A Paradise Lost: The Imperial Garden Yuanming Yuan

Notes

Introduction 1. Wang Wei’s survey of the Yuanming Yuan (1959, 1993) is a good pioneering work, repeatedly updated, but it remains too sketchy to do justice to the magnitude of the imperial garden. A Taiwanese scholar flagrantly plagiarized Wang’s work in the 1960s (Liu Fenghan 1963, 1969). Chapter 1: Provenance 1. Elfland refers to Penglai, the legendary fairyland at the east seas. One of the earliest authors to write about the legendary Penglai is Wang Jia, in the third century a.d., in Shiyiji (A book of forgotten events) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), pp. 223– 224. 2. Even though the existence of the Xia dynasty has been established by archaeologists, its “historicity” remains in doubt among scientific historians for the lack of contemporary written records. The Jade Terrace was recorded in later sources. 3. The character “you” first appears on oracle-bone inscriptions (cf. Luo 1912). Its meaning in ancient Chinese classics is often defined as “a place where animals are kept.” Hence, it originally referred to a zoo. Not until after the founding of the Chinese Empire in 221 b.c. was you renamed yuan, or yuanyou. Sima Qian, the Grand Historian of the Han, standardized the term in his Shiji, and yuanyou has since been identified as imperial garden. 4. The Confucian classic Shijing (Book of Poetry) refers to “marvelous tower” as “divine terrace” (lingtai) and the “marvelous park” as “divine menagerie” (lingyou) (Legge 1935, 4:456, 457). 5. Sima Qian writes: “He (the first emperor) had places constructed in the Shanglin Garden (the Upper Woods) south of the River Wei. The front palace, A’fang (Apang), built first, was five hundred feet from east to west, and five hundred feet from south to north. The terraces above could seat ten thousand and below there was room for a banner fifty feet in height” (Szuma Chien [Sima Qian] 1979, 179; Sima Qian 1975, 1:256).The rebel leader Xiang Yu burned down this gigantic imperial garden. “[Xiang] set fire to the Ch’in [Qin] palaces. The conflagration raged for three whole months” (Szuma Chien 1979, 221; Sima Qian 1975, 1:315). The legend of A’fang was further exaggerated by the Tang poet Du Mu, who in his famous “Lamenting the A’fang Palace” asserts that “For building the A’fang Palace, trees on the Sichuan hills were all gone.The Palace covered more than three hundred square li (thirty square miles), hiding from the Sun in the sky, facing Mt. Li in the north, and turning westward to the capital Xianyang.Two rivers ran through the palaces where stood a chamber every five feet and a pavilion every ten feet. . . . In a single day and within the same Palace, the weather appeared not the same” (Du Mu 1978, 1). A’fang Palace itself, however, is not a fiction. Archaeologists have located its ruin site near present-day Xian. The grounds cover about one mile from north to south (Meng Ya’nan 1993, 6–7). 6. The Han historian Ban Gu, in his History of the Former Han Dynasty, described Jianzhang as the main palace in a huge complex of palaces, and Taiye situated north of Jianzhang was a large lake, on which stood many isles called “fairy hills” (shenshan ) (Ban Gu 1962, 4:12445). 7. The noticeable exception was that of Liang Ji, the vicious| 195 Notes grand o‰cial, who misused his power to build the hugeTu Yuan west of Luoyang. Its grandeur was comparable, if not superior, to an imperial garden (cf. Fan Ye 1965, 5:1182). 8. The most noticeable example was that of Shi Chong (a.d. 249–300). As a result of its assistance in founding the Jin dynasty in 265, the Shi family obtained almost unlimited power and prestige. Shi Chong followed his father to serve in the highest o‰ces in the government and developed a strong passion for accumulating wealth. His famous Golden Valley Garden (Jingu Yuan) constructed in a scenic neighborhood of Luoyang was magnificent. In fact, the name was given to the garden because the Golden Valley River actually ran through it. Before his fall, Shi Chong often entertained famous scholars and literary figures such as Pan Yue and Lu Ji in the garden. He also invited beautiful women to live in the garden such as the legendary Lady Lu Zhu (the Green Pearl). 9. The art of landscape painting emerged during the period of the Southern dynasties, stemming in part...