Page 44 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

inhabited them. Han Feizi recorded the story of
King Zhao (r. 306-251 bce) of the state of Qin
who climbed to the top of Mount Hua and left an
inscription there saying, "King Zhao once played a
game of bo with a heavenly deity here." Mountains
were also wild places where fantastic and dangerous
creatures lived. The late Zhou and Han Shanhai jing
("Classic of Mountains and Seas") describes
mountains inhabited by animals like the human-
devouring zhuhai, with horns like a bull, human
eyes, and hog's ears. The deities residing in the
mountains are also often hybrid, combining human,
bird, snake, sheep, or dragon parts.
In late Zhou local cults of immortality were
gaining strength and spreading, and in these cults
immortals were often associated with mountains.
Magicians advised the First Emperor of Qin that
immortals dwelled in exquisite palaces of gold and
silver in the mountains of an island in the Eastern
Sea, and he sent out teams of young people to
Wusearch for them. In Han times Emperor was
told that the Yellow Emperor had attained
immortality by visiting these islands. The
Huainanzi, a Daoist-tinged compilation sponsored
by a Han prince during the mid-second century
bce, describes the magic realm of the Kunlun
Mountains in the far west, where immortality could
be attained. Sometimes this mythical mountain was
associated with the cult of a goddess called the
Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu). In her
paradise trees of deathlessness grew and rivers of
deathlessness flowed. Mythical birds and beasts kept to eat and dress roughly and live in caves or huts.
her company, including the three-legged crow,
dancing toad, nine-tailed fox, and elixir-producing
rabbit.
Mountains also have a special significance in the
"science" of earth forms, or geomancy, which dates
back at least to Han times and flourished in
subsequent centuries. The earth is viewed as an
organism with energy flowing through its veins,
much the way blood flows through the body.
Mountains are full of such energy in their "dragon
veins," and studying the configuration of a
mountain or mountain range to determine where
these channels of energy are located makes it
possible for one skilled in geomancy to site a house and philosophical significance from early times. '-
or grave to best advantage.
By the end of the Six Dynasties (220—589) the
earlier image of the mountain as a wild realm of
fearsome powers coexisted with a more benign
image of the mountain as the favored dwelling
place of immortals, who lived in palatial luxury in
brightly painted halls set among gardens and
populated by elegantly dressed "jade maidens." The
connection between rulers and mountains survives,
but in a tamer, more civilized form that emphasizes
material comfort and leisure rather than awesome
THE INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS CONTEXT OF CHINESE ART 42
power. In time private gardens, and probably also
imperial gardens, came to be designed as
embodiments of the paradises of the immortals in
the remote mountains.
In the late Han individual seekers after immortality
started to visit mountains to search for herbs, to
receive divine revelations, or to acquire magical
powers. Ge Hong (ca. 280—ca. 343) proposed that
those seeking immortality should go to mountains,
where they could pursue their quest without
distraction. But he urged them to choose "big
mountains" ruled by gods, rather than little
mountains infested by demons or minor spirits of
trees or stones." The tradition of seeking insight in
mountains would continue through the rest of
Chinese history, simultaneously promoting and
being reinforced by the practice of establishing
Buddhist and Daoist monasteries in remote
mountain locations. In the Shangqing (also called
Maoshan) school of Daoism of the fourth century
and later, adepts could also visit mountains without
leaving home by visualizing their visits to the
abodes of the immortals. Because of the assumed
correspondences between the macrocosm and the
microcosm, the exploration of a mountain or even
a single rock could lead to an understanding of the
entire cosmos.
The holy aura of mountains also attracted
"mountain men," men who wished to withdraw
from society even if they were not seeking
immortality or salvation. Confucian scholars
disgusted by the corruption of the government or
lamenting the fall of the dynasty they had served
could retreat to the mountains to avoid further
political entanglement. Others could retreat there
to seek spiritual freedom and escape from social
obligations. These hermits and recluses were
generally conceived as men of wisdom and
conviction, uninterested in material things, content
They are thus almost exact opposites of the
immortals dwelling in diaphanous robes in palatial
luxury.
Mountains and rulers were frequently likened to
each other. The image of the mountain enhanced
the image of the ruler by stressing his imposing
majesty, connections to Heaven, and links to the
realms of the immortals. At the same time,
mountains had an anti-monarchical side, from their
association with recluses who refused to have
anything to do with the ruler and the world of
government with its hierarchies and rules.
WRITING
In China, writing has been imbued with religious
The divinatory texts that have survived from Shang