【博雅双语名家名作】汪荣祖：追寻失落的圆明园（二）

A Paradise Lost—The Imperial Garden Yuanming Yuan

The original configuration of the imperial garden before the completion of the Sea of Blessing (Fu Hai) was square in shape. It consisted of three principal groups of man-made structures, namely, the administrative buildings, the royal residence compound, and a complex of rural scenes spreading along the central axis from south to north, in addition to numerous composite smaller enclosures scattered throughout the huge garden.

The main entrance, facing south, was named the Grand Palace Gate (Da’gongmen); it was one of the garden’s eighteen major gates. On top of the gate hung a wooden tablet with three large Chinese characters, yuan ming yuan, in the style of Kangxi’s calligraphy. Centered in front of the Grand Palace Gate was a five-column-wide section of rooms used as office space for representatives from virtually all major government agencies, including the Grand Secretariat (Nei Ge), the six boards, Hanlin Academy, and the Bureau of the Clansmen (Zongren Fu). Beyond the main gate was the Inner Palace Gate, or the Gentlemen’s Entrance (Churu Xianliang Men), guarded by a pair of gilt dragons across an arch bridge over a moat. On both sides of the entrance there were rooms for visitors to wait. This was the place where the emperor reviewed the annual archery contest of his troops.

Zhengda Guangming Dian (Main Audience Hall). Sketch by Joseph C. Wang and Xinbai Yu.

The grand Main Audience Hall (Zhengda Guangming Dian), the name of which means open-mindedness and magnanimousness appropriate to a great ruler, stood at a central position inside the Inner Palace Gate. This piece of architecture was a replica of the imperial audience hall called Great Harmony Hall (Taihe Dian) in the Forbidden City. It was “well adorned exteriorly with paint and gilding, and netted with iron wire under the fretted eaves to keep the birds off”.

The hall had seven columns made of solid wood, 129 feet long and 63 feet wide, sitting on a 4-foot-high terrace of round stone pedestals, each 2 feet 9 inches in diameter. Inside, an “antithetical couplet” (duilian) written by Emperor Yongzheng himself was displayed on a pair of scrolls hanging on each side of the hall in symmetrical fashion. The building’s floors were paved with dalishi (slabs of a white marble veined in black) 2 feet square and about 3 inches thick on a brick-lime foundation ascended by three sets of stone steps. In the front there was an open courtyard with two side halls (piandian) on each side, and in the back a rock hill resembling a gigantic jade bamboo shoot in upright form. This hall was the place where the emperor met with his officials and foreign dignitaries as well as served banquets, in particular the grand banquets for such special occasions as the emperor’s birthday, and the metropolitan examinations. In general, this administrative section, with the Main Audience Hall as its principal structure, is a large enclosure surrounded by walls. Looking out from inside one could catch the pleasant views of dark-foliaged trees and flowers mixed red with purple. With the rise of the imperial garden’s political stature, this audience hall soon acquired two wings. The east wing provided office space for the grand councilors (junji), who made policy decisions on a daily basis, while the west wing was used as waiting rooms. The Qianlong Emperor designated this place the first of his Forty Views.

Jiuzhou Qingyan showing Feng Sanwusi Dian (Honoring Three Selflessnesses Court) in the lower center. Plan by Joseph C. Wang and Xinbai Yu.

To the east of the Main Audience Hall was the Diligent Court, or the Royal Office Room (Qinzheng Dian). It contained a large compound of halls, with the Baohe and Taihe Courts in the middle sandwiched by the Flush Spring Chamber (Fuchun Lou) in the back and the Fragrant Azure Grove (Fangbi Cong) in the front. This court was the place in which the Qing emperors summoned officials, read memorials, or ate simple meals; comparable with the Qianqing Palace in the Forbidden City. A large screen behind the throne in the main office room showed two big Chinese characters, wu yi, meaning not to indulge in pleasure. This place provided the Qing emperors from Yongzheng onward with the administrative space to conduct state affairs. Qianlong designated it as the scene of the “Diligent and Talented Government” (Qinzheng Qinxian).

Behind this administrative section across the Front Lake (Qian Hu) was the royal residential area called Nine Continents, consisting of nine islets, connected by bridges and encircling the 200-square foot Rear Lake (Hou Hu).17 The so-called Nine Continents, ostensibly from the Confucian Book of History, refer to the known world in ancient China. The Yongzheng Emperor, who named this area, wanted to signify his universal empire surrounded by the seas and to symbolize “all under heaven” (tianxia) under peace and prosperity. I contest that neither Yongzheng nor Qianlong ever considered the miniature Nine Continents to be an example of the “last radiance of the setting sun” (luori yuhui) in the history of the imperial garden construction. I think that it is a misunderstanding for Wang Yi to assert that creating the immense universe in miniature unknowingly displayed the loss of a broad intellectual vista and a sign of the decline of the imperial grandeur. It is a remarkable art to “create a world in a pot.” Rather than losing a broad intellectual vista, such a design implies exactly the majestic worldview the imperial ruler entertained. It is in effect a vital aesthetic element in the Chinese garden art, which allows a small man-made structure to symbolize the immense nature, not just a part of the earth but also a part of the universe.

As a matter of fact, most classical Chinese gardens are enclosed within a limited area but with the clear intention of creating a sense of infinite space. The creation of spaciousness is the essence of garden art. Condensation that produces the effect of making the small look like the spacious is no doubt a refined technique. And the Nine Continents in the Yuanming Yuan are precisely the grand center of this magnificent imperial garden symbolizing the universal Chinese world. It is surely through symbolism that the feeling of grandness rather than smallness communicated.

The islet on the north-south axis in the Nine Continents accommo-dated three architectural units in a row from north to south, namely, the seven-column-wide Nine Continents in Peace Hall (Jiuzhou Qingyan), the Honoring Three Selflessnesses Court (Feng Sanwusi Dian), and the five-column-wide Yuanming Yuan court facing the Front Lake. The row of three courts laid on the central axis with the Grand Palace Gate. On the east side of these courts stood Family of Spring Between Heaven and Earth (Tiandi Yijiachun) and the Benevolence Receiving Hall (Cheng’en Tang). The latter hall housed apartments for imperial ladies to live. On the west side of these three courts was the eminent Clear Sunshine Belvedere (Qinghui Ge) in which, on its northern wall, the map of the Yuanming Yuan was hung between 1737 and 1860. Sandwiched between two small lakes, the emperor’s own bedroom was also located in this vast compound, which Qianlong designated as the Nine Continents in Peace (Jiuzhou Qingyan). This designation seems to suggest that the emperor wished to survey “all under heaven” in microcosm.