets running across the city from gate to gate of opposite walls. Only the palace- and imperial-cities blocked those thoroughfares. Documentation about the Jin central capital is rich. Lu Yanlun was the chief planner. He is said to have consulted diagrams of Bianliang in preparation for construction. Like Bianliang, the Jin Zhongdu palace-city was roughly centered. The south gates of the palace- and imperial-cities of both capitals were approached via a boulevard that began at the central gate of the south wall and opened into a T-shape in front of the palace-city. The palace-city had three main halls along its central axis, as well as an eastern palace for the crown prince, and
11.5. Plan of Shangjing, Acheng, Heilongjiang, Jin dynasty, founded 1124
and corner towers whose sides were between 7 and 10 meters at the base and 1–2 meters on top, the entire outer boundary was 10.963 kilometers that divided as 1,553 meters for the north wall, 3,432 meters for the western walls of both cities, 2,148 meters for the south wall, and the three segments on the east accounting for the rest. There probably were five gates: two on the east and one on the west for the north city and south and east for the south city, all heavily fortified. The border between the north and south cities was not fortified, and in fact there was an entry between them. The palaces and other government buildings were in a sector on the western side of the south city of about 645 by 500 meters. Well-preserved remains indicate that this palace-imperial-city area was divided into two northsouth corridors with at least five palatial halls in a line along the middle area. One of them was a two-structure complex joined by a corridor, of the gong scheme observed in imperial architecture of earlier times. It is believed that Jurchen elite lived in the south city and that official architecture was there, whereas workshops and handicrafts and the population responsible for them were in the north city.12 In spite of documentation about Jin Shangjing in texts such as History of Jin (Jinshi), neither the duration of construction nor when the city was walled is known. In fact, before the year 1138, it is unclear in documents whether Shangjing refers to the
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gardens. It also had towers named for civil and military officials and an ancestral temple. In 1179 the Jin ruler built an island on a body of water that had been channeled into the city to cross its western and south walls. That water and island would be significant in every subsequent plan of Beijing (figure 11.6). A drawing of Zhongdu published in the encyclopedia Shilin guangji (Expansive record of a forest of affairs) in the late thirteenth century, but surviving in an edition of the 1330s, shows tents in the palace-city. This is possible, although the practice is better documented the next century when the Mongols lived in tents in their capital at today’s Beijing. The configuration of the palaces at Zhongdu has been shown to have close correspondences to representations of building groups in the murals by court painter Wang Kui in Mañjuśrī Hall of Yanshan Monastery (see figure 10.20).13 More than Liao, Jin imperial city construction was tied to China. Screens, doors, and walls from Northern Song Bianliang were brought north for installation at Zhongdu. Zhongdu served as the primary Jin capital until 1214 when Chinggis Khan’s (1162–1227) Mongol forces attacked the city. The Jin then moved the government to the southern capital, which endured until 1232. Little is known about architecture in the Jin capital at Kaifeng. Finally, there is information about nonimperial Jin settlements. Puyulu (Puyu circuit) in Kedong county of Heilongjiang is an example. A 2.85-kilometer, curved wall enclosed the heavily fortified, moat-surrounded city with gates at the north and south and a street that ran through the city between them.14
11.6. Plans of Liao Nanjing, Jin Zhongdu, and Yuan Dadu superimposed on plan of Ming-Qing Beijing as well as bodies of water flowing in, through, and around the cities
Mongol city building begins at Qara-qorum in the Orkhon Valley, about 360 kilometers west of Ulaanbaatar. Excavation has yielded objects from the Tang period, but a Mongolian inscription dates the founding of the city used by the Mongols to 1220, during the period when Chinggis Khan was confederating tribes into the Mongol empire. His successor Ögedei (1186–1241) was Qara-qorum’s most important patron. Ögedei’s successors Güyük (1206–1248) and Möngke (1209–1259) almost certainly lived in tents in Qara-qorum when they were not in battle or hunting. In January 1254 the Flemish Franciscan William of Rubruck had an audience with Möngke at Qaraqorum. The friar wrote that Möngke’s palace was one-tenth the size of the monastery of St. Denis. Rubruck also described the silver fountain from which flowed mare’s milk, a favorite Mongol beverage, an automaton crafted by the Frenchman Guillaume Boucher, who had been captured by the Mongols in Hungary.15 Qara-qorum was excavated by Russian teams at the end of the nineteenth century, a Soviet team in 1949, and most recently by German archaeologists. There is no question that the city was walled. Nor is there doubt that craftsmen workshops existed there. The location of the palace described by Friar William, however, is not certain. It is possible that it remains beneath the Lamaist monastery Erdene Zuu, discussed in chapter 15.16 By Möngke Khan’s reign, the Mongols controlled North Asia from eastern Mongolia to the Qïpchaq Steppe. Möngke’s younger brother Khubilai (1215–1294) was already fighting in China. In 1256 Möngke charged Khubilai with construction of a city that would be used as a base from which the Mongols could wage war on China. It was called Shangdu, upper capital, du a word that
The Road to Dadu The Mongols have been perceived as destroyers of cities. Persian historians Rashīd al-Dīn (1247–1318) and (AtâMalek) Juvayni (d. 1283) recount siege and mass destruction of Central and West Asia’s most glorious cities, Damascus, Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khara-khoto among them. Walls fell and populations were slaughtered. Yet the Mongols also were city builders. Their greatest city, literally “great city,” Dadu, sometimes pronounced Daidu, was one of four capitals and many times more that number of cities or walled towns built by the Mongols in China or Mongolia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Urbanism was a crucial component of empire for the Mongols, even though they had fewer capitals than Liao or Jin.
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designates a city and can designate a capital. The name became Xanadu in Samuel Coleridge’s famous poem of 1797. Shangdu is almost unique among Chinese cities because it has such a specific date of origin and its construction is so closely related to a historical event. Located on the Luan River, about 20 kilometers northeast of the center of Zhenglan Banner in Inner Mongolia, the new city quickly became a display of Khubilai’s vision of rule. By the time Möngke died in 1259, Shangdu was a triply walled city. Khubilai’s closest advisor on Chinese affairs, Liu Bingzhong (1216–1274), presented the design. Both Marco Polo (1254–1324) and Friar Odoric (1288–1331) of Pordenone, in Italy, visited Shangdu, Odoric in the 1320s. British, Russian, American, and Japanese geographers and expeditionaries studied Shangdu from the 1870s to the 1930s. Comprehensive excavation was conducted at the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.17 Shangdu’s palace-city was 542 meters north-south by 605 meters east-west. It was in the north center of the second walled enclosure, the imperial-city whose wall measured 1,395 by 1,415 meters. The imperial-city shared its southern and eastern walls with the corner of the also nearly perfectly rectangular outer city, whose sides stretched 2,220–2,225 meters with a total of seven gates, three of them shared with the imperial-city. Remains of about fifteen temple complexes confirm that Liu Bingzhong’s design for the interior of the imperial-city could have been, as texts describe it, based on the Eight Trigrams of the Yijing (Book of Changes), each complex at a corner or a side of the city. Huayan Monastery would have been in the northeastern position. Excavation suggests it was composed of three parallel courtyards enclosed within a space of approximately 325 by 200 meters. Green, blue, and golden glazed tiles are among the ruins. The Lamaist monastery Ganyuansi was opposite Huayansi in the Northwest. It comprised two courtyards of buildings north and south of each other. Cane Palace is also named in written descriptions of Shangdu. It may have had a portable building with a bamboo frame, as well as pavilions and halls that probably were more permanent structures. The main palatial building complex at Shangdu was named Da’an (Great Pacification) Pavilion. According to History of the Yuan, officials came here to watch the coronation of Khubilai’s successor Temür (1265–1307) in 1295. Its foundation is believed to have been excavated in the summers of 1996 and 1997. The hall in question had a squarish stone foundation about 40 meters on each side, approached
by a T-shaped ramp from the south. Under Ayurbarwada (r. 1312–1320), the court painter Wang Zhenpeng (ca. 1280–ca. 1329), known today for paintings of the Dragon Boat Regatta and Buddhist subjects in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, painted the walls of Da’ange. Carved marble corner pieces decorated with entwined dragons, glazed ceramic roof tiles, and patterns carved into brick excavated at the ruins attest to either the presence of Chinese craftsmen or familiarity with Chinese decoration and techniques. Inscriptions in the Mongol script Phags-pa on other stones indicate the Mongol presence. Tombstones inscribed in Arabic indicate that West Asians were among Shangdu’s international community. A structure named Crystal (Shuijing) Hall arouses interest because of its name. It is believed that it had glass decoration that glimmered in the sunlight. The last Yuan ruler held audience there. In 1261 a Confucian temple was built at Shangdu. Shangdu also had a city god temple and a mosque. Official bureaus, markets and other commercial architecture, and residences lie beyond the outer wall (figure 11.7). Beginning in the 1270s Shangdu increasingly became a city where the Mongols could relax. It came to function largely as a xinggong (traveling palace) used by the khans for three months of leisure and hunting each year. Evidence of little permanent construction between the second and outermost walls confirms these purposes for the outer city. Shangdu was burned in wars with the Ming army. Still, after the fall of Dadu in 1368, the Northern Yuan, a steppe empire formed from the remnant of the Mongol empire in China, endured at Shangdu until the murder of the ruler Toghon Temür in 1388.
Yuan Dadu and Zhongdu Dadu was indeed the great capital of the Yuan dynasty. It was designed for Khubilai Khan, and his signature was on its major monuments. It was the capital not just of China but of the Mongolian empire, which had come to span from northern Korea to eastern Europe and the Red Sea. The official founding date of the Yuan dynasty is usually considered 1271, but four years earlier, in the eighth lunar month of 1267, Khubilai broke ground for his new city. As at Shangdu, he turned to Liu Bingzhong for the design. Liu presented a purely Chinese capital, more orthodox than any previous imperial city in China’s history. Like Shangdu, it followed a classical text, in this case the description of
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11.7. Wall remains, Shangdu, Duolun, Inner Mongolia, 1256
Wangcheng in the Rituals of Zhou. A stone known as the center marker (zhongxin zhi tai) was placed before the outer walls were completed. Following the prescription for a ruler’s city, the eastern and western walls and northern and southern walls of the outer city were equidistant from this marker. That outer wall measured 28.6 kilometers in perimeter and was more than 50 square kilometers. It was as close to a perfect rectangle as any previous imperial city in Chinese history, marred only by a slight deviation on the western side of the south wall that accommodated architecture from a preexisting monastery. It was also as heavily fortified as any previous city on Chinese soil, with walls between 22 and 24 meters thick. The very straight boulevards that emanated from the outer wall gates divided the city into fifty-four wards, further divided into four by bisecting streets. The widest boulevards were three-lane, of about 25 meters in the center and another 6 to 7 meters on each side. Narrower streets were about 18 meters in width, and alleys were about 9 meters. Only the flow of water and palace- and imperial-cities obstructed the most major thoroughfares from crossing the city in its entirety. Water flow appears to have been the reason that, in spite of the center marker, which to date is the only example of a physical marker for wall placement in the history of Chinese planning, the palace- and imperial-cities were south of the center of Dadu. Water, one recalls, had been channeled into and around the Jin central capital. Even though that city, except for a few monasteries, was largely destroyed by the Mongols, water flow was preserved. Figure 11.6 shows the locations of the Liao and Jin capitals relative to Dadu, as well as the water supply shared by them. The Jin island referred to above, to which genyue had been moved from the Northern Song capital, was expanded at the Yuan city. Known as Qionghua Island, the importance of Taiye Pond around it and the waterways to which the pond
connected were such that water divided the Dadu imperial-city into two. This was unprecedented in Chinese imperial planning. To the west were an imperial park and Longfu and Xingsheng palace complexes, residences of the empress dowager and crown prince, respectively, the first begun the year of Khubilai’s death and the second in 1308. Members of the imperial family resided in tents in this part of the city. The palace-city was east of the island and south of Dadu’s center. Within its 3,480-meter perimeter were three multihall complexes for which there is extensive textual description. Khubilai died in Yude Hall, inside the palace-city. The ancestral temple and altars to soil and grain, clear evidence that the intent was for a Chinese-style imperial capital, were east and west, respectively, to the south of the palace-city, near the outer city wall. Excavation at Dadu confirmed the implementation of the T-shaped approach to the imperial-city that included the imperial way observed at Northern Song Bianliang and Jin Zhongdu. It also yielded building parts and remains of a mansion known as Houyingfang (see figures 12.13, 12.14), discussed in chapter 12. Aboveground one of the heavily fortified gates of the outer wall, Heyimen, survived until it was torn down during the Cultural Revolution (figure 11.8). Heyi Gate was not specifically described by Marco Polo, who may not have walked the circuit of Dadu when he wrote that it was 14 miles with twelve gates, for Dadu’s outer wall had only eleven. Why this city that so closely follows so many dictums for imperial planning of China’s Classical Age had only two gates in the north outer wall has never been explained. Polo was one of many foreigners in this city. In fact, Yuan is the first dynasty for which reliable descriptions of architecture were written by Europeans. Most of them were missionaries. Odoric of Pordenone, who we noted also was in Shangdu, was
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11.8. Heyi Gate, west side of outer wall of Yuan Dadu
in Dadu between 1325 and 1328. John of Marignolli was there in the early 1340s, and John of Montecorvino was archbishop of Dadu from 1294 until 1312, when, after establishing two churches in the capital, he moved to Quanzhou where he also built a church. Muslims were in the capital also. Ox Street Mosque and Dongda (Great East) Mosque trace their histories to the Yuan dynasty. One name, however, has been overemphasized. The name Yeheidie’er, a Central Asian, appears on his son’s tombstone as the designer of Beijing. There is no evidence that any aspect of the city plan was inspired by any system but China’s.18 Although the palace-city was located roughly in the center of both Song Bianliang and Jin Zhongdu, and even though it is possible that Liu Bingzhong or others involved in planning Dadu knew about the plans of those two cities, it is impossible to prove that either earlier city was built with a scheme such as Wangcheng in mind. Moreover, Bianliang expanded around an existing city, and Zhongdu had the Liao capital site inside its walls. The use of a classical model for the new city Dadu not only is supported by the documents that inform us that Liu Bingzhong based his design here, as at Shangdu, on a classical text, the center marker confirms that he turned to “Kaogongji.” The desire of the nonnative Mongols to justify their imperial urban planning based on the Zhou classical model is further emphasized by plans of Song Bianliang and Lin’an published during the Yuan period. In contrast to figure 11.4, which shows the irregularly shaped outer wall of Bianliang, and other published plans that present the outer wall as even more irregular, the plan published in the 1330s version of the above-mentioned Shilin guangji shows three concentric rectangles, the innermost slightly off center due to water that runs through the city (figure
11.9). Xianchun Lin’anzhi (The record of Lin’an in the Xianchun era) (1264–1274), published during the period of Dadu’s construction, similarly presented the Southern Song capital as if it had a central palace-city inspired by the Wangcheng model.19 Although mountains are shown in and around the city walls of Lin’an, the long, narrow city described above is camouflaged. The illustration in the written record, like that of the Song Northern capital (figure 11.9), that indeed outlasted any structure from the Song period except a few pagodas, shows Lin’an as a nearly square city with straight walls. The rewriting of China’s architectural and urban history for the purpose of legitimizing Mongolian rule as a Chinese dynasty was successful. Even though a few non-Chinese buildings were constructed, including a pagoda designed by a Nepali who succeeded Liu Bingzhong’s as Khubilai’s chief advisor, discussed in the next chapter (see figure 12.20), the Mongol-period vision of a Chinese capital based on Wangcheng long outlived nonnative rule. In chapter 13 we shall see that Ming-Qing Beijing’s plan relied on Yuan Dadu, so that its adherence to the Wangcheng model is very much a result of the Mongol city plan. Yuan also had a central capital. Yuan Zhongdu was established by the seventh ruler Qaishan (r. 1308–1311) 15 kilometers northwest of Zhangbei in Zhangjiakou, Hebei. It is approximately midway between Shangdu and Dadu and was thus a place the khans could stop en route between the two capitals. It was a city of three concentric rectangular walls, with the palace-city centered in the imperial-city and slightly north of the center of the outer city wall. Fifty-four building foundations had been uncovered by the beginning of the twenty-first century.20 The main building complex of the palace-city conformed to the gong-plan. The palace-city was 2,360 meters in perimeter with a 15-meter-thick wall with corner towers and a gate on each side; the imperial-city was more heavily fortified. Numerous pieces of marble sculpture of the kind found at Qara-qorum, Shangdu, and Dadu also have been found here.
Cities and Princely Retreats outside the Capitals More than ten other cities built during the Yuan dynasty in China or Inner Mongolia have been excavated.21 Anxiwangfu, today beneath Xi’an, was built in 1272 by Khubilai for Mangela(i), his third son by his first wife. Its best-known relic is a magic square with numbers in Arabic. Marco Polo visited this city in 1275, describing its heavily fortified outer wall, preserve for
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11.9. Plan of Northern Song capital Bianliang, Shilin guangji, 1330s
animals and birds where the khans could hunt, and a palace “so large and fair none could devise it better.” Mangela’s summer residence was the walled city Kaicheng, today in Yuanzhou, Guyuan, Ningxia, also established in the 1270s. It measured about 3.5 by 1 kilometer. Stone relief of the kind excavated at the Yuan capitals was found there during archaeological work at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Yingchang, about 150 kilometers northeast of Shangdu in Kesheketeng Banner of Inner Mongolia, was begun in 1270 for Khubilai’s granddaughter Princess Sengge Ragi. Its exterior wall was about 650 by 600 meters and heavily fortified, particularly the three gates. The palace area was enclosed roughly in the center of the outer wall. The Eastern Christian faith was practiced in Olon Süme, about 40 kilometers from Damaoqi (Bailingmiao) in Inner Mongolia. It is believed to have been an Onggut city that was destroyed at the end of the Yuan dynasty and rebuilt under the Mongolian ruler Altan Khan (1507–1582).22 Almaliq, today in Huocheng/Yili, in western Xinjiang, was a squarish city about 2,282 meters on each side. The triple-walled city Jining in Inner Mongolia, south of Shangdu and west of Zhangjiakou, was established in 1192 when the territory was under Jin rule. It was expanded under the Mongols from about 730 by 630 meters to 1,100 by 1,000 meters with a gate in each wall. The date 1312 was found on a stele. Large amounts of silk have been excavated there. Jingzhou in Siziwang Banner, Fengzhou in Huhehaote, and Quanninglu in Wengniute Banner, all in Inner Mongolia, had walls of 800–900 meters on each side, 1,170 by 1,110 meters, and about 1,000-meters-square, respectively.
Excavation across Asia shows similar walls and stone carving, including Buddhist remains, in these cities and princely towns across the Mongolian empire. Those in Mongolia and along the Khirkhira River in Russia have decades of excavation history.23 Mongol capitals of Iran, particularly Marāgheh, Tabriz, and Soltaniyeh, have yielded Buddhist and sculptural remains that confirm the international artisan community and migration of religions under Mongolian rule.24 The preservation of Chinese urban architecture not only in China but across the Mongolian empire is explained by an important fact. The enclosing wall was as powerful a symbol of China in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as the timber-frame building. From any direction from afar, it signaled entrance into China and all that imperial China symbolized. This facade of Chinese imperialism also offered extraordinary privacy behind the arcades, inside the gates, behind the corridors, and inside the walls of a Chinese architectural environment so that Mongol princes-of-the-blood, as the members of Chinggis’s clan were known, or any other non-Chinese conqueror, could live in the comfort of their tents while holding audience in grand palaces whose glazed roof tiles shone above the walls. Cities may not have been essential to Liao, Jin, or Yuan control of China, but they surely enhanced the abilities of all three dynasties to reign.
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CHAPTER 12
The Mongol Century
The Mongol empire was unique in Chinese, Asian, and world history. For the first time, all China was ruled by a foreign dynasty, and China was only part of the empire that dynasty ruled. The Mongols had a direct impact not only on continental Asia but as far east as Japan and as far west as Europe. Kings in Europe, the pope, rulers of principalities and states never conquered by the Mongols, sultans in Egypt, and the emperor of Japan determined foreign policy based on their knowledge and expectations of war with the Mongols. Emissaries, officials, military leaders, and artisans from every part of the empire and beyond came to China. Chinggis Khan was born in Mongolia somewhere near the meeting point of the Onon, Kherlen, and Tuul Rivers in 1162, when North China was ruled by the Jin dynasty and South China by Southern Song. Allying himself with some tribes and conquering others, by the first quarter of the fourteenth century, Chinggis had brought the peoples of Mongolia and neighboring regions into a confederation unprecedented in world history. Jin Zhongdu fell to the Mongols in 1214, and the rest of the dynasty succumbed over the next twenty years. Qara-khitai, a remnant of the Liao dynasty, fell in 1218. The conquest of the Khwarazmians, centered in today’s Samarkand and Bukhara, was accomplished in 1220. In 1227, the year of Chinggis’s death, Western Xia fell. By then the Mongols had conquered parts of modern Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, the Crimea, and the Qïpchaq Steppe, territory then known as Kievan Rus. By the mid-1220s the rest of Transoxiana and Persia were under Mongol control. Following Chinggis’s death, an unprecedented action would alter world history even more than Chinggis’s rise: his four sons maintained unity, each controlling part of the empire and all possessing expansionist plans. The oldest son ruled lands that came to be known as the Golden Horde, an appanage that included former Kievan Rus and would extend to Hungary and Poland by the 1220s and 1230s. The second son, Chaghatay (1183–1241), was centered in Transoxiana, including northern Iran and most of Central Asia. The third son, Ögedei (1186– 1241), officially Chinggis’s successor and the second khan of the Mongol empire, ruled from Qara-qorum. The youngest son, Tolui, returned to the lands of Chinggis’s birth and fathered the men who were responsible for the continuation of the Mongol empire: his oldest son, Möngke (1209–1259), became the fourth ruler, by then a khaghan (great khan); his second son, Khubilai (1215–94), was Möngke’s successor as khaghan
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and built Shangdu and Dadu; and the third son, Hülegü (1218– 1265), secured Iran and the ʿAbbasid Caliphate in Baghdad and Syria. Beginning around 1256, Hülegü ruled the Ilhhānate, an empire that included the Iranian capitals of Marāgheh, Tabriz, and Soltaniyeh. The cities mentioned at the end of the previous chapter were either capitals of Chinggis’s direct descendants or princely towns awarded to their relatives. We have seen that Liu Bingzhong was Khubilai’s closest advisor for several decades. The majority of men who served Khubilai directly or who guided policy during the Yuan dynasty, however, were not Chinese. Against Liu’s wishes, the civil service exams through which China’s leading scholars and officials who had passed first in their own provinces, and eventually the national tests that led to government appointments in the Hanlin Academy and salaries, were abolished. Yuan counterparts of those who served the government in the affairs of architecture and the arts in previous dynasties, men like Li Jie, editor of the Yingzao fashi, and all court painters, were left without means of livelihood. Although the Hanlin Academy would be reestablished, upon the fall of Southern Song and termination of opportunities at the court, many Chinese officials who were not already in the Southeast fled there. They were known as “leftover subjects” (yimin), a population in self-imposed exile with no skill other than high-level literacy. Out of this highly educated and now impoverished generation emerged some of China’s greatest poets and painters, who, in contrast to their Song counterparts, worked independently of the court. Not only was there no longer a bureaucratic mechanism for producing civil servants, Mongol policy actively discouraged participation of the Chinese population while encouraging the involvement of non-Chinese in their government and its sponsored projects. The population was divided into four groups: Mongols at the top, next Semu, then Chinese from North China, and at the bottom southern Chinese, the South a particular target of Mongol animosity because that region was last to fall. Groups three and four had little place in the Mongol government. Semu, of neither Mongolian nor Chinese ethnicity—Uyghurs, Persians, and Arabs, for example—rapidly rose to power in the Yuan dynasty because there were not enough Mongols to fill government positions.1 The majority of Semu practiced religions other than Buddhism and Daoism. This was not a problem, for the Mongols are known for a kind of religious tolerance, or at least for little interference in the religious practices of the many faiths of
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The Mongol Century
their empire. Mongol rulers since the generation of Chinggis had sought meetings with clerics of the religions with which they came into contact. Their motives ranged from information gathering to a quest for methods of enhancing and prolonging life. The Daoist master Qiu Chuji (Changchun) (1144– 1227) met Chinggis in the Altai mountains around 1223. In May 1254 a debate among Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims was held in Qara-qorum. Mongol wives were as often Christian and Muslim as they were Buddhist. Tombstones preserved from the Yuan dynasty confirm that Christians, Muslims, Manichaeans, and Brahmans lived and died in Yuan China. In fact, Mongol khans admired what they perceived as Godgiven talent. During the decades of conquest, not only clerics but also artisans were spared when populations were otherwise annihilated. Both groups were resettled, bringing, for instance, the Frenchman Guillaume Boucher, mentioned in chapter 11, from Hungary to Qara-qorum. There was also a certain amount of syncretism among Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. We shall observe this at Guangsheng Monastery, discussed below. One might expect that if ever there was a time when Chinese architecture should have been altered by foreign influences, it was during this pan-Asian empire, even though it was centered in China. As was the case with urban planning, only rarely did buildings depart from age-old Chinese norms. Architecture of Islam and Lamaist Buddhism rose on the Chinese landscape, but this presence is noteworthy because the overwhelming majority of Yuan buildings, including mosques, are almost purely of Chinese design. As with city plans, the Mongols appropriated Chinese architecture in their processes of confederation and empire formation. So much architecture survives from the Yuan period that there is ample evidence to demonstrate a clear hierarchy in construction, from imperial architecture and buildings for the top echelons of society, to religious architecture built by patrons with sufficient funding but in towns and villages, to buildings for worship, residence, and entertainment of the populace. Yuan is the earliest period when one can talk about vernacular architecture. We begin with the imperial tradition.
Eminent Halls The phrase “eminent hall” (diantang) was explained in chapter 9. Eminent halls of the Dadu palace-city are described in detail
in records. One account was written in 1366 by Tao Zongyi (1316?–1396?), who may never have seen the city. The chapter is in (Nancun) Chuogenglu (Record of resting from the plow), the same collection of essays from which a descriptive comment about Sage Mother Hall was quoted in chapter 10, and in which a description of Northern Song Bianliang is found. An example of writing of a literatus about cities or buildings he never saw, but presumably based on available records, Chuogenglu lists buildings and provides dimensions, and occasionally descriptions of almost every building in the Dadu palacecity.2 A second descriptive account is Gugong yilu (Record of remains of the ancient palaces) of 1396 by the official Xiao Xun, who was charged with recording what survived in the early Ming period before it was destroyed in preparation to build a new capital.3 These descriptions have been used in theoretical reconstructions of Yuan Dadu’s buildings. The reconstructions are plausible because two extant buildings lend themselves to comparison with the texts: Virtuous Tranquility (Dening) Hall at the Temple to the Northern Peak in Quyang, Hebei, built in 1270 for imperial sacrifices to the sacred mountain, and Three Purities Hall at the Daoist monastery Yonglegong in Ruicheng, Shanxi, built between 1247 and 1262. Virtuous Tranquility Hall is the largest surviving building from the Yuan period. It measures over 40 meters across the front and almost 30 meters in depth, significantly smaller than the Daxiongbao Halls of the Liao dynasty at Fengguo and Huayan Monasteries (see figures 8.6, 8.7). Oriented southward, Virtuous Tranquility Hall is fronted by a huge yuetai (platform), 25 meters east to west by 20 meters north to south. The yuetai is approached by stairs from the center front and two sides, and the stairs, platform, and perimeter of the hall are enclosed by a white marble balustrade whose pillars are capped by lions (figure 12.1). Thirty pillars are lodged into the platform, defining a covered arcade around the seven-by-four-bay hall. The platform is extremely high. The height, hipped roof, two sets of roof eaves, and enormous yuetai are signs of eminence. So are exterior pillar-top bracket sets of six-puzuo formation, six the highest puzuo number among extant bracket sets of the Yuan dynasty. Sets found beneath the upper exterior eaves are slightly larger in every dimension than those above the lower exterior eaves, but these upper sets employ one true ang and one “false,” or decorative, ang, whereas sets below the lower eaves employ two false ang. Intercolumnar bracketing is fivepuzuo, also with a false ang. Both the six- and five-puzuo sets are
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12.1. Hall of Virtuous Tranquility, Temple to the Northern Peak, Quyang, Hebei, 1270
jixin, possessing the “added” member that projects perpendicular to the building plane. A huatouzi (flower-headed strut) is in a subsidiary position and does not reach beneath the purlins, but it does help bear the weight above it. Two intercolumnar bracket sets are lodged into the architrave with an auxiliary tie-beam (pupaifang) above it. Both the architrave and auxiliary tie-beam have projecting, decorated corners associated with the Yuan dynasty. Other Yuan features are a “chrysanthemum head” (juhuatou) on the second and third steps of bracket sets in the back of the hall and chuomu (grabbing curtain) tie-beams on the ends of other tie-beams, named because they appear to curve at the ends.4 Three Purities Hall (Sanqingdian) is the grandest of four buildings constructed between 1247 and 1262 at the Daoist monastery Yonglegong. Here, as noted in chapter 10, the suffix gong refers to a Daoist monastery whose buildings are on par with those of palatial architecture. Constructed in Yongji, in southern Shanxi, the monastery had been destroyed by fire in 1244. Reconstruction during this fifteen-year period was on a grand scale: five halls from front to back gate stretch 500 meters along the main axis. Repairs occurred through the centuries, until the late 1950s when the Sanmenxia hydraulic project threatened to flood Yonglegong. Every piece of every building, some sixty stele, and remains of tombs of Daoists who had been important in the history of the monastery were moved 25 kilometers northeast between 1959 and 1963. The location is a few kilometers from the Tang-period Five Dragons Temple mentioned in chapter 6 (see figure 6.8). The four Yuan-period buildings on the main axial line, one of them an eminent hall, contain more than 800 square meters of Yuan murals.5
Some 403.34 square meters of those murals, signed by craftsmen in 1325, are in Three Purities Hall. Like Virtuous Tranquility Hall, it is seven bays across the front and four deep, but smaller, 28.44 by 15.28 meters (figure 12.2). Also like Virtuous Tranquility Hall, it has a hipped roof, six-puzuo bracket sets, and two sets between each of the pillars across the front facade. Also like Virtuous Tranquility Hall, Three Purities Hall has a huge yuetai in front, approached from the front and two sides. The columns across the front exhibit “rise” and have batter. The batter is noteworthy because the incline is greater than 1 percent. The heights of the front columns exceed the width of the central front bay, also a significant feature that together with a roof whose slope is 1:4 are departures from the proportions prescribed for a Song building in Yingzao fashi but typical of eminent halls of the Yuan period. Three zaojing are recessed into the ceiling, the feature observed only at Daxiongbao Hall of Baoguo Monastery near Ningbo (see figure 10.8). It is surely a sign of eminence, as are the chiwen, the open-mouthed ornaments at the ends of the roof ridge: they are a staggering 1.87 meters high. Inside, eight lords of the Daoist pantheon and their courtiers pay homage to the Three Purities on the walls.
Other Yuan Buildings The eminence of Virtuous Tranquility Hall and Three Purities Hall is underscored through comparison with the second and third buildings at Yonglegong and two more Yuan halls at Guangsheng Monastery, south of Taiyuan and north of Ruicheng in Shanxi province. These are not humble structures, just buildings that do not exhibit features associated with
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12.2. Three Purities Hall (Sanqingdian), Yonglegong, Ruicheng, Shanxi, 1247–1262
imperial patronage. The four are among several hundred timber-frame halls that remain from the Yuan dynasty. The official number of Yuan wooden buildings is uncertain, but there are definitely several hundred. The ones discussed or mentioned here have the most documentation. Yonglegong The second and third halls at Yonglegong are elevated on platforms, but they are approached at ground level; neither has a yuetai. Both are five bays across the front with three bays of paneled doors with lattice windows across the top (figure 12.3). Like Three Purities Hall, the buildings have no other windows and no door at the back. Both have hip-gable roofs and two sets of intercolumnar bracket sets. Bracket sets are five-puzuo. Chunyang Hall, the second structure, is slightly larger than Chongyang Hall behind it. Chunyang Hall has one zaojing with a lattice ceiling on either side. The back part of the hall has exposed rafters. Chongyang Hall has a completely exposed ceiling. We thus observe at Yonglegong three ranked buildings, all typical of the Yuan period because each has two intercolumnar bracket sets. From front to back, highest to lowest rank, we observe ceilings with three zaojing; one zaojing, some latticing, and some exposed framing; and a completely exposed roof frame in the third. Further, the front hall is largest and has a hipped roof; the halls behind it have hip-gable roofs. Whereas members of the Daoist pantheon decorate the walls of Sanqing Hall, the walls of Chunyang and Chongyang Halls narrate the lives of important Daoists. Lü Dongbin, believed to have lived in the Tang dynasty, is the patriarch of Quanzhen Daoism, the sect with which the monastery is associated. Quanzhen is a syncretic sect that incorporates elements
of Chan Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism into its doctrine. Lü Dongbin is also one of the Eight Daoist Immortals. Stories of Wang Chongyang (1113–1170), or Wang Zhe, who founded the Quanzhen sect in the Jin dynasty, are painted on the walls of Chongyang Hall. A wall of Chunyang Hall is signed 1358 by a craftsman workshop. Handprints of builders were found at the Yongji site and moved, although it is not certain they were pressed in the Yuan period. It is believed the walls of Chongyang Hall also were signed, but the murals are in too poor a state of preservation to be sure. The biographies of Lü and Wang are punctuated by architectural settings in the manner of architecture in murals in Mañjuśrī Hall of Yanshan Monastery in the Jin dynasty (see figure 10.20). The jiehua paintings on the walls of Chunyang Hall show that even though, as in previous dynasties, perspective is inconsistent, details may be extremely accurate. In a scene on the east wall, we observe on the left a roof with overhanging gables, without hips and thus typical of the small structure this is, yet with corner accroteria to designate its importance; and a shutter. To the right one finds a pavilion with a double-eave, pyramidal roof. A stepped approach to it defined by concentric triangles on each side is known as tadao, a feature also found at Houying Mansion, discussed below, and described in Yingzao fashi (figure 12.4) The final Yuan building at Yonglegong is Wuji (Without Limits) Gate, also known as Longhu (Dragon [and] Tiger) Gate, built in 1294. A five-by-two-bay structure (20.68 by 9.6 meters) with a hipped roof, as a gate it has no intercolumnar bracket sets, yet the building is evidence that, as at Dule Monastery of the Liao dynasty, whose gate is a diantang, a onestory gate may possess the features of an image hall or palatial
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structure. Patches of what were originally 80 square meters of murals remain. There are no craftsmen signatures. Guangsheng Lower Monastery Two other Yuan buildings with firm dates are at Guangsheng Monastery in Hongdong (formerly known as Zhaocheng), Shanxi.6 They stand at the foot of a hill, a location that gives this section the designation Lower Monastery. The Upper Monastery is discussed in chapter 14. Facing the Huo Spring to its south, the flat Lower Monastery has three important halls: a front hall dedicated to the Buddha Amitabha; a larger back hall directly behind it, which is the main hall of the Buddhist monastery; and Shuishen (Water Spirit) Temple dedicated to the Dragon King, who is a deity of water associated with the spring, located in an adjacent courtyard to the west. The back hall and Dragon King Temple are the Yuan structures. They conform to the building standards of the second and third Yonglegong halls. That is, they are important buildings, the main ones in their respective precincts, but neither exhibits the features of highest rank. Like the buildings at Yonglegong, their interiors were originally covered with murals. Architecture stood on these grounds in the Tang dynasty. Construction occurred again during the Jin, but there was widespread destruction amid warfare at the end of the Jin dynasty. A devastating earthquake that affected six provinces and may have killed more than 400,000 people struck on September 17, 1303.7 The back hall was rebuilt in 1309. The Dragon King Temple was rebuilt in 1319, dedicated sixteen years to the day after the earthquake. The juxtaposition of Buddhist and Daoist precincts is unusual but not unique. An inscription informs us that performances occurred at the Dragon King Temple, particularly at festivals. Its murals, which include a depiction of a dramatic group as well as a painting of the Dragon King, were completed for a festival on the first day of the seventh moon of 1324. Buddhists among the local population would have come to these grounds for performances, just as the local population came to plays on stages in Shanxi in the Jin dynasty, mentioned 12.3. Chongyang Hall, Yonglegong, Ruicheng, Shanxi, 1247–1262 12.4. Detail of mural, east wall, Chunyang Hall, Yonglegong, Ruicheng, Shanxi, 1358
in chapter 10. That Yuan was an age when the Mongol court patronized multiple religions may have made it natural for Buddhist and Daoist structures to be adjacent to each other. Craftsmen workshops painted interiors of both Buddhist and Daoist temples at this time as well.8 The rear hall is seven bays by three, measuring 27.88 by 16.10 meters. The bay number is thus more similar to Sanqing Hall than to Chunyang or Chongyang Hall of Yonglegong. Elevation, however, is on a low platform, and the roof of the rear hall has overhanging eaves that designate a less eminent building than one with a hip-gable roof. The roof frame is exposed, and there are no intercolumnar bracket sets. As at the second and third Yonglegong halls, bracket sets are five-puzuo. Pillars rise across the front and have batter, here a tiny incline of between 0.05 and 0.2 percent. Among extant Yuan timber-frame buildings, the back hall of Guangsheng Monastery is among the more, but not most, eminent. Dragon King Temple has two sets of roof eaves, both of more eminent form than the overhanging eaves of the rear hall; the upper is hip-gable and the lower is simple hipped. It also has the yuetai observed at Three Purities Hall of Yonglegong and Virtuous Tranquility Hall, and, as at Three Purities Hall, this platform is approached from the front and sides. Whereas the rear hall has one intercolumnar bracket set in the front central bay and none in the other bays, Dragon King Temple has two intercolumnar bracket sets in the central bay below the upper eaves, one in the other bays, and one between the pillars that define the central bay beneath the lower eaves. The two sets of eaves, hip-gable roof, and two intercolumnar bracket sets render Dragon King Temple a more eminent structure than the rear hall. The lines between the ranks of the Chinese timber system are somewhat elastic. However, the most and least eminent buildings are always easiest to identify, as are specific features that define higher or lower prestige, and usually when two buildings are alongside each other the one with the more elite frame is apparent. In several important ways, all the halls discussed thus far date themselves to the Yuan dynasty. In terms of bracketing, two intercolumnar sets first appear in the central bay of Song buildings. In the Yuan period they are used at Virtuous Tranquility Hall, all three Yonglegong halls, and some bays of Dragon King Temple. We also find them in murals. Paintings in tombs on Sili Street in Jinan, Shandong province, and
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12.5. Detail of mural, tomb in Sanyanjing, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, showing two intercolumnar brackets sets, Yuan period
12.6. Buddha Hall, Yanfu Monastery, Wuyi, Zhejiang, 1317 or 1324
in much more casual images of architecture on the walls of a tomb in Sanyanjing, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, have two intercolumnar bracket sets on lintels that join pillars (figure 12.5).9 The height of bracket sets compared to columns that support them is less than 1:2 and greater than 1:6. All six halls exhibit pillar elimination whereby the interior of a structure as wide as five or seven bays across the front may have only two interior columns. All three Yonglegong halls have pillars only on either side of the altar, Guangsheng Monastery’s back hall has two interior pillars plus those in front of the altar, and Dragon King Temple has only two pillars that are positioned at the front sides of the altar. This feature also exists in Jin construction, as we observed at Mañjuśrī Hall of Foguang Monastery (see figure 10.18). Pillar elimination is often associated with pillar displacement. Another Jin-Yuan feature of timber-frame buildings, displacement is the movement of pillars off the axes anticipated by exterior columns. Displacement occurs at both Guangshengsi halls. Another feature of wooden architecture in the Yuan period is the use of purely decorative components in
bracket sets. Whereas in the Tang dynasty and tenth and eleventh centuries every piece of a bracket set is functional, such as the two cantilevers at East Hall of Foguang Monastery (see figure 6.10) and three at Daxiongbao Hall of Hualin Monastery of 964 (see figures 7.2, 7.3), at Three Purities Hall of Yonglegong what appear to be three cantilevers in fact are decorative ends of bracket-arms (see figure 12.2). Four Buildings in South China Three buildings in South China share features with the halls at Guangsheng Monastery and the Chunyang and Chongyang Halls at Yonglegong. At Yanfu Monastery in the mountains of Wuyi county of Zhejiang, the Main Hall was repaired and rebuilt under the supervision of a monk between 1317 and 1324. Its history is well documented but not precise. Depending on whether one accepts the dates on a stele or a record of the prefecture, the monastery was established in 927 or 937, expanded in 1174 or 1194, and further expanded in 1255. Before that expansion, only a pond, Buddha hall, and Hall for Preaching the Dharma stood on the main building line.
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12.7. Interior of Main Hall, Zhenru Monastery, Shanghai, 1320
The current Buddha hall stands in its pre-Song position, now with the front gate farther to the south than in the thirteenth century, a hall for the Divine Kings in front of it, the remains of the pond between them, and a hall dedicated to the bodhisattva Guanyin at the back. Repairs were made in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, and extensive renovation occurred in the eighteenth century. The Buddha hall retains enough fourteenth-century features to call it a Yuan building. Five bays square and nearly square, 11 by 11.75 meters at the base, the central bay is of course the widest so that even though no pillars are eliminated, the wide central space offers room for an altar. Outside, two sets of roof eaves, the upper hip-gable and the lower hipped, suggest the hall’s eminence (figure 12.6). An earlier iteration of the building was a ge, but that is probably not the only reason for the two layers of eaves. The module for this building is seventh-rank, and bracket sets are six-puzuo with two cantilevers. Characteristic of the Yuan period, a decorative piece of the brackets presents itself as a cantilever, so that three are indicated. Characteristic of South China, beams that span the outer bays in front and back of the hall are curved, and braces of the type known as zhaqian are even more sharply curved.10 Beams and braces that curve sharply also are found in the Main Hall of Zhenru Monastery in Shanghai, built in 1320. However, its plan is exceptional. The hall is three bays square, 13.4-by-13 meters, but from front to back the bays measure 5.3, 5.1, and 2.6 meters rather than a more standard arrangement of a wide central bay and shorter front and back bays of the
same length. Thus the lowest beam of the front bay is four rafter-lengths as are both beams of the middle bay, whereas the span of the beams above the back bay is only two rafter-lengths. The result is that a subsidiary roof frame is supported by two additional purlins beneath those that support the roof so that the exposed ceiling above the central bay appears symmetrical. The arrangement probably was intended to open as much worship space as possible in front of the images. An unusual feature is the fan-shaped zhaqian used at either end of the straight cross-beam. The columns have both entasis and batter, with spacers on top of bases known as upside-down plates (fupan) (figure 12.7). The same bases are used at Three Purities Hall of Xuanmiao Daoist Monastery in Suzhou (see figure 10.16). The Zhenrusi hall was studied and carefully rebuilt in 1963 when fifty-four inscriptions were found on wooden pieces. They include names of craftsmen, building parts, and their locations. Some of the names of components are found in Yingzao fashi but others are not. Those not explained in Yingzao fashi, however, are found in buildings of South China in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Although the hall is completely restored today, research and drawings confirm that already in the Yuan period, construction was transitional in its use of both pieces documented in the Song treatise and physical evidence associated with post-Yuan buildings.11 A third Yuan building in South China is similar in many ways to the main hall of Yanfu Monastery. The Main Hall of Tianning Monastery stands on high ground at the intersection of two rivers in Jinhua, Zhejiang. Three bays square with a
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12.8. Hall of Great Achievement, Confucian Temple, Hancheng, Yuan period
single, hip-gable roof, and approximately 12.72 meters on each side, unlike the nearby hall of Yanfusi, the Tianning Monastery hall has a main roof purlin in the center of the structure. Like the Yanfusi hall, its pillars have entasis and batter. Bracket sets are six-puzuo formation with the unusual feature of three sets in the front and back central bays and only one set in the side bays. All bracketing has one false cantilever. The date 1318 is written on the underside of one of the beams, so that the three buildings in Zhejiang offer an opportunity to study regional architecture built within a seven-year period.12 A unique stone structure survives at Jijian Monastery on Mount Tianchi, about 15 kilometers northeast of Suzhou. Comprising three Buddha chambers, the central one with a domed ceiling, this interior is replete with imitation wooden building parts carved in stone. In addition, wooden door and window frames were used inside, but all have rotted. The Yuan date is confirmed by an inscription of 1363.13
The oldest buildings in Hancheng date to the Jin dynasty: a pagoda of 1173, the remains of the residence of a family of wealth, and a bridge. The Confucian temple, founded in the Yuan dynasty and with repairs in the Ming and Qing periods, is the focus of a four-courtyard cluster of twenty-two structures that occupy approximately 9,100 square meters on Scholars’ Lane in the heart of the Yuan-period city. It is announced by a glazed screen wall decorated with dragons, behind which are a gate named Lingxing (luminous star), a stone bridge over a pool, and Hall of Great Achievement (Dachengdian). All are standard structures in later Confucian complexes that are discussed in chapter 14. The Hall of Great Achievement, the focal building of any Confucian temple setting, is five bays across by three bays deep with a “massive architrave” (da’e) across the front, a signature feature of Jin and Yuan architecture, an exposed ceiling, pillar displacement, and a hip-gable roof.14 Bracket sets are six-puzuo with two cantilevers and the added heart (figure 12.8). The Hall of the Three Purities of Ziyun (Azure Cloud) Daoist Monastery was built in 1270. Also five bays by three with a hip-gable roof, it has only four-puzuo bracket sets under the eaves across the front. The temple dedicated to Yu the Great, legendary founder of the Xia dynasty and credited with achieving flood control by channeling water, was founded in 1301. Its offering hall, dated by inscription to 1335, is one of the only Yuan buildings in Hancheng with a lattice ceiling. The Guandi Temple was founded in 1303, with a main hall that reflects that date. Puzhao Monastery was founded eight years
Hancheng The city and environs of Hancheng in eastern Shaanxi province retain so much thirteenth- and fourteenth-century architecture that urban renewal and tourism gave way to the move of six of these buildings to one location, with a Daoist monastery on a hill behind them. Tracing its history to the Western Zhou, the town was already a commercial center in the Spring and Autumn period. The majority of Yuan architecture is of the kind that suggests wealthy, nonimperial patronage; in other words, not the most eminent but certainly not the most humble.
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12.9. Yuan-period hall with later restoration, Hancheng architectural group
later. Its main hall is five bays by four with five-puzuo bracket sets and an exposed ceiling. Other buildings associated with the Yuan period or whose architecture reflects Yuan style are the offering hall of Fawang Temple and the offering hall of Sansheng Temple. Even though all Hancheng’s old buildings have been restored, they offer a unique glimpse at a town whose Chinese citizens prospered and patronized architecture for devotional practices against a backdrop of Mongol-ruled China. Some of the buildings have six-puzuo bracketing, but others have only four-puzuo. Roof styles are primarily hip-gable or overhanging gable, the latter type used in the back hall of Guangsheng Lower Monastery (figure 12.9).15 12.10. Ciyun Pavilion, Dingxing, Hebei, 1306
Other Yuan Buildings in North China Like those in Hancheng, hundreds of Yuan buildings across North China are largely unstudied. Ciyun Pavilion in Dingxing, Hebei, an extant ge (figure 12.10), may be compared with Dule Monastery’s Guanyin Pavilion (see figure 8.4). Also dedicated to Guanyin, Ciyun Pavilion is three bays square and just under 9 meters on any side. It has the unusual feature of no interior columns but double-columns along its perimeter. The outer ones support eaves and the inner ones support beams. Bracket sets are five-puzuo on the upper exterior level and four-puzuo below, different from Guanyin Pavilion, where the more eminent bracketing is beneath the eaves of the lower story. Two intercolumnar sets are found in the middle bay of each level and only one is in the side bays.
Corner bracket sets of the upper tier have three cantilevers; there are two cantilevers at the corners of the lower tier; in all cases, the lowest cantilever is decorative. Huatouzi, described in Yingzao fashi and used, as mentioned above, at Virtuous Tranquility Hall, project from blocks like perpendicular bracket-arms to support the lowest cantilevers. Another feature that suggests a thirteenth- to fourteenth-century date for Ciyun Pavilion is a strut beneath the ridge purlin on either side of the beam to help reinforce the truss. All the columns have batter and rise. Other Yuan buildings are along the Fen River in Shanxi province. A monastery in Liulin in western Shanxi offers a
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12.11. Feilai Hall, Temple of the Eastern Peak, Emei, Sichuan
12.12. Ji residence, Gaoping, Shanxi, 1294
range of architecture that confirms a pre-Yuan history and continued flourishing thereafter. Xiangyan Monastery has thirteen buildings that date from the Song through Qing. Exemplifying a living monastery, stele from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing periods record a history that is verified in local records; and the buildings confirm that features of Song and Jin timber framing such as bracket sets were repaired in later centuries according to the manners of their times. Indeed, the one monastery includes nonimperial, timber-frame architecture of North China from five dynasties.16
known as Jizhai (residence of the Ji) (figure 12.12). The house is a single room elevated on a stone platform, three bays across the front and of six-rafter depth. The quadrilateral-shaped, stone pillar bases are believed to be original, as are the lintel and door studs on which traces of peony designs are visible. Bracket sets are placed only across the front, and they are four-puzuo; there are no intercolumnar sets. Inside, the house uses a prominent S-shaped cross-beam. In spite of numerous repairs, Jizhai has the greatest number of early features of any residence in China.19 In 2013 a second Yuan house was found in Pingyao. The majority of Yuan residential remains have been excavated within the walls of Dadu. The most extensive are at Houying Residence (fang), which comprises three precincts in an east-west line. A main room faces onto a courtyard, and there are side chambers from which emanate other rooms to their front, and a back porch. The building complex to its east is a gong-shaped structure flanked by additional rooms. Pieces of the residential compound provide important details.20 The wooden frame of a door panel, 2.37 meters high by 70 centimeters wide with a lattice window, for instance, was found on the northern side of the southern precinct (figure 12.13). Numerous stone panels with relief sculpture also were excavated at Houyingfang, as well as other places in Dadu. Perhaps the most fascinating object is a piece of abalone shell inlaid into lacquer with an inscription on cloth on its back that says Guanghan Hall (figure 12.14). Guanghan is the name of one of the buildings on Qionghua Island. The depiction is a two-story structure with two sets of broadly sloping roof eaves whose balustrade-enclosed upper story is accessible by stairs from ground level. Its roof has owl’s-tail decorations on the ends of the main ridge and the suspended fish (xuanyu) on the gable end. A large curve passes in front of the building and floral motifs are in the background. Magenta and green are the dominant colors. The two stories and eaves remind us of the Main Hall at Yanfu Monastery (see figure 12.6) and more generally of characteristically southern Chinese architecture,
Buildings in the Southwest At least a dozen Yuan wooden buildings remain in Sichuan and Yunnan. The oldest timber-frame structure in Yunnan is at Zhilin Monastery in Jianshui. Built in 1296, the broad, double-eave hall was extensively repaired in the early twentieth century when it served as the residence of a military general. Still, it retains more early features inside than the Confucian temple in Jianshui that was established in the Song dynasty.17 Ten Yuan buildings survive in the Three Gorges region of Sichuan, that is, along tributaries of the Yangzi River. Eight are close to square, three bays by three or three bays by four, all are oriented south or roughly south, and none has more than four interior pillars. The other two are five bays across the front and four in depth and have eight interior pillars. Both pillar elimination and pillar displacement are common. Numerous features are shared with buildings in southeastern China, discussed above. Here as there, pillars and beams are usually straight, yet a curved or doubly curved diagonal strut or short beam is sometimes used. All bracket sets in all the buildings are five- or six-puzuo. Five of the halls have specific dates, between 1307 and 1343 (figure 12.11).18 Residential Architecture Two Yuan-period houses survive in Shanxi. One, in Gaoping county, is dated by an inscription on the wall to 1294. It is
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12.14. Piece of abalone shell, probably inlaid into lacquer, Houyingfang, Yuan Dadu
extensively excavated Houtaoyuan complex is about 125 meters east of Houyingfang. The Yuan dates have been determined by architectural components such as pilasters and owl’s tails accroteria and by excavated objects. 22 Ceramics with the inscription of the Dadu workshop excavated within a courtyard-style building complex behind Yonghegong (a Qing palace/temple discussed in chapter 15) in Beijing have led to the belief that it, too, belonged to an official of the Yuan court.23 Stages The residential compounds belonged to wealthy members of Yuan society. Stages are an architectural type that puts us in closer contact with the populace. The above-mentioned completion of Dragon King Temple at Guangsheng Lower Monastery in 1303 in the aftermath of a fire was in time for the performance of Zhongbuxiu dramatic troupe, who are painted on an interior wall of the temple. Performers entertained on stages throughout Shanxi, in particular, in the Jin and Yuan dynasties. Of the twenty-four timber-frame Jin or Yuan stages in Shanxi mentioned in chapter 10, the majority are only one bay across the front, and, characteristic of the period, two intercolumnar bracket sets are found on that bay’s lintel. The stage at Ox King Temple in Linfen is typical (figure 12.15). Yet the exposed ceiling in this humble structure is an elaborate zaojing. The contrast between timber frame and interior decoration is similar to that observed in the single-chamber, simple spaces of the Jin tombs of Dong Ming and Dong Hai and the humble Main Hall of Jingtu Monastery in Ying county, Shanxi, and their exteriors (see figures 10.19 and 10.35). So far, every Jin and Yuan stage is located at a temple complex dedicated to a popular deity such as the Ox King.
12.13. Remains of wooden door panel, Houyingfang, Yuan Dadu
even though the piece was excavated in the North. The door with a lattice window appears in murals from Chunyang Hall of Yongle Daoist Monastery and is not that different from the one found on site (see figures 12.4, 12.13). The door also is found in a painting by Sun Chengze.21 Three fairly extensive remains of a residential complex have been uncovered on Xitao Lane in Beijing. As at Houyingfang, the building complexes are east and west of each other in the 34.6-by-11-meter space. It appears that the western complex comprised northern and southern courtyards. The less
Architecture of Foreign Faiths We have noted that Buddhist and Daoist architecture stood side-by-side in Shanxi province, and that the same craftsmen
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12.15. Stage, Ox King Temple, Linfen, Shanxi
decorated Buddhist and Daoist building interiors. We have also noted that the Mongol rulers were interested in the potential power of religious leaders to impact events, sometimes met those leaders, and other times called for debates among leaders of various faiths. Further, Mongol royalty and particularly their wives were patrons of multiple religions. These policies, in addition to the large Semu population, made way for the strong presence of Islam and Lamaist Buddhism in China in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Mosque of the Companions, in the coastal city Quanzhou in Fujian province, is known in Chinese as Shengyousi, both names translations of the Arabic Masjid al-Aṣḥāb. The last word of the Chinese name, si, was borrowed from its use in Buddhist building complexes, a designation that originally referred to an official bureau. Si is also the last syllable of the Chinese words for synagogue and Manichaean house of worship. This adoption of a Chinese name into the vocabulary of non-Chinese architecture parallels the convergence of Chinese and foreign religious space. We have observed the process in the transformation of Indian Buddhist architecture into China’s earliest Buddhist architecture. An inscription establishes the founding date of Shengyousi as 1009 or 1010, but the Shengyousi one sees today is usually dated 1310. It may not be on its original site. The entrance is on the south, consistent with Chinese religious space. It is a grand, formal structure framing three sides of an arched opening, distinct from any existing construction in China of the tenth to fourteenth centuries. The structure is further distinguished by the granite wall with eight enormous windows, today allowing a view into the courtyard, that joins the entry to the west (figure 12.16). The passageway into the mosque is a high, three-part sequence of interconnected arches and vaults set in rectangular frames, each component or diameter no more than 5 meters. It is a kind of structure found in Iran and adjacent regions of Central Asia in the thirteenth and fourteenth
China’s Oldest Mosques The oldest physical evidence of Islamic architecture in China is from the Song or Liao dynasty in the form of stele inscriptions, both funerary and at mosques. Muslims were among the many foreign populations, most of whom built worship spaces, in Tang Chang’an. Inscriptions indicate there were mosques in Chang’an as well as other major cities in the Tang dynasty, but there are no building remains. Ox Street Mosque in Beijing was founded in 996. China’s oldest mosque buildings date to the Yuan dynasty. They are in southeastern coastal cities along the Grand Canal, Chinese ports on the Silk Road of the Sea where Muslims docked, traded, and stayed long enough to build worship spaces. The two oldest mosques, in Quanzhou and Guangzhou, retain not only Yuan-period architecture but buildings that are unique in their alliance with mosque architecture in Muslim lands.
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centuries.24 The remains of the prayer hall are 30 by 27 meters, a space that was supported by twelve stone columns from which bases or partial columns survive. Quanzhou is the obvious city for a mosque that exhibits so much foreign influence, for it probably had the largest foreign population of any city in Song China. Tombstones and other artifacts, today mostly in the Quanzhou Museum of Overseas Communication, document the practice of Brahmanism, Christianity, Manichaeism, Buddhism, and Daoism, in addition to Islam, in the Song- and Yuan-period city. If any city rivaled Quanzhou as a center of Muslim life in Song and Yuan China, it was Guangzhou, formerly known as Canton. Guangzhou was one of the first two international Chinese ports where merchants coming from the West docked; the second was Yangzhou, also the location of one of China’s earliest mosques. Guangzhou has been described as China’s greatest seaport in the early Song dynasty.25 Huaishengsi, Flourishing of the Sage Mosque, is the earliest recorded mosque in China. An inscription of 1634 says that Muhammad’s maternal uncle, Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas (595–664), founded the mosque in 627. This date is so close to the founding of Islam that it is probably apocryphal, although a mosque may have existed in Guangzhou in the Tang dynasty. The current plan survives from a rebuilding in 1350, the date of Huaisheng Mosque’s minaret (figure 12.17). Known as Guangta, or Tower of Light, its second syllable (ta) is the Chinese word for pagoda. Again we observe the use of the name of a visually similar Chinese building type for architecture of a foreign faith. One interpretation of the structure, which rises 37.5 meters, is that it served as a lighthouse for sailors entering the port. It is more likely that the Chinese name is a translation of manara, the Arabic word for a place of light or fire from which the English word “minaret” is derived. The cylindrical shape in all likelihood is inspired by minarets of Saljuq-period Iran (1038–1194), but towering pagodas such as Bao’en Monastery in Suzhou, near or in cities where Song and Yuan mosques were built, are also possible sources (see figure 10.27). Like monumental pagodas of the Song dynasty, the minaret can be ascended via interior staircases that spiral upward around an inner core, in a space created between two brick walls. Plaster exterior walls were used elsewhere in Yuan China, as we shall see below (see figure 12.20). The plan of Huaishengsi is an excellent example of how Chinese religious space could be adapted for use by a foreign
12.16. Shengyousi (Mosque of the Companions), Quanzhou, Fujian, 1310 12.17. Minaret (Guangta), Huaisheng Mosque, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Yuan dynasty
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12.18. Tomb, Guyuan, Hebei
faith. Oriented southward like a Chinese temple complex, the T-shaped approach is defined by a gate at the beginning and end. This formation has a long history in Chinese imperial planning. We observed it in Sui-Tang Chang’an (see figure 6.1) and Northern Song Bianliang, and we shall see it in the Beijing Forbidden City (see figure 13.5). Covered arcades extend from the east and west sides of the second gate and then turn northward, terminating in front of two kiosks. Behind the second gate, an approach to the second courtyard leads to a large platform (yuetai) of the kind in front of the Temple to the Northern Peak in Quyang and Three Purities Hall of Yonglegong (see figures 12.1 12.2). At the mosque, the platform may have been used for congregational space. Directly behind, but not exactly in line with the platform, is the prayer hall. Here the plan is deceptive to anyone familiar with Chinese space. To enter for worship, one must walk east to the end of a covered arcade and turn 90 degrees north, where one then comes to an entry. As in any standard mosque, the miḥrāb (indicator of the direction of Makkah) is on the western wall, directly opposite the entry on the eastern side of the arcade. This directional change so that the prayer hall is entered on the east is evident only after one has passed through two gates and ascended the platform or walked through a courtyard. The alternate building axis created by the entrance for prayer is thus fully incorporated into the Chinese scheme. It is important to emphasize that although Muslim worship occurred here behind the facade of a thoroughly Chinese religious compound, the purpose of the plan was not to conceal the Muslim affiliation of the space: the minaret projected boldly above the
low, Chinese-style outer walls of Huaisheng Mosque. Rather, the adaptability of Chinese religious space in evidence since the introductory chapter extends to mosques. Islamic worship space—prayer hall, wall (qibla) with its directional indicator of Makkah (miḥrāb), courtyard arrangement, and, when desired, pulpit for Friday sermons (minbar), space for an eminent community leader (maqsūra), educational hall, residential halls for religious leaders and visitors, service buildings such as kitchens, libraries, adjacent markets, and the domed ceilings—all were spaces of Chinese religious settings and part of the repertoire of Chinese builders. The transformation from temple complex to mosque complex was no more challenging for the Chinese architectural tradition than that of stupa, chaitya, and vihāra to pagoda, worship hall, and monks’ spaces. The Islamic architecture discussed here is that of the Hui, or Sinophone Muslims. One of the fifty-five non-Han (Chinese) nationalities (minzu), Hui are the majority Muslim population in North and South China today. We return to mosques in chapter 15 when we discuss architecture of China’s non-Chinese populations in the Ming and Qing dynasties. A Muslim Tomb in Hebei The brick building shown in figure 12.18 stands in isolation in Guyuan in northern Hebei province near the Mongolian border. Writings of the eighteenth century name it either Xiliangge (West Cool Pavilion) or Shuzhuanglou (Comb and Make-up Tower), the second a reference to the fact that the territory in question was part of the appanage of Empress Dowager Chengtian (932–1009) of the Liao dynasty.26 The
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12.19. Platform for Observing the Heavens, Observatory, Dengfeng, Henan, 1279
description in the text is of a cubic building nearly 13 meters high and 10 meters square at the base, with a domed interior and arched entry and window. Excavation beneath the building in 2000 revealed a male with a female on each side, in three wooden coffins, each with grave goods. Burial objects are not part of the Muslim tradition. Inside the mausoleum, the vaulted ceiling joins eight upper wall faces that join the four main walls. At the eight corners are imitation pillars of the kind that have for centuries been molded into the walls of Chinese tombs to replicate wooden architecture, and above the pillars are imitation bracket sets. The location argues that this is the mausoleum of Ananda, Prince of Anxi, a grandson of Khubilai and cousin of Khubilai’s successor Temür Öljeytü (r. 1297–1307). A contender for Temür’s succession, Ananda was executed in 1307 to make way for the accession of Qaishan (Haishan) (r. 1308–1311).27 Ananda was a rare member of the Mongol ruling family who had been born a Buddhist, as his name indicates, and converted to Islam. The architecture is a key feature that argues for a Muslim mausoleum. The most similar structure in China today is the tomb of Tughluq Temür in Huocheng/Yili, Xinjiang, dated 1363. Both mausoleums find an architectural source in the Tomb of the Sāmānid in Bukhara, dated to 943, the archetypical example of the dome-on-square structure that spread across western Central Asia beginning in the tenth century. The Tomb of the Sāmānid is the accepted source of the mausoleum of Buyan Quli Khan (d. 1356), also in Bukhara, as well as Tughluq Temür’s tomb.28
Observatory in Dengfang It is well known that Muslims worked in observatories in China in the Yuan dynasty. Chinese also worked in observatories in the Persian part of the Mongol empire, the Ilkhānate. Of five observatories intended by Khubilai, two were completed, one at Dadu that no longer stands, and one in Dengfeng, Henan province, that was begun in 1279 at the foot of the sacred central peak Mount Song, the location of Chuzu’an (see figure 10.12) and Songyue Monastery pagoda (see figure 5.31). Only one building survives in Dengfeng (figure 12.19). Like all observatories in China since the time of the Legendary Emperors in the third millennium BCE, a major purpose was to regulate the calendar. The building is 17 meters high. History of the Yuan Dynasty refers to it as gaobiao, a word that can be translated as “tall gnomon.” The gnomon is the key feature of the observatory, one of three that made determination of the calendar possible. The second feature is the metal crossbar, positioned in the lower half of the central, front opening of the roofed portion of the structure. The gnomon was placed in an indentation 36 centimeters from the wall behind it, perpendicular to the crossbar. The third feature, the shadow aligner (yingfu), is in front of the structure. The sun would cast a shadow on the crossbar and further to the paved stone shadow aligner to determine the time and season based on the measurement of the shadow. The most important architectural challenges were simple but not necessarily simple to achieve: the pole had to be vertical, perpendicular to a flat ground plane and to the crossbar.29 There is no evidence of a tall gnomon before
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If there was a Sino-Islamic style, the four buildings represent it, but each structure is very different. What we are actually observing are the architectural fruits of a multicultural century in China, not the emergence of new architectural forms that would have post-Yuan lives. The uniqueness of these monuments is more emphatic alongside architecture of the other non-Chinese religion of Yuan China, Lamaist Buddhism. Whereas the four building types are never again constructed in China, even though Islam continues to be practiced, emperors of the native Ming dynasty and nonnative Qing dynasty continued to patronize Lamaist architecture. It had a continuous presence in China from the Yuan dynasty onward. Architecture of Lamaist Buddhism The White Pagoda at Shengyou Wan’an Monastery, renamed Miaoying Monastery in the Ming dynasty, was built the same year as the observatory in Dengfeng. A 50.7-meter structure, it was designed by Anige, sometimes known as A(ra)niko (1243– 1306), a Nepali serving Khubilai Khan (figure 12.20). A member of Nepalese royalty, Anige had already designed a golden stupa in Tibet when, upon his return to Nepal, he became Khubilai’s chief advisor after the death in 1274 of Liu Bingzhong, the man credited with designing Shangdu and Dadu. Under Anige, Lamaism, the branch of Buddhism that had risen in Tibet in the seventh century and came to flourish by the tenth century, made strong inroads in China. Tibetans and their Buddhism were known in China in the Tang dynasty. Tibetans are portrayed in murals at the Mogao caves in Dunhuang. Tibetan mandala (paintings of Buddhist universes) were found in large numbers among the ruins of the Western Xia city Khara-Khoto. Buddhism of the Nepal-Tibet region certainly entered China before the Yuan dynasty. In the Liao period, a prominent pagoda had stood at the monastery that was to become Miaoyingsi, but the oldest surviving Lamaist-style pagoda is the one built in 1279. Its key identifying features are the high platform, known as a Sumeru platform, a name that can also be used for the base of a Buddhist altar; the bulbous, circular shaft; the triangular prism above it; and the mast (chatra in Sanskrit), here thirteen circular levels of decreasing size from lowest to highest, with a metal cap on top. Sometimes this style of pagoda is named dagoba, a Sinhalese word. Miaoying Monastery pagoda is partially supported by an interior timber frame.
12.20. White Pagoda, 50.7 meters, Miaoying Monastery, Beijing, 1279
this time, and thus it is believed to be an invention of Yuan astronomy. This feature is also unknown in Ilkhānid or earlier West Asian observatories. The Ilkhānid observatory about which the most is known was in Marāgha in northern Iran. There is no indication of the bar, gnomon, or shadow aligner. Both the Iranian and Chinese observatories had libraries and schools for training in high-level mathematics and other skills necessary for observing the heavens.30 The structural features of the entryway to Shengyou Mosque, the minaret of Huaisheng Mosque, the mausoleum in Guyuan, and the observatory raise the question of a SinoIslamic architectural style. The mosque entry and minaret are anomalies. Among the more than seventy buildings that date to the Yuan or Ming dynasties that stand at mosques in China today, no other structure is similar to either of them.31 The two mosque buildings are so distinctive that they may well have been unique in their days; no textual or physical evidence suggests there were others. The only buildings similar to the mausoleum are in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, or farther west in Inner Asia. Although no structure like these four was built in China before or after the Mongol period, and even though each one is distinctive among all the Chinese buildings studied in this book, their materials and forms indicate nothing beyond the capabilities or outside the repertoire of Chinese craftsmen.
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12.21. Cloud Terrace, Juyong Pass of the Great Wall, Beijing vicinity, 1345
Murals and relief sculpture of Lamaism survive at several places in China from the Yuan dynasty. One of the most extensive mural programs is in Mogao cave 465. Relief sculpture survives in rock-carved caves at Feilaifeng, at Lingyin Monastery in Hangzhou, where carving began in 951. About one hundred of the more than three hundred Buddhist images are from the Yuan dynasty, and many of them are Lamaist. Relief sculpture on the underside of the marble archway known as Cloud Terrace (Yuntai) at the pass of the Great Wall called Juyongguan, just under 60 kilometers northwest of Beijing, is also Lamaist. It is carved alongside inscriptions in Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, Sanskrit, and Tangut, the six together a major step in unlocking the Tangut language of the Western Xia (figure 12.21). Erected in 1345, the 9.5-meter platform originally supported three pagodas that were destroyed during the period of Yuan-Ming transition.32 Although the Mongols never conquered Tibet, Lamaist architecture survives there from the period of Mongolian ascendancy. Monastery remains are in Xigazê (Shigatse), 271 kilometers west of Lhasa, and in Guge, some 1,200 kilometers southwest of Tibet, where rock-carved temples and palatial architecture were built in the tenth century and endured until the elusive city, approximately 4,500 kilometers above sea level, was destroyed in the seventeenth century.33 Sakya (Sajia) Monastery, 130 kilometers southwest of Xigazê, was founded in the eleventh century. Under Khubilai, that area became known as the northern monastery when a southern monastery was added under the direction of ’Phagspa (1235–1280), the Tibetan monk (lama) who received the title of state preceptor from Khubilai. Credited with creating an alphabet for Mongolian based on Tibetan, ’Phagspa’s residence was part of
the lamasery. Shakya Monastery was repaired shortly after the fall of the Yuan dynasty and again in 1948.34 The impact of Mongolian rule on China was dramatic, but the impact on Chinese architecture was much less. China would return to native rule under the Ming dynasty, a considerably smaller entity than the Yuan empire. Lamaist architecture would flourish as distinct but shadowed alongside Buddhist monasteries of sects with longer histories in China, Confucian and Daoist architecture, and mosques that presented as Buddhist or Daoist temple complexes. In large part this is because Khubilai’s palatial and ceremonial architecture was as Chinese in style as that of his non-Mongol predecessors. Beijing, where he had made his great capital, would be the primary capital from 1406 until the rise of Chiang Kai-shek as the leader of the Nationalist Party (Guomindang) in the 1920s. The contending capital would be Nanjing, literally southern capital.
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CHAPTER 13
The Chinese Imperial City and Its Architecture, Ming and Qing
Beijing has been called the greatest city on earth and the most important city in China. The claims reflect the almost universal recognition of the city since the time of Marco Polo and the fact that more has been written about Beijing than about any other Chinese city. Ripley’s Believe It or Not claimed that the Great Wall to its north could be seen from outer space long before satellite photographs confirmed what every Chinese first-grader knows: the walls of the Ming-Qing capital are a vertical rectangle juxtaposed above a horizontal rectangle (figure 13.1).1 Together with Xi’an, Beijing is the cannot-be-missed city of any tourist itinerary, but unlike Xi’an, it is easy to choose the two monuments that cannot be missed: the walled city and the Great Wall to its north. Beijing is not China’s oldest walled city, but it is one of the few with evidence of habitation in ca. 750,000 BP: Peking Man (Homo erectus pekinensis) was identified at Zhoukoudian in the 1920s. The oldest city remains date to the Shang dynasty; the state of Yan was built there in the Warring States period (see figure 2.3b). The greatness and importance of Beijing are best understood in the context of the three millennia of capital city building that preceded it, including the capitals of Liao and Jin and Yuan, which became part of it (see figure 11.6). Upon the fall of the Yuan dynasty, Beijing’s continuous history as a capital was lost for thirty years.
Imperial Nanjing Although the remnant of the Mongol empire fled north to Yingchang in Inner Mongolia where it would endure for another twenty years as the Northern Yuan dynasty (1368– 1388), Mongol loyalties did not disappear in China with the fall of Yuan rule.2 The first emperor of the Ming dynasty, the Hongwu emperor (hereafter referred to as Hongwu), born Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), initially planned three capitals, all in the South, the part of China from which he and resistance to the Mongols had risen. The first was in Fengyang, the intended central capital (Zhongdu), near his birthplace in Anhui province. It was a squarish city of three concentric walls, the innermost being 3,072 meters in perimeter. Each wall face had three gates in the manner of the “Kaogongji” prescription. The approach to the second wall was via a Thousand-pace Corridor (qianbulang), a feature that had been implemented at the Yuan capital Dadu. Also like Dadu, Fengyang was at the confluence of waterways. The second capital was to be the
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northern capital, at the location of the Northern Song capital that by the Ming dynasty had been renamed Kaifeng. Nanjing would be third. Construction in Fengyang was abandoned in 1375, whereupon Nanjing, location of the capitals of the Wu kingdom, Southern Dynasties, and Southern Tang of the Ten Kingdoms, became the focus of Hongwu’s patronage. Architecture from those periods remained, as it does today (see figures 5.3, 5.4, 7.9).3 The emperor’s plan was ambitious. A wall of approximately 37 kilometers enclosed his new city, with the capitals of the Southern Dynasties and Southern Tang inside those walls. Parts of the Southern Dynasties and Ming walls survive (figure 13.2). This ability to absorb old architecture amid modernization would characterize Nanjing’s relationship with its past in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As we shall see, it was not achieved in Beijing. Hongwu built a palace-city with an imperial-city around it in the east of his new city with bell and drum towers roughly centered between the eastern and western walls, altars for imperial sacrifices, and his tomb to the north. Buildings from his palace were excavated in the early twenty-first century and are the focus of a tourist park. Hongwu’s eldest son predeceased him, whereupon that son’s oldest son became his successor. The young emperor lost the throne to his uncle and did not receive burial in the tomb complex built by his grandfather. Ming Imperial Tombs Before beginning work on his tomb, Hongwu reburied his parents and grandparents befitting royalty. The new tomb for his parents was about 5 meters south of the walls of Fengyang. Pieces of statuary from spirit paths as well as city wall remain today.4 In the 1380s Hongwu constructed the new tomb for his grandparents on the bank of Lake Hongze in Jiangsu. There, too, much of the spirit path remains. The tomb of Hongwu and his wife is known as Xiaoling, a name chosen because the character xiao was part of his wife’s name.5 Lacking the outer wall that enclosed Tang and Song imperial tombs, Hongwu’s tomb begins at an archway where those about to proceed along the spirit path are told to dismount. Two kilometers behind is Red Gate (Hongmen). The 863-meter spirit path follows, bending sharply to elude evil spirits, who were believed to travel in straight lines. The path bends again where the sculptures of the pairs of standing and kneeling animals transition to a pair of octagonal columns
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13.1. Plan of late-Ming-Qing Beijing with major imperial structures labeled and showing use of modules
because they were entitled as Ming princes.8 As had been the practice in the Song dynasty, high-ranking officials also could be awarded spirit paths and other identifiers of royal burial. Xu Da (1332–1385), who aided Hongwu in overthrowing the Mongols and is rumored to have been poisoned by the emperor, received official burial with a spirit path in Nanjing.9
followed by pairs of military and civil officials (figure 13.3). Next is Dragon [and] Phoenix Gate, named for two of China’s most auspicious animals. Two more bends lead to the hall for sacrifices to the deceased ruler that is the focus of a quadrilateral courtyard, here representing a square, ever a symbol of earth, and the circular mound behind it, beneath which the emperor and empress are buried, representing heaven. The change from a truncated pyramid to a semispherical mound is one of the distinguishing features of Ming imperial tombs. This kind of mound would cover royal burials for the rest of Chinese imperial history. The Red Gate, spirit path, sacrificial hall, as well as a pavilion containing a marble stele glorifying the deeds of the emperor would continue as well. Other sons and grandsons of Hongwu as well as later Ming royalty had palaces and tombs across China.6 One of the best-preserved princely tombs is in Guilin, Guangxi province. Another, in Hubei, belongs to Prince Liangzhuang.7 Tombs of non-Chinese royalty, including Muslim kings and King Sejong of Korea, similarly had spirit paths leading to circular mounds
Two Imperial Monasteries Several buildings in Nanjing have direct ties to Hongwu. In 1381 Linggu Monastery was moved to make more space for the imperial mausoleum. During the rebuilding, a structure known as a beamless hall (wuliangdian), which had come into vogue in the late Yuan dynasty, was constructed. As the name indicates, no wooden beams are used. In fact, no wooden pieces are used. A beamless hall is entirely, or almost entirely, brick, with a roof that may be of ceramic tile. Inside it employs the technology used for millennia prior to the Ming dynasty for subterranean brick tombs, particularly vaulting. About a dozen beamless halls are known today.10
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13.4. Beamless Hall, Linggu Monastery, Nanjing, 1381
The beamless hall of Linggu Monastery is 53.3 meters across the front and 37.35 meters in depth and has a double-eave, hip-gable roof (figure 13.4). A platform extends across the front, a ramp is at the back, and there are three front and back entries with two windows in the front and three on each side. With imitation bracket sets across the front and sides, as well as the doors and windows, a five-by-three-bay structure is presented. Three interior arches are constructed along the shorter dimension. It is both the oldest and largest beamless hall in China. Linggusi was designated one of the three great monasteries of Nanjing. Bao’en Monastery was the second of the great monasteries.11 It is the location of the world-renowned Porcelain Pagoda, which was commissioned in 1412 and completed by 1431. With a history of Buddhist worship dating to the Three Kingdoms period, emperors were involved in construction there since its beginnings. Neither the pagoda nor monastery has direct ties to the Hongwu emperor or the period when Nanjing was the primary Ming capital, yet Bao’ensi has had as great an impact on architecture and architects as any building in Nanjing, and it has been treated with as much care. Standing more than 100 meters, Porcelain Pagoda was the tallest pagoda in China for its duration. Two replacement porcelain bricks were stored in the imperial Ministry of Works for any one that might 13.2. Ming wall, Nanjing, in 2011 13.3. Approach to Xiaoling, tomb of Ming Hongwu emperor and his wife, showing bend in spirit path, Nanjing, 1398
be damaged. Among the many published illustrations, Johan Nieuhof’s of 1669 (see figure 17.2) and Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach’s of 1721 probably had the widest circulation. They are especially important because this building that influenced the construction of William Chambers’s Chinese pagoda in Kew Gardens in 1762 would be destroyed in 1854 during the Taiping Rebellion. It was rebuilt in the second decade of the twenty-first century with contemporary materials that offer a glass-like appearance.
Imperial Beijing Beijing is a city known for, defined by, and identified by its walls and the Forbidden City, and intensely tied to politics for much of its history. A challenge to any discussion of Ming or Qing Beijing is that so much has been rebuilt or restored so many times. Buildings may be discussed in the context of the emperor who commissioned them, but their structures must be explained as of the last building period. The Forbidden City was first constructed under Yongle; its buildings are discussed with the names of those who used it in the late Qing dynasty that are still used today. In May 1370 Zhu Di became the Prince of Yan, the name of the Zhou state that included today’s Beijing and is illustrated in figure 2.3b. When Zhu Di arrived, a Liao pagoda at Tianning Monastery, Marco Polo Bridge (see figure 10.36), the pagoda at Miaoying Monastery (see figure 12.20), and Cloud Terrace (see figure 12.21) were among the Liao, Jin, and Yuan remains.
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While his father lived, the prince consolidated power, a process that included moving the north side of the Yuan outer wall 2.9 kilometers southward, for although much of the Mongol population had returned north, this consolidation recognized the possible need to defend the new, and now smaller, Ming city against incursions from Northern Yuan. Upon his father’s death in 1398, Zhu Di turned south and took the Nanjing capital from his nephew (the oldest son of Hongwu’s deceased oldest son). In January 1403 Zhu Di proclaimed himself emperor, naming his reign period Yongle. Although he commissioned the Porcelain Pagoda and was a patron of other religious architecture such as Jingjue Mosque in Nanjing, the Yongle emperor designated Beijing, literally north capital, as his primary capital. Beginning in 1406 he did extensive repair to the Grand Canal so that trade could flourish between the two Ming capitals. Construction of palaces would not begin for more than another ten years. Yongle needed to solidify his power in the North and the South, and he did not want to be seen as someone who lavished money on his own needs when so much had to be spent on the military. This is why his ministers rather than he, but no doubt with input from him, officially proposed that the city theretofore known as Beiping (northern peace) be renamed as the capital in the third moon of 1403. In 1406 it was again officials who requested permission to build new palaces. Purchase of timber and other necessary materials began immediately, but in 1407 Yongle’s empress died. A site was chosen for their joint mausoleum, discussed below, in 1409. It was completed in 1416. Between 1416 and 1417 the area of Yongle’s imperial spaces known as west palace was built. In the sixth moon of 1417 construction began on the sectors that would come to be known as the Forbidden City. Yongle held court in the Forbidden City for the first time in 1421. Gates and Courts We have noted that the plan of Khubilai’s Dadu followed the dictum for the ruler’s city in “Kaogongji,” even though Dadu had only two north gates. Yongle’s Beijing followed the same text and more classical stipulations. The city had three north-south and three east-west thoroughfares, the court in front and private residences behind, the ancestral temple to the emperor’s left as he sat on his throne facing south, the altars of soil and grain to his right, and markets. In addition, Ming Beijing adhered to the “three courts, five gates” (sanchao, wumen) dictum. Among earlier imperial cities, only Tang
Chang’an had attempted to implement this. Ming Beijing is the only city in Chinese history where this scheme was successfully constructed (figure 13.5). The three courts are two inner courts, the governing court (zhichao) centered on the Three Supreme Halls, where the ruler holds audience, and the resting court (yanchao) focused on the Back Halls behind it, for the ruler’s private chambers; and the outer court (waichao), a cross-shaped space between today’s Wumen and Tian’anmen that included the Ancestral Temple and the Altar to Soil and Grain for government affairs. The five gates are along the central axis, a continuous line through the center of the Forbidden City. Defining the space almost exclusively restricted to the emperor, five marble bridges were crossed right in front of the first gate. Heading northward from there, the first gate is today Tian’an Gate (Tian’anmen), known in imperial China as Chengtian Gate, the point beyond which only those with imperial business could proceed. It is where the emperor issued imperial edicts, the profound marker between his space and that of all others. Duan (Primordial) Gate comes next. From that point the emperor could enter the ancestral temple to the east and soil and grain altars to the west. The next gate is Wu (Meridian) Gate, the five-entry, inverted-Ushaped gate that today is the entrance to the Palace Museum. Prisoners of war were presented here. A second set of five marble bridges behind Wu Gate offers a dramatic approach to the inner courts. The governing court is entered via the Gate of Supreme Harmony (Taihemen), known as Fengtian Gate during the Yongle reign and later as Huangji Gate. This is where the emperor heard reports about the affairs of court. Qianqing(men) Gate, the fifth, is the entry to the resting court. The five gates also may be symbolic of the five phases (wuxing), discussed in chapter 3. The concept of yin-yang, the negative and positive forces of the universe, also is sometimes considered to be part of the layout of the Ming palaces. Odd numbers are associated with yang, both the positive force and the male force. Five gates and Three Front Halls thus are yang. The two inner courts would be yin forces. The Forbidden City The complex of buildings known as the Forbidden City is the group of moat-enclosed, palatial halls built by Yongle and later buildings constructed under subsequent emperors of the Ming or Qing dynasty in the same space (see figures i.1, 13.5). In Chinese imperial planning, inner and central take precedence
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over outer, or more distant from both inner and the center. Yongle’s Beijing comprised the same three major enclosed regions as Khubilai’s capital Dadu but with different names. The Forbidden City, Zijincheng, literally Purple Forbidden City, was centermost, the equivalent of palace-cities of former dynasties. Like Chinese capitals since the Sui-Tang period, the second enclosure was the imperial-city where government administration occurred. The outer wall enclosed both of them. Between 1419 and 1421 the southern boundary of Yongle’s outer city was extended about a kilometer to yield a total perimeter of 23.5 kilometers, still smaller than Khubilai’s city.12 The Three Front Halls, from south to north, of Supreme Harmony, Middle Harmony, and Preserving Harmony, elevated together on the 8.13-meter-high, three-tier, marble platform, are the focus of both the governing court and the Forbidden City. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, named Fengtian (sacrifices to the heavens) Hall under Yongle, has through its history been the most important building in the Forbidden City and one of the largest in China.13 Eleven bays across the front by five in depth, today it is 2,377 square meters in floor space, about two-thirds its former size but still the largest wooden building in China. It has been rebuilt seven times, most recently between 1695 and 1697. The Hall of Supreme Harmony is supported by seventy-two pillars, twelve across the front and six in depth. None is eliminated, but the central bay across the front and the central three in depth are widened to make room for an altar. Pillars are 12.77 meters tall with diameters of 1.06 meters. Each pillar is the same height, for the principle of rise that we associated with buildings of Tang through Yuan does not occur in late imperial construction. Twenty-four emperors sat on the throne in this building, which was 33 meters across the front and elevated on a platform of 7 meters. Ceremonies that included banquets with 108 tables14 on New Year’s Day, for the Winter Solstice, festivals honoring longevity and the passage of ten years, an emperor’s wedding, and the enthronement of an empress were held here. Imperial edicts were proclaimed, successful candidates in the imperial exams were received, and the military commander during wartime was appointed here as well. The Hall of Middle Harmony is equidistant between the Halls of Supreme Harmony and Preservation of Harmony. Its name is a reference to the Confucian principle of zhonghe, seeking a middle to ensure equilibrium and harmony. In contemporary terms, it can be understood as a staging hall. The
13.5. Plan of Ming-Qing Beijing showing three courts and five gates
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emperor came here to go over his address for ceremonies at the Altars of Heaven, Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Soil and Grain, and Agriculture. In preparation for his visit to the Altar of Agriculture, he would perform a ceremony in the Hall of Middle Harmony with an ox leading a plow accompanied by officials and singers. The ceremony in which the family genealogy was confirmed on jade tablets was performed here every ten years. The building is one of the smallest in the Forbidden City, 256 meters square, with lattice windows on each side so that it also has one of the brightest interiors. The Hall of Preservation of Harmony (Baohe) is the Qing name of the third building in the set. Its lesser importance compared to the Hall of Supreme Harmony is signaled by the hip-gable roof, still with two sets of eaves because, as one of the Three Front Halls, it is extremely eminent. In the Ming dynasty it was another staging building: the emperor put on ceremonial attire here before granting titles to the empress or crown prince. In the Qing dynasty it was a banquet hall for events such as a daughter’s marriage or entertaining foreign guests on the first and fifteenth days of the first moon, all less important than those in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Beginning in 1789 the final test in the civil service examinations was held in this hall; the emperor attended the opening ceremony. The Halls of Supreme Harmony and Preservation of Harmony were flanked by symmetrically placed buildings near the covered arcade that enclosed the outer court. Beyond them were service buildings such as kitchens, a pharmacy, and a hospital. In front on the (emperor’s) left (to the southeast) was a hall where the crown prince spent long hours studying, where in the later Ming dynasty the three best imperial exam papers were presented to the emperor, and in yet later times, banquets were held. Other halls in the southern part of the Forbidden City, outside the outer court, were libraries where massive imperial compendia such as the 11,095-volume Yongle dadian (Great canon the Yongle reign), compiled between 1403 and 1408, and the 36,381-volume Siku quanshu (Complete writings of the four treasuries), compiled between 1773 and 1782, were housed, and halls where imperial records were kept. The resting court is directly behind the governing court. Like the governing court, it is entered by its own gate; different from the governing court, it has its own exit. The resting court shares a central axis with the outer and governing courts, but its space is significantly smaller. The main halls
are elevated on a single-tier marble platform. Still, its two main halls are flanked by side halls. Those two halls, named as palaces (gong) in Chinese, Heavenly Purity (Qianqing) and Earthly Repose (Kunning), were built during the Yongle reign. At that time they were referred to as the Two Back Halls. The Hall of Magnificent Union (Jiaotai), equidistant between them, was added in the sixteenth century. The names are allusions to trigrams or passages in the Yijing (Book of Changes). Qian, first character in the Chinese name of Heavenly Purity Palace, is three unbroken lines, the trigram for south and yang. It is fitting that the emperor resides there. Kun is three broken lines, the trigram for north and yin. Earthly Repose Palace is the empress’s residence. Jiaotai is a reference to the union of heaven and earth. The union also refers to the emperor who lives in front and the empress behind.15 Both the front and back halls of the resting court have double eaves, the front a hipped roof, like its counterpart the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and the back a hip-gable roof, like its counterpart the Hall of Preservation of Harmony. The entry gate has a single-eave, hip-gable roof. Qing emperors, particularly Kangxi, sometimes held audiences and made important military announcements inside the five-bay gate. Heavenly Purity Palace, right behind the gate, was the imperial bedchamber for most of its history. Yongle arranged it as a hall of nine divisions with three beds in each section so that women the emperor might see that night slept in the same building. During the Qing dynasty, banquets were given in Heavenly Purity Palace, including a famous longevity banquet hosted by Qianlong, by then over seventy, for more than three thousand men of more than sixty years of age. The Palace of Earthly Repose was the empress’s private residence from the Yongle period until the reign of the Yongzheng emperor (r. 1722–1735). Yongzheng moved his residence to Cultivating the Mind Palace, discussed below, whereupon the empress and those of successive dynasties chose other palaces among the many that were available to the east and west of the inner court. The eastern side of Earthly Repose Palace was used for the wedding and wedding night of any emperor who married after he ascended to the throne. The empress received visits from imperial females and concubines in this hall on the New Year and on her birthday. The back gate of the resting court, the Gate of Earthly Tranquility, was used by eunuchs. The twenty-five imperial seals were stored in this structure as well.
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Six courtyards east and west of the inner court were designated by Yongle as residential space for imperial concubines. By the end of the Qing dynasty, courtyard-enclosed residences would increase to fill the space almost to the outer wall of the Forbidden City. Each of the twelve palaces has two courtyards with a main building and side chambers in each for a total area of about 2,500 square meters. The main building in each front courtyard was for receiving guests and the back building for sleeping. All six on each side are interconnected by passageways. Because the number of imperial wives and concubines varied from emperor to emperor and during the reign of any one emperor, in the Qing dynasty sometimes empresses lived here. A large hall south of the eastern palaces was for ancestral worship, and an abstinence hall for eating a restricted diet before sacrifices was opposite it. Imperial princes lived in five rows of palaces north of the six eastern and six western palaces. Beyond the six eastern and six western palaces are areas sometimes known as the outer eastern and outer western palaces. Several significant construction projects were initiated in the Qing dynasty. Repose and Longevity (Ningshou) Palace is a 6,000-square-meter complex of courtyards east of the outer eastern palaces. The nine-dragon screen wall that announces entry to Repose and Longevity Palace was erected in 1771 by Qianlong. It is the only ceramic-tile, freestanding wall with nine dragons in the Forbidden City, and one of just a few in China, for only an emperor was permitted to decorate a screen with nine of the creatures.16 The focus of Repose and Longevity Palace is Imperial Ultimate (Huangji) Hall, a ninebay structure on par with the Hall of Supreme Harmony. In 1688 Kangxi gave this complex to his mother. The buildings gained singular importance at the end of the eighteenth century when Qianlong, upon reaching his sixtieth reign year and not wanting to surpass the sixty-year duration of his grandfather Kangxi’s reign, retired to these palaces. He lived there from 1795 to 1799. The buildings were lavishly renovated at that time. Qianlong hosted a spectacular banquet for the elderly on New Year’s Day of 1776 to which more than five thousand were sent invitations; more than two thousand were seated in the hall. In spite of Qianlong’s patronage of the architecture and its use for celebration, he spent most of his time in the much smaller Cultivating the Mind Palace (Yangxingong), south of the six western palaces and another of the Qing contributions to the Forbidden City. This complex divides into three parallel,
east-west rooms, an irregular plan that made it possible for Qianlong to have privacy on either side without exiting. His throne was in the central space, whereas he read and indulged in hobbies, including writing and viewing calligraphy and precious items, on the sides. Paintings by the Italian Jesuit painter at his court, Giuseppe Castiglione (1688–1766), mentioned again in chapter 16, hung in a side room. The Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) sat on a throne behind a screen in this palace in 1898 when her son the Guangxu emperor attempted reform during a period of one hundred days. Buildings patronized by rulers of the Qing dynasty are further discussed in chapters 14–16. Outside the three courts were pavilions for entertainment such as Pleasing Tones Pavilion (Changyinge), where performances occurred at the New Year, winter solstice, and emperor’s birthday, and three noteworthy gardens. The imperial garden was due north of Earthly Repose Gate, the back gate of the Back Halls complex. Since the third century CE, imperial gardens had been located north of the palace-city and integrated into the palace area as conditions made possible. Cining Garden was between water channeled into the city to flow beneath marble bridges in front of the Gate of Supreme Harmony and the southern terminus of a group of residences known as the outer western palaces, due west of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Northwest of Cultivating the Mind Palace was Qianlong’s own garden, designed specifically for his retirement. Some 6,700-square-meters in size, the garden illustrated the principle of “borrowed view” by including sections that imitated or were inspired by the beauty spots of southeastern China that Qianlong had seen on his inspection tours of that region.17 The Qianlong gardens were the focus of an international restoration project in the first decades of the twenty-first century.18
Building Standards in Qing Palatial Architecture The first modern histories of Chinese architecture, written from the late 1920s through the 1940s, divide Chinese architecture into pre-Tang, Tang to the fourteenth century, and late imperial (Ming-Qing). Pre-Tang was an easy category because then as now, no wooden architecture survived. A driving question that enveloped dated buildings beginning with East Hall of Foguang Monastery through those of the Yuan dynasty was proof of the implementation of prescriptions in Yingzao fashi. When examined eighty or ninety years ago, Ming-Qing architecture was not differentiated as Ming or
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13.6. Pavilion of large-scale timber construction with hip-gable roof, Yunli, Gongbu gongcheng zuofa, juan 14/1b–2a
Qing, as we attempt to do in the chapters that follow, but rather was labeled “period of rigidity,” a reference to the use of straight timbers, pillars that did not exhibit rise, and ceilings that only rarely opened dramatically at the center in the manner of the Guanyin Pavilion of Dule Monastery (see figure 8.5). Generalizations about the rigidity of the late imperial timber frame were supported in those early histories by study of Gongbu gongcheng zuofa (Construction regulations of the Board of Works; hereafter Gongcheng zuofa), a text issued by the Board of Works (Gongbu) at the Qing court in 1734. Many extant buildings can be investigated alongside Gongcheng zuofa. Like Yingzao fashi, Gongcheng zuofa was supervised by an official, a man named Yunli, also known as Prince Guo (1697– 1738).19 Forty of the seventy-four juan deal with construction in wood. Twenty-seven of them explain wooden halls, pavilions, or gates, with one building and one sectional drawing in each chapter. These are the only illustrations in the treatise (figure 13.6). The next thirteen juan deal with bracket sets, especially the regulations for use of materials with an eye toward economizing. Fourteen juan on regulations for efficiency of workers follow. Unlike in Yingzao fashi, specific buildings contemporary with the text are discussed as examples. They include architecture of imperial gardens such as Yuanmingyuan, discussed in chapter 16 below, and Yonghegong and building in Chengde, discussed in chapter 15. Dates from 1727 to 1747 are given, indicating additions after 1734 but confirming that the treatise is a product of the Yongzheng and/or Qianlong reigns. Next come seven juan on construction in other materials such as stone, brick, and tile. Screens, doors, windows, and other pieces inserted into the timber frame are discussed in this section. Quotas, both of materials and of the labor force, are the subjects of the final chapters. This focus on pricing is clear in the preface. Yingzao fashi also considers the work hours that can be expected of a laborer, salary, and price of materials, but the Song manual takes accurate construction as a prime agenda, whereas Gongcheng zuofa from beginning to end is concerned with economy. As in Yingzao fashi, wooden architecture in the eighteenth-century treatise is based on a module. Whereas in Yingzao fashi there are eight grades of timber that yield the
cai (module), the module in Gongcheng zuofa is divided into doukou, of which there are eleven. Doukou, literally mouth (kou) of the block (dou), is the first of six main principles in Gongcheng zuofa.20 Sometimes referred to as the mortise, it is the same dou (block) in the Chinese word for bracket set, dougong. However, although dougong has been used here as in China today, to mean a bracket set of any time, it is a Qing term explained in Gongcheng zuofa. The equivalent in Yingzao fashi is puzuo, the word used in previous chapters to designate a bracket set formation according to its rank as stipulated in Yingzao fashi. Like cai, doukou is a module, but whereas cai is a two-dimensional standard size of wood that comes in eight sizes according to the rank, and whose width and depth are designated in fen (15 deep and 10 wide), the Qing doukou is designated only as a measurement, the width of the gong (bracket-arm), in eleven sizes from approximately 15 centimeters to approximately 2.5. Any wooden part that is not a whole-number multiple is designated with an additional fractional part. The term fen is found in Gongcheng zuofa only in reference to gong in certain locations. Whereas the differences in terminology may sometimes appear subtle, the differences in a Song and Qing bracket set are always apparent. As mentioned in chapter 9, every piece of the Song (and Tang, Five Dynasties, and Liao) bracket set is functional, and the size of the set is large compared to the height of the column beneath it, whereas the Qing bracket set has many more parts than a Song set, and not every part is functional. The Qing bracket set is as small as one-eighth the height of the column that supports it compared to as much as one-half in the Tang period, and there may be as many as eight of these small clusters between columns (see figures 9.14, 9.15). If the doukou system is the first principle of Gongcheng zuofa, the above-mentioned length of the bracket set compared to the column below it relates to a second building principle of Qing-period construction: the diameter of a column should be one-tenth that column’s height, or a ratio of 6 doukou to 60 doukou. Yingzao fashi specifies that the diameter of a pillar cannot exceed 3 cai, but the height is not specified. The Qing norm is a long, slender column with tiny bracket sets that include decorative pieces. A third principle of Qing
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13.7. Infrastructural drawing of Hall of Supreme Harmony
1. Eave Pillar (Yanzhu)
12. Wall Panel (Above Pillars) (Zoumaban)
24. Roof Ridge Support (Fujimu)
2. Interior Eave Pillar (Laoyanzhu)
13. Axial Purlin (Zhengxinheng)
25. Roof Ridge Purlin (Jiheng)
3. Interior Pillar (Jinzhu)
14. Eave Purlin (Tiaoyanheng)
26. Roof Ridge Cushion Board (Jidianban)
4. Greater Architrave (Da’efang)
15. Seven-rafter-length Cross-beam (Qijialiang)
27. Roof Ridge Tie-beam (Jifang)
5. Lesser Architrave (Xiaoe’fang)
16. Transverse Tie-beam (Suiliangfang)
28. Upper Roof Purlin (Shangjinheng)
6. Cushion Board between Architraves (You’edianban)
17. Five-rafter-length Cross-beam (Wujialiang)
29. Intermediate Roof Purlin (Zhongjinheng)
18. Three-rafter-length Cross-beam (Sanjialiang)
30. Lower Roof Purlin (Xiajinheng)
19. Junior Pillar (Tongzhu)
31. Purlin (Jinheng)
20. Two-step Cross-beam (Shuangbuliang)
32. Intermediary Support (Gejiake)
21. Single-step Cross-beam (Danbuliang)
33. Eave Rafter (Yanchuan)
9. Flat Tie-beam (Pingbanfang)
22. Kingpost (Leigongzhu [Thunder-support Pillar])
34. Flying Eave Rafter (Feiyanchuan)
10. Upper Eave Architrave (Shangyanefang)
23. Brace That Joins Kingpost and Cross-beam
7. Lower Exterior Transversal Tie-beam (Tiaojiansuiliang) 8. Upper Exterior Transversal Tie-beam (Tiaojianliang)
(Jijiaobei)
11. Lower Roof Ridge Tie-beam (Bojifang)
wooden architecture is that intercolumnar bracket sets must be positioned 11 doukou apart from center to center. The distance between pillars is thus determined by the number of bracket sets, or vice versa, but that distance is always a multiple of 11 doukou. Fourth, all columns of a building facade are the same height. Rise does not occur in Qing construction, and as a result, the baseline of a roof is often straight, certainly straighter than that of a Song roof. Fifth, Qing beam-ends have a height to width ratio of 5:4 or 6:5, a proportion that affords significantly less stability than a Song beam-end, whose ideal ratio is 3:2. Combined with the lack of rise, disappearance of crescent-shaped beams in favor of only straight ones, and the rule that beams be 2 fen wider than the diameters of columns they join, the Qing building indeed presents a more rigid wooden frame than a Song structure. Finally, although wooden roof frames have largely the same components in Song and Qing China, they are constructed differently. The Qing roof is built beginning with the lowest purlin whose distance upward to the next one is measured as 5
ju, with the last interval between purlins being 9 ju. The Song roofer starts at the ridge purlin, and subsequent purlins are measured downward, resulting in a more gradual roof slope. Hall of Supreme Harmony as a Case Study As we know, the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City today is a Qing-dynasty version of the building commissioned by Yongle more than three hundred years earlier.21 As such, its current frame is an ideal case study of the highest Qing building standards, in fact, the ultimate standards of wooden architecture expressed in Gongcheng zuofa, for the most important ceremonies of imperial China took place in this building for about half a millennium. The doukou is 15 centimeters. Eight bracket sets are placed between the two central columns across the front facade. The bracket sets are one-tenth the height of the columns beneath them. Every exterior pillar is the same height and has the same diameter. They are placed so that no columns are eliminated from inside the hall. Every beam in either direction is straight (figure 13.7).
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13.8. “Passing through Gate of Supreme Harmony, Marriage of Guangxu Emperor,” 1889. Palace Museum, Beijing
The Hall of Supreme Harmony is made of more than ten thousand straight pieces of wood. In spite of this number, a comparison with a cross section of any building studied thus far shows less diversity in shapes of wooden pieces, no curved members, and few diagonal ones. Still, the plan and location in its three-unit group indicate remarkable similarities with the late-second-millennium BCE building complex excavated at Fengchu (see figure 1.12), and with numerous three-structure compounds with gong arrangements; and the timbers are notched for tenoning without metal joiners or abrasives as they were at Hemudu in ca. 5000 BCE (see figure 1.4). That fundamental features of China’s architectural tradition endured so long was pointed out in the introduction and is discussed again in the conclusion. We have seen the power of the Chinese hall as the symbol of the Chinese emperor across Asia from Mongolia to Japan. Why the emperor through the nineteenth century continued to build with a material with the duration of wood may be because of the potency of his and its ties to Chinese antiquity, but why he abandoned curves and twostory open interiors such as existed at East Hall of Foguang Monastery and Guanyin Pavilion is harder to understand (see figures 6.10, 8.5). The timber frame of the Hall of Supreme Harmony is an expanded version of the support system in the humblest wooden dwelling in China. It is thus understandable that a mere twenty-seven drawings sufficed to explain this eighteenth-century tradition, and Gongcheng zuofa could have got by with fewer. The awe and aura of standing in a building or courtyard of the Forbidden City are due to the decoration. Like the wooden components, the lavish gold, silver, jade, lacquer cloisonné, bronze, or mother-of-pearl repeat in every lattice of every row of every ceiling of every bay of every building. The structurally rigid halls of the Forbidden City in fact may be viewed as backdrop for decoration. As noted in the introduction, the intent of Chinese architecture is never to be appreciated as an individual building. Although multistory
architecture such as pagodas may have presented construction challenges, builders were always able to employ the timber frame literally as a skeleton of replaceable components that could be covered with costly decoration and would be one in a group of similarly elaborated buildings. Further, the buildings are themselves backdrops for human regalia, and imperial architecture is background for ceremony. The members of the court, each in his place at a wedding or other imperial ceremony, are equivalent to the expensive but profoundly repetitive pillars and beams, and the decoration that covers them (figure 13.8). By the time Gongcheng zuofa was written, two millennia of imperial history confirmed that nothing more than rigid timber framing and expensive decor was required to identify China’s most symbolic space. Architecture of China’s Forbidden City is not intended for careful examination. It is a setting for the real purpose of the Forbidden City: the emperor. His presence and the ceremonies he performs, not the construction method, glorify the architecture. The Module on a Larger Scale The Forbidden City is also almost unique in the degree to which modules were implemented.22 Just as the sizes of fundamental buildings parts and relations between them were conceived on a module, ground plans and distances between buildings and walls were modularly generated. The outer wall of the Forbidden City measures 753 meters east-to-west by 961 meters north-to-south. The distance between the outer edges of the northern wall of the Forbidden City and the northern wall of the outer city of Beijing (now destroyed) was 2,904 meters; the distance between the outer edge of the Forbidden City’s southern wall and the southern wall of the outer city (also destroyed) was 1,448.9 meters. The ratio of these two distances is close to 2:1. The ratio of the north-south length from the north side of the outer wall to the Forbidden City’s north wall compared to the north-south dimension of the Forbidden City
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was 2,904:961 meters, or 3.02:1; of the counterpart southern walls, 1,448.9:961 meters, or 1.51:1. Allowing for a 1–2 percent deviation, the distance between the northern wall of the Forbidden City and the northern city wall was three times the north-south length of the palace complex, and the distance between its southern wall and the southern city wall is 1.5 times the north-south length of the palace complex, another ratio of 2:1. It thus appears that when Beijing was built, the north-south length of the city was intended to be 5.5 times the north-south length of the Forbidden City, and the Forbidden City was positioned so that the distance to the southern outer wall was one-half the distance to the northern outer wall. The east-west width of Ming Beijing measured 6,637 meters, and compared to the east-west width of the Forbidden City, their proportional relationship was 6,637:753 meters, or 8.81:1, which rounds up to 9:1, with a deviation of 2 percent; nine, one recalls, is a number associated with the emperor. The area of Beijing’s outer city under Yongle was 49.5 times the area of the Forbidden City, which rounds up to 50 times. Inside the Forbidden City, the east-west width of the Three Front Halls (234 meters) is twice that of the Back Palaces (118 meters), again allowing for slight deviation. The Three Front Halls are 348 meters north to south and 234 meters east to west, a length to width ratio of 3:2. The back cluster is 218 meters long by 118 meters wide, giving way to a rectangular courtyard with a length to width ratio of 11:6 (see figure 13.5). The distance between the central axes of the front eave columns of the Gate of Supreme Harmony and Heavenly Purity Gate, the entrance to the Back Palaces, is 437 meters, or twice the north-south length of the Back Palaces (218 meters). The area of the Three Front Halls was exactly four times the area of the Back Halls. The Six Eastern and Western Palaces and Five Eastern and Western Lodges to their north further confirm the modular basis for the plan of Beijing. The distance between the outer edge of the southern wall of the Six Eastern and Western Palaces southernmost palaces and the outer edge of the northern wall of the Five Eastern and Western Lodges is 216 meters, so close to the north-south length of the Back Halls that one assumes that the same dimensions were intended. The distance between Wu (Meridian) Gate and Great Ming Gate (later known as Great Qing Gate, today China Gate [Zhonghuamen]), also uses the length of the Back Halls as its module. The distance between Wu Gate and the north and south side walls of the east and west rooms for officials in the
courtyard between Tian’an Gate and Duan Gate measures 438.6 meters, just 2.6 meters longer than twice the length of the Back Halls. Again, taking a standard deviation into account, the assumption is that a 2:1 ratio was intended. The distance from the south side of the gate piers of Tian’an Gate to the southern end of the Thousand-pace Corridor is three times the length of the Back Halls. The distance between the eastern and western gates (East and West Chang’an Gates) in front of Tian’an Gate is 356 meters, three times the width of the Back Halls. The front of Ming Beijing, the section between Tian’an and Great Ming Gates, also is three times the length of the Back Halls compound. Finally, the distance between the wall north of Prospect Hill and the wall on either side of Great Ming Gate is 2,828 meters, thirteen times the length of the Back Halls. There is little doubt that the length and width of the Back Halls were modules for design throughout the imperial sectors of the capital. Three features dominate planning inside the Forbidden City. The first is the centrality of the main hall in a building compound. The main hall is the focal hall, such that the focal buildings of the Three Front Halls, Back Halls, Six Eastern and Western Palaces, and Palace of Repose and Longevity are in the geometrical center of each compound. If one draws diagonal lines between opposite corners of the compounds, the points of intersection are in the center of each focal hall (see figure 13.5). Second, a square grid network with sides of 10 zhang, 5 zhang, or 3 zhang for each boundary of a grid was applied both to sections of the Forbidden City and to individual palaces. The 10-zhang square grid is applied to the Three Front Halls; it divides the area into seven cells in the east-west direction and eleven cells in the north-south direction. The grid is independent of the module of the Back Halls. The depth of the front courtyard corresponds to six squares if the boundary lines are set in the north along the walls east and west of the Hall of Supreme Harmony and in the south along the northern podium edges of the east and west side gates of the Gate of Supreme Harmony. The front courtyard thus measures 60 zhang. Calculating the northsouth length from the beginning of the front platform of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the front courtyard measures four squares and is equal to 40 zhang. The platform beneath the Hall of Supreme Harmony also is four squares wide and equal to 40 zhang. The central axes of the left- and right-side gates of the Hall of Supreme Harmony are thereby aligned
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at a distance of two squares, equal to 20 zhang from the central axis of the hall. The width of the podium of the hall is also two squares and equal to 20 zhang. The areas between Tian’an Gate and Wu Gate and between Wu Gate and Jinshui (Golden River) Bridge (in front of Tian’an Gate) also are laid out according to the 10-zhang square grid. The Back Halls and the Six Eastern and Western Palaces use a 5-zhang square grid. The Back Halls correspond to seven squares in the eastwest direction and thirteen in the north-south direction. The whole compound thus measures 35 by 65 zhang. The front courtyard is six squares wide, equal to 30 zhang. The individual compounds of the Six Eastern and Western Palaces are three squares in depth and width. Third is the relation between the numbers nine and five, again odd, or yang, and the Forbidden City. The ratio between the width of the compound and platform of the Three Front Halls is 234:130 meters, or 9:5. The north-south length of the gong-shaped platform is almost 228 meters, roughly the same as 234 meters, so that the length to width ratio of the gongshaped platform is also 9:5. The gong-shaped platform of the Back Halls, 97 by 56 meters, also corresponds to this ratio. Modular proportions also were employed in imperial altars of the Forbidden City.
Altars The Forbidden City was encircled by altars and buildings where the emperor or his surrogates made periodic sacrifices. In the Qing dynasty, an emperor who fulfilled all his obligations would perform more than fifty rites a year; in 1905 there were eighty-three annual imperial rituals.23 Some of the altars and their rituals traced to the Zhou dynasty. Beijing’s most important imperial ceremonial architecture has a continuous history on the locations where Yongle had first performed those ceremonies, even though, like the buildings of the Forbidden City, structures were rebuilt in different forms at later times. Altar to Heaven Complex (Tiantan) The architecture of Beijing’s altar complex for sacrifices to the heavens is unique.24 It includes three circular structures and the only circular building with three sets of roof eaves. It became the most sacred space in imperial China in the Ming dynasty when sacrifices to the heavens were deemed more
important than sacrifices to the imperial ancestors. Popularly known as the Temple of Heaven, the building complex adheres to the fundamental principles of spatial planning found in the Forbidden City. As at the Forbidden City, the most important buildings of the Altar to Heaven complex stand on a primary south-north axis. As at the governing court, the three main structures combine to form a gong arrangement. The difference, that each of the buildings is circular, is because the circle bears the primary symbolism of heaven, which, according to the Rituals of Zhou, is round. The heavenly circle combines with the square to form two horseshoe-shaped enclosing walls. The origins of the building complex were in the early Ming dynasty under Hongwu. Sacrifices to the heavens are prescribed in the Ritual Records (Liji); emperors before the Ming dynasty, even non-Chinese rulers of Jin and Yuan, made sacrifices to heaven and earth and built altars for sacrifices to other entities. In 1368, even before Hongwu determined that his primary capital would be in Nanjing, he ordered construction of a circular mound (huanqiu) south of the main south gate of his city and a square mound (fangqiu) north of the city, both for imperial sacrifices. By 1371 the circular mound had two levels and was approached by nine stairs from each of four sides, the southern stairway the longest. The mound was enclosed by a balustrade with four gates, and an additional gate beyond each of them, again the southern the largest. In 1378, following natural disasters, an eleven-bay Great Sacrifice Hall (Dasidian), decorated with gold and approached by a threebay path, was built for worship of earth in the same complex. A kitchen, storage hall, pavilion for preparing animals for sacrifices, and abstinence hall (zhaitang), where the emperor abstained from meat and wine for three days prior to the rituals and where he slept the night before their enactment, were within the complex. Until the mid-sixteenth century, whether sacrifices to heaven and earth should be in the same or different places and whether the locus should be open-air or interior space, were debated at the Chinese court. In 1420 Yongle ordered construction of a suburban altar for sacrifices to heaven and earth, according to the system implemented by Hongwu. The altar was covered by Great Sacrificial Hall, a structure with straight sides on the south, east, and west but a curved north side, similar in plan to the enclosing walls of the Altar to Heaven complex that symbolize a union of heaven and earth. One such
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enclosing, horseshoe-shaped wall was built by Yongle. He positioned the complex southeast of Beijing’s south wall. The next changes occurred under the emperor Jiajing (r. 1521–1567). He maintained the idea of a circular, open-air altar for worship of heaven to the south, and he built a hall for sacrifices for a good harvest, the successor to Great Sacrificial Hall, to its north, but still in the same precinct. They were separated by a partition wall but connected by a gate. Eventually the back building became the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year (Qiniantan). It took Jiajing about twenty-five years to complete construction. Already in 1530, the decision to divide the altar complex into two sacrificial sites having been made, the Circular Mound for sacrifices to heaven was placed south of the still existing covered altar for sacrifices to heaven and earth. The Circular Mound today stands on a three-tier podium in the southern part of the central axis of the Altar to Heaven complex, although it is smaller than in the Ming dynasty. After the construction of the Circular Mound, Great Sacrifice Hall was replaced with the Altar for Prayer for Grain (Qigutan), which was completed by 1545. The lower part of this building, a three-tier, circular podium with a base diameter of 91 meters, is the altar proper. The Altar for Prayer for Grain, a circular structure with a diameter of 24.5 meters, crowned with triple eaves and a conical roof, is on top of it. It was renamed Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year (Qiniandian) in 1751. The gates and side buildings around it follow the original plan of the Yongle period. In 1531 Jiajing built a small, circular building directly behind the Circular Mound. Today known as the Imperial Vault of Heaven (Huangqiongyu), it stores the tablet of the Lord of Heaven to whom the emperor offered sacrifices. It is, in other words, an appendage to the Circular Mound. In 1531 it had two sets of roof eaves. Even though circular buildings are found there, the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year, like the Forbidden City, was laid out on a square grid. A 5-zhang square was its module. The diameter of the step of the bottom podium of the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year matches the width of the Prosperous Year Gate to its south, both two squares, or 10 zhang. The diameter of the middle tier of the three-tier podium measures five squares, equal to 25 zhang. The north-south length of the buildings to its east and west sides corresponds to three squares, or 15 zhang, and the distance from the northern edge
of the podium of Prosperous Year Gate to the bottom step of the three-tier altar is the same. The dimensions of the other buildings relate to these according to the 5-zhang-square module. After the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year was built, the Altar to Heaven complex was expanded farther north and south to an area 1,289.2 meters east to west by 1,650 meters north to south. Only after this enlargement was completed did Jiajing make the change to Beijing for which he is best known. In 1553 the emperor expanded the city southward to include the ritual complex on the east of the main axis. The southern extension came to be known as the outer city, Beijing’s fourth wall-enclosed space (see figure 13.1). The former outer city then came to be known as the inner city. After this, the court never again debated whether heaven and earth should be worshiped in the same place. The Altar to Earth in the northern part of Beijing is discussed briefly below. In 1588 the abstinence hall, where the emperor limited his diet in preparation for ascent to the Altar for Prayer for Grain (today Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year), was expanded. The next changes to the Temple to Heaven complex took place during the Qianlong reign. In 1751 the roofs of the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year and Imperial Vault of Heaven were covered with blue tiles, and the Circular Mound was enlarged between 1749 and 1753 when its blue stone was replaced with the white one sees today. The three circular structures and abstinence hall were the most important buildings in the emperor’s ritual processions. The round buildings also employ the number three to symbolize heaven (top), earth (middle), and man (or humanity) (bottom). Its square, of course, is nine. The emperor entered the complex for paying homage to the heavens from the west. He continued straight along a road through a second gate, whereupon he turned right to the abstinence hall. The morning after sleeping there, he exited to come south and then east, in order to follow the direct avenue to the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year. His first stop was the Circular Mound. The uppermost terrace is 3 by 30 zhang, the second terrace is 5 by 30 zhang, and the bottom terrace is 7 by 30 zhang; the odd numbers are associated with yang, heaven, and the male. The number of flagstones on each terrace spiral around in increments of 9, the imperial number, so that the circles on the upper terrace have between 9 and 81 stones, the second terrace 90 through 162, and the bottom 171 to the
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outermost ring of 243. The numbers of pillars also are multiples of 9, from top to bottom, 72, 108, and 180, for a total of 360. Three sets of three stairs lead to the altar from each side. Just north of the Circular Mound is the Imperial Vault of Heaven, built entirely of wood in 1530, except for the roof tiles that were changed to blue at the time of Jiajing. This is the structural complex known for its acoustical effects. The 6-meter-high wall that encloses it is called Echo Wall because a whisper into it, it is said, can be heard 180 degrees away on the opposite side. South of the hall is Triple Sounding Stone, where, if one stands and claps, one is said to hear an echo on the first stone, double echo on the second stone, and triple echo on the third. The components of the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year are as symbolic as those of the Circular Mound. The lowest roof layer is supported by twelve outer pillars symbolizing the twelve divisions into which the Chinese day (twenty-four hours today) was traditionally divided. The second roof is supported by an inner ring of twelve pillars that represent the twelve lunar months. The top roof is supported by four enormous pillars that represent the four seasons. The total of twenty-eight represents the lunar lodges. From 1430 until the Qianlong period, the roof eaves were blue, yellow, and green. As noted, they became uniformly blue during a Qianlong renovation. The hall one sees today was reconstructed after it burned in 1889 (figure 13.9). In the Qing dynasty, the emperor came to these altars three times a year, at the winter and summer solstices, and on the first day of the first lunar month. Officials were present to guide him through the rituals. The day before each rite, Beijing was silent so that the emperor could proceed from the Forbidden City to the altar complex without being seen. Ancestral Temple (Taimiao) There were some ten other altars or spaces for imperial ceremonies in premodern Beijing (see figure 13.1). The designated number is not precise because some were part of multialtar complexes and others were loci of imperial rituals but not altars. The Ancestral Temple is an example of the second type. Worship of tablets on which the names of one’s ancestors were inscribed was a Chinese institution since ancient times. Emperors worshiped their ancestors in front of tablets in a
hall south of the palace, a location prescribed in “Kaogongji” and its location since the Han capital Chang’an (see figure 3.2). Worship of the ancestors was the supreme obligation of the Chinese emperor through the Yuan dynasty. Hongwu and all subsequent rulers of China maintained ancestral temples, but after the worship of heaven became supreme, the ancestral temple was one among the imperial ritual complexes of the capital. It is part of the section of imperial Beijing known as the outer court. Like the Three Front Halls of the Forbidden City, the Ancestral Temple was a three-hall complex. Yongle built Beijing’s Ming ancestral temple in 1420, upon ascending the throne. The complex was 197,000 square meters and enclosed by a corridor that joined the entry gate (Halberd Gate [Jimen]) and two additional red walls. Although all buildings have been repaired or rebuilt, including a brief period when Jiajing transformed the site into nine temples in deference to the Nine Temples described in Zhou texts, Halberd Gate is believed to retain its early-fifteenth-century structure. Marble bridges cross the Jin River in front of the gate. The front hall, the Hall for Worship of the Ancestors, has a double-eave, golden roof and is elevated on a three-tier platform (figure 13.10). Originally it was nine bays across the front. Individual buildings and the composite of gate and three halls behind it imitate the Three Front Halls complex of the Forbidden City. Qianlong expanded it to eleven bays, to match the expanded Hall of Supreme Harmony. Like that hall, the Hall for Worship of the Ancestors is made of strictly straight timbers and lavishly decorated with motifs that repeat again and again. The small Middle Hall behind it housed the imperial tablets that were moved into the front hall for ceremonies. It is sometimes known as resting hall (qindian) because imperial tablets reside there. The wider back hall, built in 1491, housed tablets of the more remote ancestors—in the Qing dynasty, those of predynastic Manchu rulers. Tablets commemorating nonruling members of the imperial family and meritorious officials were kept in buildings of the enclosing arcade. Tablets not in use were placed on large floor pillows, similar to mattresses. On the first day of the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth lunar months and the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, tablets were brought into the Hall for Worship of the Ancestors for ceremonies. Another ceremony was the 13.9. Air view of Altar to Heaven complex
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13.10. Hall for Worship of the Ancestors, Ancestral Temple complex, Beijing, early fifteenth century with many later repairs
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display of prisoners of war to the tablets of past emperors. The emperor also came here when he ascended the throne. Upon the establishment of the Qing dynasty, tablets of the Ming rulers were sent to the Temple for Rulers of the Past, discussed next. In the 1920s the Ancestral Temple complex became a public park, and in the 1950s it was expanded into the Workers’ Cultural Palace. Today it is an open tourist site as well as a fashionable place for weddings. The layout of the Ancestral Temple has the same 5-zhang square grid employed in the Forbidden City. Other Temples and Altars An Ancestral Temple presupposes sacrifices not only to the ancestors of a ruler’s own dynasty but to rulers of the past. In 1530 Jiajing built the Temple for Rulers of the Past for tablets of rulers beginning with the Legendary Emperors.25 Hongwu had built such a temple, named Diwangmiao (Temple of Emperors of the Past), in Nanjing in 1373. Jiajing set up twentyone tablets and performed sacrifices at the Beijing temple in the spring and autumn. The Qing emperors added tablets for rulers of non-Chinese dynasties such as Liao and Jin for a total of 144, as well as seventy-nine meritorious official tablets, forty more than in the Ming dynasty. As at the Forbidden City and Ancestral Temple, three marble bridges led to the Temple for Rulers of the Past. The first courtyard contains only pavilions and service buildings. At its back is Jingde Gate, behind which is Jingde Chongshenggong, the main sacrificial hall, named palace (gong), a practice we have noted for the Back Halls in the Forbidden City. Elevated on a three-tier marble platform, nine bays wide, and with a double-eave, hipped roof, it resembles the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the Hall for Worship of the Ancestors of the Ancestral Temple. The tablets of the meritorious officials are in side halls. The Temple for Rulers of the Past was restored in 2003–2004. Like the Ancestral Temple, the Altar to Soil and Grain, sometimes referred to as land and grain, also is mentioned in “Kaogongji.” The complex is prescribed to be on the opposite side of an imperial city. The three-tiered, white marble platform beneath the altars represents earth and is square. It was built based on the 5-zhang module used at the Forbidden City and the Ancestral Temple. Staircases approach it from each side. Constructed by Yongle in 1421, the upper platform is covered with five colors of soil that came to the emperor as gifts: yellow in the center to represent the emperor and, clockwise
starting at the south, red, white, black, and green in accordance with the directional associations. The five colors also symbolize the five phases (wuxing). Storage buildings and a kitchen for keeping sacrificial equipment and preparing animals for sacrifice are in the complex. The emperor performed ceremonies on the fifth day of the second and eighth lunar months. In 1925 the body of China’s president Sun Yat-sen was temporarily housed here. Since 1928 the main hall has been named after him, Zhongshan (Yat-sen in Cantonese) Hall. Jiajing built the Altar to Earth north and slightly east of the Forbidden City in 1530 following the debate at court that determined that the worship of heaven and earth should occur in separate locations. It was said to be modeled on the altar for worship of the God of Earth built by Hongwu in Nanjing. The two-tier, marble altar is square, representing the earth. The upper level is 60 chi on each side (about 20 square meters), and the lower level is 66 chi on each side (about 22 square meters), the number six associated with the earth. Initially called Fanze, or square pool, because the structure was moat-surrounded so that water could be channeled into it via a dragonhead, beginning in 1534 it became Ditan (earth altar). Like the Altar to Heaven complex, this building group includes an abstinence hall and a hall where animals were slaughtered for sacrifice. There is also a hall where tablets of the spirits of rivers, seas, and mountains were kept. The annual sacrifice took place on the day of the summer solstice. The site became a public park in 1925. The Altar to the Sun (Ritan), east of the Forbidden City, also was built in 1530 by Jiajing. Elevated on a single-tier platform, in the Qing dynasty the west-oriented, square altar was rebuilt to be about 16.7 meters on each side. Originally it was enclosed by a wall. Like most other altars in Beijing, it had storage halls, a kitchen, and a building in which the emperor changed his clothes in preparation for his ritual. Sacrifices occurred at the time of the autumn equinox. Today the square enclosing wall has six gates on each side and the site is a park. The Altar to the Moon (Yuetan), also built by Jiajing, is opposite the Altar to the Sun, east-west oriented, and west of the Forbidden City. Sacrifices were performed on a white marble platform approximately 1.5 meters high and 13 meters square, as it survives today. It has the same service halls as the Altar to the Sun. The annual ceremony occurred at the time of the spring equinox. The Altar to Agriculture, also known as the Altar to the First Crops (Xiannongtan [more literally, Altar to the Premier
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13.11. Taisuidian, today Museum of Architecture, Grounds of Altar to Agriculture, Beijing, fifteenth century with later repairs
Agriculturist]), is one of four altars that enclose Beijing’s inner city: Earth in the north, the Sun in the east, the Moon in the west, and this one in the south. Constructed in 1420 for sacrifices to the thearch (a name used for China’s first three sovereigns) Shennong, in popular religion the god of agriculture, the 1.5-meter-square altar faces south. A hall that contains the tablets used in the ceremony is behind the altar. In preparation for the spring ceremony, which in the Qing dynasty took place at the equinox, the emperor entered the Hall of Middle Harmony and inspected plowing implements. Part of the ritual at the Temple to Agriculture included the emperor wearing the costume of a farmer. Two hexagonal wells on site symbolically provided water. An Altar to the Planet Jupiter, known as Taisuidian (The Hall of the God of the Year), was built on the grounds of the Temple to Agriculture, also in 1420. Sacrifices were performed to the planet on the altar, and sacrifices were made to the deities of the twelve moons of the year in auxiliary halls on the east and west. Today Taisuidian houses the Museum of Architecture (figure 13.11). The Altars to the Gods of Sky and Earth also were located on the grounds of the Temple to Agriculture. The gods of wind, clouds, thunder, and rain received imperial sacrifices at the Altar to the Gods of the Sky (Taishentan), a 1.5-meterhigh, 17-square-meter structure approached by nine steps, symbolizing the heavens, on each of its four sides. To the north are four white stone shrines, one dedicated to each of the natural forces. The Altar to the Gods of the Earth (Diqitan) was for imperial sacrifices to the gods of mountains and seas. West of the Altar to the Gods of the Sky, it is 1.43 meters high and occupies an area of 33 square meters. Six
steps, symbolizing earth, lead to the platform on four sides. South of the altar are five stone shrines, three decorated with mountains symbolizing the five sacred peaks (wuyue) and the five guardian mountains (wuzhen), and two on which waves symbolizing the four great seas and four great rivers are carved. Ponds at the bases of the shrines were filled with water only during sacrifices. The Altar to Silkworms (Xiancantan [more literally, Altar to the Premier Silkworm Cultivator, or the Goddess of Silkworms]), was built under the Qianlong emperor in 1742 on Beihai, the parkland on the artificial lake constructed in southwestern Beijing in Jin times whose monumental white pagoda is discussed in chapter 15. It is a 1.3-meter-high altar approached by stairs on four sides. Sacrifices were made to Leizu, wife of China’s Yellow Thearch, the first of the Five Legendary Emperors. The imperial ritual was the only one performed by the empress. Not surprisingly, the site is known for its mulberry trees, the main diet of silkworms. Admiration of Silkworms Hall and Washing Silkworms Pool are behind the altar. Although no city in China still proclaims its imperial past to the extent of Beijing, imperial Chang’an and Luoyang in Han and Sui-Tang times, capitals of dynasties between those times, and imperial cities of Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan had spaces for worshiping the ancestors of the ruling family and altars for making supplications to soil and grain. There was an altar for worship of the heavens in Tang Luoyang. Through the ages, scholars at court read texts and knew that for China to be strong, the ancestors, the gods on high, and natural forces had to be venerated. Powerful rulers with visions into the futures of their lines transformed their capitals into cities
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punctuated with altars that brought the emperor from his palace to the inner and outer cities and even beyond the capital walls. Emperors were altar builders as well as city builders. Hongwu, Yongle, Jiajing, and Qianlong were largely responsible for the imperial architecture in Nanjing and Beijing, most of which survived into the twentieth century. In chapter 15 we shall see that Qing emperors built another significant city with their own breed of ritual architecture, and in chapter 17 we shall read about the struggles between nonimperial citizens of China and a nonimperial government to save or destroy these testaments to China’s most powerful rulers. Like Nanjing, Beijing required imperial tombs. Also as in Nanjing, those tombs relied on past models. These final legacies of imperial Chinese death were marked in ways very similar to those that had proclaimed the final resting places of emperors for millennia.
Thirteen Ming Tombs Thirteen Ming emperors and twenty-three empresses or concubines are buried in Changping county in an area known as the tomb valley, approximately 50 kilometers northwest of the Forbidden City. It is the first Chinese imperial necropolis since the Western Han royal cemetery that has only one approach for all the tombs. Not only does Yongle have the largest tomb, all construction is directed toward it. The first monument along the approach to the valley is a five-entry, stone ceremonial archway (pailou or paifang), 28.86 meters wide and 14 meters high, not built until the reign of Jiajing, the emperor who added the outer city to Beijing and redirected or added worship at so many of the imperial altars. Modeled after a wooden structure, the pailou has lintels and six sets of brackets between the pillars that define each bay, as well as an imitation ceramic tile roof. Behind it is the three-entry Red Gate, probably built in 1425, which at one time was the entrance to a wall-enclosed, 40-square-kilometer funerary compound. The gate has a sign that instructs officials to dismount from this point, a feature we have observed in other imperial architecture. Next is a stele pavilion that contains the largest stele in China. Praises by Yongle’s son and successor were inscribed on it in 1425, although the 7.91-meter-high stele was not erected until 1435, during the reign of Yongle’s grandson. It rests on a tortoise base, a foundation that designates imperial stele. Qianlong
also wrote commemorative poems here. The pavilion is open on four sides, and a marble huabiao (ceremonial pillar around which dragons spiral) stands at each side. The spirit path, just over a kilometer long, comes next. Beginning with two hexagonal stone columns, twelve pairs of standing and kneeling, real and fanciful, animals follow. There the road bends. Twelve pairs of officials come next, four military, four civil, and four imperial councilors. One continues approximately 5 more kilometers, crossing water twice as one does along the approach to Ming-Qing Beijing, before reaching Changling, eternal royal tomb, the tomb of Yongle and his first empress and the same name the first Han emperor used for his tomb in Chang’an. Every feature, except the specific statues on the spirit path, follows the precedent of Hongwu’s Xiaoling. As at Hongwu’s tomb and imperial altars, the circle and the quadrilateral dominate space. Also as at imperial altars, gates, stele pavilions, and buildings for animal sacrifices are part of the individual imperial tomb complex: a triple-entry gate joins the wall enclosing the three courtyards that approach the circular tomb mound; east of the gate is a stele pavilion, and directly behind, a larger, five-bay gate that is the architectural prelude to the main sacrificial hall, the Hall of Spiritual Favors (Ling’endian). The Hall of Spiritual Favors, begun in 1409, is one of the three premier diantang in Beijing (see figure i.2). (The second is the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the third is the Hall for Worship of the Ancestors [see figures i.1, 13.10]). The Hall of Spiritual Favors is the largest building in China made of nanmu (Machilus nanmu), a fragrant wood that grows in Sichuan. Transport to Beijing was by the Yangzi River, and then along the Grand Canal. Nine bays by four (66 by 29 meters), like the Halls of Supreme Harmony and Worship of the Ancestors, it is raised on a triple-tier marble dais and has two sets of roof eaves. The roof, of course, is hipped. The center of this structure is at the intersection of diagonal lines plotted at ground level from the corners of its courtyard, and, like the Forbidden City, Altar to Heaven, and Ancestral Temple complexes, the plan of the three courtyards in front of the mound is based on a 5-zhang module. Every detail of the Hall of Spiritual Favors identifies it as a Ming structure. Inside one sees a complete grid of columns of equal height and a ceiling of identical lattices above the entire space, and the timber frame comprises exclusively straight pieces of wood. The rigidity of an early Ming wooden frame is
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13.12. Hall of Spiritual Favors, interior
more pronounced because the pillars are natural wood, a feature associated with the somber mood of funerary architecture (figure 13.12). The columns are 6.68 meters high, one-tenth the width of the hall across its front. As at the Western Han tombs where a single approach to the oldest tomb is shared by the entire tomb complex, the layout of burials may follow the zhaomu system described in Zhou texts. Yongle’s son and successor Hongxi (r. 1424–1425) was buried to his right. Yongle’s grandson Xuande (r. 1425– 1435) was then buried to his left. Zhengtong (r. 1435–1449 and 1457–1464), the fourth emperor to rule from Beijing, who was captured by the Mongols during his reign in 1449 in a situation known as the Tumu Incident, lies on Yongle’s right, farther west than Hongxi. Zhengtong’s younger brother ruled during the captivity but does not have one of the thirteen designated royal tombs of the Ming dynasty. The fifth tomb belongs to Chenghua (r. 1464–1487), Zhengtong’s successor, and here, as had occurred in Han Chang’an, the zhaomu system breaks down. The sixth and seventh tombs, belonging to Hongzhi (r. 1487–1505) and Zhengde (r. 1505–1521), respectively, are yet farther to the east. Jiajing (r. 1521–1567) has the eighth tomb, to the west, and closer to Changling (only 1.5 kilometers to the southeast) than all earlier tombs except those of Yongle’s son and grandson. During his long reign, the man who redefined the imperial altar system and nearly doubled the size of the capital spent more than thirty years constructing his tomb. The three-courtyard approach and nearly perfectly circular mound are comparable in size to Yongle’s. His three-entry gate and stele pavilion survive, as does the altar originally inside the hall for funerary sacrifices. Less remains of the ninth tomb, that of Longqing (r. 1567–1572), in a new area south of the western group, southeast of Changling and roughly symmetrical
to the tomb of his father, Jiajing, with respect to Changling. Perhaps one thus observes in the second half of the sixteenth century an attempt to return to the zhaomu system. Much of the aboveground architecture of the Ming tombs is restored. Underground, only one tomb has been excavated. It is Dingling, the tomb of Wanli (r. 1572–1620), the tenth Ming emperor, who was named crown prince at age six, ascended the throne at ten, and ruled for forty-eight years. The tomb was constructed between 1584 and 1590. In 1956 a lucky discovery helped excavators: a weakness in the enclosing wall revealed a brick labeled suidaomen (gate to the entrance ramp). Subsequently a stone inscribed with directions to the tomb chambers was found. The intent probably was so that future builders would know the way to bring additional corpses or burial goods into it.26 This inscription should be compared with the one on the bronze plate at the tomb of King Cuo of the Zhongshan kingdom (see figure 2.7) as evidence that it was assumed when a royal tomb was constructed that future generations would need to know about it. The underground area consists of six chambers; all but the entry are enormous. The three main rooms behind the entrance are highly polished marble, as are two side chambers joined to the central room by corridors. All five large rooms are vaulted. Their floors, paved with bricks that were fired for 130 days and then dipped in tung oil to give them a golden sheen, occupy an area of 1,195 square meters. Upon excavation, the front hall was empty, but the central chamber had three thrones: Wanli’s at the back facing the tomb entrance and one for each of his wives. The three vermilion-lacquer coffins are in the back chamber. The arrangement of space follows the dictum in “Kaogongji” observed in earlier imperial architecture above and below ground of hall of audience in front, private chambers behind.
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13.13. Air view of Manchu imperial city in Shenyang, Liaoning, begun 1625
Some believe the side chambers were built for future wives who might be taken by the emperor. The more than 2,600 grave goods in this tomb have been moved to museums. Wanli’s successor (Taichang) died a month after his enthronement. His small tomb is between those of the second and fourth Ming emperors ruling from Beijing, on the western side of Changling. It is one of the tombs at which one crosses water, reminiscent of the bridges in the Forbidden City, between the funerary hall and tumulus complex. The next Ming emperor (Tianqi) is buried on the east, near the tomb of the eighth Beijing Ming ruler. The last Ming emperor (Chongzhen) committed suicide and was buried outside the tomb valley. He was reinterred in the southwestern corner of the Ming complex by order of the first Qing emperor. The above-mentioned emperor Jingtai, who ruled while his older half-brother Zhengtong was in captivity, was buried with princely status when he died in 1457. He later received imperial burial, meaning that the rituals for a deceased emperor were performed at this tomb, but he was interred in Beijing’s Western Hills, not the Ming tomb valley.
Qing Imperial Architecture The official end of the Ming dynasty was brought about by a major tactical error. Seeking help to quell a popular uprising led by Li Zicheng that had begun in Shaanxi, the Ming general Wu Sangui turned to the Manchus, who had been engaged in border fights with the Ming for some twenty years. Upon Li’s entry into Beijing, Ming emperor Chongzhen hung himself. Li Zicheng set up a dynasty, and subsequently Wu Sangui set up a dynasty, but by 1644 the Manchu dynasty Qing was established in the Forbidden City. By this time, the Manchus had engaged in city building for nearly thirty years.
Imperial Cities in Liaoning Beginning in 1616 a group known as Hou (Later) Jin, a reference to the lands of their nativity from whence the Jin dynasty also had risen, confederated in Manchuria. In the same year Nurhaci (1559–1626) began attacks against the Ming. He established a city that might be considered a capital at Hetu’ala in Liaoning. In 1618 he moved his power base to Jiefanshan, and two years after that, farther south in Liaoning, to Sa’erhu (today in Fushun county). In 1621 he moved his center to Liaoyang, formerly the eastern capital of Liao and Jin, and in 1625 he began construction of the most important Manchu capital, in today’s Shenyang, a city known in the twentieth century as Mukden. A walled city stood when Nurhaci got there. Walled by Liao, destroyed by Jin, walled by Yuan and again by Ming in 1388, Nurhaci’s capital had twelve gates, four at the corners and two at each side, in contrast to three on each wall face that was more standard for China. It was about 16 kilometers in perimeter. Naming it Shengjing, he expanded the existing city to the south, east, and west and built his new palace area slightly north of the old city center. The arrangement is unique among imperial cities associated with China. The palace area comprised three parallel courtyards and an area of 63,000 square meters, but only the eastern section was completed during Nurhaci’s lifetime (figure 13.13). An octagonal building named Great Affairs (Dazheng) Hall where Nurhaci was enthroned and conducted affairs of state is the focus of this sector. Five pairs of pavilions define an approach to it. All four-sided, those closest to Dazheng Hall were for the left-wing and right-wing princes. The other eight were for each of the eight banners into which the Manchu people were divided. At the very front was another pair of pavilions for performance. Every building used the platform,
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13.14. Manchu ancestral tomb site, Xinbin, Liaoning
wooden-pillar-support system, bracket sets, and golden ceramic tile roofs of Chinese imperial architecture. The central area was begun in 1632 and completed during the reign of Nurhaci’s son Hong Taiji (r. 1626–1643). It had a more traditional Chinese imperial arrangement of front gate (Great Qing Gate, a name used before the name Qing was taken for the dynasty); Chongzheng Hall, which became Hong Taiji’s main hall of audience; Fenghuang (Phoenix) Pavilion; and Qingning Hall, where the emperor resided. Surrounding it were six symmetrically placed residential palaces with yet more residential space for the imperial household to either side. The western sector was added under Qianlong. Consisting of three courtyards, it included important buildings such as a stage for opera and a multistory building where one of the seven copies of the Siku quanshu (Complete writings of the four treasuries), the 36,381-volume publication of China’s most important writings, sponsored by Qianlong, was housed. The Qing also had palatial architecture at their retreat at Chengde, in Hebei province. It is discussed in chapter 16. Four Manchu Royal Tombs in Liaoning The tombs of the Qing dynasty are in three groups in a total of six locations. Only one group is in a county of Beijing. All the tombs, except those of the dynastic ancestors, are in every way Chinese imperial architecture. The tombs of the Manchu ancestors are part of the first group, in Liaoning province. In 1624 Nurhaci built a tomb site for his grandfather, father, uncle, younger brother, and eldest son, all of whom had predeceased him, about a kilometer from his capital in Liaoyang. In 1598 he had built an ancestral tomb site in Xinbin, Liaoning, near Hetuala for his great-grandfather and a yet more remote ancestor of his paternal line. In 1658 the first Qing emperor to rule from Beijing, Shunzhi, moved the tombs of Nurhaci’s grandfather and father to Xinbin. Like the eastern sector of
Nurhaci’s capital Shengjing, it is a unique arrangement, but as in Shenyang, with Chinese-style buildings (figure 13.14). Named Yongling (eternal royal tomb), it is entered via a Red Gate behind which are four stele pavilions. The courtyard ends at Qiyun (Beginning Transport [presumably of the soul]) Gate, behind which is the main sacrificial hall, also named Qiyun. Behind Qiyun Hall, a stairway leads to five funerary mounds. There is no underground component, suggesting that grave goods might have been stored inside the mounds.27 Nurhaci and his empress are buried at the third Liaoning site, the tomb Fuling, east of Shenyang.28 Nestled behind the Hun River and in front of the Tianzhu mountains, the tomb divides into four parts: Red Gate at the front, next a spirit path of six pairs of statues, the only one in China that requires an ascent of 108 steps (a multiple of nine), a pavilion whose stele is inscribed by Kangxi, and the area known as “square city and precious wall” (fangcheng ji baocheng). The first three parts follow the pattern of the Ming tombs, but the last section is associated with Qing tombs, the earliest example of the characteristic construction here. Square city is a rectangular wall that has a tower at each corner and Spiritual Favors (Ling’en) Gate and Spiritual Favors Hall directly behind it inside the wall. Spiritual Favors, one recalls, is the name of the sacrificial hall at Changling, Yongle’s tomb. Minglou (bright tower) is at the back center of the enclosed area, and a pavilion whose stele glorifies Nurhaci’s deeds is behind it. Precious Wall, a curved wall of approximately 270 degrees inside of which the tomb mound is centered, is directly behind it (figure 13.15). Zhaoling, the tomb of Hong Taiji and his wife, is north of Shenyang.29 Begun in 1643 and occupying 4.5 square kilometers, it has nearly the same plan; a pailou (archway) in front, a pair of pillars in front of the spirit path, and two pairs of small buildings on the sides of the pathway to Spiritual Favors Gate are the only features not present at Nurhaci’s
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13.15. Fuling, tomb of Nurhaci and his wife, Shenyang, Liaoning, 1620s–1630s
13.16. Courtyard, Western Qing Tombs
tomb. Topographically, however, it stands on flat ground, so that an artificial hill had to be added. Qing Eastern and Western Tombs Upon the establishment of the Qing capital in Beijing, Shunzhi (r. 1644–1661) began construction of a necropolis. Today the royal tombs occupy 48 square kilometers; at one time during the Qing dynasty they spanned 250 square kilometers, the largest amount of space given to any royal cemetery in China. Shunzhi located the necropolis in Zunhua, 125 kilometers northeast of Beijing in Hebei province, in the direction of his ancestral homeland. By the fall of the Qing
dynasty, five emperors, four empresses, and five imperial concubines were buried there. Shunzhi began building in 1653. Like the first Ming tomb outside Beijing, Shunzhi’s tomb starts at a five-entry marble archway (paifang), this one 31.35 by 12.48 meters. Behind is the three-entry Red Gate, then a pavilion that houses Shunzhi’s funerary stele positioned on the back of a turtle and with a huabiao on each side of the pavilion. Marble pillars mark the entry to the spirit path behind it that consists of twelve pairs of animals followed by six pairs of officials. A three-opening gateway known as Dragon [and] Phoenix Gate comes next. It, too, is a standard feature of Qing tombs. Some 5,600 meters
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have been passed by this point. Beyond Dragon [and] Phoenix Gate, the tombs of Shunzhi right behind it and his successor Kangxi (r. 1662–1722) to the east are similar, and similar to those of Nurhaci and Hong Taiji: a stele pavilion is followed by Spiritual Favors Gate and then Spiritual Favors Hall, with service buildings on either side; a small gate comes next; then a stone platform with five stone vessels for offerings; then stairs that lead to a four-sided tower. This area completes the square city. The Precious Wall enclosing the burial mound is behind it. Both Shunzhi’s and Kangxi’s tombs require crossing marble bridges before passing through Spiritual Favors Gate. The third Qing emperor, Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735), began planning his tomb to Shunzhi’s right, but in the 1730s he stopped construction and moved to a new site 120 kilometers southwest of Beijing. Known as the Western Qing Tombs, this necropolis came to occupy 80 square kilometers that include the tombs of four emperors. Like the tombs of his two immediate predecessors, Yongzheng’s tumulus was approached by bridges over water, then the stele pavilion, Gate and Hall of Spiritual Favors, two more gates, a marble platform with offering vessels, square tower, and then the precious circular wall that extended to that tower. Yongzheng’s son and successor, Qianlong, is buried at the Zunhua cemetery. His tomb was built over a fifty-year period and has been excavated. Like the tomb of Ming emperor Wanli, the entire interior is marble, but in this case Lamaist Buddhist imagery and Sanskrit inscriptions are carved on the walls and vaulted ceilings. Also as in Wanli’s tomb, the emperor’s coffin is in the back chamber. Coffins of five concubines are in the chamber with him. Thirty-six more of Qianlong’s concubines are buried in a complex in a section of the Eastern Qing Tombs that had been established by Kangxi for concubine burials. Each is buried in a subterranean tomb under her own mound, except for two who are buried together. They all share a sacrificial hall and stele pavilion. The next two Qing emperors, Jiaqing (r. 1796–1820) and Daoguang (r. 1821–1850), are buried in the Western Tombs (figure 13.16). Their successors, Xianfeng (r. 1851–1861) and Tongzhi (r. 1862–1875), are in the eastern complex. Guangxu (r. 1875–1908) is buried in the west, but the dowager who served as regent and for all intents and purposes reigned for most of this period, Cixi (r. 1861–1889 and 1898–1908), is buried in the Eastern Tombs. Her tomb pairs with that of the imperial wife Ci’an, who became coregent with Cixi of the six-year-old
Tongzhi when his father Xianfeng died in 1861. Cixi was hated by many, for reasons that will be clear in chapters 16 and 17. Her tomb was opened and looted. In addition to Shunzhi, Kangxi, Qianlong, and Xianfeng have complete spirit paths at the Eastern Tombs. At the Western Tombs, only Yongzheng has a complete spirit path. The final emperor, Puyi, who officially reigned from 1909 to 1912, was cremated and buried in a cemetery in Beijing. In the 1990s his ashes were moved for reburial to the Western Qing Tombs. In a few ways, the Qing tombs distinguish themselves from all earlier imperial burials in China. Some are joint burials of emperor and empress, while others are separate, for a Qing tomb was not to be opened after the emperor’s remains were placed inside. If an emperor died first, his empress would have a separate tomb nearby; a wife’s tomb could be opened for interment of an emperor. Every Qing tomb has water in front and is approached by bridges; mountains are not always behind the tomb, even though ideally an imperial burial should be protected with this natural force. The enclosing circular wall also is distinct. If Beijing deserves its reputation as the greatest city in the world, it is because of its imperial monuments, most important the Forbidden City, but moreso because altars and tombs enhance that reputation. Remarkably, this glory was achieved through buildings of straight timbers that rigidly adhered to modules and themselves were part of modular complexes. As we shall see in chapter 14, even as we seek to differentiate Ming from Qing, non-Lamaist religious architecture of Ming and Qing China is much the same as its palatial models.
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Late Imperial Architecture in Chinese Style
Thousands of buildings in addition to the ones by or for emperors survive in China from the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries. Hundreds of meters of city walls as well as gates and towers have been repaired or restored from this period, and a few survive almost in their original condition. Some, such as the outer wall of Pingyao in Shanxi province, have been carefully reconstructed to exemplify a Ming walled city.1 Others, such as Datong’s wall, also in Shanxi, or the bell tower in Xi’an, have been the foci of urban renewal with a view toward city nightlife and tourism (figure 14.1). The Ming dynasty, particularly in the fifteenth century following the debacle mentioned in chapter 13 that led to the capture of the Zhengtong emperor by the Zünghar leader Esen Khan, rebuilt large sections of the Great Wall. More of it stood in the Ming dynasty than at any other time in Chinese history. If in the end the wall was only a symbol of China’s defense against the non-Chinese world, like the Forbidden City, the boundary is still an ultimate symbol of China. In the Ming dynasty, princes who never rose to become emperors, governors, and citizens, all wealthy, lived in cities in North and South China. The princes, we learned in chapter 13, had palaces and royal tombs; the governors had residences and offices. The urban and rural populations all worshiped. From thousands of extant buildings, we select here those that are associated with important individuals, are part of large complexes that inform us about more than architecture alone, have extraordinary documentation, or have connections to earlier or later buildings or to themes in the art or architectural history of China. We begin with religious architecture.
Ming Buddhist Monasteries The monasteries singled out in this section have exemplary Buddhist construction. Although one contains statues and paintings associated with Lamaism, its buildings and plan exemplify a Ming version of a Chinese Buddhist temple complex. Lamaist architecture is discussed in chapter 15. Guangsheng Monastery in Hongdong, Shanxi, was discussed in chapter 12 because its fourteenth-century temple to the Dragon King is alongside a Buddhist monastery with a Yuan structure. Both buildings are part of the Lower Monastery. On flat ground at the top of a small hill, the Upper Monastery consists of three main courtyards and five main buildings: an entry gate, pagoda, hall dedicated to the Buddha
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Amitābha (Amituofo), Daxiongbao Hall, and hall dedicated to the Buddha Vairocana (Pilu). The 47.31-meter, tricolor, glazed Flying Rainbow (Feihong) Pagoda is the focus of the first courtyard. This thirteen-story, octagonal, louge-style structure diminishes in exterior perimeter from base sides of 16 meters to sides of 5.3 meters on the uppermost level. The pagoda is a stellar example of ceramic tile ornament (figure 14.2).2 Inside, the lowest five stories are octagonal and the next seven are four-sided rooms. The thirteenth story is indicated only on the exterior. Each level opens to the outside. Access to the top is possible via a continuous staircase that winds around the interior. The pagoda is dated 1515–1527. We have seen that the plan of a towering pagoda as the central structure on the main axial line of a monastery has a history in China since the sixth century; here the axis bends eastward beginning in the second courtyard, but the monastery is considered to have an axial plan. The site dates to the Han dynasty, when it was known as Ayuwang (Aśoka [304–232 BCE]) Monastery, the name a reference to the ruler of India’s Mauryan empire (322–185 BCE), who embraced Buddhism. The monastery history, recorded on stele and in local records, continues in Tang. However, this region of Shanxi and the monastery in particular have been plagued by earthquakes. The plan of the Upper Monastery reflects an arrangement that may have been implemented here more than one thousand years ago, but the three halls in its two back courtyards today are dated to the Ming period with later repairs. Amitābha Hall dates to 1532, Daxiongbao Hall is associated with 1452, the date on a purlin, and seven inscriptions date Vairocana Hall to the period 1497–1513.3 Zhihuasi, a second important Ming monastery, in eastern Beijing, has a firm founding date of 1443 and patron, the eunuch Wang Zhen, who built it as a clan temple. When Wang was forced to commit suicide in 1449, the monastery was taken over by the court. Its four courtyards, one behind the next, for a total length of 279 meters, retain Ming architecture that is exemplary of the wealth of the court without features such as marble, triple-layer platforms or balustrades associated with imperial structures. As at Guangsheng Monastery, all the main buildings are in a line, but unlike the plan associated with earlier Buddhist architecture, there is no pagoda. Behind a screen wall, the first courtyard is defined by a Shanmen in front, three-bay gate at the back, and bell or drum tower at either side. The second
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14.1. Bell tower, Xi’an, 1384
courtyard has four more significant buildings: a library with a hexagonal, wooden sutra cabinet carved in delicate detail, an image hall to either side, and Zhihua Hall at the back. Three Buddhist images are enthroned on the Zhihua Hall altar. The ceiling, a splendid example of Ming-period xiaomuzuo, was sold in the 1930s and today is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The two-story Rulai (Tathāgata, a name for the historical Buddha Śākyamuni) Hall dominates the third courtyard. The five-by-three-bay structure enshrines an image of Śākyamuni flanked by two attendants with sutra cabinets on the side walls. The second story, known as Ten Thousand Buddhas Pavilion, has myriad Buddhas on the back wall, behind an image of Vairocana. Its ceiling, today in the Nelson Museum in Kansas City, is an even more detailed exposition of fifteenth-century small-scale carpentry than the ceiling in Philadelphia (figure 14.3). The fourth courtyard is dominated by Dabei (Great Compassion) Hall, with abbot’s quarters, a hall dedicated to the Buddha’s Law, and back gardens on its sides.4 Originally more buildings stood along the sides of the four courtyards. Zhihua Monastery is often compared with Fayuan Monastery, a complex with six main structures in a line behind the front gate. Fayuan Monastery is associated with the Ming eunuch Song Wenyi, who was instrumental in its rebuilding in 1437. A Hall of Divine Kings, Daxiongbao Hall, ordination platform, Vairocana Hall, Great Compassion Hall, and tower for scriptures are along a 220-meter line. The same kinds of halls are found at other monasteries of Beijing that retain their Ming plans. Dajue Monastery in the Western Hills of Beijing has five halls in three main courtyards behind the Shanmen, among which are Divine Kings Hall, Daxiongbao Hall, Amitabha Hall, and Great Compassion Platform. Fahai Monastery, also
14.2. Flying Rainbow (Feihong) Pagoda, Guangsheng Upper Monastery, Hongdong, Shanxi
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14.3. Ceiling, Ten Thousand Buddhas Pavilion, Rulai Hall, mid-fifteenth century, Beijing
in the Western Hills, was built between 1439 and 1443 by the eunuch Li Tong. Only Daxiongbao Hall remains of its five main structures, but the hall is important because of the 236.7 square meters of Ming murals inside it.5 Jietai Monastery and Tanzhe Monastery are farther west. The first dates to the Tang dynasty and was repaired in 1440 but retains only Qing buildings. Tanzhe Monastery was established in 316 and includes a pagoda forest.6 Chongshan Monastery is another important Buddhist temple complex in North China. Located in the southeastern corner of Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi, it was built between 1381 and 1391 by Zhu Gang, the third son of the Hongwu emperor and older brother of Yongle, enfeoffed as the Prince of Jin (Jinwang [Jin also the name of the shrines in the vicinity that include Sage Mother Hall]), to memorialize his mother. Local records such as Shanxi tongzhi (Gazetteer of Shanxi province) deem it the most important monastery in Shanxi; perhaps this is because of imperial patronage.7 The painting of the monastery dated 1482 is the best record of what stood before almost complete destruction in 1864 (figure 14.4). Spanning about 550 meters north to south, or about twice the length of Zhihua
Monastery, and 250 meters east to west, Chongshan Monastery divides into two main sectors. Devotional architecture was in the north whereas gardens, granaries, and mills were in the south. According to the gazetteer, Chongshan Monastery was so large that it ground some of its own grain. The main Buddha hall was a nine-bay, double-eave, hip-gable-roofed structure in the north center of a covered arcade. It is shown in the painting with the correct number of bays and roof type. The hall joined a Vairocana Hall behind it in a gong-shaped arrangement. These features, too, are explicit in the painting. As at Zhihua and Fayuan Monasteries, a Great Compassion Hall is at the back. On the side of the enclosing arcade are a hall that contains images of luohan and a sutra repository, labeled to viewer’s right and left, respectively. They are joined by arcades to other buildings on the perimeter that serve as residential and supply halls for the monks. Duofu Monastery is in the same region and roughly contemporary. Located west of the Fen River, a monastery named Jueweijiaosi was founded at this site in the Western Hills of Taiyuan in 786. Additions were made in the Jin dynasty. The current complex was rebuilt as Duofusi during the Hongwu
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reign, and repairs continued in subsequent centuries. The famous calligrapher Fu Shan (1607–1684) resided here at one time. The three courtyards are defined front and back by four buildings on a line: Shanmen, Daxiongbao Hall, Guanyin Pavilion, and Thousand Buddha Hall. Daxiongbao Hall is replete with fourteenth-century sculpture and murals.8 Sichuan’s major Ming monastery, Bao’ensi in Pingwu, has a similar plan and received similar patronage.9 In 1439 Wang Xi and his son received an imperial order to repair Bao’en Monastery. Wang had been one of the most influential official families in this region since the Song dynasty. Repair began the next year with architecture completed in 1446 and interior decoration including sculpture and murals by 1460. The monastery consists of three main courtyards that stretch more than 300 meters for a total area of over 3,500 square meters. Two sets of stairs and a Shanmen take one to a triple bridge that leads to Divine Kings Hall. Behind is a pair of worship platforms flanked by Avataṃsaka Sutra Hall, whose main feature is a wooden, octagonal, revolving sutra cabinet, on the south, and Great Compassion Hall on the north. These two structures are symmetrically positioned in front of the two-story Daxiongbao Hall, a five-by-four-bay structure of 28.36 by 20.14 meters and 19.56 meters in height of which three wide bays across the front enthrone a Buddha image behind them. The third and back hall is also large, five bays by three and 24.74 by 17.07 meters. Also multistory, the backmost hall has three sets of roof eaves and is designated a pavilion. Ten Thousand Buddhas Pavilion straddles the features of early and late Chinese buildings. The pillars of its front facade exhibit rise, associated with pre-Ming architecture, yet the Qing features of six intercolumnar bracket sets fill in the space of the widest central bay of the uppermost level above the lintel. Unlike the remains at Zhihuasi and more similar to those at Fahaisi, in spite of damage in the late 1960s, about 450 square meters of murals are inside Daxiongbao Hall and Ten Thousand Buddhas Pavilion. The paintings are of the type known as shuilu (water-land), used in Buddhist rituals.10 Other Ming monasteries known for their murals are Zhaohua Monastery, now restored, in Huai’an, Hebei, and a hall that contains the group known as the Baisha murals in Lijiang, Yunnan.11 Like Zhihuasi, Chongshansi, and Bao’ensi, Qutansi in Ledu, near Xining, Qinghai, is an example of an early Ming monastery that received high-level patronage and consists of three main courtyards of which the most important buildings are
14.4. Painting of Chongshan Monastery, Chongshan Monastery, Taiyuan
on the main east-west axial line. The bilateral symmetry of this complex, founded during the reign of Hongwu and expanded by two Ming emperors in the fifteenth century, is stronger even than that of the others. Directly behind the Shanmen is a small hall that serves as the central entry to the covered arcade that encloses the other buildings. A pair of pavilions with stele expressing imperial sanction are in this first, open courtyard. Three more halls are behind it, the last joining the back of the covered arcade on each side. Two pairs of pagodas and two pairs of small halls are symmetrically positioned on either side of the first and second of the back halls. Like Fahai and Bao’en Monasteries, the halls and their walls retain early Ming sculpture and painting, some of the finest in China. Different from those monasteries, however, Qutansi was originally founded by Tibetan monks of the Lamaist faith. Thus the Chinese elements, including a hipped roof for the main hall, the back one, hip-gable roofs for the hall in front of it and the Shanmen, and large yuetai in front of the back hall with a marble balustrade around it, are all the more emphatic elements of Ming construction (figure 14.5).12
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14.5. Baoguang Hall, Qutan Monastery, Ledu, Qinghai, Ming period
Kaiyuan Monastery in Quanzhou, the Song city with an international population that included Brahmans, Muslims, Manichaeans, and Christians as well as Daoists and Buddhists, was founded in 686 and received its name along with countless other monasteries during the Kaiyuan reign era (713–741). Its pagodas were discussed in chapter 10. Occupying more than 70,000 square meters and with additions or emendations in every subsequent dynasty, more than 120 courtyards and subtemples were combined into the single monastery in 1285. In spite of its expanse and multiple building periods, Kaiyuansi has clear north-south orientation. The octagonal, masonry pagodas often described as twin are not symmetrical to this axis, but they are on the southeastern and southwestern sides. Kaiyuansi is discussed here because its most important structure, Daxiongbao Hall, built when the monastery was founded, was heavily repaired in 1389 and 1408, giving it an early Ming association. It was repaired again in 1576 and 1633. Nine bays by six and 24 meters tall, the double-eave structure has so many pillars (eighty-six) that it is nicknamed Hundred Column Hall. The interior pillar elimination harkens back to Liao-Jin times. The timber frame consists of only columns and beams, rendering it chuandou construction, a style mentioned in chapter 9 and associated with architecture of South China. The most extraordinary feature of Kaiyuan Monastery’s main Buddha hall are the twenty-four apsaras, or flying deities, that emerge from its bracket sets. With human faces and torsos, they reflect the international community that patronized Quanzhou’s religious architecture (figure 14.6).13
Monasteries on Sacred Peaks Many of China’s most distinguished and spectacular monasteries are on thirteen sacred mountains: five that transcend all others and are known as yue, sometimes translated marchmounts; four dedicated to Buddhism; and four dedicated to Daoism. The aura of the mountains is due to topography as well as associated history and legend. Emperors, beginning with Qin Shi Huangdi, journeyed to them often as pilgrims. The five most sacred peaks were designated to represent the five directions: the four cardinal directions plus the center. Five Yue The most famous mountain in China is Mount Tai (Taishan), the sacred eastern peak in Tai’an, Shandong province, where the souls of the deceased are believed to go and from where they can be reborn.14 Two of its monasteries are most important, one at the foot of the 1,500-plus-meter peak and the other near its summit. Emperors worshiped at Dai Temple (Daimiao), at the foot of the mountain, before the ascent. The 96,000-squaremeter complex today is about the size it was after expansion in 1009. In that year, Emperor Zhenzong built Tiankuang (Celestial Bestowal [Gift]) Hall to commemorate a heavenly document through which he justified ceding prefectures of North China to the Khitan four years earlier rather than continuing war. Wall-enclosed, Tiankuang Hall is the fifth in a group of most eminently constructed imperial structures that include the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Spiritual Favors
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14.6. Bracket sets with humanheaded flying deities, Hundred Column Hall, Kaiyuan Monastery, Quanzhou, repaired 1389, 1408, 1576, 1633, and later
at the tomb of Yongle, Hall for Worship of the Ancestors at the Ancestral Temple of Ming-Qing Beijing, and the Great Achievement Hall at the Confucian Temple south of Taishan in Qufu, Shandong, discussed below. It is nine bays across the front and elevated on a three-tier marble platform, even though it is only 48.7 meters in length. It has a double-eave roof but is also lower than the imperial halls in Beijing, only 22.3 meters high (see figures i.1, i.2, 13.10, 14.7).15 Bixia (Azure Dawn) Shrine, the highest complex on Mount Tai, also was built by Zhenzong when he made pilgrimage. Composed of a gate, a courtyard enclosed on four sides by halls behind it, and a hall inside the courtyard, the main structure today, as it was in 1625, is made largely of copper. A similar hall on Mount Wutai is discussed below. As at other sacred peaks, architecture has to be seen alongside nature and in some cases natural rock, altered by inscriptions that often document the most important pilgrims. Architecture of Songshan, the sacred central peak, has been discussed already.16 Han dynasty que, Songyue Monastery Pagoda, pagodas of the Tang period, Shaolin Monastery and the adjacent Chuzu’an of Song times, and the observatory in Dengfeng are among its significant architecture (see figures 5.31, 6.14, 6.15, 10.12, 10.26, 12.19). As at Taishan, there is a main temple, here known as Central Peak Temple (Zhongyuemiao). Today thirty-nine buildings make up the north-south-oriented complex of 650 by 166 meters enclosed on four sides by mountains or hills. The first architecture on the site was built by Emperor Wudi of Han as a shrine to Taishe, god of the soil.
An extant que marks one side of the sacred path that led to the complex where sacrifices were performed. The main structure of Central Peak Temple, the equivalent of Dai Temple at Taishan, is Junji Hall, first built in the Song dynasty and rebuilt in 1653. The nine-bay, double-eave building is elevated on a single-tier marble platform, 43.82 meters across the front and smaller than Dai Temple, although it is of the same height, 22.34 meters. The 27.98-meter private hall, approximately 50 meters behind it, is seven bays across the front with a hip-gable roof. The relationship between the two, for audiences or imperial ritual in front and private space behind, follows the age-old standard for imperial architecture seen in the Forbidden City. Emperor Han Wudi made the first imperial visit to the sacred western peak Huashan in Huayin, Shaanxi. Its main temple, Xiyuemiao (Western Sacred Peak Temple) is 2.5 kilometers east of the center of the town.17 Excavation indicates a Spring and Autumn history. As at the central peak, this main temple was renovated by the Qianlong emperor. Covering an area of 525 by 225 meters, the complex is seen as three sections: inner, “moon,” and outer. Excavation from 1996 to 2001 yielded brick and ceramic tile, pots, and a large stone figure from the Han period. The earliest building remains are from the Northern and Southern Dynasties, when a central structure was enclosed by a wall that joined a gate directly in front of the hall and a gate above water directly behind it. This configuration for the Western Sacred Peak Temple is further confirmed by excavated coins that date to the Tang period. The temple was significantly enlarged at the very beginning
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14.7. Taïkuang Hall, Dai Temple, Tai’an, Shandong
of the Song dynasty, in 961. By that time the main building complex took on the gong-plan, and there were distinct inner and outer building complexes. This arrangement continued in the Yuan period. The area named “moon sector” (yuecheng) by archaeologists is first seen in the Ming dynasty. It presents as an enclosed space in front of the main gate, Wumen (Meridian Gate), the name of the gate in front of Gate of Supreme Harmony at the Forbidden City. Another gate was in front, and paifang (ceremonial gateways) were at either side. The purpose of moon sector is unknown. The wall-enclosed back area was restored by Jiajing, the Ming emperor who expanded Beijing and moved or reconfigured imperial altars. Jiajing also amended the building arrangement to have front and back halls. Like Beijing altars, Xiyuemiao remains as Jiajing designed it. Tiles used in the temple complex were made at kilns on the mountain from the Yuan period on. Before then, tiles are believed to have come from other kilns; some bear craftsmen signatures. Excavation has thus confirmed what might be expected for the primary imperial worship site at all five yue: the Ming, if not the Song, and if not the Han, imperial building enterprise had workshops across the empire, often at or near locations visited by the emperor or designated for his rituals. The architecture symbolized the imperial presence even in periods when the emperor himself did not visit. Something different occurred regarding the northern sacred peak, for its location has changed. Virtuous Tranquility Hall, discussed in chapter 12 (see figure 12.1), was built in relation to a peak that in the Ming period no longer was the northern yue.18 The Monastery Suspended in Air (Xuankongsi) is on Mount Heng, the northern sacred peak since the Ming dynasty (figure 14.8). Three main building complexes and north and south
towers stretch east-west across one of its cliffs. Architecture is recorded here since the Han dynasty. The buildings today date to the Ming or Qing period with continuous repair. Support is achieved by oak beams positioned into holes in the cliff. The building parts are kept drier than most in Shanxi because the mountain face above Xuankongsi usually protects the structures from rain. The site has shrines for Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. In 2010 it was declared one of the world’s Top Ten Precarious Buildings.19 Mount Heng (the character for balancing or authority, a different character from the heng of the northern yue that means constancy), in Hunan province, is the southern sacred peak. Its Southern Peak Temple (Nanyuemiao) is on flat ground, like those of the eastern and western sacred peaks. Established in 725, it was extensively repaired in 1879. Nine main buildings stand in four courtyards along the axial line, focused on the 24-meter-high main hall with a double-eave, hip-gable roof. The roof signals that the southern sacred peak never held highest status among the five. As at the Western Sacred Peak Temple, a private hall is behind it. In accordance with late imperial architecture, as many as six intercolumnar bracket sets are used between pillars of the front facade of the main hall. The five sacred peaks do not form as a center with four sides or corners. According to legend, the central peak represents the belly of Pangu, the legendary founder of the human race; the eastern peak, the most important, would thereby be his head, the two Mount Hengs would be his arms, and Mount Hua would be his feet. Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains Like yue, sacred Buddhist mountains (shan) were recipients of imperial visits and patronage, but whereas the five most sacred
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14.8. Monastery Suspended in Air, Mount Heng, Hunyuan, Shanxi, Ming-Qing period
peaks were magnets for all Chinese pilgrims, the Buddhist peaks were the equivalents of Makkah for the international community of Buddhists. Each is associated with a bodhisattva.20 We have already seen architecture from Mañjuśrī’s mountain Wutai: the Tang buildings at Nanchan and Foguang Monasteries and the Jin structure at Foguangsi (see figures 6.7, 6.10, 10.18). We have further seen that a Jin hall at Yanshan Monastery in Fanzhi, near Mount Wutai, is dedicated to Mañjuśrī and has images of his deeds on its walls (see figure 10.20). There are also a Jin and a Yuan monastery on Wutai: Guangjisi and Yanqingsi, respectively. In all, 103 monasteries are recorded on or at the foot of the five terraces that give Wutai (five terraces [four plus one at the center]) its name.21 According to Qingliangshanzhi (Record of Mount Qingliang), written during the Wanli reign, an Indian monk told the Han emperor Mingdi (r. 58–75), the ruler apocryphally credited with seeing a golden image of the Buddha and subsequently constructing White Horse Monastery in Luoyang, that Mañjuśrī had preached on the mountain.22 By the Northern Qi dynasty there are said to have been two hundred temples complexes on Mount Wutai. In the Tang dynasty monks from India, Nepal, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea recorded Wutai in their travels. Sui Wendi, Tang Taizong, Empress Wu, Tang Daizong, Song Taizong and Zhenzong, and Khubilai Khan all built or rebuilt temples on the mountain, as did Ming and Qing emperors. In the Qing dynasty the Dalai Lama in Tibet appointed a monk to preach at Wutai. At least a dozen monasteries on Mount Wutai have noteworthy Ming or Qing buildings. A white plaster Lamaist-style pagoda built in 1434 to commemorate an Indian monk who had come to preach at the time of Yongle stands behind the five-bay Buddha hall at Yuanzhao Monastery. Two copper
halls were built at Wutaishan during the early Ming period, one at Guangzong Monastery and the second at Xiantongsi. The three-by-two-bay copper building at Xiantong Monastery is flanked by two beamless halls (figure 14.9). Ten Thousand Buddhas are cast into its interior walls, and bronze pagodas flank either side beyond the central courtyard. The main hall of Guangzong Monastery, founded in the early sixteenth century and repaired in the Qing, has a copper roof. The monastery known as Tayuansi (Monastery of the Pagoda Courtyard) is adjacent to Xiantong Monastery. Under Wanli, its white pagoda was one of nineteen built for ashes of the Buddha sent to China from India. Following a centuries-old plan, the pagoda is in the front-central courtyard. Pusading is another Wutai monastery for Lamaist Buddhism, but it has the traditional setting of timber-frame buildings around four sides of courtyards. The golden roof tiles of the halls reflect the fact that Kangxi and Qianlong stayed here during their tours of Mount Wutai. Pusading, Bishansi, Dailuoding, Guanhaisi, Longquansi, and Jingesi are among the monasteries with Ming and Qing wooden-frame architecture in courtyard settings, some with white plaster pagodas of Lamaist style. Emeishan in Sichuan province is the sacred mountain of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra. According to legend, the first Buddhist monastery in China was built at its summit in the first century CE, a possibility consistent with the fact so much Han Buddhist imagery survives in Sichuan. The eighth-century rock-carved caves with the monumental seated Buddha at Leshan are in the vicinity. By the tenth century Mount Emei was receiving substantial imperial patronage. 23 More than thirty monasteries are spread through the terrain, many of them high on the mountain amid spectacular landscape. Most have early dates of establishment, as early as the fourth century,
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14.9. Copper hall and beamless hall, Xiantong Monastery, Mount Wutai, Shanxi, Ming period
but no surviving architecture predates the Ming dynasty. Eight monasteries are designated “the great” on the 7,000-kilometer-high peak.24 Baoguo Monastery, largely rebuilt in 1615 and repaired many times afterward, has a 7-meter bronze pagoda from the Ming dynasty. Its arrangement is standard for the Ming period: Shanmen, Maitreya Hall, Daxiongbao Hall, Seven Buddhas Hall, and a Sutra Library along the main axis with other buildings on either side. One hall includes calligraphy of Huang Tingjian (1045–1105), Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322), Qi Baishi (1864–1957), Xu Beihong (1895–1953), and Zhang Daqian (Chang Dai-chien) (1899–1983). Fuhu Monastery, established in the Tang dynasty, also has a bronze pagoda, 5.8 meters in height, onto which 4,700 Buddha images are cast. Its main buildings are a Shanmen, middle hall, main hall, and writing tower, and meditation halls and monks’ dormitories are on the grounds. A hall to Samantabhadra was built at Wannian Monastery in the period 397–401. Construction continued through the Qing dynasty, but almost all the architecture was lost in a fire in 1946. Monastery of the Golden Roof contains the highest architecture on the mountain, 3,077 meters above sea level. The main hall in the single-courtyard complex was rebuilt in 1986. The word jiu (nine) in Mount Jiuhua refers to the nine major mountains of its ninety-nine peaks. The bodhisattva Kśitigarbha, who guides souls of the dead so that they do not
end up in hell, is associated with this mountain in Anhui. Huachengsi is the oldest monastery. Established in the Tang dynasty, it has one surviving Ming hall and three other main structures dating to the late nineteenth century. There are eighty-six monasteries on the mountain today. Other expansive monasteries are Qiyuansi, Zhantanlin, Wannian (Chan) Monastery, also known as Baisuigong, Tiantaisi, and Ganlusi. The majority of premodern architecture on Mount Jiuhua dates to the Qing period. 25 Jiuhuashan is rare among the sacred mountains because there is little record of imperial patronage here. The fourth sacred Buddhist mountain, Putuoshan, is actually a 12.5-square-kilometer island, 30 kilometers in circumference, in Zhejiang province (figure 14.10). Its history as the sacred island of Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin) began in the mid-ninth century when an Indian monk had a vision that Avalokiteśvara lectured there. Duobao Pagoda, built in 1334 and restored in 1592, is the oldest structure on the island. It stands at Puji Monastery, one of the three most expansive on the island. Totaling 11,400 square meters, it was founded in 1080 and extensively repaired in 1699. The second, Fayu Monastery, was founded in 1580, destroyed in 1598, and repaired numerous times in the Qing dynasty. The double-eave, hip-gable, golden-roofed Yuantong Hall is the focus of its main courtyard, which is enclosed by architecture with
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14.10. Putuoshan, Zhejiang
gray roof tiles on all four sides. The third of the large monasteries is Huijisi.26 Four Sacred Daoist Mountains The term Daoism is often used when discussing the writings of Laozi (604–531 BCE). Some use the label to refer to formalized sects that were established around the second century CE, although the beginnings of Daoism are often associated with Zhang Daoling, purported to have lived from 34 to 156. There is general agreement that Daoism originated as a native Chinese system of thought that comes to have deities and then spaces for contemplation of the dao (Way), such as caves, or spaces for worship of those deities, both halls in monasteries and caves used in the manner of Buddhist worship spaces. Halls dedicated to powerful spirits or deities that become incorporated into the Daoist pantheon, such as the Dragon King, were built before the Tang dynasty. Some of the Daoist monasteries on sacred peaks have pre-Tang origins. In the Tang and Song dynasties, emperors and empresses often were as active in their patronage of Daoist as Buddhist architecture. Xingzong in the Tang dynasty and Zhenzong and Huizong of Northern Song were among them. Court-sponsored debates between Buddhists and Daoists led to greater patronage of Buddhism than Daoism in the Yuan dynasty, but the Yonglegong and the Dragon King Temple, part of Guangsheng Monastery, both discussed in chapter 12, are Daoist architecture, and Yuan rulers were among the patrons on Wudangshan, the first sacred Daoist peak discussed below. Gong, the suffix of
Yonglegong, the word used to designate a palace, is the Daoist monastery equivalent of si. Guan also designates a Daoist building complex; sometimes it is translated as abbey. Abbey is chosen as the English translation because, like a monastery (si), it includes resident monks. Yet nomenclature in Chinese architecture continues to be less precise than translators would like. We shall see that some of the Daoist monasteries on sacred peaks are named si. Mountains were as sacred to Daoists as Buddhists. Like Wutai among the sacred Buddhist peaks, one of the Daoist mountains stands out for its architecture. Although not as old as those on Wutai, several of China’s most important buildings are on Mount Wudang in Hubei. Wudangshan was both a county and a prefecture in the Qin and Han dynasties, and since that time it was also a setting where recluses came for self-cultivation. In the Tang dynasty, the Daoism of Lü Dongbin, whose legendary biography is depicted on the walls of Chunyang Hall of Yongle Daoist Monastery (see figure 12.4), was practiced on the mountain. The Tang emperor Taizong (r. 627–649) had a Five Dragons Temple (Wulongmiao) built on Mount Wudang. Also in the Tang dynasty, thirty-six grottoes for Daoist worship or ritual were designated the thirty-six dongtian (cave heavens), and twice that number of natural settings known as fudi (blessed plots) were declared. Mount Wudang is one of the fudi. Song emperors continued patronage, as did Khubilai Khan and Ayurbarwada (r. 1311–1320), whose birthday on the third day of the third moon was believed to be the same
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14.11. Golden Hall, Taihegong, Mount Wudang, Hubei, 1416
as the birthday of Zhenwu, or Xuanwu, the deity to whom many of Wudangshan’s monasteries are dedicated. According to practitioners, Zhenwu achieved immortality and ascended to heaven after practicing asceticism on Mount Wudang for forty years. Mount Wudang, sometimes conceived as comprising seventy-two peaks, is reached via ascent from the town at the center of Jun county. From the first gate at the foot of the mountain, one follows a route of temple complexes, bridges, archways, and grottoes to the highest point, Tianzhu Peak. Eight complexes are designated gongguan (palace abbeys), Daoist monasteries where the gods of Daoism are worshiped and austerities or rituals are performed. Seven of the gongguan were built or significantly rebuilt by Yongle. The most famous is the wall-enclosed Supreme Harmony Palace (Taihegong), which contains Golden Hall (figure 14.11), the oldest copper building in China; it is gilded copper. Built in 1416 on a granite platform, the hall is 5.8 meters across the front, 4.2 meters in depth, and 5.5 meters high. The structure
originated in an earlier copper hall built in 1307 and moved here by Yongle as the key structure in his palace-city for Zhenwu. Every individual building part of the double-eave hall follows a wooden precedent. This is clear in the four-tier bracket sets across the front lintel. Purple Empyrean Palace is Mount Wudang’s best-known monastery.27 First constructed under the emperor Huizong, it burned and was rebuilt in the Yuan dynasty and subsequently. About one-fifth its size at its greatest flourishing, today the eight-courtyard complex has four structures along its main axis plus stele pavilions and side halls. One ascends from the first to the last hall: Blessed Plots, Dragon and Tiger, Purple Empyrean, and Father and Mother. The double-eave Purple Empyrean Hall is dated 1413 (figure 14.12). Elevated on a two-tier platform and approached by steep stairs that follow the terrain, the hall’s azure roof tiles are consistent with the hip-gable roof to define it as an important hall where the Jade Emperor is one of the images along with Zhenwu and a Celestial General, but not a building
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14.12. Purple Empyrean Palace, Mount Wudang, Hubei, 1411
the equivalent of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. As for the other noteworthy Daoist monasteries of Wudangshan, the 16,000-square-meter Fuzhenguan was founded in 1414 and extensively repaired three times under Kangxi; and Nanyangong is known for its stone hall built in 1314 and repaired along with extensive rebuilding at the complex under Yongle. The sacred Daoist mountain Longhushan is located in Guixi county of Jiangxi province and comprises ninety-nine peaks. Daoists, including Zhang Daoling, practiced on the mountain in the Han dynasty. The oldest building complexes date to Southern Tang (943–957). Seven large-scale monasteries were there in the Yuan dynasty. Construction peaked in the Qing period when there were ten gongguan, eighty-one guan, and more than thirty other Daoist complexes. Tianshifu (Celestial Masters Precinct) is named for Daoists who came here in the Tang dynasty. Huizong added buildings in 1105, and there was rebuilding in 1319. In 1368 Hongwu issued an imperial decree to repair the monastery.
Large-scale repair again occurred under Jiajing in 1526. Again we observe Huizong as an important patron of Daoist architecture and Jiajing as an emperor who reconstructs across China. There was major destruction by fire during the Kangxi reign. The buildings at Tianshifu today date from repair in 1865 or more recent renovation. The monastery of over 32,000 square meters comprises three main courtyards with three halls joined by arcades in the back courtyard. Shangqinggong is said to be Zhang Daoling’s ancestral home and thus the center of the Tianshi sect. Emperors from Huizong onward, including Ayurbarwada, Hongwu, Yongle, Jiajing, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, and Jiaqing (r. 1796– 1820), repaired Shangqinggong in honor of the generations of Daoist masters who traced their ancestry to Zhang Daoling. The sacred Buddhist peak Mount Qingcheng is in Dujiangyan (Dujiang weir) in central Sichuan. Like at other sacred peaks, architecture associated with the site begins in the town. Erwangmiao (Temple of the Two Princes) is an example. Originally built at the end of the fifth century as a shrine to
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Prince Shu, it became the memorial shrine of a father and son who directed the flow of water. Built, destroyed, and rebuilt in the Song dynasty and many times since then, the twentieth-century building complex that stands today is typical of a Daoist monastery. Its main hall is dedicated to the two princes, with other halls for Laozi and for Laojun, the supreme elder, the focus of the trinity known as the Three Purities (Sanqing). There are also buildings for the White Tiger and Azure Dragon and a stage that survives from the seventeenth century. On the mountain, most of the temple complexes divide into front and back groups. The most important monasteries are in the front. Lowest on the ascent is Jianfugong, constructed in 730, greatly expanded in 1175, and largely rebuilt in 1888. Today it is a courtyard enclosed on four sides. Shangqinggong (the same name as a major monastery on Longhushan), the highest building complex, is east-oriented. On either side of the main structure, also the tallest and dedicated to Laozi, are one or two parallel courtyards of buildings. The oldest buildings are from the second half of the nineteenth century. Changdaoguan, near the center of the mountain, began as a shrine to the Yellow Emperor. In the Eastern Han period it became a shrine to Zhang Daoling, who practiced Daoism in this region as well as on Mount Longhu. It was enlarged in Sui, Tang, and Song. The majority of architecture today dates to repairs in the Kangxi period. The buildings include a Shanmen, Three Purities Hall that is the main hall, Yellow Emperor Shrine that is the oldest building, and Hall of the Thearchs, all along an axial line. Qiyunshan, also known as White Mountain (Baishan), is the fourth sacred Daoist peak. Located in Xiuning county in southern Anhui, since the Northern Song period it has been known for its inscriptions carved in stone. At one time there were 1,400; today there are 537, of which 232 are stele. The mountain traces its Daoist associations to the period 758–760, when the Daoist master Gong Qixia practiced here. Imperial orders for construction came in the Southern Song and Ming. At the peak of construction activity there were thirty-three temple complexes; six remain. The tombs of twenty-two famous Daoists also are on the mountain. Other mountains achieved special status, particularly for certain emperors or dynasties. The Changbai range that spans from Jilin province into North Korea and Russia, for example, was considered sacred to the Manchu emperors, whose native land was in this region.
Other Daoist Architecture A few Ming-Qing Daoist monasteries are as important as Buddhist monasteries such as Zhihuasi or Guangshengsi in the Ming dynasty or Yonglegong in the Yuan period. Two are in Beijing. Baiyunguan (White Cloud Daoist Monastery), established in 741, is where the Daoist patriarch Qiu Chuji (Changchunzi) (1148–1227), founder of the Longmen sect and proselytizer of Quanzhen Daoism, the sect with which Yonglegong is affiliated, stayed after the return from his famous meeting with Chinggis Khan. The cities and monuments on this journey of 1220–1224 are recorded in his account.28 Qiu died at Baiyunguan, after which his disciple Yin Zhiping (1169– 1251) expanded the monastery. The emperors and eminent Daoists associated with Baiyunguan and building names are preserved in historical records. The monastery was almost completely rebuilt after the Cultural Revolution. Measuring 280 meters north to south by 160 east to west, it has more than fifty buildings; the focus is Qiu Chuji Hall in the fourth courtyard. In front, the second courtyard houses a hall to the Jade Emperor (Yuhuang). Behind it, in the fifth courtyard, is a pavilion with statues of the Three Purities and represents the Five Yue. Two parallel axes of buildings are also part of the current design. Until the twentieth century Dongyuemiao (Temple to the Eastern Yue) was the more active Beijing Daoist monastery.29 In contrast to Baiyunguan, whose main temple fair was on the nineteenth day of the first moon in celebration of Qiu Chuuji’s return from the western regions, the Temple to the Eastern Yue had fairs on the first and fifteenth of each moon as well as an annual celebration on the twenty-eighth day of the third moon. Like the Temple to the Northern Peak in Quyang (see figure 12.1), it is an example of a major temple complex built away from one of the five sacred peaks to pay homage to it. Constructed in 1322, burned, rebuilt in 1447, burned in 1576, rebuilt in 1700, and expanded in 1761, the complex has very few buildings that retain Yuan features. If one final Daoist monastery is mentioned, it should be Qingyanggong (Azure Sheep Daoist Monastery) in Chengdu. Its fame is because Emperor Minghuang (Xuanzong) stopped there during his escape from the Tang capital to Sichuan in 751. Tang emperor Xizong fled the capital to this monastery during the Huang Chao Rebellion (874–884). Qingyanggong became significant again in the Qing period. Today it retains
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the Qing plan: five courtyards along a main axis with seven main structures.
Architecture of Confucianism Chinese architecture, we have observed, is no more recognizable than Buddhist or Daoist. Yet if there is an ideological interface between the emperor and religion, it is Confucianism. The sacrificial halls and altars where the emperor performed ceremonies discussed in chapter 13 may be labeled Confucian because those ceremonies are described in texts of China’s Classical Age, the age of philosophers that includes Confucius (551–479 BCE) and Mencius (372–289 BCE), who, together with their disciples, wrote the treatises that guided government, particularly governance by sage-kings. At the same time, men and legendary men, not just Confucius but the Three Thearchs and Five Legendary Emperors to whom imperial temples are built on sacred peaks, also are honored in Confucian temple complexes. Confucianism is not a religion, not even to the extent that Daoism might be considered one. It is a way of thought prescribed for human behavior several centuries before Buddhism or any other religion with gods had entered China. Architecture that honors Confucius and his teachings was built long before the Ming dynasty. The supreme example of Confucian architecture is in Qufu, in Shandong province. The majority of its buildings date to the late imperial period. Thus Confucian architecture is discussed here. Not surprisingly, we shall see that the formal features of planning and individual buildings are those of imperial China and of eminent Buddhist and Daoist construction. The architecture of Confucianism pays homage to men and their teachings. Its origins lie with the man Kong Qiu or Kongzi, who became known as Confucius in European languages. He was a sage, moral leader, teacher, and philosopher of the state of Lu in Shandong during the Spring and Autumn period. In 497, dissatisfied with the ruler of his state, Confucius left Lu in search of a monarch who agreed that good government was possible through ethical moral rule and that such a government could be accomplished by adherence to rituals prescribed in the Chinese classics. Eventually Confucius’s students became officials in Lu and the ruler invited him back. Confucius established a school where his principles of good government were taught. After he died, a temple was built in
Qufu to honor the city’s most revered sage. It is assumed that a tablet with his name was enshrined there. Popular religion may give way to an image of Confucius in a temple to him, but in its pure form, a Confucian structure is a temple (miao) or shrine (ci) that recognizes a man, his teachings, and, more generally, civil officials whose ethical model is Confucius. The city of Qufu is dominated by Confucian architecture.30 It includes the purported tomb of the Yellow Emperor, the first of China’s Five Legendary Emperors; a temple to the Duke of Zhou of the eleventh century BCE, the son of King Wen and brother of King Wu who is associated with the text the Rituals of Zhou and the dictum for a ruler’s city prescribed in “Kaogongji”; a temple to Mencius; a temple honoring Confucius’s father; and Confucian schools including Zushi Academy. In the Tang dynasty, imperial rites were conducted at a memorial service for Confucius, the first time in Chinese history those rites were performed to someone not of the imperial family. By the Ming dynasty, memorial services to Confucius were conducted biannually in Qufu. Implicit is that the fortunes of the empire were linked to reverence for the sage. Until the Qing dynasty, a Confucian temple could be erected only through explicit imperial decree. Thereafter, temples honoring Confucius were built in every province. The first statue of Confucius is said to have been placed in a temple hall in Qufu in 539. The date is logical because it coincides with widespread patronage of Buddhist architecture and its statuary. In the ninth century the Temple to Confucius in Qufu consisted of a front gate, a main hall, two side halls, and a residential hall behind them. In the Song dynasty, the emperor enfeoffed a forty-sixth-generation descendant of Confucius as the Duke of Yansheng and awarded him and his descendants approximately 35 acres of land. Before the end of the Song dynasty, the Confucian temple compound consisted of three courtyards of buildings enclosed by a covered arcade of 316 bays. The temple complex today has nine courtyards, the number associated with the emperor and a foundational number in the design of the Forbidden City. Among them are three main halls, one main pavilion, an altar, three shrines, two side halls, two minor halls, and fifty-two archways for a distance of more than a kilometer from south to north. The names of structures often are references to Confucius or Confucian writings. In order from south to north, one passes through Striking Metal and Vibrating Jade Gate, built in 1538, the name recalling
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a line in Mencius’s writings comparing the completion of a musical performance to the belief that Confucius’s thought is a summation of all philosophies of sages that came before him; Lingxing (Luminous Star) Gate, named after a star in the Big Dipper and an allusion to the fact that Confucius was a star who had come down to earth; Original Ether of Supreme Harmony Gate, built in 1544; and Timeliness of the Sage Gate, built in 1730. Passing through that gate, one enters the second courtyard, then crosses a bridge and proceeds to the Gate of the Great Mean, a reference to the Confucian text The Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong). Behind it is Augmenting Truth Gate and then Harmony of the Written Language Gate, the latter dated ca. 1650. Only then does one come to one of the major structures of the complex, a library named Star of Literature Pavilion, at the approximate center of the building line. The name links Confucius with the constellation of the God of Literature. The 23-meter, multistory library with three sets of roof eaves towers above the rest of the temple compound. When the emperor visited Qufu, he practiced abstinence and bathed in preparation for rites, in courtyards east and west of Star of Literature Pavilion, as he did at the Altar to Heaven complex. The pavilion is dated to a repair in the early sixteenth century. Behind it is the wide sixth courtyard that contains thirteen stele pavilions arranged in two rows (figure 14.13). They house fifty-three tablets presented to the temple compound by emperors from each period from Tang through Qing. The oldest pavilion dates to the twelfth century. Five gates precede the second focal building. The central three interconnect to form the south side of the seventh courtyard, where this building stands. Measuring 45.8 by 24.9 meters at the base and 24.8 meters in height, Great Achievement (Dacheng) Hall has two sets of golden, ceramic tile roof eaves, and nine dragons entwine on each of its front columns. East in the courtyard in front of Great Achievement Hall is a building where offerings were made to five generations of Confucius’s ancestors; to the west is a hall for paying homage to Confucius’s parents. Also in this courtyard is the Apricot Altar, erected in 1569 on a platform that was constructed by a forty-fifth-generation descendant of Confucius in 1018 at a spot where the sage is said to have taught. Portraits of Confucius, his four disciples Yan Hui, Zeng Can, Kong Ji, and Mencius (Mengzi), and twelve other disciples are inside Great Achievement Hall. They were replaced in 1984 after destruction in the Cultural Revolution. As
mentioned above, they are commemorative, not objects for worship. Homage is paid to seventy-two disciples of Confucius in the covered arcades on either side of Great Achievement Hall. Directly behind the Great Achievement Hall courtyard is a smaller but similar building dedicated to Confucius’s wife, built in 1725. At one time, he and she were revered in the same building, but in 1018 a Song emperor erected a separate shrine for her. Eventually she came to have her own hall. The Hall of Relics of the Sage is the focus of the last courtyard. It contains 120 stone stele depicting events in Confucius’s life. Every inch of the Confucian temple complex is filled with history, historical memory, and allusion. A building or gate may be uninteresting as an architectural monument, but it may call to mind major historical events or turning points in China’s historical narrative. An unobtrusive wall, for example, is a revered spot because in the third century BCE, when ninth-generation descendants of Confucius lived in Qufu, Qin Shi Huangdi executed scholars and burned books as part of his program to rid China of competing forces and doctrines that challenged his own. When officials in Qufu heard that troops were on their way to burn the Confucian library, they had a wall opened, hid books inside, replastered it, and then fled to the hills. About a century later, when a Han prince made renovations in Qufu, the classical texts, including some believed to have disappeared during the First Emperor’s purges, were discovered. The story may be legend, but the wall marks history, memory, and allusion. Also in the Han dynasty, a ninth-generation descendant of Confucius was awarded a title by the emperor Gaozu. A thirteenth-generation descendant received a hereditary fiefdom in Qufu. In the Song dynasty, a forty-sixth-generation descendant received the title and land that would remain in the possession of Confucius’s descendants through the seventy-seventh, until the founding of the People’s Republic. From the Song dynasty onward, the title Duke of Yansheng was the hereditary direct descendant of Confucius. The status of this title was elevated so that by the end of the fourteenth century it was the highest official rank, equivalent to that of prime minister. The duke in Qufu was the leader of all civil officials (wen). He was permitted to ride his horse inside the Forbidden City and could walk along the Imperial Way. He owned “sacred fields,” meaning that income generated by them could be used to pay for ceremonies and he was exempt from a host of taxes and the corvée. He could also sell official titles. Perhaps most
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14.13. Air view of Temple to Confucius, focusing on Star of Literature Pavilion and thirteen stele pavilions, Qufu, Shandong
significant, the Duke of Yansheng held his own court at which he oversaw affairs in Qufu. In fact, he held court at his residence, which is adjacent to the Confucian temple complex. This linkage between a ruler’s residence and where he governs follows the model of the Forbidden City. Yet whereas the architecture of the temple complex took on attributes of imperial construction in the Song dynasty or earlier, the small gate that opens from the temple to the mansion suggests that the living area began under much humbler circumstances. An imperial edict of the first Ming emperor allowed the Duke of Yansheng to rebuild his mansion. The plan today reflects construction of 1520 and 1540 when more than thirty-five thousand pieces of silver were spent. Here, too, names of buildings have implications. The Hall for Sending Memorials to the Emperor confirms a direct line from the Duke of Yansheng to the Forbidden City.
The gate named Double Glory was closed except when the emperor came to Qufu. Many men who worked there held official ranks. The focus of the mansion is a gong-shaped complex that includes the Duke of Yansheng’s hall of audience in front and in back a reception hall for officials of fourth rank and higher, out of a total of nine ranks. Official exams on rites and music were held on behalf of the imperial court in front halls of the complex, with family residential quarters in the back, following the “Kaogongji” dictum, “audience hall in front, private chambers behind.” The residence was heavily guarded, and trespass was punishable by death. Water was left at a gate, so that contact with the world beyond the walls was by runners; only twelve of the five hundred servants of the Duke of Yansheng were permitted to enter. Once a fire burned for three days, destroying seven buildings, because the servants were
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14.14. Biyong, National Academy (Guozijian), Beijing, Yuan dynasty to twentieth century
afraid to enter to extinguish it. Each wife had her own residential courtyard. There was also a Buddhist chapel and a Tower of Refuge for shelter if the family were attacked. In the back were gardens that were enlarged in the eighteenth century when the daughter of the Qianlong emperor married the seventy-second-generation duke.31 The front and back halls in a gong arrangement, golden roof tiles, adjacent sectors of governance and residence, gardens, and restricted entry almost uniquely call to mind the Forbidden City and its predecessors. Yet there is a major difference: no imperial family lived in the Forbidden City for seventy-seven generations. From the time of Confucius until the departure of the descendants of Confucius in the twentieth century, the temple complex revered Confucius and was visited by emperors; for more than the last thirty of those generations, a Kong family member with an official title had a residence here; and for nearly seventy of those generations, a Kong family member living in Qufu had an official title. It is said that when Confucius died he was buried underground, and around the third century BCE a mound was added above his grave. In 157 CE the prime minister of Lu added a gate in front of Confucius’s tomb and a structure behind it. We have seen that from the Han dynasty on, the period from which auxiliary burial can be documented, tombs of relatives and officials were placed in proximity to the emperor’s. Not only are the tombs of Confucius’s disciples in Qufu, a cemetery grew around Confucius’s tomb. In the late fifth century an emperor planted six hundred trees in the area. An enclosing wall, over 7 kilometers in length, was built in 1331. It was enlarged in 1684. One hundred thousand exotic trees were brought in from all over China, as were dedicatory stele.
Qufu is the only city in China with a Confucian mansion, but in traditional China nearly every city had a Confucian temple; the Confucian temple in Zhengding, associated with the tenth century, was mentioned in chapter 6. The Confucian temple in Beijing, built in 1302, is an example of Mongolian patronage of architecture associated exclusively with the Chinese tradition. The final Mongol ruler in China, Toghon Temür, added four corner towers. Expanded under Yongle and again in 1429, 1530, and 1737, when all the roof tiles were changed to golden glazed, the four-courtyard complex was significantly repaired between 1906 and 1916. Four courtyards are along a south-to-north central axis. They include two significant gates and two halls, the first gate Xianshi (First Master [a reference to Confucius]), or part of it, perhaps surviving from the Yuan period. The oldest of nearly two hundred stele dates to 1307. The Beijing Confucian Temple is adjacent to the Guozijian (National Academy), an institution of the traditional Chinese state that traces its origins to the Taixue of the Han period. Although most of its buildings are heavily restored, they represent the structures of Han times, such as the Biyong, where future officials were educated (figure 14.14). Among the hundreds of other Confucian temples across China, those with clear ties to the Song dynasty and those that have been carefully restored are mentioned here. The Nanjing Confucian Temple was built in 1034. The greatest damage came nine hundred years later during the Rape of Nanjing in 1937. The Suzhou Confucian Temple also was built in the Song dynasty, by an official named Fan Zhongyan. The Confucian temple in Pingyao, Shanxi, was erected between 627 and 649 and restored and enlarged roughly to its present
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format during the middle of the twelfth century. Its primary veneration hall is dated 1163, making it the oldest structure for this purpose in China. The Hangzhou Confucian Temple was established in the Renzong reign, between 1023 and 1063. In 1131 it was moved to its present site. During the Southern Song dynasty when the capital was in Hangzhou, it sometimes was the location of the National Academy. Like many Confucian temples, the buildings were for education through the centuries. The 5,581-square-meter site, one of the largest that remains from a Confucian temple today, retains much of its original layout even though it was extensively restored between the 1980s and 2000s. Arranged in adjacent eastern and western sectors, the western includes the standard Lingxing (Luminous Star) Gate at the entrance and other gates and Great Achievement Hall behind it, whereas the eastern sector includes a large garden area, rockery, and water.32 Hundreds of on-site stele record its history. Sichuan has thirty-seven Confucian temples, most of them dated no earlier than the Qing dynasty. Those in Deyang, Jianwei, and Fushun began in the Song dynasty. 33 Hunan has seventeen Confucian temples that are considered significant.34 Some of the most active Confucian temples are in Taiwan. The Taipei Confucian Temple was built in 1879, destroyed during Japanese occupation, and rebuilt in 1930. The Tainan Confucian Temple was built in 1665 by the son of Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) (1623–1662), a Japaneseborn, anti-Manchu commander who retreated to Taiwan after the Manchus overthrew the Ming dynasty in 1644 and subsequently led the resistance that chased the Dutch off the island in 1661. The temple was adjacent to the National Academy, both of them facing south, with the Hall of Ethics on the west. The Hall of Great Achievement housed tablets of Confucius and sixteen of his disciples. The Zhanghua Confucian Temple in central Taiwan was first built in 1716 and restored in the 1970s. Great Achievement Hall originally stood behind Lingxing Gate. The Taizhong Confucian Temple was built between 1974 and 1976. Like Buddhist and Daoist monasteries, Confucian temples included educational halls. Only Confucian temples, however, trained men for government service. Confucian Architecture’s Counterpart Just as Confucian architecture pays homage to the ultimate civil official, Confucius, to his teachings, and to wen, or
civilian matters of government, other temples in Chinese cities honored wu, or military officialdom. We have seen that the same number of statues of wen and wu stand along the approaches to Ming or Qing imperial tombs. China’s most famous military official was Guan Yu (d. 219). He is the focus of temples across China. Like Confucius, he was a historical figure, in his case a general during the Han dynasty. Guan Yu is one of the main characters in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a historical novel attributed to the fourteenth-century playwright Luo Guanzhong, who set it in the period 169–280, just before unification under the Western Jin dynasty. Unlike Confucius, Guan Yu became legendary and eventually a demigod. In popular religion, he is worshiped like a god and is believed to have supernatural powers.35 Guan Yu was born in Xie prefecture, Yuncheng, Shanxi province. At the age of twenty-three he killed a local despot and fled his village. Five years later he arrived in Zhuozhou, Hebei, volunteering to join the army of the Han emperor. He was successful and became a county governor. Captured by Cao Cao, who would become the ruler of the Wei Kingdom, Guan Yu eventually rose to become a general. Legends surrounding him were such that in 1187 he was given the rank and title of a prince. In the Ming dynasty, his status became closer to that of Confucius. In 1614, however, he became known as “Saintly Emperor Guan the Great God Who Subdues Demons of the Three Worlds and Whose Awe Spreads Far and Moves Heaven.” Military leaders, including Hongwu, had already credited Guan Yu with their successes. Yuan Shikai (1859– 1916), president of China from 1912 to 1915, worshiped him. Police and Triad Societies in Hong Kong revere him. China’s largest temple to Guan Yu, known as Guandi (ruler Guan) Temple, is in Xiezhou, near his birthplace. First built in 589, it was expanded in the Song dynasty, rebuilt in Ming times, destroyed in 1702, and then restored over a ten-year period. The current buildings date to the Qing dynasty (figure 14.15). Oriented north-south and occupying 18,000 square meters, the site divides into southern and northern sections. Jieyi Garden is the focus of the southern sector with a paifang, Junzi (gentleman scholar) Pavilion, and Sanyi (Three Comrades [Guan Yu, Liu Bei (161–223), and Zhang Fei (168–221)]) Pavilion there as well. The northern sector has more buildings. It begins with a screen wall, behind which are Duan, Zhi, and Wu Gates and an imperial writing pavilion (Yushuge), followed by two main halls. Next is the seven-bay-wide Chongning Hall, the
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14.15. Spring and Autumn Tower, Guandi Temple, Xiezhou, Yuncheng, Shanxi, rebuilt 1807
main temple to Guan Yu. This hall was built in 1718 during the major repair after earlier eighteenth-century damage. As at Great Achievement Hall in Qufu and at other Confucian temples, dragons entwine its exterior columns. Guan Yu is enthroned inside. Qing-period stele record the temple’s history. Spring and Autumn Tower (Chunqiulou), named lou because it has three sets of roof eaves, behind it was built during the Wanli period and rebuilt in 1807. Two stories and 33 meters high with a hip-gable roof, it houses three statues of Guan Yu in individual niches and a single statue of Guan Yu on the upper story. The 108 floorboards on the second story are a multiple of nine, which references the importance of Guan Yu.36
Three Towers in Shanxi We end this chapter with towers, multistory structures made of wood that were built before the Ming dynasty but survive in their earliest versions from the sixteenth century or later. Autumn Wind Tower (Qiufenglou) is the principal structure in the back courtyard of Houtumiao, the temple dedicated to the goddess of the earth in Ronghe township of Wanrong, overlooking water, which was discussed in chapter 10 (see figure 10.2). The water is shown on the left side of the stele. The temple was built by Qin Shi Huangdi, and Han Wudi traveled here multiple times to perform the sacrifices himself. The temple was expanded under Tang Xuanzong (Minghuang) and Song Zhenzong. Emperors from Tang and Song came to perform imperial ceremonies. Oriented north to south, as shown in figure 10.2, the first courtyard consists of a Shanmen, a pair of stages, and a pailou. Buildings for lesser
ceremonies form around courtyards that flank this section of the first courtyard. Small east and west dragon halls and bell and drum towers follow on the sides of the main path from the pailou to a gong-shaped complex that has a hall for sacrifices in front and main hall behind, with a sleeping palace yet farther behind that joins the enclosing arcade of this courtyard on either side. Autumn Wind Tower stands in its own precinct, once but no longer walled, at the back, a pair of stele pavilions in front of it. The three-roof tower with a baosha, or projecting portico, on each side of the lower roofs is made primarily of wood with brick sections for support. Song and Jin stele that record this Houtumiao’s history are inside. Flying Cloud (Feiyun) Tower is right in the center of Wanrong, the first building in a long, single-courtyard, northsouth-oriented complex dedicated to the lord of Mount Tai (the eastern yue discussed above). It stands behind a Shanmen and in front of a large Meridian Gate (Wumen) with a sacrificial hall and Eastern Peak Hall far behind it, all three of which remain, at least in part, from the Yuan dynasty. Other structures retain fewer earlier features; all the buildings were repaired in Ming and Qing times. Built between 1506 and 1521, Flying Cloud Tower is three stories with four exterior roof eaves, the upper three with a baosha projecting from the middle of each side; it rises 23.19 meters. A pingzuo projects on the second and third stories. Four interior pillars of 15.45 meters in height support the structure to the level of the upper pingzuo so that even with the other perimeter pillars there is a large open space that projects upward. The tower has 345 bracket sets, 32 of them corner bracket sets, and 82 ceramic tile eave ends (figure 14.16). 14.16. Flying Cloud Tower, Wanrong, Shanxi, 1506–1521
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14.17. Xianshen Tower, Sanjieyi Temple, Jiexiu, Shanxi, 1674
Jiexiu, slightly farther north in Shanxi, has a sprawling Houtumiao whose history dates from the Northern Wei period and whose architecture is Ming or later. Individual temples and buildings also are dedicated to the Three Purities, Lü Dongbin and Guan Yu, and there is a stage. As we have seen at Houtumiao in Wanrong and at the Yuan-period Dragon King Temple discussed in chapter 12, performance often occurred alongside worship at ceremonies to popular deities. In this town where a Temple to the Five Sacred Peaks and a Confucian temple also survive, a multistory structure of unique shape stands at Sanjieyi Temple. The front has an open porch on the first story with two levels above it, and to its right side (stage right), an attached three-story building in which musical performances occurred on the second floor also (figure 14.17). Dated to a repair of 1674, the building sometimes goes by the name Xianshenlou (Zoroastrian Spirits Tower) because according to records, a Zoroastrian monastery stood here in the eleventh century. The current building has demonic faces on lintels, features present in architecture in Datong and Fanshi and Wutai in northern Shanxi, but their association with Zoroastrianism cannot be justified; no evidence confirms a Zoroastrian association after the Song dynasty.37
Government Halls and Guild Halls Two more types of buildings stood in Chinese towns; examples survive from the Qing dynasty. One is a structural complex known as yamen, the administrative office that sometimes combined as the residence of a local, regional, provincial, or higher-level administrator. The Kong Family Mansion can be considered the yamen of the official in charge of Qufu. The yamen in Neixiang county, in Nanyang, Henan province, was first completed in 1304. Today it preserves more features of its 1882 rebuilding by official Zhang Bingtao. The front gate and multiple courtyards of buildings behind it total 20,000 square meters. One of the best examples of a yamen is in Huhehaote, Inner Mongolia. Built in 1739 when this part of Mongolia was as much part of the Qing empire as was Henan, this yamen was headquarters of a government official in charge of the region that included Datong, Xuanhua, Huhehaote and the lands between. It endured as a yamen until 1921, at which time it served seventy-five officials. Laid out on a north-south axis, the wall-enclosed complex is announced by a screen wall. Behind are two gates followed by four halls. In all there are five courtyards, with the yamen residence at the back. Gardens and service buildings are in large, enclosed courtyards that extend
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14.18. Shaan-Gan Guild Hall, Kaifeng, Henan, 1765
from the front to the back of the complex.38 The inspiration for any yamen is the Forbidden City. Guild halls began to appear in Chinese cities in the Ming dynasty as the result of a prosperous economy. As in Europe, the purpose was a gathering place for immigrants. Ming and Qing guild halls served natives of one province or region who came to work and live in another one. They took on the architectural features of eminent construction, always built around courtyards. Entered by impressive gateways, often pailou, many are indistinguishable from yamen. Shaan-Gan Guild Hall (huiguan) in Kaifeng, Henan, was built in 1765 for merchants from Shaanxi and Shanxi, but in the nineteenth century the name changed, reflecting the merchants from Shaanxi and Gansu who gathered there. A north-south-oriented single-courtyard complex, it is announced by a screen wall. At one time it had a theater. Almost every detail of every building is painted, glazed, or carved in relief, many of the reliefs depicting dragons (figure 14.18). Huguang Guild Hall in Chongqing served a more expansive population. The two syllables in its name refer to the populations who migrated here, from Hunan and Hubei and from Guangdong and Guangxi. Two of its main complexes were
built in the eighteenth century and repaired in the nineteenth; the third was both built and repaired in the nineteenth century. Oriented north-south and occupying more than 6,000 square meters, it includes a stage. A temple to the legendary ruler Yu the Great, purported founder of the Xia dynasty and thus eighth-generation descendant of the first of the thearchs, is adjacent to it and occupies nearly 5,000 square meters. The database of Ming and Qing buildings is enormous compared to that of architecture before 1368. Still, whether the temples, towers, yamen, or guild halls discussed here, or the palaces and tombs discussed in chapter 13, an official building standard dominated construction across China. Already in the Ming dynasty, however, religious architecture that did not follow Chinese patterns had appeared. Those buildings are the subject of chapter 15.
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CHAPTER 15
Convergences Lamaist, Dai, Islamic
Here we examine architecture of two branches of Buddhism and of Islam in China in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Islam was among the foreign faiths in Chang’an in the Tang dynasty. We have noted that it flourished in the Song and Yuan. Lamaist Buddhism, or Lamaism, made great inroads under Mongolian rule. The physical record of Dai Buddhism is the latest, although its theology is associated with much earlier Buddhist practice in India. If there is a distinction between Dai and Lamaist and Islamic architecture of Ming compared to Qing, it is that during a walk through a city or ride through the countryside in Ming China, the Buddhist buildings discussed in this chapter stood out from all other religious architecture, including Islamic, whereas in Qing times, religious, and as we shall see in chapter 16 also vernacular, architecture that reflected its land of origin more than the Chinese architectural tradition was common. The empire of the Manchus extended far beyond China’s Ming borders, and its first rulers were born far north of Beijing. These two factors sometimes lead to comparisons with the Mongol empire, in addition to the fact that Beijing was the location of the primary capital of both empires. However, in contrast to a mere century of Mongolian rule, and an empire that began to crack fewer than fifty years after its capital was established in today’s Beijing, the Qing dynasty lasted for more than 250 years and for more than a century, the eighteenth, had tight control from China’s border with Korea and Russia in the East, across all of Mongolia (today’s Outer as well as Inner) in the North, beyond Xinjiang into Tibet in the West, and to China’s approximate current borders with Southeast Asia in the South. The Qing supported, sometimes embraced, and when necessary purged religious construction across this expanse of territory. What stood became part of China, as did the local populations who worshiped in it. As in every past age, architecture served the imperial vision, but the Qing took the political use of architecture, particularly religious architecture, to unprecedented levels.
Architecture of Lamaist Buddhism Like all forms of Buddhism, the source of Lamaism is India, but it took shape in Tibet beginning in the seventh century and spread north, east, and south from there. Lamaist monasteries (lamaseries) stood in Tibet by the end of the eighth century. The stupa, or pagoda, the most identifiable monument of
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early Lamaism, is believed to have been introduced to Tibetan monasteries in the seventh century. During this period stupas sometimes were erected at the four corners of a Tibetan monastery. Stupas of the early centuries of Buddhism in Tibet often rest on five-tier foundations representing earth, water, fire, air, and space, sometimes further supported by a base known as the throne. On top of the five tiers is a cylinder topped by a rectangular prism topped by a drumlike dome that tapers toward the top, where a thirteen-ring spire is mounted. The thirteen spires sometimes more resemble steps than circular layers. They symbolize the thirteen stages on the path to Buddhahood. The pagoda at Miaoying Monastery in Beijing, constructed under the direction of the Nepali Anige, is of Tibetan style (see figure 12.20). Pagodas of this form, sometimes called dagobas, proliferate at lamaseries in the Qing period. One of the earliest Qing examples is the east pagoda at Yongguang Monastery in Shenyang, Liaoning province.1 We have already noted that monasteries survive in Tibet from the Yuan period and earlier. Guge Monastery and Shakya Monastery were mentioned in chapter 12, where it was also noted that the lama 'Phagspa governed from Shakya Monastery. Tibetan architecture, and art more generally, is overwhelmingly Buddhist, and the power of religious leaders is such that Tibet can be called a theocracy. Many Tibetan monasteries, such as Shakya, that flourished in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries were founded in the seventh century and experienced growth and great patronage during the period of Yuan rule. During China’s Ming and Qing periods, further expansion of lamaseries occurred in Tibet as a result of the rise of the Gelug(pa) (Yellow) sect, the sect of the Dalai Lama, founded by Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419). This occurred during the reign of Yongle, who was a strong patron of Lamaism. Major Lamaseries with Ming Origins By the Ming dynasty, lamaseries comprised a standard set of buildings. Image halls and pagodas, standard in all Buddhist monasteries, are among them, but pagodas are usually of the form seen at Miaoyingsi (see figure 12.20). Image halls may more reflect Chinese architecture, but some are built as a structural type used in Tibetan residential architecture known as block-house, a building with rows of windows on every side that takes the forms of a rectangular prism. Blockhouse buildings are capped by ceramic tile roofs inspired by Chinese architecture, often golden when their patrons were
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CONVERGENCES: LAMAIST, DAI, ISLAMIC
15.1. Maitreya Hall, Ta’ersi (Kumbun Jampa Ling), Xining, Qinghai, ca. 1577 to nineteenth century
royal. Educational halls are as important in lamaseries as they are in traditional Chinese Buddhist or Daoist or Confucian settings. Residences for the chief monks, sometimes one for a resident eminent lama such as the Dalai Lama or Panchen Lama, dormitories for those less eminent including students, kitchens, storage halls, and refectories also are present. A unique aspect of the Lamaist educational institution is the hall in which the scriptures are debated, an exercise that sometimes occurs outdoors. Lamaseries also serve as community centers. Always a ritual center, the lamasery often is laid out like a mandala.2 Ta’ersi (Monastery of the Pagoda), known in Tibetan as Kumbun Jampa Ling (cloister of Maitreya Buddha of 100,000 Buddha images), is considered one of the six great Gelugpa lamaseries. Located 26 kilometers southwest of Xining in Qinghai province, a small temple that included a pagoda was established at the site in 1379 to mark the birthplace of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the sect, by his mother. In 1577 the Mongolian ruler Altan Khan (1507–1583) invited Dalai Lama Sönam Gyatso (1543–1588) to preach at Kökenuur (Azure Lake [Ch: Qinghai]), about 75 kilometers to the west. He would be the third Dalai Lama to have this honor. The lama was put in charge of the monastery. By 1583 a greatly expanded version existed. Education almost immediately became a major pursuit of a monastery that still maintains four colleges. Today the more than fifty buildings of the 400,000-square-meter space include residential and educations halls for monks. At its time of greatest flourishing there were more than 3,600 monks.
The first building period lasted until the early seventeenth century. It included eleven main structures. Maitreya Hall was built in 1577 (figure 15.1). In this two-story, five-bay hall with a hip-gable roof, every timber is straight, consistent with Ming construction. Outside, the row of rectangular windows are in the manner of windows in Tibetan religious and secular architecture whose straight edges are described as blocklike. The Chinese wooden frame, with circular and four-sided rafters, combines with a Tibetan interior in which a gallery of prayer wheels encloses the statue of Maitreya. The Great Silver Pagoda that commemorates Tsongkhapa, built in 1582 and rebuilt in 1642, 1712, and 1784, is adjacent. It is the most sacred hall at Ta’ersi. Taking the standard form of a five-layer platform on a throne, drum, and thirteen-ring spire, after repairs in 1986 it reached nearly 12 meters in height. The pagoda is inside a hall covered with azure tiles with a golden Chinese-style, double-eave roof similar to the one that covered Maitreya Hall, which was added in an expansion of 1689. A veneration hall for Tsongkhapa was built in 1594, a Śākyamuni Hall in 1604, Dazhao Hall in 1613, Three Generations of Buddhas Hall in 1626, Xijingang Hall in 1627, and the Sutra Library in 1629. Like Maitreya Hall, they all are timber-frame, Chinese structures. Fourteen buildings were erected or significantly altered in the second building period, from the early seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries. During construction under Kangxi, most buildings took on the block style associated with Tibet. The eight white, Tibetan-style brick pagodas that mark the entrance today also were constructed at this time. In 1689 the
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15.2. Five-Pagoda Pagoda (Wutasi), (Da) Zhenjue Monastery, Beijing, 1473 with later repairs
sutra hall that had begun as a 36-pillar structure was expanded to an 80-pillar hall, and later to a hall of 168 pillars that became the main gathering hall for all the monks. Four buildings were significantly changed in the nineteenth century, the third construction phase.3 The plan is perhaps best described as free form, growing organically through the hilly terrain during the course of the Qing dynasty. Ta’ersi was begun at the same time as Qutansi in Ledu, discussed in chapter 14 (see figure 14.5). Qutansi is about twice as far from the center of Xining as Ta’ersi, the one northeast of the city and the other southwest. Qutansi has a Lamaist-style pagoda on its grounds but no block-style buildings. Mural programs of both monasteries are Lamaist. Changing and growing over four centuries, Ta’ersi retains less of its Ming architectural heritage. Yet even though it was spatially constricted by mountains and a stream along which it grew, Ta’ersi’s major buildings are along north-south axes. Individual buildings of both monasteries share features such as fan-shaped bracket sets, those at Qutansi unpainted and those at Ta’ersi heavily polychromed (see figures 14.5, 15.1). This nod to the Chinese tradition at Ta’ersi is especially noteworthy in the light of its major patrons: Lamaist Buddhists from Tibet and Altan Khan. Built in part by private patronage for a Dalai Lama and his descendants, Ta’ersi has one distinction compared to a Chinese monastery: the lack of an outer wall. The entry gate is a twentieth-century addition. At lamaseries in China, some aspects of the Chinese architectural tradition were always maintained, especially when emperors were patrons. If Lamaist architecture
has a strong message, it is of the power of Gelugpa to alter the Chinese religious built environment. The Yongle emperor began construction of a monastery that would be known as (Da) Zhenjuesi ([Great] Pure Enlightenment Monastery) following a visit to court by the Indian monk Pandida. The monk is said to have brought five golden images of the Buddha and, according to some, a drawing or model of Mahābodhi (Great Enlightenment) Stupa in Bodhgaya, today in Vihar province of India. Located on the site of a temple constructed by King Aśoka in the third century BCE to commemorate the Buddha Śākyamuni’s enlightenment beneath the branches of a bodhi tree several centuries earlier, Mahābodhi Stupa is of a form known as Diamond Throne and nicknamed Five-Pagoda Pagoda. (Da) Zhenjuesi has gone by this name, Wutasi (Five-Pagoda Monastery), since the Ming dynasty. Characterized by a tall central pagoda and four smaller, corner pagodas, this focal structure of the Beijing monastery was completed in 1473 during the Xianzong reign (figure 15.2). The base of the white marble pagoda is 7.7 meters high and nearly square. Myriad Buddhas and other Buddhist imagery decorate the six levels of its sides. One enters on the south to circumambulate the central pillar, which has a Buddha niche on each of its four sides. Ascending, one reaches the upper level, where circumambulation is possible for each of the five pagodas. The central one, 8 meters high, has thirteen levels; the corner pagodas, 7 meters in height, have eleven. The base level of each pagoda has a Buddha in a central niche. Imitation ceramic-tile roof
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15.3. Guandu Diamond Throne Pagoda, Kunming, Yunnan, 1458
eaves project from each level. The roofs are the main features that identify the monument’s location in China. In the Ming dynasty, the pagoda stood among timber-frame buildings, many of which were restored by Qing emperors. Serious damage occurred during the Second Opium War in 1860 and the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, whose further effects on Chinese architecture are discussed in chapter 17. Twenty-first-century transformation of the monastery included the gathering of sculpture and stele from Beijing into a sculpture museum, much of which is outdoors. Five-pagoda pagodas are seen throughout the Buddhist world. Well-known pre-Ming examples are a painting on the west wall of Mogao cave 428 at Dunhuang, dated to the Northern Zhou period, and a mud-brick structure in Jiaohe, near Turfan in eastern Xinjiang, dated to the Tang period. The Nine-Pagoda Pagoda in Licheng, Shandong (see figure 6.17), may have been inspired by the five-pagoda pagoda prototype. The early examples, however, are not as clearly associated with Lamaism. An undated, bronze miniature pagoda known as King Aśoka Pagoda, excavated at Ayuwangsi (Aśoka Monastery) in Ningbo, a temple complex associated with the
Southern Song dynasty, however, may have a diamond throne pagoda as its source. The five-pagoda pagoda at Yuanzhao Monastery on Mount Wutai was built in 1434 for the relics of a monk who traveled there from India. Elevated on a platform of 2.3 meters, the central pagoda rises 9.1 meters, while the other four stand on an enclosing wall that is shorter than the main pagoda base. Guandu Diamond Throne Pagoda, built in Yunnan in 1458, is similar to the pagoda of Wutasi in Beijing with five pagodas rising from a platform, but like the pagoda at Yuanzhao Monastery, the individual pagodas take the shapes of circular drums on square bases with, in the case of the central one, a spire of thirteen rings (figure 15.3). At Guangde Monastery, about 10 kilometers west of Xiangyang in Hubei, a diamond throne pagoda was built in the final decade of the fifteenth century. Made of brick and 17 meters at its highest point, this five-pagoda pagoda stands on a three-tier octagonal platform. The two lowest tiers are shallow, and the highest is taller than the height of the pagodas it supports. The central of the five pagodas stands on a twenty-sided base with four long sides and serrated corners and is of Tibetan style. The four shorter
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Yongzheng continued to use it as a residential retreat, naming it Yonghegong. When Yongzheng died in 1735, his successor Qianlong had the green-glazed, ceramic roof tiles changed to golden so the imperial corpse could be kept there. Memorial rites to Yongzheng and later to Qianlong were performed in these halls. In 1744 Qianlong had the site converted into a lamasery with the help of his advisor Rölpé Dorjé (1717–1786). In spite of the transformed purpose, the complex retained gong (palace) as the suffix of its name. Its prominence in Beijing brought it scholarly attention in the twentieth century.4 Laid out like a Chinese imperial mansion, Yonghegong has seven courtyards along a north-south axis and exhibits bilateral symmetry as strictly as almost any other building complex in China (figure 15.4). The first courtyard is defined by a screen wall at the south and pailou at the other three sides. Courtyards two and three are long, narrow, and without architecture, presenting a formal approach to the rest of the complex. The fourth courtyard contains symmetrically positioned bell and drum towers and octagonal stele pavilions, both pairs features of Chinese planned space. Yonghe Gate at the back leads to the fifth courtyard. The seven-bay, hip-gable-roofed Yonghegong Hall is the main structure in the fifth courtyard. Once Yongzheng’s audience hall, it became the main image hall of the lamasery where three Buddhas, of the past, present, and future, are enthroned with two disciples flanking Śākyamuni, Buddha of the present. Nine luohan sit on either side of the hall. Between the gate and hall is a pavilion that houses a stele inscribed by Qianlong. A hall for expounding the scriptures and one dedicated to the healing Buddha Bhaisajyaguru are on either side of this courtyard. Courtyard six begins at Yongyou (Eternal Blessings) Hall, the five-baywide private chamber of Yongzheng when Yonghegong Hall was used for audiences. It is also where Yongzheng’s coffin was kept before burial. Here the three enthroned Buddhas are Amitabha flanked by Bhaisajyaguru and Simhananda. Falun (Wheel of the Buddhist Law) Hall, the largest building in the complex, is behind Yongyou Hall. Tsongkhapa is enthroned in the center with a sandalwood mountain that contains five hundred metal images of luohan behind him. Large pavilions are on either side of Falun Hall, one erected by order of the Qianlong emperor in 1780 so that he could receive ordination during the visit of the Panchen Lama in honor of the ruler’s birthday, and the other where the Panchen Lama stayed during his visit. Ten Thousand Happinesses Pavilion (Wanfuge), built
15.4. Yonghegong, fourth through seventh courtyards
pagodas are on hexagonal foundations but have three imitation Chinese-style roof eaves, the top of which is pyramidal. Five fifteenth-century five-pagoda pagodas thus are all recognizable as of diamond throne style, but each has a different architectural solution through which it references its Tibetan origins and presence in China. Qing Lamaseries As in Ming times, Qing lamaseries include wooden architecture and buildings with Chinese features as well as Lamaist-style architecture. Lamaseries in Tibet and the contiguous regions of Qinghai and Sichuan have the fewest timber-frame structures. The lands that border Tibet and North Central China such as Mongolia contain lamaseries with buildings that exhibit a convergence of Chinese and Tibetan architecture in single buildings. Two of the most important Qing lamaseries are in Beijing. Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong were the primary patrons of Beijing’s Qing lamaseries. Most of them were visited by a Dalai or Panchen Lama. Yonghegong (Harmony Peace Palace) is Beijing’s largest lamasery. The 66,000-square-meter complex was built in 1694 by Kangxi as a residence for his fourth son. After he ascended the throne, now-emperor
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between 1748 and 1750, is at the back. Inside it is a unique sandalwood image of the bodhisattva Guanyin that rises 18 meters, but its foundation is 8 meters belowground. The single piece of sandalwood was sent to Qianlong from Nepal as a gift of the seventh Dalai Lama. The five-bay, three-story hall joins two-story side pavilions from its second story by flying corridors (feilang), the form of covered arcades that joined halls to side halls at Daminggong in the Tang dynasty. East of Ten Thousand Happinesses Pavilion, along the covered arcade, is a hall where Qianlong’s mother once prayed. Not every Lamaist complex of Qing China has such strong ties to the imperial family. However, the Qing dynasty, especially through the Qianlong reign, was a unique period in Chinese religious history not only because the emperors embraced a foreign faith but because they also brought so many religious leaders from outside China to sanctify their architecture. Those leaders, the highest lamas of the Tibetan orders, resided alongside the Qing emperors and gifted their religious architecture in ways unprecedented in earlier Chinese history. A diamond throne pagoda stands at Biyun (Azure Cloud) Monastery. Located on a slope of the Fragrant Hills (Xiangshan), about 20 kilometers from the center of Beijing, in 1289 Biyunsi was a nunnery known as Biyun’an. Before then it was the residential estate of a Yuan official. In 1516 and 1623 it was expanded under the direction of court eunuchs Yu Jing and Wei Zhongxian, respectively. The 100-meter-long axis along which five main halls are positioned reflects its YuanMing origins. The east-west orientation of that axis reflects the topography, as does the ascent from east to west: each courtyard is higher than the one in front of it. One enters via a Shanmen, behind which is a second gate and then symmetrically placed bell and drum towers. Divine Kings (Tianwang) Hall is the first Buddha hall along the axis and the central one in this first courtyard. Maitreya Hall is behind it. The focus of the second courtyard is Daxiongbao Hall, with a stele pavilion in front. Directly behind is Bodhisattva Hall, with five statues of bodhisattvas inside, the focus of courtyard three. Diamond Throne Pagoda, the fifth structure and in the sixth courtyard, dominates the back of the monastery. It is the highest building of one of the most spectacularly sited monasteries in China (figure 15.5). One enters through three gates: wooden, stone, and glazed brick. Its magnificent siting yet compatibility with the axial plan of a Ming Buddhist monastery marks
Qing-period Lamaist temple complexes. We shall observe this at the Eight Outlying Temples in Chengde, discussed below. The transformation of Biyunsi into a lamasery occurred in 1748. Diamond Throne Pagoda was built in that year as a central pagoda with four lower pagodas at each corner; a smaller diamond throne pagoda elevated on a square platform on the same elevation platform in front of the central one; and a flanking pagoda on each side of the smaller diamond throne pagoda. Each of the five pagodas of the main portion of the structure has thirteen layers of Chinese-style roof eaves and imitation bracket sets carved in stone. The front pagoda is bulbous but has two layers of Chinese-style roofs at its top. The side pagodas are of the cylindrical Tibetan style with ninelayer spires capped by large, circular sections and bulbs at the top. Again we observe a unique configuration for the Diamond Throne Pagoda, but one that nevertheless identifies a union of Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese architecture. The second hall added in 1748 is in its own courtyard on the southern side of the monastery, a courtyard entered by South Gate, the only gate besides the Shanmen in the complex. Biyunsi’s Five Hundred Luohan Hall is one of several buildings in China that contain five hundred, or nearly five hundred, of these images.5 Others are at Jingci Monastery in Hangzhou, first built in the Southern Song dynasty, and at Lingyan Monastery in Ji’nan, Shandong.6 Like the structure in Hangzhou that was its inspiration, Biyunsi’s Five Hundred Luohan Hall has a cruciform plan with a total of nine rooms. All five hundred luohan and the other eight statues in the hall are gilded. Like so many religious complexes discussed in this book, Biyunsi has through its history been a living monastery, that is, one that reflects social and political changes. In 1925 Sun Yatsen’s coffin was placed in the pagoda, where it remained until 1929 when it was moved to his mausoleum, which is discussed in chapter 17. (It was also temporarily kept at the Soil and Grain Altar complex in Beijing.) The Chinese president was not a devout Lamaist. The placement here should be understood as recognition that a great political leader deserved such a venerable site. His clothing and a hat are buried in the base of the pagoda. In 1954, as part of renovation of the entire monastery, a Sun Yat-sen memorial hall was erected in the fourth courtyard, between Bodhisattva Hall and the Diamond Throne Pagoda. The lamasery Xihuangsi was founded in 1652. The three-courtyard monastery follows a traditional Chinese
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15.5. Biyun Monastery showing Diamond Throne Pagoda
arrangement of major structures along a main axis, each in its own courtyard. The Hall of Divine Kings and Hall of the Three Great Masters are the focuses of the first and second courtyards, with bell and drum towers and other service buildings flanking the main structures. The distinguishing building is the diamond throne pagoda in the third courtyard. Known as Qingjinghuacheng Pagoda, it was built in 1784 at the order of Qianlong to commemorate the visit of the Sixth Panchen Lama four years earlier. The lama had come to Beijing to offer congratulations on the emperor’s birthday and died in Beijing the same year. His clothing, shoes, and sutras are enshrined inside. The pagoda is elevated on a cross-shaped marble platform about 3 meters high. The central, flask-shaped pagoda with a narrow top that includes thirteen levels and with a three-part inverted lotus-petal above rises another 15 meters. Tall, narrow, octagonal pagodas in the shape of funerary pagodas from
earlier times are at the four corners. Dragons, phoenixes, and sea creatures join Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and attendants as decorative carving along the pagodas’ bases (figure 15.6). Yet another form of Lamaist pagoda stands in the third of five courtyards of Xumilingjing Monastery, the central and focal building of the complex in Qingyi Garden in Beijing, mentioned again in chapter 16. Erected in 1757, the monastery combines Chinese and Tibetan elements in the way we shall observe below at Chengde. The three-part pagoda stands on a four-sided base. Its two lower sections resemble a foursided flask with corner protrusions. A thirteen-level mast is its crown. Beijing’s best-known Lamaist monument may be the White Pagoda at Beihai (North Sea) Park (figure 15.7), also the location of the Altar to Silkworms discussed in chapter 13. It rises northwest of the Forbidden City, so high that it
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15.6. Qingjinghuacheng Pagoda, Xihuang Monastery, Beijing, 1784
15.7. White Pagoda at Beihai, Beijing, 1651, destroyed 1679, numerous restorations
is one of the tallest vantage points in Beijing. The building is often understood as a Manchu response to the White Pagoda of Miaoying Monastery, which had been built on flat ground in Dadu during Khubilai’s reign (see figure 12.20). The lamasery is one of the earliest constructed in the Qing period, in 1651 during the reign of the Shunzhi emperor, who, one recalls, was the first Manchu to rule from Beijing. As at other lamaseries, the pagoda is in its own precinct at the back with the traditional plan of major buildings on the main axis. In the Qianlong reign, the monastery was renamed Yong’ansi. The pagoda and monastery are on the ruins of Guanghan Hall, a building named in records of Yuan Dadu, and on the back of the fragment of abalone excavated at Houyingfang, which stood on Qionghua Island, the artificial landmass constructed by the Jin and reconfigured by Khubilai that was northeast of Jin Zhongdu and divided the imperial-city of
Yuan Dadu (see figures 11.6, 12.14). Ming emperors built temple complexes and a nine-dragon screen there. Beihai Park is further discussed in the next chapter as an imperial garden. Lamaist-style pagodas stand across China. One that survives in its Qing form in South China is at Liangxingsi in Hangzhou. Lamaseries in Mongolia Outside Beijing, the most important Ming and Qing lamaseries are in Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet. As many as eight hundred may have stood in Inner Mongolia at this time.7 Patronage of most major lamaseries was imperial. In western Mongolia and regions of Gansu and Tibet, lamasery construction was intense during the rule of Altan Khan and his son, Sengge-Düüreng. A devout Lamaist and descendant of Chinggis, Altan united tribes of eastern Mongolia and contiguous steppe regions to an extent that had not occurred since the Yuan dynasty. Not a theocrat in the manner of a
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characterize Ming and Qing imperial architecture. Enclosures are straight and rigid, offering the blocklike appearance that gives Tibetan block-style architecture its name. Several of the most expansive lamaseries are in Huhehaote. Their names have the suffix zhao, the Chinese character similar to the sound of the Mongolian word for monastery, juu. Dazhao (Mong: Yeke Juu), Great Monastery, is the oldest. Founded in 1579 by Altan Khan as Hongci Monastery, it became known as Silver Buddha Monastery after the third Dalai Lama came to dedicate a silver statue of Śākyamuni seven years later. During repairs of 1640, it was named Wuliangsi (Monastery of Limitlessness). Kangxi visited in 1696. By the next year, azure tiles were changed to golden and a golden placard was placed in front of the silver Buddha. Occupying 2,900 square meters, Dazhao spreads due northsouth in the manner of a Ming Buddhist monastery. It is in fact a Ming monastery where one building, the focal one, was transformed in preparation for the Dalai Lama’s visit. The Shanmen comes first, followed by a Buddha hall with a yuetai and then a Hall of Divine Kings flanked by symmetrical pavilions. Next is the focal building complex, in the third and last courtyard, a three-part structure with open space for devotees, a large section for chanting the scriptures, and, last, the section with a silver image. As we have observed at Ta’ersi and as is the case at lamaseries in Tibet, the combination of a Buddha hall with a large open space for study of the scriptures is standard in lamaseries. Here, this main building is multistory and nine bays deep (figure 15.8). Except for the main hall, the existing buildings within the temple complex are predominantly of Chinese style (figure 15.9). The walls of most of the halls are covered with murals. Xilituzhao (Mong: Shireetū Juu), Monastery of the Throne Occupant, also in Huhehaote, has a similar history. Down the street from Dazhao, Xilituzhao was built by Altan Khan’s son in 1585 for the visit of the third Dalai Lama. The fifth Dalai Lama also visited. Hong Taiji, the second Manchu ruler, who ruled from and is buried in Shenyang, also visited, as did Kangxi, who added to the lamasery in 1694 and gave it the Chinese name Yanshousi. Xilituzhao became and remains the largest lamasery in Huhehaote, covering about 5,000 square meters. Like Dazhao, Xilituzhao faces south on a straight northsouth axis. It is entered by a pailou, a standard entrance into a Chinese building complex. A Shanmen with a gray, ceramic-tile roof follows, then comes a Buddha hall, and next the
15.8. Infrastructural drawing of layers of Main Hall, Dazhao, Huhehaote, 1579 with later repairs
Tibetan ruler, Altan Khan nevertheless built a palace in the confines of a lamasery, invited the Dalai Lama to his territory, and was the great-grandfather of the fourth Dalai Lama. He founded the city today known as Huhehaote (Hohhot), which he named Köke Khota, meaning blue city. With few exceptions, Ming-Qing lamaseries outside the capital consist of several courtyards along a main axis, one main building, sometimes with an attached building, in each courtyard, and sometimes parallel side courtyards. Although some do not have, or no longer have, pagodas, as at Buddhist monasteries from earliest times, the pagoda and Buddha hall are the most important buildings. Buddha halls often have a lamaist pagoda decorating the top center of their main roof ridges. Pillars and beams are most often straight, like those that
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15.9. Dazhao, Huhehaote, 1579 with later repairs and emendations
three-part combination of large open room for devotees, hall with a large cylindrical prayer wheel in which the scriptures are read, and multistory building in which the scriptures are housed.8 Nine bays deep like its counterpart for scripture reading and study at the nearby Dazhao, this scripture hall takes on a flat roof and boxlike shape, with the bold colors of Tibetan architecture, and glazed ceramic tiles on the exterior (figure 15.10). Yet it is enclosed by a Chinese marble balustrade. Inside, the colors are those of a Tibetan lamasery, seen also at Ta’ersi, with banners or bold-colored paint covering the sixty-four interior pillars, flat ceiling, and queti, the beak-shaped braces used on either side of column tops that first appear in the Ming dynasty. Only rarely, such as in Sino-Tibetan architecture like this, are queti found without bracket sets. A 15-meter white, marble dagoda also stands at the lamasery. Stele pavilions and side halls are positioned symmetrically to the main axis. Inscriptions are in Manchu, Chinese, Mongolian, and Tibetan, the language of the ruling family, the nation they rule, location of the lamasery, and source of Buddhism practiced here, respectively. We again observe the transformation from Ming-style monastery to Tibetan-style lamasery. Huhehaote also has a diamond throne pagoda built under Yongzheng in 1727 at Cideng Monastery (figure 15.11). Like diamond throne pagodas discussed above, it has a nine-level base that can be entered beneath a curved archway on the south. Stairs provide access to the top, where the central pagoda has seven sets of eaves, the four flanking pagodas have five eaves, and a squarish structure with a ceramic-tile hip-gable roof is in front of them above the archway. Two of the most beautifully sited lamaseries of Inner Mongolia are outside Huhehaote. Altan Khan founded
Meidaizhao (Mong.: Maidari Juu), alternately known in Chinese as Shoulingsi (Longevity and Spirituality Monastery), in 1572 as both a fortified city and a lamasery, about 50 kilometers west of Huhehaote and about halfway along the road to Baotou. Meidaizhao is about 4,000 square meters. The enclosing wall is 183 meters north-south by 157 meters east-west, oriented north-south, and fortified to the extent that it has only a front-central gate and four watchtowers that extend about 10 meters from each corner. Behind the gate, the monastery is laid out along a nearly straight line. The wall is earthen, faced with brick, about 6 meters thick at the base and 5 meters high (figure 15.12). Originally a screen wall stood in front of the entry, a three-story tower with a hip-gable roof. Directly behind is Divine Kings Hall followed by the central and most important building, the two-hall structure that is seven bays across the front and thirteen bays deep. As at other lamaseries, this building combines a scripture hall and a hall dedicated to the Buddha Śākyamuni. The three-story prayer hall of Altan Khan and his wife is adjacent. Her ashes are there today. In 1582 a hall of glazed tiles, five-bays-by-four with a hip-gable roof, was built behind it for the third Dalai Lama. Yet Meidaizhao is within the Chinese architectural sphere. It also has a small hall dedicated to Laozi.9 Wudangzhao (Willow Monastery) (Mong: Badgar Süme), known in Tibetan as White Lotus Monastery, is a Gelug monastery built in 1749. Seven years later, Qianlong gave it the Chinese name Guangjuesi. Located 70 kilometers northeast of Baotou, it is Inner Mongolia’s largest lamasery. The model was Tashi Lhumpo in Shigatse (Xigazê), and as such it is Inner Mongolia’s most Tibetan-style lamasery. Like at Ta’ersi, Tashi Lhunpo, and other lamaseries of Tibet, topography and
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15.12. Meidaizhao, Tumoteyouqi, Inner Mongolia.
landscape overtake the building arrangement so that every important hall is not on the main axial line: the buildings rise from the entry to the last structure at the top of a hill, occupying about 0.2 square kilometer. Buildings face frontward, but only a few are part of courtyards. Most are whitewashed on the exterior and blocklike with flat roofs. At this major center of Lamaist learning, sometimes as many as twelve hundred monks have been resident at the same time. Among the space are six main halls, each part of a building complex, and three buildings that were residences of “living Buddhas,” lamas of great merit who will be reborn. The most recent one lived in the twentieth century. Ashes of seven living Buddhas are in a relic hall at the monastery. Suguqin Hall, nine bays across by fifteen deep, is where monks recite sutras and pray. Like its counterpart at other lamaseries, it is central to the complex and its back section has two stories. Built in 1757, Suguqin Hall contains statues of Śākyamuni and thirty-one bodhisattvas. Queyila Hall, built in 1835, is the second largest building. Due west of Suguqin Hall, it is also for study. Evidence that education was a serious pursuit of the lamasery, Dongkuo’er Hall was built before either of them, in 1749, for education in math and astronomy, two fields that, we saw in chapter 12, were studied in China at observatories. Part of the annual exam at a lamasery was debate, still today a primary method of Lamaist learning. Ahui Hall was for the study of medicine. It contains a Buddha in the form of an apothecary along with about thirty other Buddhist images. 15.10. Buddha Hall, Xilituzhao, Huhehaote 15.11. Diamond Throne Pagoda, Cideng Monastery, Huhehaote, 1727
Wudangzhao also has a Tibetan-style pagoda. Theology was the focus of Lamiren Hall, built in 1892. In the theocratic world of Lamaist Buddhism, upper-level education was a necessary component of monastic life. Religious affiliation, patronage, location, and date are the factors in the architectural convergence that is the subject of this chapter. At Yanfu Monastery in Bayan-hot, Alashanzuoqi, about 60 kilometers northwest of Yinchuan, we see a kind of convergence observed at Yonghegong (see figures 15.4, 15.13): the site had been a princely residence, and the lamasery had been a clan temple. About 7,000 square meters in area, Yanfu Monastery is a single-courtyard complex with five buildings on a roughly north-south axial line and four symmetrical pairs of buildings flanking the axis. The arrangement resembles residences of Ming and Qing royalty and yamen. Constructed between 1731 and 1742 and named by Qianlong in 1760, the buildings are a Shanmen, Divine Kings Hall, octagonal Sutra Library containing a revolving cabinet, Three Buddhas Hall, and the dominant Daxiongbao Hall, seven bays square, 22 by 26.4 meters at the base, a two-story brick and wooden hall that stands 17 meters high. Daxiongbao Hall contains Śākyamuni and other statues of the Gelug sect. Its structure is SinoTibetan, the two stories with rows of rectangular windows on each side characteristic of Tibetan block-style and a golden hip-gable roof decorated with green directly above Śākyamuni. Farther west in Mongolia than Wudangzhao, and like it receiving Qing imperial patronage, roofs, the highest projections in the monastery, reference China. On the other side of Mongolia, in Kulunqi, Xingyuan Monastery was established under the Shunzhi emperor in 1649 and expanded in 1719 and 1899. This three-courtyard lamasery
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15.13. Buddha Hall, Yanfu Monastery, Alashanzuoqi, Inner Mongolia
has the standard, huge, combination worship hall and sutra hall at its focus. Dragons entwine around pillars in the manner observed at Sage Mother Hall of the Jin Shrines and Dacheng Hall of the Confucian Shrine in Qufu (see figure 10.1), stories of the Buddha’s life are painted alongside the twenty-eight lunar lodges, and the support system is a Chinese timber framework. In an attempt to generalize, one can say that the more purely Tibetan-style monasteries of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai, and Tibet are more closely tied to Altan Khan and often were visited by Dalai Lamas or their close associates. Further, from the sixteenth century onward, the patrons of lamaseries that survive today were primarily royalty or religious leaders. Before we continue, it is important to remember that until the twentieth century, Mongolia was not divided, and lamaseries with Chinese ceramic-tile roofs were built across the county, much farther from the Yellow River than Baotou or Alashan. The same kinds of Sino-Tibetan convergences in Inner Mongolia, in other words, are found in Outer Mongolia, a country some prefer to call Northern Mongolia. Outer Mongolia, like Manchuria, did not exist until the twentieth century. Amarbayasgalant Monastery in Baruunbüren district of Selenge province represents Buddhist construction in northern Mongolia under Qing rule. It was built between 1727 and 1736 at the order of the Yongzheng emperor to be the resting place of Zanabazar (1635–1723), the first spiritual leader of the Khalkha Mongols. The work was completed under Qianlong, and Zanabazar’s body was moved here in 1779. Amarbayasgalant Monastery is oriented due south.
Introduced by two screen walls, each flanked by stele pavilions, the main part of the complex consists of three courtyards. Each is enclosed by a covered arcade with a further wall around the whole monastery. Some thirty structures are inside the second wall, and approximately another ten, including a white, Tibetan-style pagoda, are outside it. Every building is supported by a wooden frame of straight timbers. Every ground plan indicates a modular basis for its proportions. Every roof is golden ceramic tile. Three bracket sets are positioned intercolumnarly across architraves, queti are lodged at top sides of each column, owl’s tails decorate main roof ridges, and animals stand guard at ridge ends. The gold and other decorative detail is that of Beijing’s imperial architecture. There is little here that identifies a location on the Selenge River as opposed to one near Huhehaote or in Qinghai or Gansu (figure 15.14).10 Mongolia’s most famous monastery has an older history. Erdene Zuu in Kharkhorin, today the oldest monastery in Mongolia, was founded in 1586, just a few years later than Dazhao in Huhehaote.11 As at Amarbayasgalant Monastery and in Inner Mongolia, Buddha halls and shrines have two sets of glazed ceramic tile roofs, the upper hip-gable. Tiles are green, blue, and gold, chiwen decorate the ends of main roof ridges, and animals are posed at other roof ridge corners. Block architecture of Tibet is equally present. However, the long, axial courtyards of other monasteries of Mongolia have been replaced by a huge, open interior with a central Buddha hall and four building groups, including two with three side-byside halls. In spite of the plan, the timber components, queti,
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15.14. Amarbayasgalant Monastery, Baruunbüren, Selenge
and roofs confirm that in constructing lamaseries in central Mongolia, Chinese architecture continued to encase the gods of Tibetan Buddhism in the late sixteenth century. Unlike the architecture of Mongolia or Lamaist architecture in China, Tibet’s architecture exhibits few signs of China. It was, and remained, the pure source of Lamaism and its building tradition. Yet Tibet was so crucial to the Qing vision of empire that its buildings had an impact on architecture as far east as Hebei province. The most explicit use of Lamaist architecture for political purposes is in Chengde, 250 kilometers northeast of Beijing, probably the most dramatic, and certainly the most ambitious, setting of the Qing’s signature convergence of imperial and religious architecture.
Station. Support staff for this enormous landscape architecture project meant that the population grew from about 100,000 in the early eighteenth century to about 460,000 under Qianlong. They supported imperial activities that included the annual fall hunt in which about twelve thousand soldiers participated.12 The Mountain Hamlet The landscape of the Mountain Hamlet naturally divides into four sections: palace area where the emperor could hold court, lake area, plain, and mountains. The four building complexes of the palace area were constructed in the early part of the eighteenth century with unpainted exterior columns and gray roofs, a mode more in line with a rustic retreat than a forbidden city. The main palace area consists of an entry gate, a second gate named Wumen, and then a gate to the main palatial halls. There follow a front hall complex for conducting affairs of government and private chambers behind. The entire palace area is on a single north-south axis. Both the front and back complexes focus on one hall; a two-story building stands at the north end. A parallel two-courtyard building complex where Qianlong’s mother resided, built in 1749, is on the east. It is named Pine and Crane Studio, pines and cranes symbols of longevity. A small building group where Kangxi instructed his grandson Qianlong is directly behind it. A three-story theater to the southeast was part of another eastern palace that was destroyed in 1948. We have noted a theater among the buildings of Houtumiao in Wanrong and Jiexiu (see figures 10.2, 14.17), that plays were performed at the Dragon King Temple
Chengde: Qing Vision Realized The city Chengde, known in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as Jehol (Rehe in Chinese), was the summer resort– capital of the Qing rulers. Occupying 5.64 square kilometers, it was begun under Kangxi in 1703 and completed under Qianlong in 1792. Kangxi named the place Bishushanzhuang, Mountain Hamlet for Escaping the Heat. The largest of nineteen imperial resorts where the emperor could stop, and hold court if necessary, between Beijing and the Manchu hunting grounds to the north known as Mulan, the resort divides into two main parts: Shanzhuang (mountain hamlet), often translated into English as Hill Station, and the Eight Outlying Temples, actually eleven in number, that spread north and east of Hill
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of Guangshengsi in the Yuan period, and that popular drama took place across Shanxi province, as was even referenced in a tomb (see figures 10.35, 12.15); and we shall see a theater in the next chapter when we examine the imperial Summer Palace in Beijing: a place for private entertainment was part of the Chinese imperial leisure model. Jiaqing died at the Mountain Hamlet in 1820. Xianfeng (r. 1851–1861) was struck by lightning and also died here, having taken refuge as the Franco-British forces captured Beijing and destroyed the imperial garden residence Yuanmingyuan, discussed in the next chapter. Seventy-two scenic spots were built into the Chengde hamlet, the number that of sacred Daoist plots as well as a multiple of nine, and thus symbolic in imperial Chinese construction. The 550,000 square meters of lake area include thirty-one of those scenic views, many of them “borrowed views” based on garden or lake designs Kangxi or Qianlong had seen in their inspection tours of South China. Lion Grove in Suzhou, Jinshan in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, and dikes of West Lake in Hangzhou are among the inspirations for landscape architecture in the lake area. The plain area is north of the lake. It is grassland where tents were erected for imperial use, for ceremonies, and for visitors such as the Sixth Panchen Lama and in 1793 the British diplomat Lord Macartney (1737–1806). The area also included a field for training horses and archery and extremely important literary components. Working space where scholars compiled court-sponsored encyclopedias was amid a section with a gallery of imperial portraits and small Buddhist temples and gardens. The multistory Wenjinge (Literary Ford Pavilion) was built in 1774 as a near copy of the pavilion Tianyige in Ningbo, Zhejiang. Both pavilions housed one of the first four copies of Siku quanshu (Complete writings of the four treasuries), the majesterial literary compilations of Chinese texts made between 1773 and 1781, one of which was also kept at the Manchu palace complex in Shenyang (see figure 13.13). Yongyou Monastery Pagoda, a 67-meter, nine-story structure whose sources of inspiration are Six Harmonies Pagoda in Hangzhou and Bao’en Monastery Pagoda in Suzhou (see figure 10.27), discussed in chapters 10 and 13, respectively, also stands on the plain. Last are the mountains, occupying 80 percent of the hamlet. Outlying Temples The area known as Eight Outlying Temples (some with the suffix si and some with miao) is north of the mountains.
Comprising eleven complexes designed to reference Chinese, Mongolian, and Tibetan styles of religious architecture, the 60,000-square-meter area is a unique realization of the symbolic use of buildings for the political ambitions and ethnic unity of the Qing empire. All construction occurred between 1713 and 1780. The Lamaist monasteries follow the plan observed already: the front courtyard follows a traditional Chinese building arrangement, and the Lamaist architecture is at the back.13 Puren (Universal Virtue) Monastery and Pushan (Universal Goodness) Monastery were built under Kangxi. Purensi was constructed in 1713 to commemorate Kangxi’s sixtieth birthday (calculated according to the traditional Chinese system as beginning from gestation). The political purpose was to build a Mongolian-style lamasery that would symbolize the Manchu government’s appreciation of the loyalty of Mongolian nobility as Qing subjects. Typical of Ming-Qing Buddhist construction in China, the three-courtyard monastery is oriented southward. Its six main structures are a Shanmen, bell and drum tower on either side behind it in the first courtyard, Divine Kings Hall as the entrance to the second courtyard, and Buddha hall as the entrance and Back Hall as the last structure of the third courtyard. As observed in the Huhehaote-Baotou region, the three courtyards are enclosed, and a second wall encloses a larger area as the outer boundary of the monastery. Pushansi, also constructed in 1713 for the same commemoration, consists of four courtyards that occupy 1,800 square meters. The main structures of each of the back two courtyards are seven bays across the front, with side buildings of five bays, each facing inward along the sides of the courtyards. Puning (Universal Peace) Monastery was built in 1755 both to mark the final defeat of the Mongolian rebels, the Zünghars, and to host them in Chengde. This act signified Qianlong’s policy of bringing the conquered people into his empire, and thus he built a lamasery of the kind in which the Zünghars worshiped in Mongolia. Upon its completion, Qianlong invited former Zünghar, Dörböd, Khoid, and Khoshud nobility to banquet and worship in Chengde in acceptance of his sovereignty. The huge lamasery, 33,000 square meters and more than thirty structures, was consistent with the enormity of the victory. Kangxi had won major battles with the Zünghars in 1697 but did not accomplish Qing control over their territory, which included much of western Xinjiang,
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15.15. Dasheng (Great Vehicle) Pavilion, Puning Monastery, Chengde, Hebei, 1755
Inner Mongolia, and part of Tibet. Fifty years later, when victory seemed more decisive, Qianlong named the monastery “universal peace.” Everything about Puningsi is massive yet standard for an imperial Ming-Qing lamasery. Seven structures follow a southnorth line in three rectangular courtyards, terminating in a serrated semicircle that is mimicked by the landscape behind it. The first seven structures are Chinese Buddhist religious architecture: Shanmen; a stele pavilion whose stones were inscribed by Qianlong in Manchu, Mongolian, Chinese, and Tibetan; Divine Kings Hall with bell and drum towers to the east and west between the pavilion and hall; a seven-bay Daxiongbao Hall enshrining three Buddhas of the ages with images of the eighteen luohans on either side; and the culmination, the five-story, 36.75-meter Dashengge (Great Vehicle Pavilion), elevated on a 9-meter platform with six eaves in the front, four in the back, and five on the sides. Of four stories, it is built exclusively with straight vertical and horizontal timbers in the manner of Ming and Qing architecture. Its front is articulated with doors and windows with lattice patterns and pillars dividing each bay of each level, but the back and sides of the two lower stories are flat, red plaster with rows of trapezoidal-shaped windows as are found in the architecture of Tibet (figure 15.15). The structure is said to take a building from Samye Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet’s oldest monastery, first built in the mid-eighth century, as its model. Dashengge houses the world’s tallest wooden sculpture of the bodhisattva Guanyin, 24.14 meters and weighing more than 120 tons. With one thousand arms and one thousand eyes, it is made of pine,
cypress, elm, fir, and linden wood. A scripture recitation hall adjoins the pavilion.14 Puyou (Universal Blessing) Monastery, directly to the east, is a two-courtyard monastery with Chinese-style buildings but Tibetan imagery and functions. The squarish back hall that dominated the second courtyard was for sutra recitation and debate. Anyuanmiao (Temple of Distant Peace) was begun in 1756, the year after Puningsi, and completed in 1764 for the same purpose of marking the defeat of the Zünghars. Its model was a different monastery in the territory of the conquered Zünghars, this one in Yili (Huocheng/Almaliq) in western Xinjiang, that had been destroyed in warfare. The three-courtyard complex has only one main structure: a seven-bay-square, three-story hall with two sets of roof eaves, a glazed roof, and a complete grid of sixty-four columns. Centered in the back courtyard, like Dasheng Pavilion of Puningsi, its exterior combines Chinese lattice windows, here on the upper stories, with a plaster exterior with rows of small, four-sided windows below. In his stele in four languages, Qianlong dedicated the temple to the Zünghar leader Dawaachi. In 1758 twelve thousand Zünghars were relocated to the vicinity of Anyuanmiao. Pulesi (Monastery of University Joy) was built in 1766 for chieftains of the Khazaks and Kyrgyz who began to pay tribute to Qianlong after his victory over the Zünghars. Its focus is a circular structure named Xuguangge (Pavilion of Nascent Light), sometimes called round pavilion because of similarities to the Imperial Vault of Heaven and Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year in Beijing (see figures 13.9, 15.16). Xuguangge stands
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15.16. Xuguangge (Pavilion of Nascent Light), Pule Monastery, Chengde, Hebei, 1756–1764
behind three east-oriented courtyards whose primary structures are a Shanmen, Hall of Divine Kings, and three-Buddha hall named Zongyindian (Manifest Faith Hall) with side halls between them, all standard in the front part of lamaseries across northern China from Mongolia to Chengde. In spite of its architectural references to ritual architecture for emperors, Xuguang Pavilion is unique. The three-tier elevation is enclosed by a fortified wall. Chinese-style pavilions, Tibetan-style pagodas, and deities stand on the terraces. Inside the timber-frame pavilion, male and female wooden Buddhist statues perform the sex act amid other deities, with a Chinese gilded conical ceiling with entwined dragons at the center above them. The statues and structures inside and out form a mandala inside a mandala. Qianlong’s next two monasteries at Chengde not only contain unique buildings but exhibit unprecedented incorporation of architecture and landscape from the outside into China. Like every other complex at Chengde, they were inspired by architecture far to the west. Putuozongcheng Monastery may be the most direct example of imitation: its source is the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the Chinese name an approximation of Potala, although the Chengde version is only about one-third the size of its model. Built between 1767 and 1771 by Qianlong to celebrate his sixtieth birthday and his mother’s eightieth, it comprises 43,200 square meters and more than forty structures, making it the largest complex at Chengde. The birthdays coincided with the return of the Torguts, who had been chased from Yili to the Volga River by the Zünghars, then back to western Xinjiang and thus into the Qing fold. The Torghud leader Ubashi (1745–1774) came to Chengde at this time. Putuozongcheng Monastery sprawls up its mountain like lamaseries in Xining and Tibet. Only one courtyard with a
stele pavilion in the center and front and back gates, the second gate capped by five white pagodas, announces it. The white, block-style buildings ascend in two rows, similar to the spread of architecture observed at Ta’ersi. The main structure is described by its name, Dahongtai (Great Red Platform). A three-tier white base supports six stories that rise 43 meters (figure 15.17). Treasures from Putuozongchengmiao were exhibited at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1932.15 Guang’ansi was built in 1772, also to honor Qianlong’s and his mother’s birthdays. Little survives and there are few records. Shuxiangsi is the only monastery at Chengde with a source in China. It was built by Qianlong from 1774 to 1776 following a visit he made with his mother to the sacred Buddhist peak Wutai. Like many of Wutaishan’s monasteries, it is dedicated to Mañjuśrī. Shuxiangsi is a one-courtyard monastery with a Shanmen, Divine Kings Hall, main hall, and octagonal pavilion along its main axis and side halls positioned symmetrically to it. Luohantang was built in 1774. Its straight southern, southeastern, and southwestern sides form three edges of the southern courtyard; the northern courtyard is elliptical. The Shanmen is followed by the Divine Kings Hall in the southern courtyard, with a square structure with projections at the middle of each side as the focal main hall in the back courtyard. It is possible that this structure shared a model with the cruciform building at Biyunsi in the western hills of Beijing. Almost nothing remains at Luohantang today. In any setting but Chengde, Xumifushoumiao (Monastery of the Longevity and Happiness of Sumeru) would be the spectacular complex. Here is yet another of them. It was built in 1780 for Qianlong’s seventieth birthday; the Sixth Panchen Lama came from the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in
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15.17. Putuozongcheng (Potala) Temple, Chengde, Hebei, 1767–1771
Shigatse, Tibet, for the occasion. Qianlong decided to honor his extremely long journey by having a replica of the Tibetan monastery, whose name has the same meaning, built for him. Xumifushou Monastery occupies 37,900 square meters on a hill just east of Putuozongchengmiao. Different from the visit of the fifth Dalai Lama to Qianlong’s great-grandfather Shunzhi in Beijing some 150 years earlier, which could be described as a peacekeeping mission initiated by the emperor, this visit involved the Panchen Lama coming of his own volition to honor the most powerful ruler in Asia. Qianlong reciprocated by the unprecedented architectural display and exquisite gifts, and by sitting with the lama in these halls to gain instruction in Buddhism. Unfortunately, the lama died of smallpox in Beijing the same year. More than Ta’ersi or the Chengde temple complex modeled after the Potala in Lhasa, Xumifushoumiao took the form of a Chinese monastery. Its six main structures from south to north are the Shanmen, stele pavilion, a glazed ceramic tile pailou, Great Red Terrace in which is concealed the Miaogaozhuangyan (Solemn Sumeru) Hall, an additional two-story hall, and the octagonal Wanshou Pagoda faced with glazed ceramic tile. The Panchen Lama’s residence, Jixiangfaxi (Auspicious Dharma) Hall, roofed with gold-plated copper tiles, is on the west behind the main building. Great Red Terrace is yet another unique building that stands at Chengde. A three-story, red foundation with rows of small rectangular windows on the exterior, joined by two-story platforms behind and to the east, supports the two-story Miaogaozhuangyan Hall where the lama preached. Covered with a Chinese, gilded, double-eave, pyramidal roof and with five smaller pavilions with pyramidal roofs among the three platforms, the main
hall is accessible only from the uppermost, central terrace (figure 15.18). A statue of the founder of the Gelug sect and Śākyamuni are inside it. The eastern red platform is where Qianlong relaxed while receiving the lama’s preaching. Words such as convergence and eclecticism and phrases such as landscape architecture and politically motivated construction all describe Qing Lamaist architecture. Chengde is a much more powerful and far greater architectural and political achievement. It is a landscape that was altered in the eighteenth century by two of China’s greatest rulers, emperors worthy of the adjective “great” among the most significant rulers in the history of the world. Kangxi and Qianlong, even as they were restoring Beijing’s imperial monuments, spreading the Lamaist faith through architecture across thousands of kilometers north and west of Beijing, visiting and constructing in the rest of China from the sacred peaks to the southern beauty spots, and building gardens of unparalleled scope discussed in the next chapter, carefully and deliberately defined the political use of architecture and its relation to empire in ways that had never before been accomplished in China and are rare in human history. And even as they accomplished this Sino-Tibetan architectural achievement, the adherence to major buildings, no matter their style, on a strict axis and the three straight sides of a southern enclosure and mountainous terrain behind them mimicked the plan of the Ming or Qing imperial tomb as much as it did a lamasery in the Tibetan highlands. The palace, lake, plain, mountains, and monasteries combine to epitomize the meaning of the Qing imperial vision: emperor and empire were the center, which could be located in more than one structural complex and of more than one building style, for at Chengde from the Kangxi through the Qianlong reigns, Qing China
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15.18. Entrance gate and Red Terrace, Xumifushou Temple, Chengde, Hebei, 1780
was the realization of a political unity of China, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and Inner Asia. It was a vision that would wreak havoc across all these regions in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.
Buddhist Architecture in the Yunnan Marshes The Qing also stretched and Buddhism also was practiced far southwest in China. Buddhist architecture on the Chinese side of the Mekong River, in the Xishuangbanna (Sipsongpanna) autonomous region of southern Yunnan province that shares almost 1,000 kilometers of border with Myanmar and Laos, is often labeled Sino-Burmese for reasons similar to those that elicit the label Sino-Tibetan. It is home to monasteries of the Dai (often spelled Tai in English), a Sino-Burmese people. Like their counterparts in Myanmar, Dai monasteries in Xishuangbanna stand in the center of villages or on high ground outside them. They lack the enclosing arcades that define Chinese and, as we have seen, some Sino-Tibetan monasteries. The Buddha hall is the most important building in a Dai monastery, although almost every monastery also has a pagoda. Standard structures of Chinese Buddhist monasteries, including gates, sutra libraries, and monks’ residences, are usually present.16 Today Buddhism is so strong among the Dai that a majority of young Dai boys are
educated at monasteries from around the age of eight until their twenties.17 Two of the most important monasteries are within the municipality of Jinghong, about 29 kilometers from the border with Myanmar. Manchunman Monastery is in open space in the center of Ganlan (Olive) village in Menghan, Jinghong. With an entry gate, Buddha hall, sutra library, pagoda, and two monks’ quarters, it typifies a Dai monastery. The seven-bay Buddha hall has a hip-gable roof, but its interior is open to the outside. The sutra library is south of the gate, and the pagoda is south of the Buddha hall. Manchumansi was Xishuangbanna’s oldest monastery until it was destroyed in the 1960s. Now rebuilt, when it rains, worshipers pray in the pagoda rather than the Buddha hall. The abundant palm trees add to its aura. Manfeilong Monastery, focused on a white, brick, nine-pagoda pagoda, is on a mountain 70 kilometers outside Jinghong. Said to have been built by three monks who came from India at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the pagoda is elevated on a 3.9-meter, roughly circular, multitier podium, with eight porticoes on their own bases, each covering a Buddha niche. A 9.1-meter pagoda stands behind each portico with the central, 16.29-meter pagoda rising at the center. Each cylindrical tower narrows at the top like a Tibetan pagoda. Locals call it Bamboo Shoot Pagoda (figure 15.19). Brightly painted porticoes and their bases are typical of the bold colors of much Dai architecture.
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15.19. Bamboo Shoot Pagoda, Manfeilong Monastery, Jinghong county, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan
A darker brick pagoda, known as Black Pagoda in contrast to this white pagoda, is 3.5 kilometers to the south. Standing more than 18 meters, it has bricks that are actually grayish. The brightly painted, thirty-two-corner structure at Jingzhen Monastery in Menghai county was built in 1701. It is a sutra library where monks gathered to study on the fifteenth and thirtieth days of the lunar month. The building is supported by a wooden frame. Inside, straight columns rise from the platform to the top of the ceiling, framing the center, while shorter straight posts are placed two horizontally and two vertically at each level to resemble sets of steps. They support ten layers of eight roofs. The stepped exterior of the base level is a feature of Dai architecture. Qing-period Dai architecture also remains in Luxi, Dehong county, in western Yunnan. Built in 1725, the triple-eave, timber-frame Great Buddha Hall is at the center of the east-westoriented Great Buddha Monastery. Hexagonal pagodas are north and south of it in front. The hall follows a screen wall, Shanmen, and paifang. The hall is heavily painted with dragons and clouds coiling around its interior pillars. A large, foursided pagoda next to the Buddha hall on its south takes the form of the pagoda at Jingzhen Monastery with projections along all sides of its lowest portion and a conical shaft that decreases in perimeter along the fifteen levels toward the top. Jieqin Dajin Pagoda is in Ruili, about 75 kilometers to the south on the border with Myanmar. A five-pagoda pagoda, the central four-sided and more than 30 meters tall, is elevated on
a circular platform of 35 meters in diameter and 30 meters in height. Sixteen smaller pagodas, those at the cardinal directions with square bases and the others with circular bases, are around it. The main pagoda is of the form in Luxi and Menghai, with a three-tier podium, a short, octagonal shaft known as a Sumeru altar above it, and fifteen layers of decreasing perimeter circling toward the top. Four Buddha niches extend on rectangular platforms on each side. Stele do not record visits by Qing rulers to southern or western Yunnan. Untouched by imperial Qing edicts and used for the same kind of worship as monasteries to its south and west, Sino-Burmese architecture of the Dai nevertheless references China in its use of gates along major building lines, timber-frame Buddha halls, and sometimes enclosing arcades, even though its pagoda style identifies its locale. Unlike pagodas of Sino-Tibetan style, pagodas of the Dai never reached Beijing or China’s sacred Buddhist mountains.
Dong Towers Guizhou is due east of Yunnan, and although four Chinese provinces border it, its southern border joins exclusively with autonomous regions. Guizhou is home to the ethnicities Hmong (sometimes known as Miao) and Kam, known as Dong in modern Chinese. The Dong have a distinctive type of architecture. Most often referred to as a tower, it stands at the center of a village. Pillar-supported, four-sided at the base, and with many eave layers above the first story, the Dong
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tower bears closer resemblance to a pagoda than to any other building type. It is for ritual, performance, and/or celebration but not worship.18 Most often a Dong tower contains a drum, a key structure in ceremonies that in earlier times was beaten to mark time. More than six hundred Dong towers, each slightly different, survive in China, about half of them in Guizhou or in Guangxi to the south. Always the focal point of its village, it is also the tallest building. A Dong tower can have four or eight sides. Zhaoxing village, in Liping county, has five Dong towers. Dong towers also can be linked into bridges, known as Wind and Rain Bridges (figure 15.20). Whether individual or linked as part of a bridge, each tower has a wooden frame of straight beams and posts of the kind used to support pagodas of the Dai in Yunnan and religious and palatial architecture across China in the Qing period.
Ming and Qing Islamic Architecture Mosque construction continued across China in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Islam that flourished in Ming China was practiced by Sinophone Muslims who not only spoke Chinese but lived as Chinese subjects. They were known as Hui. In the Song dynasty, Muslims had come to China primarily as merchants; in the Yuan dynasty, Muslims were among nonChinese populations that rose to high government positions under Mongol rule; in the Ming dynasty, initially a few mosques receiving imperial patronage, but major patronage came from the large Muslim population in eastern China that flourished along the Grand Canal, which connected Yangzhou with Tianjin and other places just east of Beijing. This was especially true after Yongle moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing and repaired the canal between 1411 and 1415. The structures of a mosque in Ming times were as much part of the Chinese building tradition as those of a Buddhist, Daoist, or Confucian temple. Under Qing rule, however, mosques, especially in the West, often exhibit more features of the lands of origin of their builders than of China. The emergence of Sino-Islamic architecture among the Uyghur population in western China is yet another aspect of the Qing desire to bring all peoples on the eastern side of the Asian continent under their fold. 15.20. Chengyang Wind and Rain Bridge, Ma’an, Guangxi, 1912–1924
Ming Mosques Two of China’s most exceptional Ming mosques are in capital cities. Huajuexiangsi (the mosque on Huajue alley) is China’s largest mosque. Every building that stood there in the Ming dynasty remains in some form today, and every building is exemplary of Ming religious architecture patronized at a high level. In 742 a religious complex was established on the site. It was rebuilt between 1260 and 1263. The next record of construction is 1392, when Huajuexiang Mosque, today in the northwestern part of Xi’an, was built with the sanction of the emperor Hongwu and the support of China’s famous seafarer Zheng He (1371–1435), a Muslim and court eunuch. The Great Mosque in Xi’an consists of five courtyards along an extremely long axial line, oriented due east so that the westernmost building’s terminus is the miḥrāb, the recessed space in the wall of the prayer hall that indicates the direction of Makkah. From the Ming dynasty on, it was common for mosques to be oriented eastward so that the miḥrāb would be at the back end of a hall. This is in contrast to Song and Yuan mosques such as Huaishengsi in Guangzhou at which a worshiper entered the Chinesestyle complex on the south and then turned eastward so that he would enter the prayer space in the direction of Makkah (see fig 12.17). More than twenty buildings occupy the enclosed 254-by-47-meter space of the Xi’an mosque. The first courtyard is the smallest, defined by a brick screen wall, two side gates, and a five-bay gate with a wooden pailou behind it. Next are a three-bay stone paifang and two stele pavilions. The focus of the third courtyard is a multistory octagonal building that some believe is a minaret; the identification has never been confirmed. Service and administrative buildings are on the sides. Yiyizhi (One and Only) Pavilion is behind it. Three avenues lead to the fourth courtyard and prayer hall, a seven-by-four-bay building with a single-eave, hip-gable roof of azure, glazed tiles (figure 15.21). Its three central, back bays extend to the back to become the miḥrāb. The prayer hall measures 32.9 by 27.5 meters, a huge space with no side windows. The area including the miḥrāb is about 1,300 square meters and able to accommodate more than a thousand worshipers. There is no reason to believe that the buildings of the Xi’an mosque were made in imitation of specific structures. The mosque follows the spatial and architectural principles
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15.21. Entry to prayer hall, Huajuexiang Mosque, Xi’an, 1392 with later repairs
and details of craftsmanship and design of China at every turn. The plan with its length to width ratio of 5:1 recalls the axial line of Ming-Qing Beijing after the addition of the outer city under Jiajing, the Confucian Temple in Qufu, and Northern Song Longxingsi (see figures 10.3, 14.13). Its individual halls and courtyards are as those of Zhihuasi, Chongshansi, Upper Guangshengsi, and Bao’ensi in Pingwu (see figure 14.4), all of which, one recalls, received high-level patronage from eunuchs or the equivalent. The screen wall and gateways, pailou or paifang, and hexagonal towers all have counterparts across China. Most important is that the mosque buildings are based on China’s most eminent architecture. The Jingjuesi (Pure Awakening Mosque) in Nanjing was begun twenty years later than Huajuexiangsi. According to a stele on site, the same men worked on both mosques.19 Both were completed in 1392. Chici, “bestowed by imperial order,” is emblazoned on an imitation imperial plaque at the top center of the three-entry gateway. It was placed there following repairs commissioned by Jiajing. Ox Street Mosque is the largest mosque in Beijing and the one with the longest history. It has one of the longest continuous histories among religious complexes in China. The name and street location are references to the Muslim prohibition against eating pork and to the ritual slaughter of oxen. This name was not used until the Qing dynasty, when the mosque served a large Muslim neighborhood in the southwestern part of Beijing’s outer city.20 The history of Ox Street Mosque begins with a Muslim seafarer known in Chinese as Gewamoding, who came to China before the year 960 with his three sons to teach Islam.
In 996 his second son received imperial permission to build the mosque in the city that was then the Liao southern capital. The late-tenth-century mosque was smaller than Ox Street Mosque today, standing amid cherry trees and pomegranate orchards. Sometime during the period 1068–1077, Zunjinglou (Venerating the Scriptures Tower) was erected. Perhaps the building was a library, perhaps taking its precedent from the multistory sutra libraries standard in Buddhist monasteries. Or perhaps it was a minaret, for after rebuilding in 1496 the structure was known by the names Huanlilou (call to prayer tower) and Xuanlilou (announce prayer tower), both confirming its function as a minaret. The mosque existed in the Yuan period. A pair of cenotaphs are reconstructed versions of those for Shaykh Muhammad Buʾertani and Shaykh ʿAli, who died in 1280 and 1283, respectively. In the Yuan dynasty, there were more than thirty mosques in Dadu,21 so that in spite of the large number of Muslims in China and in the capital, the mosque did not expand significantly during this period. Through the centuries, Ox Street Mosque changed more than the mosque in Xi’an. By 1442 a seven-bay-deep prayer hall was the focus of an east-west-oriented mosque. Lecture halls stood on either side. In addition to rebuilding in 1496, repair, reconstruction, or expansion occurred in 1427, 1442, 1474, 1628, 1676, 1696, 1702, during the Qianlong period, in 1902, 1921, 1938, and throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Like the mosque in Xi’an, Ox Street Mosque begins at a screen wall, today across the street from the formal entry. Notably, it is on the west side of the building complex. Behind it is a pailou and then the hexagonal Wangyuelou (Moon-Viewing Tower). Even though the name allies it with structures used by
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15.22. Ox Street Mosque, showing minaret, Beijing, fifteenth century with later repairs
Chinese literati in garden settings to contemplate while watching the moon, a moon-viewing structure is another example of the convergence of the Chinese and Muslim building traditions: it is also a tall building for viewing the moon during Ramadan to determine when the heavenly body is high enough for Muslims to break their fast. At Ox Street Mosque, the four-sided tower first built in 1496 and repaired many times afterward is the minaret (figure 15.22). Orientation is related to the ambiguity of two multistory buildings on the main axial line of the mosque. The prayer hall is positioned between the two towers, with its miḥrāb on the west, facing Makkah, but in contrast to almost every other mosque in China, it is closer to the street entry than to the interior courtyards of the mosque. The location of the moon-viewing tower also raises the question whether at one time it was a minaret. Ox Street Mosque comprises four courtyards and accommodates some one thousand worshipers. Its aesthetics are different from those of Huajuexiangsi. Whereas the Xi’an mosque follows the plan and retains structures of Ming religious architecture, Ox Street Mosque exemplifies a clearer blending of Chinese and Islamic taste. Qur’anic verses or the name of the Prophet are interwoven into building components that include bracket sets, decorative bands that frame floral and other ornaments, ornamentation on roof rafter ends, animals on roof ridges, and ceiling lattices. Yet every detail is brightly painted and boldly executed, with sharper outlines, more gold paint, and shinier tones than their counterparts in Xi’an. The juxtaposition of reds, greens, and blues is stronger even than one sees inside some of the most highly decorated Chinese temples or palatial halls.
The distinctive blending of bright colors, gold paint, Chinese architectural members, and intense decoration through calligraphy and patterning at Ox Street Mosque is equally present at Dongsi Mosque, located in the Dongcheng district of Beijing. Founded at the same time as the mosque on Ox Street, Dongsi Mosque underwent extensive repairs in the twentieth century. Stone reliefs on some of the building foundations that survive from the Ming or Qing period suggest craftsmanship similar to that of the Five-Pagoda Pagoda at Wutasi (see figure 15.2). Jining, on the Grand Canal in southern Shandong province, is the location of the enormous Great East Mosque (Dongdasi), third in size after the mosque in Xi’an and the original Jingjue Mosque in Nanjing.22 The front gate faces the Grand Canal. A stele records its founding in 1454–1464. Expansion and repairs occurred under Kangxi and Qianlong. The structures along an east-west axial line are typical of mosques of the period. First is a three-entry, stone paifang, next a three-entry, two-story main gate, then a second three-bay gate, and fourth, a cruciform-shaped, three-part prayer complex that becomes increasingly common in the Ming period: a front porch functions as an antechamber, a prayer area is behind it, and then a narrower space behind, often known as yaodian (literally “kiln hall” or “hole hall”) that sometimes functions as a place for a small group of worshipers with a miḥrāb at the very back. A unique feature of Chinese mosques, the name yaodian may reflect that it was warmer than the rest of the mosque, like a kiln, or that it was often made of brick, also like a kiln. Behind the prayer complex are the three-bay, hexagonally roofed, moon-viewing tower and a wooden pailou. Other buildings include a lecture hall, hall for ablutions, administrative offices, and residences.
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15.23. Courtyard, North Mosque, Xuanhua, Hebei, 1703
Size is only one reason for the grandeur of Jining Great East Mosque. The other is the quality of decoration. Above we noted similarities between the plan of Huajuexiangsi in Xi’an and the Confucian Temple in Qufu, and we observed comparisons between marble carving at Dongda Mosque and Wutaisi, both in Beijing and the latter a recipient of imperial Ming patronage. Jining is a mere 30 kilometers from Qufu. The stone of the white marble pillars and paifang of Great East Mosque may be from the same quarry or perhaps made by the same workshops as architecture in Confucius’s hometown; the high quality of materials and level of workmanship at this mosque seems to have been on a par with that of China’s most important temple for its most influential statesman. Not only do China’s grandest Ming-Qing mosques have buildings that follow Chinese structural norms, their workmanship is the quality of monuments that received imperial patronage. Great North Mosque in Linqing, Zhenjiao Mosque in Qingzhou, Great North Mosque in Cangzhou, the mosque in Botou, and Tianjin Great Mosque all were founded in the fifteenth century along the Grand Canal. Today each one retains either Ming buildings or Chinese-style structures restored in the Qing dynasty.23 Not all Muslims who entered China in the Yuan dynasty gravitated to cities along the Grand Canal. Many stayed in Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Henan. Xuanhua, a county that borders Beijing to the west and the location of Liao tombs mentioned in chapter 8 (see figure 8.13), had mosques in the Yuan period. South Mosque was founded in 1403. Xuanhua North Mosque, constructed in 1703, is the largest in the city today (figure 15.23). Shanxi’s mosques in Datong and Taiyuan are said to have been founded in the Tang dynasty. A stele of imperial sanction carved in 1742 records the founding date of Datong Mosque as 628. Its prayer hall is covered by a conical dome whose closest comparisons are the Imperial Vault of Heaven at the Temple of
Heaven and Xuguang Pavilion at Pulesi in Chengde (see figures 13.9, 15.16). Taiyuan Mosque has a founding date of 785–805. Both Tang dates are probably as apocryphal as the purported founding of Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou (see figure 12.17). East Mosque in Kaifeng also has a founding date in the Tang dynasty. Repair dates during the Hongwu and Yongle reigns are more plausible. Kaifeng’s Zhuxian Mosque is said to have been founded between 976 and 983, shortly after the city became the Song capital.24 Great North Mosque in Qinyang has a more verifiable founding date in the fourteenth century. All these mosques have decorative animals along the ridges of ceramic tile roofs of prayer halls, proclaiming from the outside that they are Chinese structures. The same features are present in mosques of Anhui province. Those with the longest histories are in Shou(xian) in central Anhui and in Anqing in the south of the province. To the east, Songjiang Mosque, located in what is now a suburb of Shanghai, is announced by a screen wall. Behind it are buildings whitewashed in the manner of southeastern China’s residential architecture discussed in the next chapter. Islam came to the Shanghai region in the early twelfth century and continued in the Yuan. Songjiang Mosque is believed to have been founded in the thirteenth century, but its buildings date to the eighteenth century or later.25 China’s Northwest has a long history of population migration and settlement. It was a region of supreme importance in the Qing dynasty. Already in the Ming dynasty, the term gedimu (al-qadim [the ancient]) appears in Chinese discussions of Muslims.26 By the early Qing period, Sufi orders and teachers had migrated to northwestern China, particularly the region where Gansu province touches Ningxia and Qinghai. Those orders would have a decisive impact on the strength of Islam in this part of China that is sometimes abbreviated as Gan-Ning-Qing.27 Dozens of old mosques survive here, an area that through the ages had been home to non-Chinese peoples including Xianbei, Uyghurs, and Western Xia. Western Xia tombs and Buddhist architecture were standing when Muslims began mosque construction (see figure 8.18). A new type of building appeared in Chinese mosques at this time, gongbei, the Chinese word for qubba, a mausoleum or memorial shrine for a holy man, often a Sufi. Qubba is the Arabic word for dome, and qubba are almost always domed, in China as elsewhere. Na Family (Najia) Mosque in Yongning, Ningxia, is one of the few mosques in the region with a definite founding
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15.24. Entry to Na Family Mosque, Yongning, Ningxia, 1524 with late-twentieth-century repairs
date and certainty about its patrons. It is also a rare Chinese mosque closely associated with one family. The Na were descendants of a Muslim family who moved to China in the Yuan dynasty. The majority of Na have lived in Ningxia since the Yuan period.28 Today they make up 64 percent of the population of the village in Yongning that contains their family mosque.29 The 2,000-square-meter area is dominated by two structures: a gate with side towers and the prayer complex behind it. The green roof tiles of the five-bay front gate present an initial image of a late Ming–early Qing tower even though the gray bricks indicate much more recent restoration. The frontal view is remarkably similar to Ming-Qing gateways and facades in North China (figure 15.24). Five features stand out: the upper stories are three bays and the lower two stories are five bays across the front, all with a widest central bay in accordance with Chinese standards; each story has its own ceramic tile roof, the uppermost a combination hip-gable; each story has a balustrade; each story has queti, the “sparrow braces” that are ubiquitous in Qing architecture; and each story of each pavilion has two sets of rafters beneath the convex ceramic end tiles, the upper rafters four-sided in section and the lower rafters circular. All five details are so common in late Ming and Qing architecture that there is no reason to suggest that the majestic entryway was constructed in imitation of any specific building. Still, comparisons can be made to specific buildings such as the tower above Jiayu Pass in Gansu: here as there, the multilayer, pagoda-like building decorates the middle of the main roof ridge. The same feature is found at lamasery buildings in China and Tibet. The towers
on either side of the Na Family Mosque gateway present as paired minarets, features of Iranian mosques since the twelfth century and in later periods in Turkey and India as well.30 Interestingly, however, at this mosque, the three upper levels of the central building serve as the minaret, whereas the sides decorate it in the manner of que. The chuihua (wooden struts whose ends are carved like flowers) directly under the centers of the bracket sets beneath the lowest level of the minaret portion of the gate are purely Chinese. The prayer space of Na Family Mosque consists of the same three parts that define the majority of mosques in China: antechamber, prayer hall, and yaodian with a miḥrāb. Tongxin Mosque near the center of Ningxia has the same types of buildings and is roughly the same age, but it lacks the colorful roof tiles used at Na Family Mosque. Tongxin Mosque began as a lamasery in the Yuan period. It was converted to a mosque during the early Ming. We have seen that this kind of transformation of religious space for use by another religion, or between secular and religious functions, is standard in China; lamaseries and mosques were part of it. Ningxia has nearly seventy gongbei. Ershilipu Gongbei in Guyuan county is one of the most spectacular (figure 15.25). Its buildings date to the Qing period. The mausoleum with its roof of curved sides divided by clearly defined ridges is the exterior visual sign that this complex is a gongbei. Architectural components of timber-frame buildings are those of twentieth- to twenty-first-century Chinese religious construction in premodern style: ceramic tile roofs and wooden bracket sets combine with brick exterior walls.
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15.25. Courtyard, Ershilipu Gongbei, Qing period with twenty-first century repairs
Gansu, known for architecture of the Sixteen States periods and the Mogao and other Buddhist caves of the Hexi Corridor, today has about three thousand mosques, the earliest with histories dating to the Yuan dynasty.31 Similar to the situation in northern Ningxia that led to destruction of so many Western Xia pagodas, mentioned in chapter 8, uprisings and aggression between the Qing government and its non-Chinese subjects meant that almost no pre-twentieth-century mosque building survives in Gansu; in fact, few mosque buildings are more than thirty years old.32 The greatest concentration of Gansu mosques is in the Hui autonomous region today known as Linxia, former Hezhou (He prefecture), about 100 kilometers southwest of Lanzhou. In spite of new building materials, a typical Linxia prayer hall is supported by wooden pillars and has an exposed wooden roof frame, bracket sets, and a ceramic tile roof. Bright colors, particularly red, yellow, and green, proliferate inside and outside its buildings. Patterns include flowers such as lotuses or lotus petals and chrysanthemums, all frequently used in Chinese architectural decoration, as well as vines and vegetal forms that are more often associated with West Asia. Details also include animals, especially auspicious Chinese animals such as lions, bats, and mythological creatures, even though the representation of sentient beings is prohibited in Islam. Chinese characters frequently are found in mosque decoration. In all likelihood, every piece of a traditional-style mosque was made by Chinese craftmen. Architecture in Linxia is testament to the meaning of a Hui community: the
craftsmen are trained as Chinese craftsmen; their spiritual devotion is Islam; their craft is also used in Buddhist and Daoist construction. Founded in 1377, Laowang Mosque is one of the largest and oldest. Expanded and repaired by local donation in 1736, it was destroyed during Muslim-Chinese conflict in 1928, rebuilt from 1933 to 1944, destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in 1968, and reconstructed along with redevelopment of the site from 1980 to 1983. The worship space is a typical Chinese-style mosque of three parts: anteroom, prayer area, and yaodian. The minaret is hexagonal, built with a wooden frame and balustrades on each level. Laohua Mosque was founded about a century later, between 1465 and 1487. Like Laowang Mosque, it had a local patron, and also similarly, it was destroyed in 1928, reconstructed in 1941, destroyed in 1967, rebuilt in 1979, and rebuilt again beginning in 1981. The massive Nanguan Great Mosque was founded in 1273, expanded during the reign of Hongwu and again under Qianlong, destroyed in 1928, rebuilt in 1931, devastated in 1968, and rebuilt between 1980 and 1983. It has a front facade that retains queti on either side of the pillars, but inside it has been transformed into a contemporary Islamic structure. Linxia is replete with gongbei. The majority take the form of a hexagonal shaft rising on a hexagonal platform; a six-sided layer defined by eaves that curve sharply at the ends crowns the shaft; the roof is hexagonal, curved like a dome with clear ridges dividing the faces; and tall ornaments composed of numerous individual bulbs or other shapes rise at the top center.
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Mosques in Xining and contiguous Muslim autonomous counties are similar to those of Linxia. Dongguan Great Mosque is enormous; it covers an area of 11,940 square meters. Built in the late fourteenth century by sanction of Hongwu, the early Ming mosque was a single courtyard with a prayer hall and two multistory minarets. Significant expansion took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, only to suffer intense devastation. The worship hall survives in its late-nineteenth-century form. Today a white-washed gate constructed in 1946 is overshadowed by the huge mosque that serves as a major center of the Muslim community. Its interior features three-tiered, fan-shaped bracket sets with arms that radiate at 30-, 45-, 60-, and 90-degree angles from the wall plane, queti that are transformed into flowers with petal designs, and relief carving that imitates a Chinese screen. The same kind of bracketing is used at Hongshuiquan Mosque, some 30 kilometers from the center of Xining, in Huangzhong county. The ceiling above the yaodian is one of the finest Qing examples of zaojing in existence. Entered on the south where a screen wall is positioned, the main structures are the worship hall and minaret. The unpainted buildings recall those of the Ming monastery Qutansi in Ledu, on the other side of Xining, discussed in chapter 14 (see figure 14.5). Muslim Architecture in Xinjiang The mosques of Xinjiang are primarily built for Uyghurs, the ethnicity of nearly half of Xinjiang’s population and about half of China’s Muslim population. Xinjiang’s Uyghur mosques share much with mosques of five countries to its west: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. We have already noted that Xinjiang was crucial to the Qing vision of empire. In the 1750s Qing had allied with Uyghurs to conquer the Zünghars. In 1876 the Qing launched a serious attack deeper into Xinjiang, by then not only a political prize but also a crucial region for Chinese domination in a part of Asia eyed covetously by the Russians. In 1884, following an eight-year war, Qing annexed the eastern part of the lands then known as Turkestan and named the region Xinjiang, “new frontier.”33 Sufi orders that had entered Qinghai, Ningxia, and Gansu in the previous century often had come by way of Xinjiang, and because their route had taken them through contested lands to the west, leaders of those orders sometimes were considered militant by the Qing and later Chinese
governments. In fact, the areas of Xinjiang where Qing and then Republican and then Communist China established offices had until those times served primarily Muslim regional populations that had lived without much allegiance to any government.34 Several of Xinjiang’s mosques or mausoleums have become famous not as important architecture so much as because they have been foci of political strife in recent times. Unlike the mosques and gongbei discussed above and in chapter 12, the mosques and tombs in Xinjiang are much more similar to those outside China’s current borders. The mosque-tomb complex of King Boxi’er, also known as King Hui, is in Hami (Qumul) in eastern Xinjiang near the Gansu border. Islam came to Hami from Turfan at the end of the fourteenth century. Hami’s first mosque was built in 1490. Ten generations of Muslim kings of Hami were laid to rest in the complex from the 1690s until 1932. The 20-by-20 meter mausoleum, decorated with glazed tiles inside and outside, belongs to Boxi’er, who was executed after the Muslim rebellion of 1867 but buried here the following year.35 Sugongta (tower of Sugong) in Turfan is the Chinese name for the Amin (Emin) Minaret. Sugong translates as Lord Su, Su being the first syllable of the name Sulayman. Sugong was the son of the local leader Amin Khoja, who financed the minaret that was completed by his son Sugong in 1778. By that point it also had become a memorial tower to the father. The structure was once briefly a pagoda. The conical mud-brick minaret rises 44 meters, the tallest minaret in China, and is decorated with sixteen patterns on the exterior. It tapers from 14 meters in diameter at the base to 2.8 meters at the top and is ascended by an interior spiral staircase of seventy-two steps. Fourteen windows provide light to the outside. Sugongta is connected to an equally enormous mosque complex whose great size is especially noticeable because it is undecorated (figure 15.26). The minaret is positioned at the southeastern corner. The mosque is entered via a formal, central pishtaq, the kind of gateway at Shengyou Mosque (see figure 12.16). A domed octagonal hallway joins the worship hall behind it. Sugong Minaret is accessible by a corridor to the south and stairs from a roof to the north. The prayer hall is enclosed by a two-bay-wide gallery. Its roof is supported by wooden columns in a hypostyle arrangement. Yining, the location of Tughluq Temür’s tomb mentioned in chapter 12, has numerous mosques. Hui Mosque, known as Shaanxi Mosque because it is said to have been modeled after Huajuexiangsi in Xi’an, was founded in 1760 and completed in
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15.26. Sugong (Emin) Minaret and Mosque, Turfan, Xinjiang, 1778 with later repairs
1781. The practice of naming a mosque in Xinjiang after one in China proper occurs elsewhere in Xinjiang. It is similar to the naming of guild halls for the homelands of their transplanted associates, discussed in chapter 14 (see figure 14.18). At Hui Mosque, one begins at the Shanmen, then proceeds to a brightly painted, three-story minaret, the lower two stories larger and four-sided with a small, hexagonal top story. Each level has broadly sloping, ceramic-tile eaves on each face. The prayer hall is long and narrow, divided into three standard interior spaces found in mosques of China’s Hui population. Animals decorate the ends of roof spines, another feature that is rare in Xinjiang but seen at Hui mosques. The Great Mosque of Shache (Yarkand or Yarkant) originally was covered with ceramic tiles. The prayer hall is a flatroofed structure with thin columns arranged in hypostyle fashion enclosed by a verandah framed by equally thin, decorated wooden columns. The back area is covered with a dome that is identified on the exterior by green glazed tiles. The Khoja Mausoleum in Shache is an octagonal structure with cylindrical corner columns and a dome covered with glazed blue tiles. Its pishtaq has a pointed-arched portal framing a pointed-arched passageway, the only access to the building. Other sides are decorated with pointed arches set in rectangular frames. Islam came to Kashgar (Kashi), the largest city in Western Xinjiang, in the tenth century. Kashgar’s ʿIdgah (Aidikaʾer/ Etigar) is the largest mosque in China. It was first built in 1442; the current golden-brick structure was begun in 1798 and enlarged in 1838 to its current size of 16,800 square
meters. Entered via an 8-meter-high archway that opens onto a domed, octagonal space and is joined by walls to two 18-meter minarets at the corners, the enormous gateway is set behind an active market. The minarets are not identical; the wider one on the north connects to a shorter wall, yet the yellow-brick entrance is dwarfed by the courtyard and worship space behind it. The courtyard is a unique trapezoidal shape that can accommodate several thousand worshipers. The prayer hall, thirty-eight bays wide and 2,600 square meters, is divided into inner and outer sanctums. This is the largest number of bays across the front of any building in China. More than 140 slender, wooden pillars, painted green, square at the base, and with octagonal shafts, support the wooden ceiling beams of the flat roof in a hypostyle arrangement. Some have wooden bracket sets or incised details. Other pillars more closely resemble those of the mosques of Central Asia, Iran, or the Indian subcontinent, but in every case a decorative pattern carved into wood, a material such as lacquer, or color indicates that the architecture makes reference to many traditions but adheres to no single one. The mausoleum of Aba (Afāq) Khoja also is considered a superlative structure, part of the largest Islamic architectural complex in Xinjiang, and to some, the holiest Muslim building in Xinjiang. It was built in about 1640 as the tomb of the Sufi Muhammad Yūsuf, who came to the region from west of the Pamirs.36 Muhammad Yūsuf’s son Aba Khoja was interred in a gongbei in this complex in 1693, as were three more generations of his family.
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convergences: Lamaist, dai, islamic
Multiculturalism is inherent to the Qing definition of empire, and, as we have seen, Qing is the first period when architecture with non-Chinese features in China’s core provinces is not rare. Still, Qing use of architecture was deliberate: the only force permitted to legislate non-Chinese architecture in Qing China was imperial patronage. That is why mosques were periodically purged in Xinjiang and in Gan-Ning-Qing. We do not know who built the gateway at Shengyou Mosque in Quanzhou (see figure 12.16). We do know that Khubilai sanctioned construction of Miaoyingsi Pagoda by his minister Anige. In the next chapter, we shall see that Jesuits who instructed the Qing ruling house in math and science and painted their portraits were commissioned by emperors to design gardens for them, but emperors did not commission churches. Christians were periodically purged in China, and even as Qing rulers decorated palaces with European designs, they commissioned lamaseries. The autonomous regions and counties where Tibetan, Dai, and Islamic architecture stands today are part of the twenty-first century narrative of Chinese architectural history that also includes monuments of the Koguryŏ, Parhae, Uyghur, and Tangut empires. However, whereas architecture of these historic peoples is cared for by the government as national treasures or important cultural properties, and sometimes conserved by organizations such as UNESCO, most of the building complexes that received strong patronage from the Qing beyond Beijing’s imperial structures or in Chengde are living religious buildings that were actively used into the twentieth century. That a large subset of them are in autonomous regions underscores the success of the Qing vision.
Islamic buildings in Xinjiang with visual ties to Islamic architecture far west of China are consistent with the Qing vision of empire; without the vast territory beyond China—Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and the regions that touch Southeast Asia— the Manchus might have had a dynasty, but Qing would not have been the empire it was. Opinions differ about the appropriateness of labels like Sino-Tibetan, Sino-Burmese, or Sino-Islamic. Used here, the labels specify religious buildings in China where that religion was not native. Sino-Buddhist of course had long since become an irrelevant designation, because Buddhism had become Chinese, but it could have been applied in the Han dynasty. Islam also had a long history in China, and to a certain extent Ming mosques might be considered Chinese religious architecture, but the term Sino-Islamic has clear visual meaning in gongbei of Gan-Ning-Qing and during the Qing period in Xinjiang when that region was so important politically. The merging of two architectural traditions is as evident in architecture we have called Sino-Tibetan, but in that case, Qing emperors practiced Lamaism. Ming rulers also had been patrons of mosques and Lamaist architecture in China, but their commitment to neither faith was strong or consistent. Like all eminent religious construction, a mosque of the grandeur of the Xi’an mosque, or in a capital city, or in a contested region could not have been built according to the standards of palatial architecture without imperial sanction. The Yuan rulers present an interesting contrast to those of Qing. The Mongol rulers of China embraced the Chinese palace tradition, so that even though they were patrons of the occasional Lamaist structure such as the pagoda at Miaoying Monastery (see figure 12.20), the architecture they used otherwise was Chinese, as the Northern Wei and Liao and others before them, to display their power as Chinese emperors. In the seventeenth century the Manchus had to allow and occasionally embrace non-Chinese architectural forms to accomplish their political vision, and indeed, one emperor, not four brothers and cousins as had been the case in the thirteenth century, ruled Asia from Kashgar to Heilongjiang. Chengde is a model display of the Qing political use of architecture, and proof that the Qing understood that architecture of every people in their territory could serve them as a symbolic demonstration of their control over those peoples and their homelands.
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CHAPTER 16
Garden and House
The regulations of the Chinese building industry break down and individual human contributions or ethnic designs emerge in landscape and vernacular architecture. Still, they are controlled environments, both guided by manuals written in the Ming dynasty. For gardens, names of designers are often known. The Chinese have built parks or gardens for millennia, but the physical evidence of residential construction is much older. We have observed it at Banpo and Hemudu (see figures 1.2, 1.4). Oracle bones have glyphs that designate large open spaces that were game preserves, presumably for imperial hunting, and that refer to places of planting. Shanhaijing (Classic of Mountains and Waterways), dated around the fourth century BCE, describes pavilions amid landscape on Isles of the Immortals, including Penglai. Qin Shi Huangdi had a game preserve, and Han princes in Guangzhou and Chong’an, as noted in chapter 3, built gardens. Tuyuan (Rabbit Garden), which included exotic rocks, was a Western Han garden. Although not every garden builder was royal, each had to be able to afford land for leisure purposes. Painting and poetry are integral to the aesthetic of the Chinese garden. The Chinese word for landscape painting, shanshui, combines the words for mountain and for water, which individually are emblazoned in the mind of any Chinese literatus who, as instructed in Confucius’s Analects, delights in both water and mountain.1 The other elements of a Chinese garden are rocks, the same material as a mountain but on much smaller scale, and plantings. Painting, poetry, and sometimes garden construction were arts cultivated by a Chinese literatus. All are subjects of poetry as well as painting from the period of Northern and Southern Dynasties onward. Seven literati who lived before the twelfth century may be singled out for writing poems through which the Chinese garden is understood or interpreted, and several of them also designed gardens: Tao Qian (ca. 365–427), Wang Wei (701–761), Bai/Bo Juyi (772–846), Su Shi (1035–1101), Huang Tingjian (1045–1105), Sima Guang (1019–1086) (compiler of the magisterial history Zizhi tongjian mentioned several times already), and Guo Xi (ca. 1020–ca. 1090).2 One of the major records of Song landscape architecture is the description of Huizong’s artificial magical mountain in the capital Bianliang, which was moved by the Jin to the landmass that became Qionghua Island in Yuan Dadu.3 In the Yuan dynasty, the primary record of Chinese gardens is from Marco Polo, who writes of gardens in Shangdu and Dadu as well as the beauty spots of Hangzhou.4
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A few parts of Song gardens remain in Suzhou, some of them revived in the Ming dynasty when Suzhou was one of China’s wealthiest cities, with a highly literate population. Some men acquired wealth and status without government service, choosing to stay in the South even after opportunities for China’s literati again opened in the post-Mongol world; others retired there following lives in officialdom. The impact of both groups made Suzhou a city of luxury, elitism, and garden design in the Ming dynasty.5 Parts of Chinese gardens may include sections for natural, even unrestricted, growth, but those sections are usually enclosed and always set apart. The breaks between bamboo, pine, and shrub, for example, are clear. The architecture in a Chinese garden may be large or small, and its windows are usually more individualized than those of a temple, but the pavilion, residence, or kiosk is supported by a wooden frame and almost always has a ceramic tile roof with broadly sloping eaves. Because of the landscape around it, an unusual structure often identifies itself as part of a Chinese garden, but a pavilion with four open sides is likely to be of the same structure as a stele pavilion in a formal courtyard of a palace or monastery (figure 16.1).
Gardens of South China Many of South China’s gardens are in Suzhou, and most of them are private and adjacent to residences. Siting is paramount, for if hills and water do not already exist, they need to become part of the private space. Suzhou’s Lake Tai (Taihu) offered a limestone island from which hill matter and rock could be transported. Suzhou is only 2 meters from groundwater, making garden construction yet more possible. One assessment suggests that five principles can be observed in Suzhou’s gardens: labyrinth, or twists and turns; rocks or woods so that at any time a view is limited; doors, gates, and windows to frame scenes or display them selectively; contrast through inclusion and exclusion, depth and breadth, color, and texture; and referencing of views or landscape outside the garden inside it.6 Anyone building a garden in Suzhou could count on a warm, sometimes extremely hot, climate where cold weather was rare. The oldest garden remains in Suzhou may be at Canglangting (Surging Waves Pavilion) Garden. Located in the southeastern part of the city, the 16,000-square-meter
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Garden and House
16.1. Garden of the Unsuccessful Politician, Suzhou, Ming dynasty and later
garden divides into two main sections. The scholar-official Su Shunqin/Zimei (1008–1048) in all likelihood was its designer. In 1045 Su was wrongly disgraced, was forced out of office, and left the Song capital (Bianliang) for Suzhou. He bought a flower garden that may have existed since the Five Dynasties period and built a pavilion in it, probably in 1047. He named it Canglang after a river by that name described in the Chuci (Songs of the South) by Qu Yuan (ca. 340–278 BCE), also a wrongly accused official who was removed from office. For Su Shunqin, Canglangting Garden became a place of retreat, solace, and writing, one in which he sought to understand his relationship to both worldly events and nature. After Su’s death, the garden had many owners. It was divided and owned by two families, then belonged to a Song general, was at times a Buddhist monastery, was owned by the governor of Jiangsu province, Song Luo, in the early Qing dynasty, who wrote a history of the garden in 1695, and was restored again in 1827 by a later governor of Jiangsu, Liang Zhangju (1775–1849), who also wrote its history.7 The pavilion in Su Shunqin’s name for the garden (Canglangting) was restored many times. The garden has more than 20 buildings, 153 steles, and 12 ancient trees. As at every private garden, the steles record the history of noteworthy people who walked there. Lin Zexu (1785–1850), for instance, once governor of Jiangsu and the official who so vehemently opposed China’s opium trade with Europe that his views were largely responsible for the First Opium War (1839–1842), and who was exiled to Xinjiang, is one of the more recent officials who considered themselves wronged by the empire and left an inscription, in his case four characters written on a rock.
The garden still divides into eastern and western sections. One enters the western section at an archway after which is a bridge and then Facing Water Pavilion, which is south of a lake and north of one of the two rock formations. Both are man-made, with a natural-appearing hill in each one. A zigzag corridor of a kind associated with Suzhou has 108 (a multiple of nine) different lattice windows that change the view at close and more distant range. Continuing east, one comes to a pavilion named Fishing Terrace that joins a path to Surging Wave Pavilion. The largest building in the garden is Mingdao (Illuminating the dao) Hall for study and lectures. Another building contains 594 statues of sages from Suzhou. Wangshi (Master of Fishnets) Garden, built in 1140 by Song official Shi Zhengzhi, is Suzhou’s second oldest garden and one of the smallest, only 5,400 square meters. Shi named his construction Myriad Books Hall. It was rebuilt in 1785 by a retired Qing official who gave it the current name, a reference to the humble life of a fisherman, to which Shi aspired. Ten years later another scholar acquired it, and then another official in 1868 and then the garden went to a private citizen who willed it to the government. Like Canglangting Garden, Master of Fishnets Garden divides into two parts. Here the eastern section is more clearly residential and the western has more garden elements (figure 16.2). Designers through the ages have sought to re-create the four seasons and the illusion of space. Setting buildings on piers above water or next to water, for instance, allows the water to enhance the illusion of increased size. Master of Fishnets Garden was the model for Chinese gardens in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and at Pompidou Center in Paris.
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Chapter 16
16.2. Residential sector looking onto landscape, Master of Fishnets Garden, Suzhou, Song dynasty and later
Shizilin (Lion Grove) is a model garden for its use of physical space as well as multiple layers of historical allusion. In 1342 a Buddhist monk built a monastery in honor of his teacher on the site of a Song garden. The monk named it Lion Grove because the mentor had lived on Lion Crag in the mountains outside Suzhou. The name is a further allusion to the leonine shapes of rocks. The late Yuan ink painter Ni Zan (1301–1374) painted Shizilin in 1373. Both Kangxi and Qianlong visited on inspection tours, Qianlong six times, and Shizilin served as a model for a section of the imperial gardens in Chengde (discussed in chapter 15). About 11,540 square meters in size, the garden is more a rock garden than Canglangting or Master of Fishnets Garden. The rocks are mainly from Taihu. Zhuozhengyuan (Garden of the Unsuccessful/Failed Politician or Humble Administrator) is a Ming garden associated with a painter (see figure 16.1).8 It is the largest garden in Suzhou, 52,000 square meters. Associated with a residence in the Tang dynasty, a garden in the mid-twelfth century, and a monastery garden in the Yuan, it was largely burned during the fall of Suzhou to Ming troops. In 1490 Wang Xianchen, by then a member of the Censorate in Beijing, was wrongly accused, received a punishment of thirty lashes, and was demoted to a post in Fujian. Passing through his hometown en route, Wang received a group of conciliatory poems for which Wen Zhengming (1470–1559), then barely twenty years old and to become one of sixteenth-century Suzhou’s most renowned painters, wrote the preface. While in the South, Wang received the highest official degree, jinshi, and returned to the Censorate in 1503, only to again be embroiled in a political scandal that saw him demoted to Guangdong. His rank rose again, but in
1510, upon his father’s death, he returned to Suzhou for the funeral and standard twenty-five months of mourning. By around 1513 Wang bought the garden and gave it the name that references a line in an essay by Jin dynasty scholar Pan Yue (247–300) entitled “Idle Life.” In 1533 Wen Zhengming wrote the essay “Notes on Wang’s Humble Administrator’s Garden,” which he illustrated with thirty-one paintings and accompanying poems. Eighteen years later Wen completed eight albumleaves to illustrate the same poems. The name of the garden had poignant significance for Wen. Born to a Suzhou family of wealth and prestige, and tutored by one of the most famous scholars of his day, Wen failed the exams for officialdom at least ten times. Whereas Wang Xianchen may be described as an unsuccessful politician, Wen Zhengming was a failed one. Like the other Suzhou gardens, Zhuozhengyuan changed ownership many times. One owner is said to have been the family of Cao Xueqin (1715–1763), author of the Story of the Stone (Dream of the Red Chamber [Hongloumeng]); Cao is believed to have spent his teenage years in this garden that would then have been the inspiration for gardens in the novel. The garden divides into eastern, central, and western sections that through its history were often owned and sold individually. All three are located north of the residential section. It is believed that Wang Xianchen’s garden was much smaller than the forty-eight buildings counted today. The eastern sector has Orchid and Snow Hall, a pavilion, and a kiosk amid hills, grass, bamboo, pine, and streams. Water occupies about one-third of the central sector, with one main building near a lotus pond. The western section has one main building divided into two parts and an octagonal pavilion that reflects on a pool.
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16.3. Ge Garden, Yangzhou, 1818
Lingering Garden (Liuyuan) was built in 1593 by a retired official named Xu Tai who, like Wang Xianchen, was cashiered and later exonerated. It has more buildings compared to natural features or plantings than Unsuccessful Politician’s Garden, among which is a winding corridor of more than 700 meters that connects four parts of the garden as well as mazes and lattices of the kind observed at Surging Waves Garden. It occupies about 23,310 square meters. In 1798 Liu Su acquired the garden and gave it his surname. Liu added bamboo, pine, and twelve scholar’s rocks. The name was changed to its current name, a homophone for the surname, meaning lingering, under the owner Sheng Kang, treasurer of Hubei province, who repaired it between 1873 and 1876. Sheng’s son abandoned the garden in 1911 when the imperial government fell. It has been repaired in this century. Liuyuan divides into east, central, west, and north sections. The central portion is the oldest and comprises about onethird of the area. A pond and grotto are the main features, with buildings around them. The eastern section builds around a central stone peak, and the western section has both an artificial hill and artificial mountain. Wuxi, 42 kilometers northwest of Suzhou, has two important Ming private gardens. The first is Jichang, on the site of two monasteries. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Ming official Qin Jin purchased one of the temple complexes and transformed the space into a garden that stayed in the Qin family until the mid-twentieth century, when it was given to the state, except for a short episode in the early eighteenth century when it was confiscated and then returned to the family in 1737. Through the ages, the descendants took their
responsibility to the site seriously, hiring the garden designer Zhang Lian and his nephew in the sixteenth century to redesign it. Both Kangxi and Qianlong visited on southern inspection tours. In 1746 the Qin owners converted the garden into a site for family filial piety, naming it Doubly Filial (Shuangxiao) Shrine. Qianlong borrowed a view from this garden for Xiequ Garden at the Summer Palace in Beijing. The garden occupies 10,000 square meters. Wuxi’s other well-known garden, Li, is significantly larger, 82,000 square meters. It is named after Lake Li and has water on three sides. Li Garden divides into three sections, the central one with man-made hills and a mazelike path. Ge Garden in Yangzhou, 155 kilometers northwest of Suzhou, dates to the Ming dynasty, but the current garden was built by salt merchant Huang Zhiyun in