1020 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



pedestal of what was once a great pagoda 

 here there are tablets bearing inscriptions 

 in seven languages, some of the latter 

 long since dead. 



The historical value of the inscriptions 

 in China has hardly begun to be realized. 

 At Hangchau, one of the two cities 

 which, according to a Chinese proverb, 

 reconciles the soul to this world until 

 Heaven is reached, there was, until recent 

 years, an invaluable iron plate of the tenth 

 century with an inscription recording the 

 building of the wall of the city by the 

 feudal Prince Chien, whose descendants 

 still reside there. 



But of all stone monuments in China 

 valuable for the antiquity of their in- 

 scriptions, the stone "drums" in the Con- 

 fucian temple at Peking are the most re- 

 marked. They are supposed to record 

 the hunting exploits of King Hsuan, B. 

 C. 827, making them more than 2,700 

 years old. The translations of their in- 

 scriptions are generally made from rub- 

 bings taken in the Sung dynasty — ^A. D. 

 960-1127 — because the inscriptions are 

 almost wholly illegible now, and only 

 here and there can a character be traced. 



THE FAMOUS ROCK TKMPLES 



Just as universal as her temples, p'ai- 

 lous, and buildings with imperial signifi- 

 cance, and almost as universal as her 

 tombs and tablets, are China's figure- 

 sculptures. The Buddhist church, which 

 has been the builder of most of the tem- 

 ples and pagodas, the maker of gardens, 

 and the protector of flowers, trees, birds, 

 and animals, has been the promoter of 

 art and the inspiration of the most of 

 China's sculptures. 



Singularly enough, the most notable 

 sculptures in China are in the rock walls 

 of mountains and in caves. Rockhill, the 

 American orientalist, describes one of 

 these, a Buddhist colossus near Kwei- 

 Kwa-cheng, northwest of Peking, and 

 another near the city of Ning, in Kansu. 



The largest and most notable colossus 

 of Buddha in China known to occidentals 

 is that described by S-. Wells Williams. 

 It is in Shensi, near the town of Pin, 

 and is said to have been cut by an em- 

 peror of the Tang dynasty in the ninth 

 century. It is hewn from sandstone so 



as to leave it in a cave. It is 56 feet 

 high and covered with color and gilt. 

 According to Williams, it "is lighted 

 from above, after the manner of the 

 Pantheon, a single round opening in the 

 vaulting. Sixty feet over the rock tem- 

 ple rises a tiled roofing, and upon the 

 hillside without the cavern are a number 

 of minor temples and statues". 



But no doubt the most wonderful of 

 Buddhist sculptures, and indeed of all 

 known sculptures in China, are the rock- 

 hewn temples of Lung Men in the prov- 

 ince of Honan, 10 miles south of the 

 city of Honan — a railway terminus. Its 

 name means "dragon door". It is a chan- 

 nel for a river cut through a limestone 

 mountain — an artificial defile which tra- 

 dition says was cut by the Emperor Yu 

 with the aid of a dragon. 



Here, in the seventh century, in the sides 

 of the cloven range, wrought the sculp- 

 tors, who, like the Greek masters of the 

 chisel, remain unknown. Here the Chi- 

 nese artists turned the precipitous cliffs 

 into hundreds of quarried temples and 

 sculptured recesses, peopled with relig- 

 ious figures in relief or detached. 



There are thousands of figures among 

 these sculptures, varying in height from 

 a few inches to 50 or 60 feet. They 

 show Indian influence and represent all 

 the members of the Buddhist pantheon. 

 A group which occurs with great fre- 

 quency is that of Buddha attended by his 

 two favorite disciples, Ananda and Kash- 

 iapa, and two Bobhisattwas. The De~ 

 varajas. Guardians of the Gates, are ren- 

 dered with great power. 



The only sculptures at this place not 

 of Buddhist character are several bas- 

 reliefs, which, in the opinion of the 

 French orientalist. Prof. Chavannes, are 

 representations of donors who have con- 

 tributed to the extensions of this great 

 decorative work. These afford an inter- 

 esting study of costumes in China in the 

 seventh century of our era. 



The only other sculptures in China on 

 a scale with the Buddhist images are the 

 stone figures of men, elephants, camels, 

 horses, and unicorns, notably at the tombs 

 of the Mings and the Chings near Peking 

 and Mukden. Those at Nanking are also 

 well known (see pages 1006-1011). 



