A Note on Stone Rubbings

-7fcA Note on Stone Rubbings Susan Mann Jones Center for Far Eastern Studies University of Chicago Through the courtesy of Professor Shiba Yoshinobu of Osaka University, the Hoover Institution has recently acquired copies of ninety-eight rubbings of Shanghai guild inscriptions on stone. These rubbings were collected by the late Katô" Shigeshi for the Toyô" Bunko, and now form a part of its extensive collection of rubbings. The inscriptions span a period from early Chia-ch'ing (1797) to the Republican era (1930). While the collection comprises mainly rubbings of inscriptions by affiliate organizations of the Ningpo Guild (Ssu-ming Kung-ao^? m 7A i^tj ) at Shanghai, it also includes a small number of rubbings from ins*criptions for the Ch'ao-chou Guild. The complete text of rubbings pertaining to tne Ningpo Guild, with an accompanying index, will be made available by the TÖy Bunko in a future issue of its publication Shohö" S ^ft . Stone inscriptions have received much attention in Chinese scholarly circles since the mid-Ch'ing k'ao-cheng (textual research) revival, k. few Sung scholars, among them Ou-yang Hsiu, were tne first to devote serious attention to the collection of rubbings and to descriptions of stone and bronze engravings. In the late Ming period, Ku ifen-wu's interest in etymology and philology drew him naturally to -77the study of inscriptions. The mid-Ch'ing period, notably the k' ao-cheng studies by scholars of the Ch'ien-lung and Chia-ch'ing reigns (c. 1736-1820), brought forth a new interest in the collection and cataloguing of bronze and stone rubbings. Wang Ch'ang, Pi Yuan, Sun Hsing-yen and Juan Yuan all published in- ? fluential works recording their investigations. This scholarly interest was, however, primarily philological. Stone inscriptions were used to correct errors and fill in lacunae in printed texts, and to verify existing historical records. Most collections focused their attention on rubbings up to the Sung period. Many Ch'ing works included examples from Yuan times} but few evidence interest in Ming and Ch'ing inscriptions. As permanent records, stone inscriptions were regarded as a special medium, ideally reserved only for the preservation of important classical texts or the Buddhist canon, or to commemorate important events of state or locale: an imperial tour, an edict, a covenant or treaty, a major construction project (wall, temple, school.) However, aa early as the Eastern Han period, individual epitaphs are known to have been recorded on .,tone, and examples of fine calligraphy from the Five Dynasties period have been preserved in bronze and stone -78inscriptions . The mid-Ch«ing social critic Kung Tauchen remarked sarcastically that such particularistic, private uses of the stone medium were a travesty of the proper role of stone inscriptions (fei k'e shlh lunveh^ld&iil