Page 194 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

a) Private collection in Nanjing b) Excavated from Jingdezhen 1993. Jingdezhen Institute of
Ceramic Archaeology

c) Excavated from Jingdezhen 1993. Jingdezhen Institute of d) Excavated from the Da Baoen Monastery Pagoda site 2009. The
Ceramic Archaeology Museum of Ceramic Specimens, Humanity College, Nanjing Art University
Plate 20.8a–d Unusual ‘white on blue’ underglaze decorated porcelain tiles which may be floor tiles. Fragments excavated in Nanjing match
specimens found at Jingdezhen. They are similar to two complete specimens in the British Museum (registration numbers 1993,1027.1-2)

distinctive polychrome components in yellow and green. stele inscription clearly aims to refute this and emphasise his
Remarkably, it seems that polychrome glazework appeared legitimacy. It also complements the assertion being made by
on imperial roofs and architectural detailing in early Ming Yongle’s administration that his nephew the Jianwen 建文
Nanjing, but subsequently only on walls and never on roofs emperor (r. 1399–1402) was an illegitimate and rightfully
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in imperial projects in Beijing. deposed usurper. However, interpretations differ, and some
researchers have suggested that the project may have been
Partially addressed questions about the Da Baoen dedicated at one time to Yongle’s Empress Xu 徐 (1362–
Monastery pagoda 1407), and also that there may be complex political sub-texts
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The jury is still out on why the Da Baoen Monastery project in the renaming of the temple.
was begun, or to whom its pagoda was dedicated. The Clues to this may be implied by homophones of its new
dedicatory stele erected by Yongle in February 1424, early in name. Its renaming from Tianxi Monastery to the Da Baoen
the same year that he perished on his fifth campaign against Monastery Pagoda is described in some detail in the 1424
the Mongols, dedicates the project with emphatic filial piety stele. Homophones and associated meanings for the
to his august deceased father and his august deceased important character bao 報 include familiar and frequently
mother, clearly meaning the Hongwu emperor and the used forms such as:
Empress Ma 馬 (1332–82). It describes the renaming of the
temple and prays that the project will bring good fortune to 褒as in bao yi 褒義 (praise or commend)
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the spirits of ‘my deceased father and mother above [i.e. in 寶 as in bao ta 寶塔 (a treasure pagoda)
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heaven]’ and it records that the project is ‘near completion’. 保 as in bao cun 保存 bao shou 保守 (preserve or maintain and
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A later dedicatory stele, erected by Yongle’s grandson keep watch over)
Xuande in 1428, records the ancestral names associated with
the project and, understandably, reaffirms Yongle’s filial 報 as in bao en 報恩 (pay a debt of gratitude) or bao fu mu en
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dedication from four years previously. 報父母恩 (filial gratitude)
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Yongle may have been haunted by the suggestion that 抱 as in bao qian 抱歉 (to be sorry, to regret)
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Empress Ma might not be his biological mother, and the
184 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450