The Symbolic Force of Rocks in the Chinese Imagination

Chapter 30 The Symbolic Force of Rocks in the Chinese Imagination Yanping Gao The theory of the five Elements (i.e. water, fire, earth, wood and metal) as a deep understanding of natural law and of human cultivation through interaction with nature is deeply woven into the fabric of Chinese culture including traditional medicine and the Chinese zodiac. The rocks and stones in question in this chapter, which are regarded as “the bone of the earth,” share the same intellectual sophistication as Chinese thought related to matter in general. As early as the Han dynasty, Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (Pharmacopoeia of the Heavenly Husbandman) identified different kinds of minerals as remedies, some of them being from rocks. Shi Yao Er Ya (Synonymic Dictionary of Minerals and Drugs) from the Tang dynasty, an import treatise on minerals by Mei Biao, was actually a book for alchemists exploring possible transformations between different types of matter under certain conditions. Nevertheless, during the Song dynasty, owing to the proliferation of scientific monographs devoted to specialized subjects, a whole series of books emerged that focused on stones and minerals, such as rock catalogues. As I will reveal in this chapter, the starting point of these studies was aesthetic rather than medical.1 Meanwhile, Chinese literati contributed to the aesthetics of rocks through a delicate appreciation and image-making connected to the forms and materiality of rocks. Indeed, aesthetics has always played a pivotal role in rock culture that far transcends medicine and mystery. In one of his poems about rocks from “An Account on Lake Tai Rock” (太湖 石记), the Chinese poet from the Tang dynasty Bai Juyi posits, “Unlike poetry, music, and wine, the rocks have no patterns or sound or smell or taste.”2 Nonetheless, Bai Juyi is undoubtedly one of the most famous connoisseurs of rocks throughout Chinese history. In fact, few civilizations have revered stones and rocks as much as the Chinese. Petrophilia, or the adoration of rock, has a 1 For more detailed information about the history of mineral studies in China, see Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 643–46. 2 Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi Ji 白 居 易 集 , Band 4, ed. Gu Xuejie 顾 学 颉 (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1999), 1543. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004436350_03� 0004820362.INDD 708 <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:34 PM The Symbolic Force of Rocks in the Chinese Imagination 709 remarkable tradition in Chinese culture that could even go back as far as two thousand years. Rocks were initially arranged in the emperor’s parks, as a prerogative of the imperial family. Later, this enthusiasm spread to the literati and common people, as the symbolism associated with rocks during the Tang dynasty became even more pronounced on multiple levels. This vogue of rock appreciation became even more popular during the Song dynasty when rock catalogues (“石谱”) from various authors appeared. It is especially noteworthy that the rocks or stones in question here certainly do not include crystals or jewels that are treasured in many civilizations. Instead, this chapter focuses on what are often referred to as “common rocks” that are identified with special characters and endowed with profound symbolism by Chinese literati and intellectuals. In the Chinese imagination, rocks are not merely the object of fetishism, given that they carry their own subjectivity and spirit. This chapter first explores how Chinese literati integrate rocks and images of them laden with symbolic meaning into their own lives. Moreover, I also underscore how their tastes related to the “ideal” rock (especially Lake Tai Rock) inform their aesthetic sensibilities overall. From an interdisciplinary angle, I also probe the metaphysical and spiritual origins of this petrophilia that are inextricably linked to Chinese Daoist philosophy. As an object of projection or contemplation, rocks play an important role in both the collective and personal imagination of Chinese people. As I underscore unique Chinese sensibilities, I will also return to the Western tradition as a counterpart from time to time when necessary. I Petrophilia: Stone as a Companion Species The interaction between human beings and the natural world, in addition to the ecological interdependency that these quotidian encounters entail, is a deeply rooted concept in traditional Chinese culture initially connected to the birth of agriculture. In the case of rocks, stone worship related to various pantheistic divinities existed from the very beginning. In the Han rhapsodic Fu, vivid descriptions of rocks became very common in “poetry on objects” (yongwushi 咏物诗). Nevertheless, as Xiaoshan Yang points out, “In this genre, the poetic rock lacks specificity as a physical object and functions instead as an emblem whose meaning can be easily decoded. The poet evidences little material relationship with the rocks he describes.”3 In other words, the rock in this 3 For a more comprehensive discussion about the importance of poetry dedicated to objects, see Xiaoshan Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 94–98. 0004820362.INDD 709 <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:34 PM 710 Gao context is a concept that is deprived of its own materiality.4 It is essentially a fixed item attached to a socially constructed symbolism. Thus, its materiality does not affect the spectator physically. From a historical perspective, it is later including the ninth century that the physical interactions between stones and humans come into play. Stones would become a “companion species” for their owner. As Xiaoshan Yang reveals, “These new orientations are illustrated in the poetic representation of the Lake Tai rock from the mid-Tang to the Northern Song.” From this point on, stones were deeply appreciated and endowed with a sort of subjectivity, thereby playing the role of a companion species in the daily life of the literati. While serving as an administrator in Suzhou, a city near Lake Tai (Tai Hu), Bai Juyi was overwhelmed by the bizarre and grotesque features of a couple of Lake Tai rocks. He took them back home immediately and “domesticated” them. Bai derived much inspiration and satisfaction from being with these stones. In the poem “A pair of Rocks”(Shuangshi 双石), Bai addresses these rocks as close friends: “Turning my head around, I ask the pair of rocks: Can you keep company with an old man like me? Although the rocks cannot speak, they promise that we will be three friends.”5 His friend Niu Senru, the prime minister at the time, was so obsessed with stone collection that he made painstaking efforts to classify them appropriately. According to Bai, he “treats them [the rocks] as noble friends, respects them as great philosophers, treasures them as jewelries, and loves them as his own descendants.”6 Or, as Niu himself claims, he admires and loves rocks as much as one would an older brother: “As if facing a brother ten years my senior.”7 In the Song dynasty, Sushi’s contemporary, the poet Mi Fu, is widely considered by historians to be the ultimate connoisseur of rocks among Chinese literati. As he was traveling to assume the responsibilities of a magistrate in Wuwei county in Anhui, a region that is famous for its stone, he suddenly saw a stone with a grotesque shape standing upright in the municipal garden. In a state of shock, he immediately bowed to it in a sign of respect and admiration before addressing it as “Elder Brother Rock.”8 Through the act of submission and obedience, Mi Fu gives up his own subjectivity surrendering 4 Xiaoshan Yang, “Petrophilia and Its Anxiety, The Lake Tai Rock in Tang-Song Poetry,” Landscape and Garden (风 景 园 林 ) 10 (2019): 81. 5 English translation courtesy of Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry,100–01. 6 Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi Ji 白 居 易 集 , Band 4, 1544. 7 English translation courtesy of Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry, 107. 8 See Jing Xuezhi 金 学 智 , Chinese Garden Culture 中 国 园 林 文 化 (Beijing: China Architecture and Building Press, 2005), 359. 0004820362.INDD 710 <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM The Symbolic Force of Rocks in the Chinese Imagination 711 himself completely to the rock. During these poignant instants, the rock becomes the dominant object, as opposed to playing a passive role, in terms of fetishism. All of these aforementioned figures treat the rock not merely as a pet, but rather as what is called a companion species nowadays: an object which possesses equivalent subjectivity. Chinese petrophilia could be described as a thought system epitomized by a deep connection between nature and human beings that attempts to break “an oppositional and merely human-centered view.”9 Although some stones are certainly cherished in Western culture, this type of petrophilia only exists in Asia. Even Michelangelo never created a sculpture glorifying the stone per se, although he explicitly confessed that “I love sleep, but I love the stone more” (“Caro m’è”l sonno, e più l’esser di sasso)10 in addition to using unpolished stones to represent human beings. Until recently, a similar esteem for natural stones is evident in the thought of Goethe, Emerson and Thoreau. However, stones are in a special category of their own for Chinese literati in comparison to Goethe’s petrophilia, for instance, as I will later clarify. II The Materiality and Emergence of the Chinese Rock Limestone, especially Lake Tai Rock, was deemed to be the “ideal rock” for rock enthusiasts. For this reason, rock connoisseurs share many of the same aesthetic judgments. They also tend to use Lake Tai Rock as a basis of comparison for appreciating all other stones. Lake Tai Rock was formed from limestone deposits nearly three-hundred million years ago in this area of China. These ancient formations assumed extravagant shapes when the area was covered by sea. To be more precise, the deposits were sculpted by hard pebbles in the lake during heavy storms. In “A Pair of Rocks,” Bai Juyi offers one of the earliest descriptions of the aesthetic attributes of Lake Tai Rock. As the poet writes, “Dark sallow, two slates of rocks. Their appearance is grotesque and ugly” (苍然两片 石, 厥状怪且丑).11 His friend Niu Senru holds a similar attitude. For him as well, a good stone should be (tong 通), perforated (tou 透), ugly, and dark. This petrophilia continued on an upward trajectory until the Song dynasty. The previously mentioned artist Mi Fu enumerated the physical features of an ideal 9 10 11 0004820362.INDD 711 Wolfgang Welsch, “Art Transcending the Human Pale-Toward a Transhuman Stance,” International Aesthetics (外 国 美 学 Beijing), 21 (2013): 329. Quoted in Welsch, “Art Transcending the Human Pale-Toward a Transhuman Stance,” 329. English translation courtesy of Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry, 100. <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM 712 Gao rock that is “lean” (thou 瘦), wrinkled (zhou 皱), “leaked” (lou 漏) and perforated (tou 透). This ideal corresponds to Bai Juyi’s formulation of “grotesque and ugly.” Thus, in characterizing rocks as “lean, wrinkled, leaked, and perforated,” Mi Fu follows in Bai’s footsteps by setting the basic aesthetic parameters of what constitutes Chinese rock. The writer Li Yu (1611–1680) from the Qing dynasty borrows this basic idea. In his own appreciation of stones in general, he affirms, “The beauty of rocks, lies in the perforated (tou), leaked (lou), lean (shou)” (言山石之美者，俱在透、漏、瘦三字。).12 A more prosaic description of Lake Tai rocks is found in Du Wan’s 杜绾 Yunlin Stone Catalogue, which describes more than one hundred kinds of stones that appeal to the Chinese imagination. Identifying Lake Tai Rock as one of the most ideal rocks, he explains, “They are naturally hard and glossy, with contours of ‘hollow concaves’(qiankong 嵌空), ‘pierced holes’(chuanyan 穿眼), ‘intertwining twists’(wanzhuan 宛转), ‘strange precipices’ (xianguai 险怪)… They have a net of raised patterns all over. Their surfaces are covered with small cavities, worn by the wind and waves.”13 This passage also pinpoints several criteria for good rocks, including “hollow concaves” and pierced holes characterized by “perforated,” “leaked,” and “intertwining twists” (wanzhuan 宛转) that make the contours wrinkled. Most of these rocks are grotesque stones. In addition to Lake Tai Rock, there is a rock called Jianghua rock that “is very strange … The four sides are penetrated, and [it] looks extremely dangerous and terrible.”14 This stone has a “perforated and grotesque appearance … with deep holes inside.”15 A brief explanation of the various connotations of the words “shou,” “tou,” “lou,” and “zhou” is probably necessary here, in spite of the fact that all four terms are somewhat ambivalent even in Chinese. “Shou” in Chinese means thin and leak, demonstrating that rocks should be without any kind of “fat” or lumps. “Zhou” means wrinkled and not smooth when the surface of the stone is textured or cracked, or full of grooves, perforations, and indentations. “Lou” means leaked with holes in the surface that make the stone in question far from smooth or complete. The term “Tou,” which literally means “go through,” refers to a perforated structure. As Li Yu elucidates, “there are passages from 12 13 14 15 0004820362.INDD 712 Li Yu 李 渔 , Xian Qing Ou Ji 闲 情 偶 记 (Changsha: Yuelu Press, 2016), 171. All English translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry, 99–100. Du Wan 杜 绾 , Yunlin Stone Catalogue 云 林 石 谱 , eds. Wang Yuan, Zhu Xuebo, and Liao Lianting (Shanghai: Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, 2019), 5. Du Wan, Yunlin Stone Catalogue, 4. <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM The Symbolic Force of Rocks in the Chinese Imagination 713 one place to another place.”16 In essence, there is a fluid space from one hole to another that results in an interplay of void and form. In the Chinese imagination, rock aesthetics have also deeply influenced artistic creation. The scholar-public statesman from the Song dynasty Shu Shi 苏 轼 (1037–1101) describes the rocks in Wen Tong’s painting 文同 (1018–79) as “ugly but refined” (wen 文).17 In this specific context of the ideal rock, “refined” is synonymous with “wrinkled.” Most importantly, rock aesthetics has always been a major part of traditional Chinese gardening even to the present day. In his well-known manual for garden design Yuan Yan 园冶, the architect Ji Cheng (1582–1642) from the Ming dynasty identifies the features of “shou,” “tou,” “lou,” and “zhou” as the golden standard for gardening. He suggests that the best rock is Lake Tai Rock with its “deep hollows,” “eyeholes,” “twists” and “strange grooves” (qiankong 嵌空、chuanyan 穿眼、wanzhuan 婉转、xianguaishi 险 怪势).18 Lake Tai rocks are widely utilized as a “scholarly stone” (gong shi 供石), or they are arranged in the shape of a mountain in gardens. When the originally chosen rocks do not meet the ideal standard, they are intentionally tossed back into the lake until they erode enough to assume the ideal “shou, tou, lou, zhou” shape. During his trips to China, this cultural practice surprised the French traveler Jean-François Gerbillon (1654–1707). In reference to the extraordinary rocks Gerbillon saw displayed in the emperor’s apartment, Bianca Maria Rinaldi notes, “the rich people among them go to any expense for this sort of bagatelle: they will pay for more for some old rock which has something grotesque or extraordinary, as, for example, if it has several cavities, or if it is pierced through to the other side,” he had a very good eye to appreciate what he saw as the attributes as “grotesque or extraordinary,” “cavities,” or “pierced through to the other side,” but then he compared what he saw in his home, and realized that, the Chinese rather have these grotesque rocks, “than they would for a block of jasper or some beautiful statue in marble, but if they do not use marble at all in their buildings, it is not because they do not have it; the mountains near Peking are full of very beautiful white marble, that they use only to adorn their graves.”19 16 17 18 19 0004820362.INDD 713 Li Yu, Xian Ting Ou Ji, 171. In Chinese, “wen” also means “texture” or “pattern.” Ji Chen 计 成 ,Yuan Yan 园冶 (Beijing: China Architecture and Building Press, 2018), 374. Bianca Maria Rinaldi, ed. Ideas of Chinese Gardens: Western Accounts, 1300–1860 (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 70. <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM 714 Gao Gerbillon astutely recognized the deep reverence for rocks in Chinese culture. Specifically, he noted that the Chinese did not use marble to adorn their houses like the Europeans. He realized that the Chinese preference for limestone rather than marble or granite was a matter of rock aesthetics that was part of a larger cultural imaginary. There are different understandings related to the materiality of stone between European and Chinese culture. Rocks are also fundamental images in Western poetic thinking. Owing to his passion for granite and primitive rock, Goethe asserts that “rocks teach us the language of hardness.”20 In Henri d’Ofeteringen, Novalis calls primitive rock “nature’s first born.”21 Based on his studies of these innumerable traces of rock aesthetics in world literature, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, who devoted much of his attention to the poetics of matter in his essay Earth and Reveries of Will: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, concludes, “It defies penetration, resists scratching, and stands up to wear.”22 In this seminal work, which illustrates the importance of rocks in the collective imagination of a given society, Bachelard suggests that Western poets prefer granite and marble instead of limestone. In their material imagination, the rocks that they venerate are solid, unaffected, impenetrable, and complete. Bachelard’s conclusion is in keeping with the attitude from German philosophers like Hegel who maintain that granite constitutes the “mountain core,”23 or a principle of solidity par excellence. As Heidegger explains more clearly, “This block of granite, for example, is a mere thing. It is hard, heavy, extended, bulky, shapeless, rough, colored, partly dull, partly shiny. We can take note of all these features in the stone. Thus we acknowledge its characteristics.”24 Compared to granite or marble, limestone has a more grotesque and malleable appearance, whose shape comes from being eroded by wind, rain, water, etc. In stark contrast to the qualities of smoothness, completeness, and solidity, limestone such as Lake Tai Rock possesses different qualities that are never seen in a positive light in Western culture. Whereas the ideal Western stone described by Bachelard is solid, hard, impenetrable, massive, heavy, and complete, the ideal Chinese rock is penetrable, fragile, wrinkled, thin, gleaming, and perforated. For Western literati like Goethe and Heidegger, the ideal stone 20 21 22 23 24 0004820362.INDD 714 Gaston Bachelard, Earth and Reveries of Will: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, trans. Kenneth Haltman (Dallas: Dallas Institute of Humanities & Culture, 2002), 158. Bachelard, Earth and Reveries of Will: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, 143. Bachelard, Earth and Reveries of Will: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, 157. Bachelard, Earth and Reveries of Will: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, 157. Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 22. <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM The Symbolic Force of Rocks in the Chinese Imagination 715 is granite. For Chinese intellectuals, limestone is the aesthetic ideal to be emulated. Due to these apparent cultural differences in taste, the grotesque rock never seems to be introduced into European gardens in a proper way. Based on the travel narratives composed by European Jesuits, journalists, and architects, we know that Chinese gardens heavily influenced the design of English gardens, as evidenced by jardin anglo-chinois style of gardening. The jardin anglochinois borrows the landscape, overall structure, and design from the traditional Chinese garden, but this model eliminates the grotesque rocks and artificial mountains. The only time the English art historian Hugh Honour saw an artificial mountain in a European garden was in a photograph from the sinologist Osvald Siren’s book, which is an imitation of an authentic artificial mountain from a European painting. Not only does Honour contend that this is the only example of an artificial mountain in a European garden, but he also argues that it looks more like a ruined grotto.25 This point of view demonstrates that Europeans have a difficult time recognizing the beauty of “grotesque” rocks, even when they derive a great deal of inspiration from Chinese gardens. III The Depth of the Rock When dealing with imaginings triggered by forms of matter, Bachelard insightfully argues that our imagination could be divided into two distinct types (i.e. the formal imagination and material imagination). In Bachelard’s framework for understanding the imagination, the formal imagination relates to superficial images, which “play on the surface of an element without giving the imagination time to work upon its matter.”26 Conversely, the material imagination “deserts depth, volume and the inner recesses of substance.”27 Both kinds of imagination are present in the case of Chinese rocks. With indefinite forms, there is a kind of formal association, imagining the rocks as anthropomorphic or animal-like. This sort of imagination is more closely related to apparent structures and shapes, but it cannot accurately represent the essence or depth of rocks as a form of matter. What Bachelard terms the material imagination is comparable to the rich symbolism of the rocks that the Chinese adore. 25 26 27 0004820362.INDD 715 In China and Gardens of Europe of The Eighteenth Century, Osvald Siren mentions a photo of a false mountain in a European garden. According to Hugh Honour, this is the only false mountain in Europe as a whole. See Hugh Honour, Chinoiserie: The Vision of Cathay, trans. Liu Aiying and Qin Hong (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1961), 299. Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams: An Essay on Imagination of Matter, trans. Edith R. Farrell, ed. (Dallas: Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture Publications, 1999), 10–11. Bachelard, Water and Dreams: An Essay on Imagination of Matter, 2. <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM 716 Gao The formal imagination associated with rocks is often triggered at first sight. Moreover, it induces a state of pleasure through instantaneous imaginings and the accompanying sense of recognition (rocks as an animal, a plant, etc.). Bai Juyi lauds the stones collected by Niu Senru, owing to their malleable and irregular shapes. For Bai, these stones arouse the imaginations of celestial mountains, light clouds, immortals, or wine pots, swords, dragons, ghosts, even animals, etc.28 A wanderer in a Chinese garden with fine specimens of the Lake Tai rocks in hand would delightfully find they “look like frozen billows of ocean spume, or enormous stone fungi burgeoning into the air, or extravagant coral formations poised in an invisible ocean.”29 The abstract or irregular quality of the rock gives the garden a more imaginative atmosphere.30 It is possible that Victor Hugo’s encounter with sandstone has the same effect. Despite his affinity for granite, when generating a distorted vision, he had a marked preference for sandstone. As the author muses, “Sandstone is the most interesting and most strangely composed stone in existence … In the great drama of the landscape, sandstone plays a fantastic part. Sometimes it is grand and severe, sometimes buffoon-like; it bends like a wrestler, or rolls like a clown; it is a sponge, a pudding, a tent, a cottage, the stump of a tree.”31 Both irregular limestone and sandstone create dramatic landscapes. However, it is the concept of material imagination that fully reveals the complexity and richness of rock aesthetics in the Chinese tradition. Compared to the formal imagination, the material imagination emanates directly from matter itself, rather than from incidental forms that arouse our playful fancy. Consequently, it is only through the lens of the material imagination linked to grotesque rocks that we can understand the deeper value and symbolism of petrophilic aesthetics in Chinese culture from a metaphysical and cosmological standpoint. It is only after contemplating the inherent features of stones themselves that we can shed light on the continued adoration of Chinese people for ugly and grotesque rocks among literati. In this section, I will 28 29 30 31 0004820362.INDD 716 Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi Ji, Band 4, 1544. François Berthier, Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden, trans. Graham Parkes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 98. C.C.L. Hirschfeld, the German garden theorist from the 18th century, through his appreciation of the jardin anglo-chinois, was evidently influenced by Chinese techniques when he discusses the aesthetic function of irregular stone in a garden. As he explains on pages 176–77, “those that are irregular or unusual, that life the imagination from its accustomed sphere to a realm of new images, that let it enter the world of fairies, a place of magical enchantment.” See C.C.L. Hirschfeld, Theory of Garden Art, ed. and trans. Linda B. Parshall (Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). Bachelard, Earth and Reveries of Will: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, 144. <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM The Symbolic Force of Rocks in the Chinese Imagination 717 delve into the depth of these rocks, of which Lake Tai Rock is a metonymical reflection. According to the ancient Chinese worldview, all natural phenomena, including humans and rocks, are animated by the psychophysical energy known as qi 气.32 Rock, as part of the earth, is regarded as a concentration of earth’s “essential energy.” The Chinese also believe that “The essential energy of earth forms rock … Rocks are kernels of energy.”33 Yunlin Stone Catalogue from the Song dynasty reiterates that the rock represents and assembles the energy and beauty from heaven and earth as well. Specifically, this narrative recounts, “The purest energy of heaven-earth coalescing into rock. It emerges, bearing the soil … With the size of a fist can be assembled the beauty of a thousand cliffs.”34 Given that mists always emanate from the collision of water with rock, as the vapors gather around mountain peaks enshrining the tops of cliffs and ridges, the rock is considered to be the “root of the cloud.” Consequently, although the stone is from the earth, it shares qi from the heaven-earth reflecting the grandeur and fragility of the cosmos. Instead, energy flows incessantly between heaven and earth according to the material imagination in traditional Chinese thought. The holes piercing the surface of the rocks are conceived of as a passageway for the flow of energy both within and outside of the stone. With the holes, the space on the rock becomes fluid physically and transformed into a more significant being. The hole, the aperture, or in some sense, the emptiness, has an ontological status in Chinese philosophy. The Daoist philosopher Laozi maintains that existence and non-existence give birth one to (the idea of) the other. Moreover, Laozi contends that emptiness is the origin of this movement. As he theorizes, “May not the space between heaven and earth be compared to a bellows? „„ „ Please check the unpaired quotation mark in the sentence “Tis emptied…”. ‘Tis emptied, yet it loses not its power; Tis moved again, and sends forth air the more.”35 (天地之间，其有犹橐籥乎? 虚而不屈，动而愈出”). Likewise, another Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi also emphasizes the relevance of 32 33 34 35 0004820362.INDD 717 A cosmogonic myth from ancient China depicts the sky as a vast cave and maintains that fragments which came loose from the vault of heaven ended up on earth. The huge fragments of stone became charged with vast amounts of cosmic energy, or qi(ch’i), while falling through the air before embedding themselves in the earth. See François Berthier, Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden, 89. Quoted in Zhu Liangzhi 朱 良 志 ， The Romantic Spirits of the Stone 顽 石 的 风 流 (Beijing:Zhonghua Book Company, 2016), 98. English translation courtesy of Berthier, Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden, 92. Lao Tse, Tao Te Ching Or The Tao And Its Characteristics, trans. James Legge (Auckland, New Zealand: The Floating Press, 2008), 16. <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM 718 Gao emptiness in this radical way: “all the apertures are empty (and still)” “众窍为 虚,” “The spirit is free from all pre-occupation and so waits for (the appearance „„ „ Please check the unpaired quotation mark in the sentence “…动而愈出”. of) things” 唯道集虚.36 The philosophical text The Writings of the Huai Nan Zi 淮南子 from the Xihan dynasty offers an even more persuasive argument: “The holes and apertures are the gate and window of the spirit.” (“夫孔窍者，精神 之户牅也”37). Thus, the hole is like an organ for connecting the cosmos to the human spirit and imagination. In his appreciation of Linglong shi, another sort of lime stone, Zhu Changwen (1039–1098) writes, “chaos in nature is broken by holes”38 (“凿开混沌窍”). According to Heidegger, natural stone is part of chaos. As the philosopher asserts, “A stone is wordless,”39 for stone does not participate in the realization of a “world,” which is limited to human consciousness. Nonetheless, the holes or emptiness reflected on the stone break chaos and endow the stone with subjectivity. Admiring this paradoxically significant emptiness, the poet Qing Lue 秦略 from the twelfth century declares, “It is like the heart of the saint, the hole and aperture are empty and leads to the illumination” (又如圣人心，孔窍虚明通). Due to its “leaked” (lou 漏) and perforated (tou 透) qualities, the rock is endowed with qi that connects it to the world, thereby establishing its own cosmology. The grotesque rock undoubtedly represents the philosophical and spiritual ideal of fusion, or the idea of dissolving oneself into the cosmos for Chinese literati. When discussing the ideal Chinese rock, the very texture of “shou tou lou zhou” possesses figurative depth. Either the wrinkle or hole is a trace of human interactions with the natural world that demonstrates a meaningful response from the subject. In the context of the recorded “struggles” with nature going back thousands of years in Chinese culture, stone has a paradoxically refined but ugly appearance. As Bai Juyi describes the emergence of Lake Tai Rock, “they are shaped through millions of years, either sinking in the corner of the seas, or the bottom of the lakes.”40 The stone is the image of time or timelessness. The rock visualizes the shape of time through its texture that fosters an admiration for ancient civilizations. By gazing at the rock, we understand the ephemeral nature of our existence in addition to learning to respect the permanence of time represented in stone. Owing to their variable appearance, 36 37 38 39 40 0004820362.INDD 718 English translation courtesy of “Chinese Text Project,” accessed April 29, 2019, https:// ctext.org. Liu Kangde 刘 康 德 , The Interpretation of Huainanzi 淮南子直解 (Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2001), 306. The Complete Works of Song Poetry 全 宋 诗 , ed. Ancient Literature Research Institute of Beijing University (Beijing: Beijing University Press), Band 15, 9789. Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” 43. Bai Juyi, Bai Juyi Ji, Band 4, 1544. <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM The Symbolic Force of Rocks in the Chinese Imagination 719 limestone rocks exhibited in a Chinese study room or garden are considered to be a symbolic self-portrait of the literati owner of these rocks. In terms of symbolism, these stones could represent sensitive and difficult periods of one’s life, such as political persecution. For instance, the “sophisticated” appearance of a given rock in question could be a mirror to the sophisticated soul of a poet. According to classical symbolism, “thin” rocks express a poet’s feelings of loneliness. In this regard, borrowing the image of a stone to lament his own aging, the writer Yuan Hongdao from the Ming dynasty poses the following question: “how can the thin stone compare to my aged face?”41 In these concrete examples, stones are weaved into the lives of Chinese people in a private and emotional way reflecting the singular materiality of rocks themselves. In conclusion, we project our emotions onto rocks that are transformed through the processes described throughout this chapter. On the other hand, the rock maintains its own unchanged essence, since its presence relies on our contemplation through which the world beneath it emerges before us. A meaningful world is either conjured up through what Bachelard refers to as the material imagination, or through “signs” laden with symbolic meaning corresponding to an established cultural system. As for the latter possibility of meaning, Confucianism reveres jade as the symbol of a refined noble person. Conversely, Daoism expresses a marked preference for natural rocks that many people find to be unsightly and grotesque. Inverting the grotesque-sublime dichotomy, Daoism reveals that “ugly” stones are sublime because of their deeply rooted connection to hidden forms of cosmology and metaphysics in Chinese culture. References Bachelard, Gaston. Earth and Reveries of Will: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter. Translated by Kenneth Haltman. Dallas: Dallas Institute of Humanities & Culture. 2002. Bachelard, Gaston. Water and Dreams: An Essay on Imagination of Matter. Translated by Edith R. Farrell. Dallas: Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture Publications. 1999. Bai, Juyi. 白 居 易 Bai Juyi Ji 白 居 易 集 . Band 4, Edited by Gu Xuejie 顾 学 颉 . Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1999. Berthier, François. Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden. Translated by Graham Parkes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2005. 41 0004820362.INDD 719 Quoted in Zhu Liangzhi, The Romantic Spirits of the Stone, 31. <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM 720 Gao “Chinese Text Project.” Accessed April 29, 2019. https://ctext.org. Du, Wan. 杜 绾 Yunlin Stone Catalogue 云 林 石 谱 . Edited by Wang Yuan, Zhu Xuebo, and Liao Lianting. Shanghai: Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House. 2019. Hay, John. Kernels of Energy, Bones of Earth: The Rock in Chinese Art. New York: China Institute in America. 1985. Heidegger, Martin. “The origin of the work of Art.” In Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter, 15–86. New York: Harper and Row. 1971. Hirschfeld, Christian. Theory of Garden Art. Edited and Translated by Linda B. Parshall. Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2011. Honour, Hugh. Chinoiserie: The Vision of Cathay. Translated by Liu Aiying and Qin Hong. Beijing: Beijing University Press. 1961. Ji, Chen. 计 成 Yuan Yan 园 冶 . Beijing: China Architecture and Building Press. 2018. Jing, Xuezhi. 金 学 智 Chinese Garden Culture 中 国 园 林 文 化 . Beijing: China Architecture and Building Press, 2005. Li, Yu. 李 渔 Xian Qing Ou Ji 闲 情 偶 记 . Changsha: Yuelu Press. 2016. Liu, An. The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China. Translated and Edited by John S. Major. New York: Columbia University Press. 2010. Liu, Kangde. 刘 康 德 The Interpretation of Huai Nan Zi 淮 南 子 直 解 . Shanghai: Fudan. University Press. 2001. Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1959. Rinaldi, Bianca Maria, ed. Ideas of Chinese Gardens: Western Accounts, 1300–1860. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2016. Schafer, Edward H. Tu Wan’s Stone Catalogue of Cloudy Forest: A Commentary and Synopsis. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 1961. The Complete Works of Song Poetry 全 宋 诗 . Edited by Ancient Literature Research Institute of Beijing University. Beijing: Beijing University Press, Band 15. Tse, Lao. Tao Te Ching Or the Tao and Its Characteristics. Translated by James Legge. Auckland, New Zealand: The Floating Press. 2008. Welsch, Wolfgang. “Art Transcending the human Pale-Toward a Transhuman Stance.” International Aesthetics 外 国 美 学 (Beijing), 21 (2013): 315–36. Yang, Xiaoshan. Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2003. Yang, Xiaoshan. “Petrophilia and Its Anxiety, The Lake Tai Rock in Tang-Song Poetry.” Landscape and Garden 风 景 园 林 10 (2019): 81–89. Zeitlin, Judith T. “The Petrified Heart: Obsession in Chinese Literature, Art, and Medicine.” Late Imperial China 12 (1992): 1–26. Zhu, Liangzhi. 朱 良 志 The Romantic Spirits of the Stone 顽 石 的 风 流 . Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 2016. 0004820362.INDD 720 <UN> 5/5/2020 4:03:35 PM