The Eleventh-century Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi and Architectural Style in Southern Shanxi's Shangdang Region

In the generations of High Antiquity [people] excavated caves and piled timber [to make] nests for their dwellings, while "sages of later generations" established a system, with "a roof ridge above and eaves below thereby [providing] shelter from the wind and rain."² In the variety of "palaces, mansions, terraces, and pavilions,"³ and in the masses of peasant cottages and village houses-together with the degree of craft or extravagance [displayed in them]-are revealed local customs (fengsu).⁴

-Xuanhe huapu

The Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi 開化寺大雄寶殿 (Treasure Hall of the Great Hero [Mahāvīra]; 1073/1092-1096) is one of four Buddhist image hall buildings of virtually the same architectural style in the Shangdang 上黨 region of southeastern Shanxi Province, and one of three buildings in this area that have been firmly dated to the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. By comparing these four buildings that were constructed at the height of Song-dynasty rule, with each other and with counterparts elsewhere in the Song empire, this article shows that different areas within the empire retained and expressed regional identity in their monumental timber buildings, even while ruled by a stable imperial power. Furthermore, these four buildings, relics of both time and place, were preserved and became the cores of Buddhist monastic complexes that were expanded during later periods, some quite substantially. The willingness to retain these four worship hall buildings, while adding increasingly different new ritual halls and residential quarters around them, reveals a respect for these historic buildings and the local culture that they represented.

In the present-day study of Chinese architecture periodization has primarily followed traditional dynastic categories. We can understand this as a necessary evil: dynastic periodization is easy to teach, and also allows easy interdisciplinary access to colleagues who might be interested in imagining the built environment of a particular polity. Yet dynastic periodization has well-known dangers; in particular, it promotes the idea that an overarching "dynastic style" actually existed.⁵ The limited number of extant pre-eighth-century wooden religious or palatial structures in China contributes to the difficulty of tracking stylistic developments within dynastic categories. (Only the Main Hall of Nanchansi 南禪寺 can be confidently dated before the year 800 CE.) But, enough timber-frame buildings from across China have survived since the tenth century to permit the tracking of stylistic developments within the larger dynastic categories. Even the few structures from about the tenth century reveal dramatic differences between building styles in the present-day provinces of Hebei and Shanxi and those in more southern areas.⁶ Extant buildings from the eleventh century provide something more-a clearly developed local idiom within larger North China regional styles. These buildings prove that regional styles existed within the boundaries of Northern Song (960-1127) a full century after the empire had reached its territorial peak. In short, there was no single "Song-dynasty" style during the Song.

I wish to emphasize the implications of this conclusion for our understanding of the building projects of the Song court and the appearance of China's built environment during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. That the group of ritual buildings in Shangdang was visually distinctive from neighbors only one hundred miles away in present-day Henan Province, where the Song-dynasty capital of Bianliang (present-day Kaifeng) was located, suggests that Song-dynasty emperors or bureaucrats did not endeavor to homogenize ritual architecture at the local level, or at least were not successful in their attempts to do so. That these buildings were preserved to the twentieth century, within complexes of buildings obviously from later times, bespeaks an awareness of, and pride in, both regional and historical distinctions within an overarching Sinitic mode of monumental timber-frame building.

This article is part of a larger project on the timber architecture of North China from the tenth through the thirteenth century. The project aims to describe the regional distinctions in monumental timber buildings in the tenth century and examine possible reasons for stylistic developments among these buildings over the course of the following two centuries. With this article I hope to show that the local idiom, of which the Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi was a part, would have been perceived as such to observers who travelled through the region on trade or pilgrimage. The Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi only remotely resembles the buildings described in the Yingzao fashi, the famous carpentry manual sponsored by the Northern Song court and first published in 1103-a stylistic divergence unlikely to have been accidental. Eleventh-century builders and patrons were making choices about the look of a building-a worship hall could either look the same as the local architecture or it could look like the architecture of elsewhere. A thick description of these buildings can reveal the subtlety of regional distinctions within the timber-architecture tradition, ultimately allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the selections made in creating the architecture of the Song-dynasty capital, Bianliang, as represented in the Yingzao fashi. Below, I first describe the region in question and sketch its history. Then I describe the Daxiongbaodian within the context of the larger building complex of Kaihuasi, of which it is the oldest building. Finally, through comparisons with other buildings in both space and time, I show how Daxiongbaodian was not only part of a late eleventh-and early twelfth-century North China regional style, a style distinct from contemporary architecture near the Song capital, but within that regional style also representative of the local idiom of Shangdang.

Fig. 1.

Map of China ca. 1100. Showing the location of the Shangdang region relative to other areas of preserved Song-period architecture, as discussed in the text. After Fredrick W. Mote, Imperial China: 900-1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 58.

Southeastern Shanxi: Shangdang, Luzhou, and Zezhou

Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian, Qingliansi's Shijia (Śākyamuni) Hall 青連寺釋迦殿 (1076-1102 are the dates inscribed on various of its pillars), and the Main Hall of Zishengsi 資聖寺 (11th c.) are among the seventy-three examples of ancient timber architecture included in a 1956 survey of this section of Shanxi, an area framed by the Taihang Mountains 太行山 to the east and south, and the Zhongtiao 中條山 and Wuling Mountains 烏嶺山 to the west and southwest, respectively (Figs. 1, 2).⁷ A fourth building, the Daxiongbaodian of Longmensi 龍門寺大雄寶殿 (1098 [also inscribed on a pillar]) at the eastern edge of Pingshun County near the Shanxi-Henan border, is geographically remote from the other three but stylistically consistent with them. This region has been called Southeastern Jin (Jin

Fig. 2.

Map of Shangdang region. Showing locations of Kaihuasi, Qingliansi, Longmensi, and Zishengsi relative to major cities and rivers in southeastern Shanxi Province. After "Jin dongnan," p. 26.

Dongnan 晉東南) or Shangdang in secondary scholarship on its architecture. The name Southeastern Jin refers to its inclusion in the Jin state (Jinguo 晉國) during the Eastern Zhou period (770-221 BCE). When the Jin was divided into 韓, Zhao 趙, and Wei 魏 kingdoms during the Warring States period (580-221 BCE), Shangdang (at present-day Zhangzi 長子 or Changzhi 長治) was an alternate capital first of the Han and then of the Zhao.⁸ The Qin conquered Shangdang in the famous Battle of Changping (Changping Zhizhan 長平之戰)) circa 260 BCE.⁹ The Qin, after unifying Bronze Age China in 221 BCE, established Shangdang Commandery, with its capital of the same name near present-day Zhangzi. Qin Shangdang extended from the Taihang Mountains south of present-day Jincheng through Xiyang in the north.

Although during the Song the region was linked to important capital cities such as Taiyuan and Luoyang by major roadways, and to cities to the northeast by canals, the mountain ranges made travel difficult. The major transportation route through this area was along the Dan River 丹河, which leads through the southern portion of the Taihang Mountains to the Qin River 沁水 and ultimately empties into the Yellow River. The digging of the Yongji Canal 永濟渠 at the beginning of the seventh century linked the Dan and Qin rivers to areas east of the Taihang Mountains and north of the Yellow River.¹⁰ After the Tang dynasty was established in 618 CE, the primary route from the eastern capital at Luoyang to the northern capital at Taiyuan followed the Dan River valley.¹¹ During the eleventh century the area was subdivided into two districts: Luzhou 潞州 (with Shangdang as its capital) and Zezhou 澤州 (with its capital near present-day Jincheng 晉城).¹² But the mountainous territory administered through Zezhou and Luzhou was not the only route from the Northern Song capital to more northern locations in Shanxi. Because of Bianliang's (Kaifeng's) eastern location, travellers headed north from there could conveniently travel over the plains east of the Taihang Mountains and then cut across the range to larger cities such as Taiyuan.¹³ Additionally, pilgrimage routes to the famous home of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, Mt. Wutai, located in northern Shanxi, had long been established along the eastern side of the Taihang range.¹⁴

An idiosyncratic style developed within this territory that was contained by mountains yet connected by rivers. The following features of Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian, Qingliansi's Shijia Hall, the Daxiongbaodian of Longmensi, and the Main Hall of Zishengsi are characteristic of the late eleventh-century southeastern Shanxi regional style: five puzuo 鋪作 layers (filled-heart eaves-bracket sets on column tops only); bevelled bracket-arms; and lute-face/split-bamboo-styled descending cantilever and shuatou 鋪作 (see Fig. 32). Four details found in some but not all of these buildings-stone eaves columns that are square with bevelled edges, chamfered bracket-arm ends in the corner sets, the extension of the architrave (lan'e 闌額) through the column top at the corner, and, particularly idiosyncratic, the locust-head-style (mazhaxing 螞蚱形) finishing of the corner guazigong 瓜子栱-exist in other structures across the region. Both the regional style and the local idiom within the regional style recognizably pertain to the Shangdang area, but these were not something to which craftsmen or their patrons adhered rigidly, neither during the Song nor the succeeding Jin dynasty. These buildings from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries were maintained as artifacts in complexes that today contain buildings from later times. These later buildings evidence that funds were available to replace or update the old structures if that had been desired, and the existence of the older structures suggests that they were valued for what they were, perhaps as markers of the long histories of their monasteries or of a specific local or regional building tradition.

Kaihuasi and its Daxiongbaodian

Nestled into the western foothills of the Taihang range, situated on the southern flank of Sheli Mountain 舍利山, and located approximately seventeen kilometers northeast of present-day Gaoping Municipality 高平市, stands Kaihuasi Monastery complex (Fig. 3). According to one stele inscription within the complex, Buddhists established a monastery there first in 571 CE, when the Northern Qi (550-577) held the territory. Two other inscriptions indicate that the monastery was expanded under the supervision of the Chan Master Dayu 大愚禪師 (d. 925 CE) in the late ninth or early tenth century (889- 892 or 925) and named the Pure and Cool Monastery (Qingliang lanruo 清涼蘭若). The name of the monastery was changed to Kaihua chanlin 開化禪林 prior to 1030.¹⁵ None of the extant buildings are from this period, and we can only imagine how the complex would have originally appeared. But the existence of an eleventh-century building, retained as the centerpiece of a large complex of later buildings, does reveal an interest in preserving relics of the monastery's past, although not quite of its origin. Here and in the other mountain complexes, stone was used not only for foundations but also for columns, which elsewhere were more commonly fabricated from wood.¹⁶

Presently the monastery has two parallel complexes, a group of largely residential buildings on the east (seen on the right side of the tower in Fig. 3), and the major ritual axis, which is entered through the tower, as shown in the plan (Fig. 4). Access to the monastery is from a winding path that leads you around first to the door into the residential complex and then to the ritual axis. Originally a bell tower stood at the southern end of the axis, but in 1600 the tower was rebuilt and converted into a Storied Pavilion of Great Pity (Dabeige 大悲閣, or Mahākarunā Pavilion) dedicated to Guanyin (Fig. 5).¹⁷ There is no clear documentation of the earliest construction of this building, yet Chai Zejun and his survey team note that a tower at the front of a ritual axis was popular in Buddhist monastery complexes from the Period of Disunion (220-589) through the Tang dynasty (618-907). Thus, building a storied pavilion in this location would have been in keeping with tradition.¹⁸ According to the early survey teams, two-story entry-gate towers continued to be popular in the Shangdang region throughout the imperial period. The Ming- and Qing-dynasty gatehouses (shanmen 山門) documented in the 1956 survey were almost always two-story structures like the one at Kaihuasi, frequently having a stage for ritual opera configured into the second story.¹⁹

Fig. 3.

Kaihuasi. Gaoping Municipality, Shanxi Province. Extant buildings of 11th-18th c. View from the south. Photograph by author.

The next building on axis, which visually divides the space behind the tower into two courtyards, is the Daxiongbaodian (Fig. 6). The building is roughly square in plan, three bays wide by three bays deep, with the exterior of the front and side façades each measuring approximately 12.5 meters. Both wood and stone columns form the major structural support for the single-eaves hip-and-gable roof. This is apparently original construction because the building's present style is consistent with the style about 1073, the date inscribed on the building's stone columns.²⁰ According to a stele (dated to 1110) that details the hall's construction, this hall was completed in 1092.²¹ At that point the hall would have been ready for the addition of interior wall paintings. Two more inscriptions by the local artist Guo Fa 郭發 were found on the wall paintings, indicating that their

Fig. 4.

Kaihuasi. Plan of ritual axis. After "Taihang gujianzhu," p. 142, pl. 12.

Fig. 5.

Kaihuasi Dabeige. Rebuilt 1600. View from south. Photograph by author.

Fig. 6.

Kaihuasi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1073. Front façade. Photograph by author.

outline was completed in 1096.²² I shall return to the details of the date and style of this hall below.

The front courtyard was framed to the east and west by ten bays of subsidiary buildings. According to Chai Zejun's team, the buildings on the east side were Halls for Ritual Purification of the Heart/Mind (zhaixintang 齋心堂; Fig. 7), and those on the west side were Reception Halls (kezuotang 客座堂; Fig. 8).²³ These buildings have simple gabled roofs and front verandas. Only five bays of the reception halls on the west side are extant, but those eaves columns that remain show carefully carved stone bases. By contrast, the eaves columns on the Zhaixintang are placed directly on the floor sill. This difference could reflect different dates of construction, or, more likely, the original east side columns also had carved bases that were stolen and replaced with a simpler substitute.²⁴

Flanking the back courtyard of the ritual axis were two three-bay side halls-an extant Guest Hostel (yanbinshe 延賓舍) on the east (Fig. 9), and, originally, a Recitation Hall (jiangyitang 講肄堂) on the west. North of these two buildings were two small storage towers. Chai Zejun's team believes that the Guest Room, Recitation Hall, and storage towers date stylistically from the Yuan dynasty, and were likely part of a restoration of the monastery that took place in 1330.²⁵

The north end of the complex originally consisted of a central Hall for Discoursing on the Law (Yanfadian 演法殿) flanked by storied buildings.²⁶ All that now remains of the Yanfadian are the square stone columns that once supported the eaves (Fig. 10). Because ritual halls were so commonly framed of timber, one expects, when encountering a building as ruinous as this Yanfadian, to see only stone column bases and a few scattered roof tiles, which make the columns standing here visually startling until one recalls the widespread substitution of stone for timber in this area. Flanking the Yanfadian was once a Pure Quarters of Vimalakīrti (Weimojingshi 維摩凈室) on the west, and, on the east, still extant, a Guanyin Storied Pavilion (Guanyinge 觀音閣, also in Fig. 10). The Guanyin Pavilion is dated to 1212 by an inscription on an interior timber. This building was repaired in 1582 and again in 1692. Underneath it is a spring that would have provided drinking water for the residents of the monastery.

Fig. 7.

Kaihuasi Heart/Mind Purification Halls (Zhaixintang). Repaired 1645. Front façade. Photograph by author.

The Eastern Monastic Compound

One can access the eastern complex from the narrow passage between the Heart/Mind Purification Halls and the Guest Hostel. Here are a number of buildings with more mundane functions. The abbot's quarters, meditation halls, monks' cells, dining halls, and further storage facilities would all have been located in this section of the complex (Fig. 11). The buildings in the eastern complex have brick structural walls with timber-frame roofs supporting ceramic tiles. These buildings were likely added or rebuilt during the Ming-Qing dynasties, most of them at the height of the monastery's construction during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. According to Chai Zejun's analysis of the stele inscriptions extant at the site, Kaihuasi Monastery has undergone thirteen major repairs or restorations since the end of the Tang dynasty (889-891, 925, 1030, 1073-1110, 1212, 1330, 1582, 1600, 1643, 1645, 1654, 1692, and 1784). During this time, the ritual complex was expanded (1330), the Dabei Storied Pavilion was rebuilt (1600), and images gilded (1643).²⁷ Timber was primarily used for the complex bracketing in the Dabei Storied Pavilion and Daxiongbaodian, and for the roof frames of more modest structures, such as the side halls. Additionally, the large-scale, complex bracketing of the Daxiongbaodian would have required larger, higher-quality timbers than those adequate for the roof rafters of subsidiary structures. Since the other buildings in the complex are themselves an indication that funds were available for large-scale construction during the Ming and Qing, how do we know that the Daxiongbaodian, in the style of the Song dynasty, is indeed an ancient building? In the following section I shall describe the structure of Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian and discuss it as an example of a particular late eleventh-century style specific to the Shangdang region.

Fig. 8.

Kaihuasi Reception Halls (Kezuotang). Repaired 1654. Front façade. Photograph by author.

Structure of the Daxiongbaodian

As noted above, the Daxiongbaodian is a three-bay-square building, roughly 12.5 meters on a side.²⁸ The building has two large prism-lattice windows in the front façade and doorways in the central bays of both front and back façades. In this building some of the eaves columns are of wood, others of stone-the stone ones being rectangular with bevelled corners and the wooden ones cylindrical, but having flat tops without any chamfering (juansha 卷殺). The columns incline a bit toward the center of the building (batter [cejiao 側腳]) and the corner columns are slightly taller than the central bay columns (rise [shengqi 升起]). These features-a near-square plan, prism-lattice windows, and the increased height of the corner columns-distinguish Tang-Song buildings from those of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The building frame consists of a four-rafter beam facing a rufu 乳茯 tie beam, with three columns in cross section supporting a six-rafter depth from front to back (Fig. 12). The ceiling is open-frame, but presently there are the remnants of a suspended ceiling and wooden statuary niche in the central bay, which is framed by two small nonstructural columns at the front. Two construction techniques maximized the amount of interior space. The first is the reduction of interior structural columns to two framing the back of the central bay. This freed the patron to add statuary or niches at will. The second is the use of touxin 偷心 (stolen-heart, i.e., empty-center) huagong bracket arms on interior bracket clusters. These are steps of bracket arms that extend exclusively perpendicular to the wall plane. They allow the physicality of the roof frame to dissolve into intersecting planes of space, which become the ceiling structure (Fig. 13).

Fig. 9.

Kaihuasi Guest Hostel (Yanbinshe). 1330. Front façade. Photograph by author.

The interior would have been divided into two visual spheres, the central bay, almost certainly for statuary, enveloped by space one bay in width, which was focused on the wall-painting program. Not only are the walls covered with narrative wall paintings but the interior beams and bracketing are also brightly decorated. Because the wall paintings have been preserved from the eleventh century, it is possible that the decorative program of the wooden structure has also been preserved from that time.²⁹ Although the statuary is no longer extant, the central bay of the building is architecturally defined in such a way as to suggest that sculpted images would have been contained within this space (Fig. 14). Two narrow nonstructural columns, located directly across from their structural counterparts at the south end of the side façades' central bay, are linked by a square-lattice screen crowned with an arching beam and framed on either side by small bracket clusters atop short columns. A similar screen or solid panel may have originally been present on the east and west sides, suggested by the pronounced groove in the bracket arms of the cluster atop the back central bay column, creating something of a lattice canopy around the space. The original hung ceiling would have contrasted palpably with the open-frame ceiling of the surrounding areas. Thus, the central bay of the building as a whole was a separate, contained visual sphere for individuals focusing on the primary icon.

Bracketing of the Daxiongbaodian

The most unmistakable feature by which the Daxiongbaodian expresses its Song-dynasty identity is its eaves bracketing. Particularly noteworthy is the exclusive use of column-top bracket sets-very distinct from Song-dynasty architecture outside of this area, where intercolumnar bracketing had become common. The structure of the bracketing itself is also distinctive. Supported by a column-top tie beam (pubofang 普柏枋), the five-puzuo bracket sets of the Daxiongbaodian begin with a large bearing block (ludou 櫨枓) on top of the column and tie beam.³⁰ The first outward step consists of a filled-heart huagong 華栱 supporting a guazigong 瓜子栱 and mangong 慢栱, which are bevelled rather than squared off at the sides, with chamfering used to create the curve at the "elbow" of the bracket arm. The second step holds a filled-heart descending cantilever, beveled linggong 令栱, intermediary timber (timu 替木), and eaves purlin. A descending cantilever-shaped shuatou 耍頭 extends through the linggong, and the linggong supports the intermediary timber without the use of a central block. Both shuatou and descending cantilever are finished in a straight profile pointed at the tips (Fig. 15). This treatment was called lute-face/split-bamboo style by architectural historian Liang Sicheng and his team of researchers in the early twentieth century, and is stylistically consistent with some of the bracket sets used in the Sage Mother Hall (Shengmudian, 1038- 1087; Figs. 16, 17) at Jinci 晉祠, near Taiyuan, approximately 217 kilometers (135 miles) to the northwest of Kaihuasi.³¹

Fig. 10.

Kaihuasi, ruins of the Hall for Discoursing on the Law (Yanfadian) and the Guanyin Storied Pavilion (Guanyinge). Rebuilt 1212. Photograph by author.

Corner bracket sets follow the filled-heart pattern, which gives them a complex, decorative appearance (Fig. 18). The timber support for the corner of the building's eaves consists of a filled-heart huagong, filled-heart descending cantilever, and you'ang 由昂 The first step of huagong supports the locust-head-style end of the guazigong and the filled-heart of the descending cantilever supports the end of a mandarin ducks-style linggong as it crosses the corner. Additionally, the architrave extends through the corner of the column, further emphasizing it as a point of crossing.

A Contrasting Style: The Case of the Chuzu'an Main Hall, 1125

Comparison with a contemporary building of similar size and function on the south side of the Yellow River valley is helpful in demonstrating just how distinctive the architecture of Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian, and that of the Shangdang region, truly is. Whereas the style of the Daxiongbaodian's eaves bracketing is consistent with

Fig. 11.

Kaihuasi Abbot's Quarters. 16th-18th c. (?). Photograph by author.

Fig. 12.

Kaihuasi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1073. Section drawing. After "Shanxi jichu zhongyao gujianzhu shili," p. 165, pl. 87.

Fig. 13.

Kaihuasi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1073. Detail of interior, east side, showing "stolen-heart" huagong bracket arms. Photograph by author.

buildings found farther north in Shanxi, such as the Sage Mother Hall, that of the Main Hall of Chuzu'an 初祖庵 (Hermitage of the First Patriarch) at Shaolinsi (dated to 1125), on Song Shan, Henan, is surprisingly different (Fig. 19). The Hermitage of the First Patriarch stands approximately 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Kaihuasi, as the crow flies, and south across the Yellow River. As in the buildings of Shangdang's Taihang Mountain monasteries, stone is used for the columns. In this case, all sixteen of the columns are stone. The four eaves columns, framing the back bay on the east and west sides of the building, are contained within the exterior wall and are square with bevelled edges in the manner we see at Kaihuasi. The remaining twelve columns are all regular octagons and are all at least partially exposed, revealing their shape as well as carved surface decoration.³² Additionally, the style of the bracketing is quite different from what appears farther north. The descending cantilevers are not in lute-face/split-bamboo style but are curved in profile, with a rounded or slightly pentagonal tip, consistent with the simple lute-face (qinmian 琴面) descending cantilever tips described in the Yingzao fashi (Fig. 20).³³

The similarities to the metropolitan style, and differences from the Shangdang style, do not end there. Note the use of intercolumnar bracket sets between the columns. Whereas Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian employs no bracket sets between the columns, on the side façade of Chuzu'an's Main Hall (shown in Fig. 20) we see single intercolumnar bracket sets of precisely the same configuration as the column-top sets. On the front façade two intercolumnar sets, again of the same appearance, appear in the central bay (Fig. 19). Furthermore, no column top tie beam supports the large bearing blocks holding the bracket clusters. Instead, the large bearing blocks rest directly on the columns and, in the inter-columnar position, on the architrave. This positioning appears slightly awkward, as the bottom of the bearing block is greater in depth than the architrave and thus projects outward over the edge of the lower timber. Yet this too was standard practice in the capital by the end of the eleventh century, as stipulated in the Yingzao fashi. In the section on the order of the elements in a bracket cluster (puzuo), the Yingzao fashi specifies that two intercolumnar bracket sets be used in the central bay and one in the side bays, and that large bearing blocks supporting the bracket clusters be placed either directly on columns or, for intercolumnar bracket sets, on the architrave.³⁴ The column-top tie beam used in the Kaihuasi hall is discussed in the Yingzao fashi, but in the context of balconies or platforms (pingzuo 平座)) supported by bracket sets.³⁵

Fig. 14.

Kaihuasi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1073. Interior central bay. Photograph by author.

Fig. 15.

Kaihuasi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1073. Detail of column-top bracket set. Photograph by author.

Although differing styles of descending cantilever tip and the use or nonuse of intercolumnar bracket sets and column-top tie beams may seem minutiae to the modern reader, the Yingzao fashi, in describing these elements, is an indication that Song-period craftsmen and patrons would have been sensitive to these distinctions and would have been making conscious decisions as to which type to employ on a given project. These stipulations were evidently not imposed on the architecture of the provinces; rather, they may have had specific regional associations. In his study of the Yingzao fashi, Pan Guxi suggests that the architecture of the Northern Song court described in the manual was heavily influenced by the regional architecture of southeastern coastal China. He notes that numerous elements specific to Song-period remains in the Yangzi Delta area figure prominently in this building manual but are not commonly seen north of Kaifeng.³⁶

Elsewhere I discuss reasons why the Northern Song court may have wished to remake its capital in an architectural

Fig. 16.

Sage Mother Hall (Shengmudian). 1038-1087. Jinci, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. Detail of intercolumnar eaves bracketing on lower eaves. Photograph by author.

Fig. 17.

Lower eaves intercolumnar bracket set. 1038-1087. Sage Mother Hall, Jinci, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. Line drawing. After Peng Hai, Jinci wenwu toushi (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1997), p. 179.

style known to be of the Yangzi Delta. For purposes of this article one example will help to show how similar is the Main Hall of Chuzu'an, only a hundred miles from the Shangdang region, to the earlier architectural tradition of the southeast that was incorporated into the official building style of the Northern Song captial.³⁷ The Daxiongbaodian of Baoguosi 保國寺 in Yuyao 寧波, Ningbo 寧波, Zhejiang Province, dating from 1013 (Fig. 21), is the architectural antecedent to the Main Hall of Chuzu'an. Although enclosed with a second set of eaves in 1684, the building was originally constructed as a three-by-three-bay hall, and at 11.91 × 13.35 meters is comparable in size to the Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi and the Chuzu'an Main Hall.³⁸ The detail of the original eaves bracketing shown in Figure 21 reveals comparably larger bracket sets, here seven rather than five puzuo layers, but a similar use of simple lute-face descending cantilever tips, shuatou, chamfered bracket arms, and lack of column-top tie beam that we see at Chuzu'an.

Fig. 18.

Kaihuasi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1073. Detail of corner bracket set. Photograph by author.

Notwithstanding the style of architecture that had been legitimized by use in the Northern Song capital, builders working in the Shangdang region continued a distinctive style of their own. The comparison between Chuzu'an's Main Hall and the Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi suggests that the Yellow River was a dividing line between northern and southern styles of ritual architecture in late eleventh- and early twelfth-century China. Yet, the material evidence of southern Shanxi is rich enough to place Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian into a more narrowly defined context, a local architectural idiom specific to the Shangdang region. In the following, I describe those buildings and the complexes within which they were preserved as overt relics of the past surrounded by later worship halls consistent with stylistic trends of their own times.

Evidences of Regional Identity in Late Eleventh-Century Shangdang

Qingliansi and Its Shijia Hall 青連寺釋迦殿

Qingliansi is situated in a magnificent setting approximately 22 kilometers southeast of modern Jincheng City (Fig. 22). Built on the south side of Xiashi Shan 硤石山 ,³⁹ overlooking the Dan River 丹河, the site is divided into upper and lower complexes. The history of the lower complex can be traced back to the Northern Qi (550- 577), when it was named Xiashi Monastery, after the mountain. Tang Yizong officially named it Qingliansi in 867.

The upper monastery was given the title Fuyan chanyuan 褔嚴禪院 in 978,⁴⁰ but the name was eventually changed to Qingliansi, following that of the lower complex.⁴¹ Today the upper complex consists of four axial buildings-the Celestial Kings Hall (Tianwangdian 天王殿), Sutra Repository, Shijia Hall, and Daxiong Hall-as well as side halls framing the courtyards, all set into the steep mountainside. Subsidiary structures around the ritual axis include a pavilion located atop a ridge east of the complex, where the sixth-century monk Huiyuan 慧遠 is said to have written the Daban niepanjing yiji 大般涅槃經義記 (Commentary on Mahāparinirvaṇa Sūtra). As at Kaihuasi, the central axial halls in the Qingliansi complex are the earliest structures. The oldest building in the complex is the Shijia Hall (Fig. 23). It is dated to an expansion of the monastery that occurred in the late eleventh-early twelfth century, both because its stone columns are inscribed with a range of dates equivalent to 1076 through 1102 and because the building is so stylistically similar to the Kaihuasi Daxiongbaodian.⁴²

Fig. 19.

Shaolinsi Chuzu'an Main Hall. Dated to 1125. Dengfeng County, Henan Province. Front façade. After Laurence G. Liu, Chinese Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1989), p. 106.

The Structure of the Shijia Hall

Although Qingliansi's Shijia Hall, like Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian, is three bays wide and three bays

Fig. 20.

Shaolinsi Chuzu'an Main Hall. Dated to 1125. Detail of eaves bracketing showing simple lute-face descending cantilevers in both column-top and intercolumnar positions. Photograph by author.

Fig. 21.

Baoguosi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1013. Yuyao, Zhejiang Province. Detail of original eaves bracket sets. Photograph by author.

Fig. 22.

Qingliansi. Extant buildings dating from 11th c. through modern reconstructions. Jincheng Municipality, Shanxi Province. View of complex from the rear, looking southeast toward the Dan River. Photograph by author.

Fig. 23.

Qingliansi Shijia Hall. Dated to 1076-1102. Front façade. Photograph by author.

deep, with a single-eaves hip-and-gable roof, it is significantly larger (Fig. 24). Its front façade measures 16.4 meters and its sides measure 15.2 meters, compared with Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian measure of 12.5 meters a side.⁴³ Front and back façades are supported by square stone columns with bevelled edges. Their tops are joined by architrave and column-top tie beam, the latter extending across the top of the corner column. In contrast to the Daxiongbaodian, here the architrave does not emerge from the corner column. Both front and back façades have doorways in the central bays, and prismlattice windows pierce the side bays of the front façade.

Bracketing of the Shijia Hall

This building's bracketing is strikingly similar to that of Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian. Like the latter, Shijia Hall has two types of eaves-supporting sets, column-top and corner (Figs. 25, 26). The column-top sets of

Fig. 24.

Qingliansi Shijia Hall. Dated to 1076-1102. Plan. After "Shanxi Fojiao caisu," p. 319.

Fig. 25.

Qingliansi Shijia Hall. Dated to 1076-1102. Detail of column-top bracket set. Photograph by author.

Fig. 26.

Qingliansi Shijia Hall. Dated to 1076-1102. Detail of corner bracket set. Photograph by author.

the two buildings differ only in the rendering of the huagong bracket arm; those in the Shijia Hall are not rounded by chamfering but have a sharp edge running down their center. The corner sets differ only in two ways. First, and most significant, the first step of the Shijia Hall guazigong does not extend across the corner of the hall to form a locust-head frame for the corner descending cantilever. In other respects, the corner sets are structurally and stylistically the same, down to the use of edged huagong and linggong bracket-arm tips on the extensions directly from the corner. In the second difference, only in Shijia Hall are there "corner spirits" (jiaoshen 角神) between the you'angs and the hip-rafters. Although it is unknown whether these are original to the building, there is a provision for such sculpture in the Yingzao fashi.⁴⁴ Considering that the original interior statuary of this hall is intact, it is possible that these figures are also original.

The details in these two buildings are so strikingly similar that they suggest an established regional style for the Ze-Lu territory. The buildings' bracketing and roof frames are identical, and their forms are clearly dictated by stylistic choice rather than by structural considerations. The extension of the guazigong across the corner and the edged, rather than chamfered, articulation of the exterior column-top huagong arms are features consistent with the more northern Longmensi Daxiong-baodian, contributing to the conclusion that a southern Shanxi or Shangdang regional style existed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Longmensi and Its Daxiongbaodian

Longmensi is located approximately sixty kilometers northeast of the town of Pingshun and roughly two kilometers north of Yuantoucun 源頭村, Shichengxiang 石城鄉. The monastery sits in a valley on the north side of a river on Longmen Mountain 龍門山, in the northern portion of the Taihang Range 太行山 that divides Shanxi from Henan. Its present name comes from the mountain on which it was built (Fig. 27). A recent survey of the site shows four major axial courtyards, three of which held a main worship hall on the north side and were enclosed on the east and west sides by side halls (Fig. 28). As is seen in the reconstructed plan, a shanmen gatehouse was originally located off the central axis but on the footpath leading up to the monastery. This building was followed by a Diamond Hall (Jin'gangdian 金鋼殿), of which only a foundation remains. The present complex begins with a Celestial Kings Hall (Tianwangdian 天王殿; present shanmen) followed by a Daxiongbaodian and Dīpam. kara Hall, (Randengfodian 然燈佛殿), and was originally completed on the north end by a Thousand Buddhas Storied Pavilion (Qianfoge千佛閣), also no longer extant.⁴⁵ Additionally, there are residential complexes on the east and west sides of the central ritual axis. Though conforming to an overall courtyard complex configuration, the buildings follow the slope of the mountain, with each hall, from front to back, on a slightly higher elevation.⁴⁶

The complex was first built (xiu 修) and named Fahua 法華 under orders from the Northern Qi emperor Gao Yang 高洋 (r. 550-559), then rebuilt in 925.⁴⁷ According to an extant stele from 1479 at the site, Zhao Kuangyin 趙匡胤 (r. 960-976), the first Song emperor, personally visited the monastery in 960. The next year the people of nearby Licheng 黎城 and Lucheng raised funds to add more than fifty bays of buildings and corridors to the complex. Gazetteers also record that during the Taiping Xingguo reign-period (976-984), the second Song emperor, Zhao Kuangyi 趙匡義 (r. 976-997), officially named the monastery Longmen Shan Huiriyuan 龍門山惠日院⁴⁸ During the Xining reign-period (1068- 1078) 100 bays of residential quarters were added.⁴⁹ Although the monastery grounds were seven li in circumference during the Yuan dynasty, presently the circumference of the site is only about 286 meters.⁵⁰ The complex is famous for having one building from the Five Dynasties period (West Side Hall, 925), one from the Song (Daxiongbaodian, 1098), one from the Jin (Celestial Kings Hall), one from the Yuan (Dīpaṁkara Hall), and other subsidiary halls added subsequently. Additionally, it is famous for its wealth of steles from the Ming and Qing dynasties, including the above-mentioned and one from 1480 on which is carved a basic plan of the axial buildings at that time.⁵¹

The Structure of Longmensi's Daxiongbaodian

Overall resemblance among the Daxiongbaodian of Longmensi, the Shijia Hall of Qingliansi, and Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian is patent. The Daxiongbaodian of Longmensi is also a three-by-three-bay building, but it is significantly smaller than the other two (Fig. 29). The front façade measures 10.4 meters and the side façade 9.9 meters.⁵² There are doors in the central bays of the front and back façades and windows in the side bays of the front façade only. Windows also pierce the back bays of both sides; the windows and doors presently visible are later additions.⁵³ On the front façade all the columns are of stone, but on the back façade only the corner columns are of stone. All wooden columns are finished in the upturned-basin style. The corner columns are six centimeters taller than the central

Fig. 27.

Longmensi. Extant buildings dating from 925. Pingshun County, Shanxi Province. Distant view of Daxiongbaodian back façade. Photograph courtesy of P. Lorge.

Fig. 28.

Longmensi. Plan of complex. After "Longmensi baohu guihua," p. 34.

Fig. 29.

Longmensi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1098. Front façade. Photograph by author.

Fig. 30.

Longmensi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1098. Cross-section drawing. After "Pingshun Longmensi," p. 287.

Fig. 31.

Longmensi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1098. Angled view of front façade. Photograph by author.

Fig. 32.

Longmensi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1098. Line drawing of column-top bracket set. After "Pingshun Longmensi Daxiongbaodian," p. 25.

bay columns, making for a pronounced rise.⁵⁴ Both column-top tie beam and architrave extend outward at the corners, and the architrave is cut inward in the same manner as on the Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi.

The building frame spans six rafters from front to back (Fig. 30). Two interior columns frame a statuary wall in the back central bay. Although the rufu tie beam does not extend the regular length of two rafters, the structure is still considered to be a "four-rafter beam facing a rufu tie beam with three columns in cross-section." The ceiling frame is presently open, but Ma Jikuan notes that it is rough-framed, suggesting that originally a ceiling covered these timbers.⁵⁵ Both the short rufu tie beam and four-rafter beam support rough camel's-hump braces crowned with bearing blocks, though the camel's-hump braces are of different heights. The bearing blocks support zhaqian 劄牽 tie beams that join into queen posts. These in turn support collar beams with king posts and inverted V-braces supporting the ridge pole.

Bracketing of the Daxiongbaodian

As in the Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi and the Shijia Hall of Qingliansi, bracket clusters appear on the column tops only (Fig. 31). The column-top bracket sets are five puzuo, consisting of a large bearing block supported by a column-top tie beam. The outward extension of the sets consists of a step of filled-heart huagong supporting a huatouzi, filled-heart lute-face/split-bamboo descending cantilever, linggong penetrated by a descending cantilever-shaped shuatou, intermediary timber, and eaves purlin (Fig. 32).⁵⁶ Both guazigong and mangong "fill the heart" of the first outward step of huagong. These arms, as well as the linggong, are all bevelled. The arms of the huagong are edged on exterior façades and chamfered on the interiors. The interior of these sets consists of two layers of stolen-heart huagong and a shuatou carved in the locust-head fashion.

Although the corner sets show some variation from Kaihuasi and Qingliansi, the basic construction is the same (Fig. 33). Notably similar are the ends of the guazigong that cross over and frame the corner of the eaves and are finished in the locust-head fashion. Additionally noticeable at the corner is the angled finish of the architrave, which extends through the end of the corner column as well as the bevelled ends of the mandarin duck-style linggong crossing at the corner. Departing from Kaihuasi and Qingliansi, there is a second level of you'ang above the descending cantilever, a feature present, however, in other buildings of this area.⁵⁷

Differences in construction seen in the cross-sections of the Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi and Longmensi suggest that they were built by different workshops. The difference is most pronounced in the connection between the interior and the back eaves columns. At Kaihuasi a rufu tie beam extends from the interior column's large bearing block to the back eaves bracket sets. At Longmensi the link is above the descending cantilever tails and yatiao joined into the bracket cluster at the top of the interior column. Although this is considered to be a rufu tie beam/four-rafter beam construction, these two timbers could be easily replaced with one six-rafter beam. The Kaihuasi hall approaches that on the next layer of timber construction with a zhaqian tie beam supporting a camel's-hump brace. Here a three-rafter beam extends across the top of the four-rafter beam to provide a level ground for the queen posts. Again, Longmensi differs in the symmetrical placement of camel's-hump braces, although they are of disparate height. Here the queen posts are joined to both front and back purlins with zhaqian tie beams joining through the camel's-hump bearing blocks.

Fig. 33.

Longmensi Daxiongbaodian. Dated to 1098. Detail of corner bracket set. Photograph by author.

As suggested by the above, multiple groups of builders may have been working in this area; nevertheless, the similarity in the overall building style is quite remarkable. The front-eaves column-top bracket sets at Longmensi are virtually the same on both interior and exterior as those found at Qingliansi and Kaihuasi. The major stylistic difference in the bracketing is the increased use of edged huagong and the additional you'ang on the corner bracket sets.

Fig. 34.

Zishengsi. 11th c.-modern additions. Gaoping Municipality, Shanxi Province. View from northwest. Photograph by author.

Within the style exemplified by the Daxiongbaodian of Kaihuasi, the Shijia Hall of Qingliansi, and Long-men's Daxiongbaodian, a local idiom is also present. The Main Hall of Zishengsi is also a three-by-three bay hall with exclusively column-top bracketing, and that bracketing resembles the bracketing in the Kaihuasi Daxiongbaodian even more closely than that of Qingliansi or Longmensi.

An Argument for Local Idiom: The Case of Zishengsi

Zishengsi is located in Dazhouzuan cun cun 大周纂村, Gaoping Municipality, just west of Dongzhou 東周⁵⁸ and about three kilometers (1.87 miles) directly north of Dayang (Fig. 34). The village is located on a bluff, and earlier descriptions of the complex suggest that it may have originally been on the outskirts of town, but it would never have had the panoramic mountain views of Kaihuasi, Qingliansi, or Longmensi. A series of buildings all seem to have been part of the original ritual complex. On the southernmost end, across the road leading into town from the other buildings, there now stands a two-story structure. There follow a smaller building that may have been a shanmen gatehouse, a central three-by-three-bay Main Hall, and a Back Hall. Because the two-story building at the southern end is roughly on axis with the other major buildings of the complex-rather like the Dabeige at the southern end of Kaihuasi's ritual axis-it may have originally been part of the monastery (Fig. 35). The other three buildings are now hemmed in on both sides by a strip mall of "classical-revival" buildings, all facing outward for business. Information regarding this site is sparser than for the other three. A Qianlong-period (1736-1795)

Fig. 35.

Zishengsi tower at southern end of complex. No date. Photograph by author.

Fig. 36.

Zishengsi Main Hall. 11th c. Back façade. Photograph by author.

gazetteer documents a Zishengsi in Dayang Town that may have been founded in the Northern Qi. This Zishengsi had an imperial plaque dated to 1020. But, even during the eighteenth century, no more information was available.⁵⁹

Once inside the complex, one encounters a Main Hall of a type that, after having seen those at Kaihuasi, Qingliansi, and Longmensi, is now completely familiar (Fig. 36). This central hall is also three bays wide by three bays deep, with a hip-gable roof and exclusively column-top bracketing. The bracket arms "filling the heart" of the huagong are bevelled (Fig. 37). Furthermore, here too the linggong does not have a central block above it, and the bracket-arm ends extending up to support the eaves at the corners are edged, as in the other three halls. But extension of the architrave through the column top and extension of the guazigong across the corner-both characteristics present at Kaihuasi but absent at Qingliansi-are notably present in the Main Hall of Zishengsi. The corner huagong are uniquely rendered, with corner and sides all displaying bevelled rather than chamfered finishing. Direct comparison of the corner bracket sets of the Song halls at Zishengsi and Kaihuasi displays this remarkable similarity in detail (Figs. 38and18)-note the cavity in the column top and column-top tie beam where the architrave would have originally continued through. One major difference here, the use of timber columns rather than stone, may rather reflect the low availability of stone in the villages on the plains than stylistic choice.

The north end of the complex is framed by a five-bay- wide back hall that has been dated to the Yuan dynasty by the style of the structure (Fig. 39). One can see that bracket sets extending outward to support the eaves in this building fill the intercolumnar positions and are placed on top of the columns. The central bay of the building is emphasized as a point of entry with a larger, fan-shaped intercolumnar bracket set. The descending cantilever tips of the eaves bracket sets do not have a straight, angled profile, but are instead curved, and have ends with a pronounced pentagonal cross-section (Fig. 40). This is a variation of the "lute-face"

Fig. 37.

Zishengsi Main Hall. 11th c. Detail of column-top bracket set. Photograph by author.

Fig. 38.

Zishengsi Main Hall. 11th c. Detail of corner bracket set. Photograph by author.

Fig. 39.

Zishengsi Back Hall. 13th-14th c. (?). Front façade. Photograph by author.

Fig. 40.

Zishengsi Back Hall. 13th-14th c. (?). Detail of column-top bracket set. Photograph by author.

Fig. 41.

Longxingsi Entry Gatehouse. 10th c. with 18th c. modifications. Zhengding County, Hebei Province. Detail of front façade eaves bracketing, contrasting brackets of the 10th and 18th c. Photograph by author.

descending cantilever tip documented in the Yingzao fashi, one that was increasingly common in this area from the beginning of the twelfth century. Another divergence in the bracketing style of this later building concerns the shuatou. Instead of the descending cantilever-shaped shuatou used in all four of the earlier halls, here the shuatou are rendered as scaled serpents. Animal-shaped elements within the bracket sets contribute to its classification as a "Yuan-dynasty" (here, 1234-1368) structure.⁶⁰

The earliest date actually on any building in the complex is an inscription on the roof ridge of the Main Hall documenting a restoration in 1506: the major roof purlins were replaced. Significantly, what must have been a major restoration did not include updating the building to a more contemporary, or "modern" sixteenth-century style, even though it was possible, during a repair, to update a building stylistically so as to make it appear more in keeping with contemporary trends in ritual architecture. Instead, the building was restored to a recognizably Song-dynasty condition. I am not suggesting that the patrons of Buddhist architecture in the Shangdang region engaged in an explicit act of historic preservation in restoring this hall. I am only suggesting that returning the hall to its original condition appears to have been a conscious choice. Similar choices were made elsewhere to preserve the traditional, if not ancient, appearance of earlier monumental timber buildings, even as the expanding temple complexes that enveloped them included buildings showing the latest stylistic trends in ritual architecture.

The opposite choice is evident in the Entry Gate-house of Longxingsi, an imperially patronized Buddhist complex located in present-day Zhengding 正定, Hebei Province, just north of Shijiazhuang 石家莊 (Fig. 41). Originally constructed during a rebuilding of the site between 982 and 988, the Gatehouse was updated during a major restoration in 1780. One can clearly see the addition of smaller intercolumnar bracket sets-an eighteenth-century preference-between the large tenth century column-top clusters. This is a large building, 23.28 meters across the front façade, so the intercolumnar bracket sets may have been deemed a structural necessity to support ancient timbers along the wall plane.⁶¹ But these corbelled brackets do not extend outward and upward to support the eaves. Their structural function could have been accomplished with a vertical strut (zhidou 直枓) hidden within the wall plane. More than structural necessity, the intercolumnar bracket sets show stylistic preference. A choice was made during this renovation: to transform the appearance of the building into a semblance of other eighteenth-century buildings, with their plethora of decorative intercolumnar bracket sets.⁶²

Conclusion

My initial research on extant Song-dynasty buildings in the southeastern quarter of Shanxi Province has demonstrated that the caretakers of monasteries and temple complexes in premodern China appreciated their ancient buildings as artifacts of a particular place and time. My research has also made it clear that the category of "Song dynasty" is insufficient to articulate the distinctions between buildings constructed within the "Song-dynasty" empire. In southeastern Shanxi it is possible to discover not only Song-dynasty buildings but also a distinct regional style, and within that style, a local idiom of ritual hall in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Kaihuasi's Daxiongbaodian, Qingliansi's Shijia Hall, Longmensi's Daxiongbaodian, and Zishengsi's Main Hall have all been preserved in complexes that have undergone numerous repairs, restorations, and additions. Many of the buildings that make up the greater portion of these complexes are larger than these halls, and thus were probably more expensive to build than the Song halls were to restore. The preservation of these halls in an identifiably late eleventh-century style does not, therefore, appear to have resulted from diminished economic means. There must have been another motivation.

These buildings suggest that the patrons of the Buddhist monasteries discussed earlier did not conceive of themselves so much as subjects of the Song dynasty, but rather as people of the Shangdang region, with dynastic identity occurring only secondarily. They did not, therefore, feel any strong or swift impulse to emulate the shifts in the metropolitan style, nor were they compelled to do so by government regulation. Old buildings were not quickly replaced, but were instead preserved and maintained with their identifiably antique characteristics. These antique and fragile timber buildings are palpable evidence of the continuous local religious community necessary to keep them standing, and are thus evidence of the economic vitality of the region as a whole. They are more than just Song-dynasty buildings; they are markers of self-awareness and self-confidence in a specific time and place in medieval North China. Through continued documentation of the variety in monumental timber-frame buildings from the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, we can begin to discern the complexity of regional architectural variation that existed underneath Song dynastic control.