Page 332 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

Tonji received from Minamoto Mitsusuke; in- display in a prominent, central place in the good evidence that the Kangnido tradition was
deed the earliest known map of Japan (805) has capital. It was probably on a screen or a wall in not broken by the Hideyoshi wars, but stayed
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this orientation. Interestingly, the Korean some important palace building frequented by alive in Korea for two more centuries. Some-
makers of the Tenri and Honmyo-ji copies cor- the king and senior officials. But a good under- where in Korea a copy may be hiding still.
rected the orientation to the north, even while standing of its function is hampered by the fact The Kangnido was only the first of many
substituting more conventional Gyoki-style that we know nothing of its history after its distinguished scientific and cultural projects
outlines. completion. The Ryukoku Kangnido, judging carried out in Korea during the fifteenth cen-
The overall disposition and bulk of the differ- by Korean place-name indications, is a copy tury. King Sejong (r. 1419-1450) and his son
ent components of the Kangnido at first make reflecting place-name changes made around King Sejo (r. 1455-1468) extended Korean carto-
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an odd appearance. On the one hand, there is 1460. If its source map was the original graphical foundations by standardizing linear
nothing formulaic or mandated about its struc- Kangnido, then this is the last that is heard of it. measurement and assembling detailed distance
ture, such as the traditional European T-in-O We know little about how the Kangnido came data between Seoul and the approximately 335
scheme, or the wheel arrangement of the quasi- to Japan, but it probably arrived there indepen- districts of the country. As a result of these
cosmographic ch'onhado of later Korean popu- dently on three separate occasions. Both the efforts, an excellent national map was produced
larity. The attempt here was to study the best Ryukoku and Honmyo-ji copies were evidently in 1463, and a complete geographical survey of
maps available in China, Korea, and Japan, and part of the loot from Hideyoshi's invasion of the nation, the Tongguk yoji sungam, was
put together a comprehensive, indeed "inte- Korea (1592-1598). The Ryukoku map was re- compiled in 1481. During the 14305, Sejong
grated" (honil), map that included every known portedly given by Hideyoshi to the Hongan-ji, built an astronomical observatory and a variety
part of the world, truly a breathtaking objective an important Buddhist temple in Kyoto. This of astronomical instruments and clocks. This
by the cartographic standards of any nation at institution ultimately was divided into two provided a foundation for continued research
that time. branches, east and west, of which the latter and observation in the reigns of his successors.
The result is inevitably strange to our eyes. (Nishi Hongan-ji) is today associated with Many projects were also carried out in meteo-
China and India, like a monstrous cell that had Ryukoku University, which explains the map's rology and agronomy which not only led to new
not yet divided, make up a dominating mass present location. The Honmyo-ji copy (paper scientific understanding in Korea but which
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that overfills the entire center of the map. India scroll), which is entitled Dai Minkoku chizu provided for rationalized administration and
has its west coast, but is not drawn as a penin- (Map of Great Ming), was given to that institu- taxation. Movable type printing with cast metal
sula and so has no east coast. To the west, the tion by Kato Kiyomasa, its major patron and movable type, which Korea had pioneered among
Arabian peninsula, with a clearly delineated one of the senior Japanese commanders on the the East Asian nations in 1242, underwent
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Persian Gulf, and the African continent, with Korean expedition. Nothing is reported con- considerable development and refinement under
its tip correctly pointing south (and not east, as cerning the provenance of the Tenri University the fifteenth-century kings; by the time Guten-
on many early European maps), hang thinly copy (silk scroll, no title), but according to a berg perfected his press in 1454, hundreds of
but with assurance, as if they belonged exactly study by Unno Kazutaka, it is a "sister map" to editions of books in Chinese and several in
where they are. At the top of Africa the Medi- the Honmyo-ji scroll; his persuasive analysis of Korean had been printed in Korea with movable
terranean supports a less securely grasped Eu- the place names indicates that both maps were type. Finally, King Sejong in 1443 invented the
rope, and the entire north fades into mountains copied in Korea about 1568, from a version Korean alphabet, an amazingly original and
and clouds. On the eastern side of the map, a already cartographically distant from the scientific system which still serves as the writ-
relatively massive Korea, easily occupying as Ryukoku copy. 21 ing system of Korea and which is the only
much space as the whole African continent This information permits the conclusion that indigenous alphabetic system in use among the
(which, to be sure, is unduly small) identifies the Kangnido was probably often copied in East Asian countries.
itself as a very important place, while Japan, as Korea during the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- The spirit that animated all of these projects,
if randomly flipped off the fingers into the ries. There is an arguable possibility that its and that marks the fifteenth century as perhaps
ocean, floats uncertainly in the South China fortunes intersected with those of the ch'onhado Korea's greatest, was both national and interna-
Sea. The relative size and disposition of the ("map of all under heaven"), which came to tional in character, and showed a high degree of
three major East Asian countries reflects a have a special place in Korean affections and independent thinking. Koreans did not merely
plausible Korean view of the world in the early invariably was the first map in the map albums copy the Chinese culture they imported, but
fifteenth century: Korea projecting itself as a which were especially popular in the eighteenth recast and it into forms and institutions which
major East Asian state, refurbishing its tradi- and nineteenth centuries. It also seems conceiv- were distinctively different from China's. The
tional view of China as the major center of able that it is reflected in an interesting map Kangnido is a perfect example of this process:
civilization, and playing its eternal game of entitled Ydji chondo (Complete terrestrial map), China, either as originator or transmitter, pro-
keeping Japan as far away as possible. On the dated about 1775. This map, while clearly vided Korea with most of the materials for the
other hand, Koreans were telling themselves influenced by some Sino-Jesuit world map, also map, but the transformation and processing of
that theirs was not just an East Asian country, shows a strong structural similarity to the those materials into a genuine world map was
but part of the larger world. Their ambition and Kangnido, as its owner, Yi Ch'an, has pointed conceived and executed in Korea.
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ability to map that world would validate their out. Thus Japan is righted and put in its
position in it. proper place, the respective masses of Korea, NOTES
To say this is to begin to answer the question, China, and Africa are brought into more accu- i. Even though the two projects were seven years
what was this map for? A map whose composi- rate relation, and England and Scandinavia apart, the prefaces for both appear next to each
tion was guided by the nation's top educator emerge from Europe. But the map as a whole, other in Kwon's collected works, Yangch'on chip
(Collected writings of Kwon Kun) (xylograph,
and Confucian ideologist, and presided over by and particularly its treatment of India and Chinju, 1674; reprint, Chosen shiryo sokan, No. 13,
two ministers of state, was surely destined for Africa, strongly evokes the Kangnido. This is Keijo, Chosen sotokufu, 1937), 22/ia-zb.

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