Chapter 14 11.further search

It was obvious to Sicheng that the last two field trips to discover two very important Liao temples were pure luck. "Because there is no list of important buildings in the history of Chinese architecture, the exploration of our opponent's architecture is like a blind man riding a blind horse." Other ancient architectural treasures exist that cannot be overlooked. Sicheng describes the method that must be followed from now on.The Institute of Architecture sends field teams led by researchers on two- to three-month study trips each year to examine rural areas in detail and search for ancient ruins.Careful preparation must be made in the library before each field trip.Read books on history, geography, and Buddhism, such as local chronicles, and generate a catalog of promising buildings.A travel itinerary is thus drawn up.Every building on the catalog had to be found, identified, and if it still existed, measured and photographed.Most expedition groups were led by Sicheng himself, although he was always the least physically strong in the group.

Inform the provincial government of the plan and purpose before sending the team so they can tell local officials first.On arrival, they usually visit government officials and ask for a room in the elementary school. "My experience," Sicheng said, "the local people are not very interested in architecture. When I say I am interested in cultural relics, they will take me to see ancient steles. They are only interested in rubbings... ..., the rubbings of inscriptions and steles can impress them, but the handiwork of carpenters cannot." During field trips, the team must pay special attention to wooden structures.They are literally racing against time, as these buildings are in constant disintegration.Some whimsy among the few in a conservative town stirred up by the new wave of fashion often inadvertently destroys a masterpiece under the pretext of "modernizing" an "old-fashioned" house.The flimsy mullions and delicate door inlays were always the first to suffer.Rarely do they come across a true gem that has survived natural and man-made disasters and remained intact.Even a single incense head can reduce a whole temple to ashes.It often happens that they run hundreds of miles in high hopes, encouraged by written sources about the possibility of finding a promising ancient site, only to find only a heap of ruins, and perhaps a few roof tiles or roots. Pillar foundations as a reward for this trip.

"Our field trips themselves are adventures full of unexpected ups and downs. The physical pain is not to be outdone, and what we often experience is a rare and memorable allure and joy. Generally speaking, we My trips are like strangely drawn out picnics, and when we encounter hilarious but disastrous mishaps, they're either terribly embarrassing or extraordinarily entertaining. "Unlike those expensive archaeological expeditions, big game hunting, tropical or polar scientific expeditions," Sicheng wrote, "the equipment we explored was very simple. Except for measuring and photographing instruments, most of our equipment was These are self-made gadgets, designed and improved by our team members after accumulating experience. The electrician-like backpack, which we can carry when we squat dangerously on any part of the building to work, is One of our favorite items. It fits everything from a ball of line to a retractable fishing pole-like handle. Every day and night we have to sleep, cook, We eat and sleep, and our means of transportation are so uncertain, from the most ancient and grotesque to the more common and modern, that what we consider necessary is often peculiar to others.

"In addition to architecture, we often encounter things of artistic or national significance, such as crafts from various places, ancient theater performances in remote areas, strange customs, colorful markets, etc. But we must save film. I am in Most of the trips are accompanied by my wife, an architect herself. But she is also a writer and a lover of the theater arts, distracting herself more often than I do and passionately insisting that something Take a picture. After we get back, I'm always glad we have pictures of scenes and buildings that would otherwise have been overlooked. (Note 1.)"

In 1933, Sicheng and his loyal draftsman Mo Zongjiang went on a field trip to Zhengding, Hebei Province, a few hours away from Beijing by train, and it was an unforgettable trip.From afar I saw "Zhengding Bodhisattva," as he described it, a "bronze statue of Avalokitesvara with forty-two hands, about seventy feet high, standing on a beautiful marble throne." Originally, the Buddha statue was made of It was covered by a three-story building, but it is no longer there, so that Guanyin, who lost her extra forty arms, stood in the open air. An inscription at the site said the giant Buddha was cast according to the imperial decree of the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty, to replace a famous bronze Buddha statue that was destroyed a few years ago.The casting was carried out in seven stages, starting on the 20th day of the seventh lunar month in AD 971, but the date of completion is not recorded.

Sicheng pointed out, "The statue of Guanyin was retouched by a pious but stupid abbot and covered with bright paint to make it look like a big ugly doll. I had to comfort myself that the paint would not last long anyway. , perhaps not more than a century." The Avalokitesvara Buddha was just one of the attractions of the Longxing Temple complex that drew Liang Sicheng here.Among the many buildings in the complex, the most important and unique is the Mani Temple built in 1030 AD.For lovers of Song dynasty landscape painting, it brings to life the familiar image of a monastery hidden behind a pine-forested hillside that painters loved to depict.Unlike the elongated buildings of many later monasteries, it is cruciform, with ridged gables on all sides.Sicheng has seen this architectural style from pictures, but this is the only real thing he has seen.Another scenic spot in the monastery complex is the Zhuanlun Zangdian built between 960 and 1126 A.D., which includes a tower-shaped "Junlun Zang", which is a revolving bookcase for storing Buddhist scriptures.In order to leave enough space for this large and heavy bookcase, to support its weight, and to allow its movement, many ingenious architectural innovations had to be introduced.Sicheng looked at it with admiration and joy. (Note 2.)

In the autumn of 1933, the Institute sent a number of staff to Datong in northern Shanxi, a border city close to the Great Wall and adjacent to Mongolia.It has two important Liao Dynasty temple complexes.Japanese scholars have reported on the Buddha statues inside, but have not studied the building itself.Liu Dunzhen spent a lot of effort on the research of Huayan Temple and Shanhua Temple group.Huiyin himself decided to go to the nearby Yungang Grottoes, where he copied and photographed architectural details carved in stone to obtain evidence of much earlier wooden architecture during the Northern Wei Dynasty (450-500 AD).

Sicheng participated in the inspection of another building complex, and has decided to go to a small town about 50 miles south of Datong with his loyal assistant Mr. Mo.Japanese scholars have reported that an 11th-century pagoda there houses some finely detailed Buddha statues.Originally this place was called "Yingzhou Pagoda", but now the system has been changed, so Sicheng's goal has become "the wooden pagoda of Fogong Temple in Yingxian County".Before preparing to go to such a remote place, he decided to ask whether the pagoda still existed, and if so, in what state.Long-distance calls were of course out of the question, and he couldn't find anyone in Beijing who had been there.So he thought why not ask the local post office for help.He wrote a letter to the postmaster of Ying County, asking him to find the best local photographer to take some photos of the pagoda and send them to Beijing.He promised to give the photographer something he wanted in return.The plan worked out well.Photos came back showing that the pagoda is in good condition and essentially as it was when it was erected in AD 1056.And the photographer was also very happy because he got the gift he needed - stationery.

The plan of the Construction Society to visit the Datong Monastery went smoothly, so Sicheng and Mr. Mo were able to go out to Ying County, which is now within easy reach of him.The two of them boarded a southbound bus in Datong, and only when they arrived at the stop did they realize that they were still 25 miles away from their destination.They had to hire a donkey cart and endure another six hours of jolting.Sicheng wrote, "When we reached a place about 5 miles away from the city, I suddenly saw a shining gemstone on a dark purple background at the end of the mountain road in front of me-it was near A red-and-white pagoda surrounded by mountains in the mountains reflects the golden sunset. It was dark when we reached the walled city, a poor town on a saline land with only a few hundred families in the city circle. Houses and dozens of trees. But it boasts the only remaining wooden pagoda in China. (Note 3.)”

According to Sicheng, the huge tower body "is like a black giant, looking down on the city. But on the south side of its uppermost floor can be seen a light, a bright spot in the surrounding darkness. Later I figured out Yes, this is the 'ten thousand year lamp' that has been lit day and night for nearly nine hundred years." He doesn't identify the source of this statement, but he must have been confused by the name.However small the flame, it seemed utterly inconceivable that it would remain lit in the tower through nine hundred years of days and nights and all weathers.Moreover, it is impossible for the local economy to pay for lamp oil!

When the pagoda was built in AD 1056, part of northern China had been ruled by the "barbarians" beyond the Great Wall, the Liao Dynasty.Sicheng points out that the construction of the pagoda is in principle similar to that of the earlier "tall building" Dule Temple (984 AD): "It is actually nine superimposed levels, since each upper level has mezzanine floors." He should clearly remember the building on top of the tower. "Its top is equipped with a cast iron spiral spire, which is fixed on the corner of the top floor with 8 iron chains. On a sunny afternoon, I was engrossed in measuring and taking pictures on the spire, and I did not notice that the black clouds had passed. Pressed up. Suddenly a thunderbolt struck nearby, and I was caught off guard, and almost let go of the cold chain I was holding tightly in my hand at an altitude of 200 feet above the ground." During his field trips, he examined and published many Chinese pagodas.He wrote: "As a remnant of buildings, nothing has graced the landscape of China more significantly than the most pronounced and remembered word in Chinese, 'ta'. From its first appearance until today , the Chinese pagoda is still basically 'a multi-story tall building topped with a stack of metal discs'. It's a perfect combination of two elements: the clever 'multi-story tall building' and India's Shittava—' A pile of metal discs'. Combining these two elements, Chinese pagodas can be divided into four basic types: single-story, multi-story, multi-eaves, and Shitapo. Regardless of the form or size of the pagoda, it is always A Buddhist relic burial place or a monk's tomb." The Pagoda in Ying County is an unparalleled national treasure.Although many pagodas with wooden structures were built in China in the early years, this is the only pagoda built with this fragile material that can survive until now.In recent years, experts under the guidance of Liang Sicheng of Tsinghua University have repaired and strengthened it expertly. From then on, as long as Sicheng learned about promising relics through newspapers or other sources, he made a routine and wrote to the local postmaster, asking him to help pick up photos of this building.He always encloses a small amount of money to reimburse the photographer for his time and materials.In this way, he checked a batch of easier targets in advance along the two main lines from Beijing to the south—the Beijing-Hanzhou Railway and the Jinpu Railway. Library work and photo searches have been helpful, but Sicheng owes her most valuable discovery to a nursery rhyme.Like our Mother Goose ballad, it has a nice rhyme: Cangzhou Lion Yingzhou Tower, Zhengding Bodhisattva Zhaozhou Bridge. Lions meant nothing to him, but when he heard the familiar names "Yingzhou Pagoda" and "Zhengding Bodhisattva," he pricked up his ears.This kind of simple boast about the achievements of human creation in North China penetrated into his heart.Whoever wrote the ballad shared his love for the architectural gems of the past.This drove him to find the bridge himself. Zhaozhou City is located in the south of Hebei, about 30 miles southeast of Zhengding. It changed its organizational system like Yingzhou, and now everyone calls it Zhao County. In 1934, Liang Sicheng took a train from Beijing to Shijiazhuang, and then detoured to Zhao County.He wrote, "There I can see the magnificent original building of the Sui Dynasty (590-618 A.D.)" and "the third treasure in the northern ballads is the Anji Bridge in Zhaoxian County".He quotes an eighth-century Tang official who was equally excited by the discovery in his day: "The stone bridge over the Weihe River in Zhaozhou was also traced by the Sui craftsman Li Chun; it was made so strangely that people don't know what it was made of. Try to see the beauty of using stones, flat anvils, square plates to promote depression, closed vaults, suddenly no couplets, it’s strange! It’s also detailed like forks and parallels, ground and dense, and hundreds of images are the same, but still blurred Gray [upper prosperity and lower treasure], waist iron [clothes supplement + whole] frown. Four holes are embedded in the two ends, covering the turbulence of killing anger and water. Although the mountain is cherished and protected, it is not the husband who is far-sighted and far-sighted. Yes. Its sill [草字头＋testi] column is shaped like a hammered dragon and beast, coiled [upper as in the hand] squatting, and sloping [left and right], as if flying and moving...” Sicheng himself translated the ancient text into English. He said, "As for the text 'manufacturing is strange, people don't know why', it just shows that the construction method and style of this bridge are the original creation of a genius, not followed by ordinary craftsmen. A work of the rules inherent in an era." The ensuing quotation emphasizes that even as early as the Tang Dynasty, the bridge was considered extraordinary. The arches of the main bridge hole and the small arches were built by combining groups of side-by-side arch stones in the Roman way, and there are a total of 28 groups of arch stones (Note 4.).The bridge is now 115 feet long from where the ends emerge from the river bed.Sicheng pointed out that the real span of the bridge would be much longer if it were dug out from under the river bed. "Because the water can be seen after 30-40 cm, unless a large-scale excavation is carried out, it is impossible to reach the position of the large bridge foundation we speculate based on theories." Disappointed because of the base-building method, just like countrymen who are disappointed because they cannot prove that the bridge ticket is a full circle." Liang Sicheng's delight at discovering this uniquely Chinese building (which predates its closest European equivalent by a thousand years) has him wandering the site, re-measuring, digging further and photographing it from every angle.The bridge survived 1300 years and is still in use. In Zhao County, he discovered a 12th-century "small stone bridge", which was an imitation of the big stone bridge.He published the inspection results of the two bridges in the "Hui Kan" of the Construction Society. While Sicheng was looking for his remarkable Zhaozhou Bridge, I was also doing fieldwork in neighboring Shandong Province, where I also discovered some treasures of ancient Chinese architecture.As a student of Harvard University, I especially like the Han Dynasty rubbings of Wuliang Temple in Shandong.A set of paper rubbings of the figures carved on the stone chamber in the second century AD reached European and American scholars, who published them in Western languages ​​and made them famous in the world.The first thing I did when I arrived in Beijing was to buy myself a set.From then on I could look at them for hours.The plump horses and vehicles are a sight to behold.Traditional figures populate the elegantly composed frame.The rank of each man can be discerned from his attire.I am so ignorant that I am amazed at its uncanny beauty, but I am ignorant of the famous stories they describe. I want to see the stones of Wuliang Temple for myself.My Chinese is now good enough for travel and everyday conversation.An American female friend offered to accompany me on a two-week trip.We spent most of our time on inspections in other places in Shandong.But our destination, Wuliang Temple, is quite far away, in the southwestern tip of Shandong Province. We changed trains, buses, stayed for one night, and finally arrived after a long walk. The stones from the Wuliang Temple were piled up randomly in a small house in the middle of the large plain of the cemetery, large and small in no order.Some just have engravings on the side.Some are engraved front and back or front and side.There are also independent stone pillars.What amazed me the most were the large boulders with triangular tops.The stone carving exhibition I expected to see was not an exhibition of artworks, but a hodgepodge of building components!architecture!What kind of building?Above ground or underground?how many?Is it possible to rebuild them? The idea fascinated me, and I did take up the task when I returned to Cambridge a few years later.It is very interesting to study publications in this area.I was ridiculously stupid when I went on a field trip.The reconstruction in my imagination includes the following four steps: (1) collect as complete and clear as possible a complete set of stone rubbings of Wuliang Temple; (2) photograph them in a uniform size; (3) cut off redundant edges; ( 4) Move the photos around on the table like a jigsaw puzzle until the gables match and the decorative sides match up, and put the side and back walls of the three empty-fronted niches together as closely as possible .I published a thirty-six-page essay in 1941 explaining my choices and decisions. (Note 5.) Since those rubbings are already world-renowned and my proposal for reconstructing the entity is the first, it has made me famous in a limited academic field.It's exciting.My aesthetic interest in Chinese art has now been combined with an appreciation of the architectural design of the archaeological remains of the Wuliangci stone blocks.There is obviously the influence of the Liang couple here.I am deeply grateful to them. [hr] Note 1. Excerpted from Liang Sicheng's unpublished manuscript "Looking for Ancient Buildings in North China", written in Kunming in 1940, now at the author's place. Note 2. Immediately after Liang Sicheng returned to Beijing, he wrote a preliminary report on these and other ancient architectural remains he found in Zhengding, which was soon published in the September 1933 issue of "Zhouzhuan Xueshe Huikan", Two or three years later, he took another team there to do detailed investigation and research on his discovery in Zhengding, took careful measurements and photographs, wrote a detailed description and published it, but when the Japanese invaded Beijing in 1937 Both the manuscript and the pictures are lost. Note 3. Quoted from "Looking for Ancient Architecture in North China", pp. 24-25. Note 4. This is the original text.According to Liang Sicheng himself, "The way of building the big and small coupons of Anji Bridge, to my surprise, is the Babylonian way of building coupons side by side." That is to say, the way of building this bridge is different from that of Rome and later generations. Masonry.See "Liang Sicheng Collected Works", Volume 1, page 242 - translator Wang.Note 5. See Fei Weimei, "The Altar of 'Wuliang Temple'", Harvard University Asian Studies Special Issue, Vol. Cambridge Edition.