The Politics of Place-Making in the Records of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang

Home , Gao Cheng, Gao Huan, Hua Mulan, Yang Xuanzhi, Yang Yong (Sui dynasty)

_full_journalsubtitle: International Journal of Chinese Studies/Revue Internationale de Sinologie _full_abbrevjournaltitle: TPAO _full_ppubnumber: ISSN 0082-5433 (print version) _full_epubnumber: ISSN 1568-5322 (online version) _full_issue: 1-2 _full_issuetitle: 0 _full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien J2 voor dit article en vul alleen 0 in hierna): Manling Luo _full_alt_articletitle_deel (kopregel rechts, hier invullen): The Politics of Place-Making _full_is_advance_article: 0 _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0

T’OUNG PAO The Politics of Place-Making T’oung Pao 105 (2019) 43-75 www.brill.com/tpao 43

Manling Luo Indiana University

The Luoyang qielan ji 洛陽伽藍記 (Records of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang; hereafter Records), compiled by Yang Xuanzhi 楊衒之 (fl. 547) in roughly 547 CE, commemorates the ruined capital city of the North- ern Wei dynasty 北魏 (386-534).1 One of the few major works to survive from the period, the Records has received much critical attention, with topics ranging from its textual history to its historical and literary value. This essay focuses on what I call the “politics of place-making” in the memoir, that is, engagements with Luoyang’s space as expressions of power before and after the city’s abandonment, as represented and understood by Yang. These ignored aspects shed light on the central concerns that motivated his writing, thereby revealing his perspective on the intersections of place, power, and human agency. The analysis allows us to better understand his innovations in pioneering an unofficial, space-centered historiography that defines historical agents as place- makers whose deeds and lives are anchored spatially as much as temporally.

1) The collection has two Ming editions, which are the main base texts for eight modern reprint editions. There is also an earlier abridged edition; see Wu Jing 吴晶, Luoyang qielan ji yanjiu 《洛陽伽藍記》研究 (Taipei: Hua Mulan wenhua chubanshe, 2013), 30-34. I use the recent reprint edition collated by Yang Yong for textual analysis. See Yang Xuanzhi, Luoyang qielan ji jiaojian 洛陽伽藍記校箋, collated and annotated by Yang Yong 楊勇 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006) [Hereafter LQJ]. For examples of other reprints, see Fan Xiangyong 范祥雍 coll. and annot., Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu 洛陽伽藍記校注 (Shanghai: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1958); Zhou Zumo 周祖謨 coll. and annot., Luoyang qielan ji jiaoshi 洛陽伽藍記校釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2010); and Xu Gaoruan 徐高阮 coll. and annot., Chongkan Luoyang qielan ji 重刊洛陽伽藍記 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2013).

©T’oung Koninklijke Pao 105 Brill (2019) NV, Leiden, 43-75 2019 DOI: 10.1163/15685322-10512P02

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Yang Xuanzhi produced the Records against the backdrop of North- ern Wei decline. When the Tuoba Xianbei 拓跋鲜卑 (Tabgatch Särbi),2 one of the non-Chinese ethnic groups in the so-called “Age of Division,” became victorious in the struggles for control of North China and founded the Northern Wei dynasty, they chose Pingcheng 平城 (today’s Da- tong 大同 in Shanxi) as their capital. In 493, Emperor Xiaowen 孝文帝 (r. 471-499) decided to move the capital to Luoyang, ushering in a peace- ful and prosperous period of Northern Wei rule which lasted until the sudden death of Emperor Xiaoming 孝明帝 (r. 515-528) in 528. The latter’s mother, Empress Dowager Ling 靈太后 (d. 528), was rumored to have poisoned him, since the emperor, her only son, who succeeded his father as a mere six-year-old boy, had just come of age and was about to assume control from her. In his place she installed a three-year-old prince born to another mother, making clear her ambition to continue her power monopoly. Using the suspicious death of Emperor Xiaoming as a pretext, Erzhu Rong 爾朱榮 (d. 530), a general from an ethnic group known as the Jie 羯, raised an army and seized Luoyang. He threw Em- press Dowager Ling and the boy emperor into the Yellow River, massa- cred more than two thousand court officials,3 and established a figurehead emperor, Xiaozhuang 孝莊帝 (r. 528-531). Although Erzhu Rong was later killed, his clansmen continued to dominate the court until the rise of General Gao Huan 高歡 (496-547). In 534, the puppet emperor installed by Gao Huan fled west to Chang’an, establishing what is known as the Western Wei 西魏 (534-556). Gao Huan promptly en- throned another ruler and moved the capital from Luoyang to Ye 鄴. This regime has been referred to as the Eastern Wei 東魏 (534-550), which was terminated by Gao’s son when he founded his own dynasty, the Northern Qi 北齊 (550-577).4 Through these turbulent years, Luoyang

2) See Luo Xin 羅新, “Lun Tuoba Xianbei zhi deming” 論拓跋鮮卑之得名, Lishi yanjiu 歷史研究 2006.6: 32-48. 3) An alternative number for the people killed is over 1,300. See Weishu 魏書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 74.1648. 4) For an overview of the Xianbei, see Charles Holcombe, “The Xianbei in Chinese History,” Early Medieval China 19 (2013): 1-38; Zhang Jihao 張繼昊, Cong Tuoba dao Beiwei: Beiwei wangchao chuangjian lishi de kaocha 從拓跋到北魏 – 北魏王朝創建歷史的考察 (Taipei: Daoxiang chubanshe, 2003). For the Northern Wei history relevant to Yang’s memoir, see W.J.F. Jenner, Memories of Loyang: Yang Hsüan-chih and the Lost Capital (493-534) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 16-102.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 45 suffered serious destructions. Yang Xuanzhi, who is known to have held mid- to low-ranking positions, survived Erzhu Rong’s massacre of court officials and later relocated to Ye with the Eastern Wei court.5 He revis- ited Luoyang in 547 on an official trip and was moved by the desolation to compile his Records. Despite the extensive study of Yang’s memoir,6 little attention has been paid to his interest in the relationship between humans and space because of a common assumption that space is a given. Yang adopts a spatial order of narration moving from the inner city to the eastern, southern, western, and northern suburbs of the outer city. In each section, he describes major Buddhist monasteries as landmarks of the area and uses them as reference points to recount nearby secular architecture and relevant people and events. Some critics have regarded the spatial descriptions as historically reliable. Lin Wenyue 林文月, for example, famously argues that Yang’s narration of historical events is emotional and even biased whereas his descriptions of space are distanced and objective.7 Indeed, historians often use the spatial information provided by Yang to reconstruct Northern Wei Luoyang.8 Other critics, however, emphasize historical changes in certain spaces of Luoyang and Yang’s motivations in describing them. Wang Mei-Hsiu 王美秀, for instance, contends that Yang’s accounts of traces of earlier Chinese regimes in Luoyang are not neutral, but were prompted by his strong identification with Han Chinese culture.9 While these discussions offer useful insights, they share a tendency to privilege historical changes, treating space as a mere setting or given reality. Unnoted in Yang’s spatial order of narration has been his keen interest in the relationship between Northern Wei residents and Luoyang’s space, especially their engagements with it that are best described as “place-making.” Although both “space” and “place” are terms frequently

5) On Yang’s life, see Jenner, Memories of Loyang, 3-15. 6) For an overview of Chinese scholarship, see Chen Silin 陳思林, “Ershi shiji yilai Luoyang qielan ji yanjiu zongshu” 二十世紀以來《洛陽伽藍記》研究綜述 (MA thesis, Dongbei shi- fan daxue, 2016). 7) Lin Wenyue, “Luoyang qielan ji de lengbi yu rebi” 洛陽伽藍記的冷筆與熱筆, in Zhong- gu wenxue luncong 中古文學論叢 (Taipei: Da’an chubanshe, 1989), 253-99. 8) For example, Ping-ti Ho, “Lo-yang, A.D. 495-534: A Study of Physical and Socio-Econom- ic Planning of a Metropolitan Area,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 26 (1966): 52-101. 9) Wang Mei-Hsiu, Lishi, kongjian, shenfen: Luoyang qielan ji de wenhua lunshu 歷史、空間、身分 — 洛陽伽藍記的文化論述 (Taipei: Liren shuju, 2007), 133-218.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 46 Manling Luo used in critical discourses, they are given different theoretical valences by various scholars. In reacting to the persistent subordination of space to time due to the ascendance of historicism since the nineteenth century, Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, and Edward W. Soja, for example, advocate a re-centering of space in modern consciousness.10 Their theo- rizations have been seen as seminal in bringing spatiality to the fore of a wide range of studies in the social sciences and humanities—the so- called “spatial turn.”11 Coming from a different intellectual tradition, however, scholars of humanistic geography, as summarized by Tim Cresswell, have foregrounded the concept of “place,” defining it as “a meaningful location” created from “space,” geometric dimensions of areas and volumes.12 Place-making is ubiquitous and central to human existence, for “place is also a way of seeing, knowing, and understanding the world” and thus “primary to the construction of meaning and society.”13 Place-making can be achieved not only through architectural means, such as building construction, interior and exterior decorations, and city planning, but also through non-architectural means, such as language, visual arts, and religious rituals.14 In studies of premodern China, attention has been paid to political meanings of spatial order, religious histories of mountains, geographical writings about locales, literary accounts of sites and trips, and human experiences of space, among other rich topics.15

10) See Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces,” trans. Jay Miskowiec, Diacritics 16.1 (1986): 22-27; and Edward W. Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and- Imagined Places (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1996). 11) For example, Barney Warf and Santa Arias eds., The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Per- spectives (London: Routledge, 2009). 12) Tim Cresswell, Place: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 7, 8. 13) Ibid., 11, 32, italics are original. For an extensive discussion of the importance of place, see Edward S. Casey, Getting Back Into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place- World (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2009). 14) For some examples, see Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1977); Keith H. Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places: Land- scape and Language Among the Western Apache (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1996); Archaeologies of Art: Time, Place, and Identity, ed. Inés Domingo Sanz et al. (Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 2008); and Toni Huber, The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain: Popular Pilgrimage and Visionary Landscape in Southeast Tibet (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999). 15) It is impossible to provide a comprehensive list of relevant scholarship here. For recent examples, see Mark Edward Lewis, The Construction of Space in Early China (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 2006); James Robson, Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the

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We should note that Yang Xuanzhi’s work was a project of textual place-making, through which we learn about Northern Wei residents’ engagements with Luoyang before it was abandoned. His descriptions of the historical residents’ place-making activities thus do not necessarily reflect their actual practices, but what he believed to have happened and how he understood the significance of those practices.16 A close ex- amination of how he represents the Northern Wei residents’ politics of place-making during the four decades from Luoyang’s inception to its abandonment will illuminate his perspective on the powers and limits of human agency in engaging space. The discussion will enable us to better understand the political implications of his own textual place- making in the environments of the time more than a decade after the relocation of the capital. Before we proceed, a word on the format of Yang Xuanzhi’s text is in order. According to a Tang reference, the work consists of main texts and interlinear notes, though the extant early editions make no such distinction. As seen in the modern, annotated editions scholars have offered different ways of distinguishing them, thereby implying a hierarchy of importance between main texts and interlinear notes. The tendency has been to believe that the former consists of the descriptions of Buddhist monasteries and that the latter provides other types of information. Despite these scholarly efforts, it is impossible to know how close the reconstructions are to the original form(s) of Yang’s work. In addition, I take the side of scholars who believe that Yang Xuanzhi’s project is not narrowly concerned with the history of Luoyang’s Bud- dhist monasteries per se, but more broadly with the history of the city

Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2009); David Jonathan Felt, “Patterns of the Earth: Writing Geography in Early Medieval China” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford Univ., 2014); Wendy Swartz, “There is No Place Like Home: Xie Lingyun’s Representation of His Estate in ‘Rhapsody on Dwelling in the Moun- tains,’” Early Medieval China 21 (2015): 21-37; Paul W. Kroll, “Lexical Landscapes and Textual Mountains in the High T’ang,” T’oung Pao 84 (1998): 62-101; and Linda Rui Feng, City of Mar- vel and Transformation: Chang’an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai‘i Press, 2015). 16) In my discussion below, I use the past tense in referring to the residents’ place-making activities because it reflects Yang’s historical perspective. I do not mean to suggest, however, that those activities actually happened in the ways described by him.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 48 Manling Luo and its residents at large.17 To me, other types of information, now often relegated to interlinear notes in the modern editions, are not merely supplementary and secondary to the descriptions of Buddhist monasteries. Accordingly, my discussion below treats the content of Yang’s descriptions in the main texts and the interlinear notes, however one may divide them, as equally important, and my citations elide the imputed distinction. I propose that in his descriptions of Northern Wei residents’ engagements with Luoyang, Yang Xuanzhi foregrounds three major modes of place-making: architectural (staking ownership of physical space by creating new structures, modifying existing ones, or changing the nature of their usages), literary (writing about particular spaces), and hermeneutic (identifying and interpreting the histories of specific structures or sites). Architectural place-making produces what I call “physical imprints,” solid marks of the place-maker’s actions on space such as buildings, which become the spatial embodiments of his/her sociopolitical presence. By contrast, hermeneutic place-making brings about “discursive imprints,” human perceptions and understandings of space that are intangible. The imprints of literary place-making, however, can be more diverse and flexible. A poem composed for a building, for instance, can be inscribed on it and become physically emplaced.18 The composition can also be memorized or copied down and thereby circu- lated beyond the site. Place-making and its imprints are imbued with tensions and ambiguities, and Yang’s preoccupation with them in the memoir allows us to look into his own ambivalences and choices.

Architectural Place-making and Sociopolitical Power Because architectural place-making shapes physical space, its imprints constitute the spatial reifications of sociopolitical power. Yang Xuanzhi

17) For example, see Wang Mei-Hsiu, Lishi, kongjian, shenfen, 16-30. This point does not necessarily diminish the uses of Yang’s work in the important research on the history of Northern Wei Buddhism. For scholarship in this area, see Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆, Shina Bukkyō shi kenkyū: Hokugi hen 支那佛教史研究：北魏篇 (Tokyo: Shimizu kōbundō, 1969), 385-418; and Yuan Hongliu 袁洪流, “Beiwei fojiao yu Luoyang qielan ji” 北魏佛教與《洛陽伽藍記》, Guizhou minzu daxue xuebao 貴州民族大學學報 2015.4: 112-18. 18) For a discussion of emplaced writings, see Robert E. Harrist Jr., The Landscape of Words: Stone Inscriptions from Early and Medieval China (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 2008).

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 49 endorses the imperial architectural place-making of Luoyang’s “founding” monarchs, especially Emperor Xiaowen, in creating various embodiments of dynastic legitimacy. His attitudes toward Buddhist monasteries, however, are conflicted, revealing his recognition of the multivalence of religious architectural place-making. Buddhist monasteries are more than public displays of the patrons’ religious piety; they have complex sociopolitical implications. Yang’s representations indicate his deep ambivalence about the competitive nature of architectural place-making, the brutal realities of which affront his political beliefs and even subvert his moral values. For Yang, Emperor Xiaowen’s siting of Luoyang and his efforts to define it as the Northern Wei capital establish the royal house as the new recipient of the Mandate of Heaven. In the preface, Yang states, “When our imperial Wei accepted the [Eight] Diagrams, [the dynasty] chose the Song-Luo area as the glorious home of [our national capital]” 逮皇魏受圖，光宅嵩洛.19 The Eight Diagrams are not merely a clichéd met- aphor for the Mandate of Heaven; they were allegedly produced by the sage king Fuxi 伏羲 based on a dragon horse that emerged from the Yel- low River.20 Given Luoyang’s proximity to the Yellow River, the statement links the city to a mythic past of sage kings and foregrounds its location at the heart of a sacred political geography. Yang also tells us that Emperor Xiaowen ordered Mu Liang, Minister of Works 司空穆亮 (450?-502), to construct palaces. More importantly, he credits the emperor with delineating the inner city’s boundaries. For instance:

There were three gates on the east side of the city wall. Starting from the north end, the first was known as the Gate of Establishing Spring. During the Han it was called the Upper East Gate…During the Wei-Jin Period the name was changed to the Gate of Establishing Spring—a name kept in use by Emperor Gaozu [i.e. Xiaowen]… Still farther to the south was the Blue and Sunlit Gate. Although during the Han it was known as the Gate of Gazing at the Capital, the name was changed to Gate of

19) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, xu 序, 1; Yi-t’ung Wang trans., A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang [hereafter Record of Buddhist Monasteries] (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1984), 5. In this essay, I use Wang’s translations with modifications, converting Wade-Giles roman- ization to Pinyin. For an alternative translation, see Jenner, Memories of Loyang, 141-272. 20) Shangshu zhengyi 尚書正義, in Shisanjing zhushu 十三經註疏, ed. Ruan Yuan 阮元 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 18.239a.

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the Clear and Bright during the Wei-Jin period. Emperor Gaozu later changed the name again to Blue and Sunlit Gate. 東面有三門：北頭第一門曰建春門，漢曰上東門。… 魏晉曰建春門，高祖因而不改。… 次南曰青陽門。漢曰望京門，魏晉曰清明門，高祖改爲青陽門。21

Also, we are told that the emperor added a fourth gate to the west city wall, naming it Receipt of Brightness Gate (Chengming men 承明門).22 City walls and gates were of strategic importance especially to traditional Chinese capitals: the walls enclosed and protected the inner city from the surrounding areas whereas the gates controlled the intercourse between them.23 While the names of Luoyang’s city gates evoke direction- al, political, and/or cosmic significance, the naming itself is a territorial claim by linguistic means. The emperor’s retention of some names sig- nifies the historical continuity with the earlier regimes in Luoyang, defining the Northern Wei as their legitimate successor.24 At the same time, his modification and even invention of other names highlight the current sovereign status of the Northern Wei, which, as the new master of Luoyang, is entitled to make its own unique imprints on the city. Moreover, Yang Xuanzhi also emphasizes Emperor Xiaowen’s other place-making efforts that convey his lofty political and cultural aspira- tions as a monarch. We are told, for instance, that to the north of the Stele on the Thatched [Roof] (Miaoci zhi bei 苗茨之碑) established by Emperor Ming of Three Kingdoms Wei 魏明帝 (r. 226-239), Emperor Xiaowen erected a hall with the same name.25 The name alludes to the legend of the sage king Yao 堯 who, to show his frugal lifestyle, did not trim his thatched roof nor cut his house beams.26 By adding the hall

21) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, xu, 2; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 8. Because my analysis focuses on the content of the collection rather than its format, I do not replicate Yang Yong’s and Yi-t’ung Wang’s varying font sizes and/or indentations in my citations here. 22) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, xu, 3. 23) For a case study of Suzhou’s city walls and gates, see Yinong Xu, The Chinese City in Space and Time: The Development of Urban Form in Suzhou (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai‘i Press, 2000), 95-127. 24) The historical Emperor Xiaowen traced the line of dynasty succession through these earlier regimes. See Wang Wenjin 王文進, Luoyang qielan ji: Jingtu shang de fengyan 洛陽伽藍記：淨土上的烽煙 (Taipei: Shibao wenhua chuban qiye youxian gongsi, 1983), 30-31. For a history of Luoyang, see Victor Cunrui Xiong, Capital Cities and Urban Form in Pre-modern China: Luoyang, 1038 BCE to 938 CE (New York: Routledge, 2017). 25) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.63. 26) For the legend on Yao, see Han Fei 韓非, Han Feizi 韓非子, anno. Chen Qiyou 陳奇猷 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1958), 19.1041.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 51 next to the stele, Emperor Xiaowen not only indicates that he shares his predecessor’s aspiration for ideal kingship, but also shows that he com- plements and even outdoes him through a grander architectural tribute to the sage king. In addition, we learn that Emperor Xiaowen designated the site of the National University of the Eastern Han (25-220) as the Ward of Exhortation to Study (Quanxue li 勸學里), marked by the extant eighteen stone stelae inscribed with the Chunqiu 春秋 and the Shangshu 尚書 as handcopied by the famous scholar and calligrapher Cai Yong 蔡邕 (133-192).27 The emperor’s bestowal of the ward name illustrates his identification with and promotion of Confucian values and demonstrates his role as the new imperial patron. The authenticity and authority embodied by the stone classics, which now belong to the Northern Wei, underscore its superiority to its southern Chinese competitors, the Qi dynasty (479-502) and the Liang (502-557). This point is made explicit in Yang Xuanzhi’s description of how the Northern Wei official Yang Yuanshen 楊元慎 defeats his Liang counterpart Chen Qingzhi 陳慶之 (484-539) in debate by arguing that the real center of Chinese culture lies in the north and that the exiled Chinese are inevita- bly corrupted by the barbarian land and culture of the south.28 Although the rhetoric of place-centered dynastic legitimacy is biased and serves Yang Xuanzhi’s agenda to elevate the Northern Wei,29 it shows the con- sistency of his belief that architectural place-making is a fundamental way of articulating sociopolitical domination and is a privilege of winners. While Yang Xuanzhi sees Buddhist monasteries as the most ubiquitous and visible form of architectural place-making in Luoyang, they represent a much more complicated case for him than that of Emperor Xiaowen. In contrast to imperial architectural place-making, which is the prerogative of a monarch, religious architectural place-making is open to all pious patrons, at least in theory. As Yang tells us, Northern Wei Luoyang had more than one thousand monasteries, a phenomenal increase from just forty-two during the Western Jin (266-316) period. The construction and furnishing of monasteries are the top two kinds of secular donations promoted in Buddhist doctrines, which promise

27) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 3.135. 28) Ibid., 2.113-14. 29) For a detailed discussion, see Wang Mei-Hsiu, Lishi, kongjian, shenfen, 188-218.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 52 Manling Luo immense religious merit for donors and their designated recipients.30 The motivations of Chinese donors, in particular, can also be mixed with filial piety, local philanthropy, social reputation, and other concerns.31 Spatially, monasteries constitute “conspicuous devotion” in that their physical presence in the cityscape commands public attention to the religious as well as sociopolitical presence of their patrons.32 Not surprisingly, major monasteries in Luoyang were built by prominent sociopolitical figures or converted from their residences. It is this association that prompts Yang Xuanzhi to place these monasteries at the center of his memoir, using them to structure his description of the cityscape and introduce influential figures in Northern Wei history. As he tells us, major monasteries were magnificent and massive. For instance, the Nunnery of Scenery and Joy (Jingle si 景樂寺) was established by Yuan Yi, Prince Wenxian 文獻王元懌 (487-520), son of Emperor Xiaowen and brother-in-law and confidant of Empress Dowager Ling. It was so spec- tacular that “those who were permitted to come in for a look thought they were visiting paradise” 得往觀者，以爲至天堂.33 Likewise, the Eternal Peace Monastery (Yongning si 永寧寺), constructed by Empress Dowager Ling, boasted of more than one thousand rooms and its imposing buildings were decorated with golden statues, bells, and other pre- cious objects. Yang Xuanzhi’s descriptions of these major monasteries evince his awe and admiration, for the grandeur epitomizes artistic achievements and material prosperity. About the nine-story pagoda of the Eternal Peace Monastery, for instance, he states,

The construction embodied the best of masonry and carpentry. The elegance of its design and its excellence as an example of Buddhist architecture was almost un- imaginable. Its carved beams and gold door-knockers fascinated the eye. 殫土木之功，窮造型之巧，佛事精妙，不可思議，繡柱金鋪，駭人心目。34

30) John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture (Princeton: Prin- ceton Univ. Press, 2003), 158-60. 31) Ibid., 185-99. 32) For a discussion of “conspicuous devotion” and its manifestations in Heian Japan, see Heather Blair, “Rites and Rule: Kiyomori at Itsukushima and Fukuhara,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 73 (2013): 1-42, esp. 6-8. 33) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.51; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 52. 34) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.12; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 16.

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He even describes his own experience of ascending the pagoda with a friend, sighing with wonder, “In truth, it seemed as if the clouds and rain were below us!” 下臨雲雨，信哉不虛.35 In addition, as Yang tells us, the monk Bodhidharma 菩提達摩 (d. 535) was so amazed by the Eternal Peace Monastery that he proclaimed that “nowhere in the sul- lied world had he seen a monastery as elegant and beautiful as this one. Not even in Buddha’s realm of ultimate things was there anything like this” 而此寺精麗，閻浮所無也。極佛境界，亦未有此.36 Bodhidhar- ma was later worshipped as the founder of Chan Buddhism, revered for his erudition and teaching after his arrival in China.37 Here he is presented as an eyewitness who has traveled through numerous countries and who, thus, is able to offer an authoritative evaluation of the unparal- leled beauty of the monastery.38 In other words, the magnificence of the Eternal Peace Monastery becomes the spatial manifestation of a vibrant Buddhist culture that makes Luoyang outshine other Buddhist centers in the world. Yang endorses such outward competitiveness of religious architectural place-making in that it parallels imperial architectural place-making in asserting the supremacy of the Northern Wei in the world. That is to say, monastic splendor in Luoyang also becomes an embodiment of the city’s glories and the regime’s successes. It is this confluence that is at the heart of Yang’s nostalgia for and preoccupation with Luoyang’s Buddhist monasteries.39 Yang Xuanzhi is, however, also aware of the dark sides of religious architectural place-making. The magnificence of major monasteries is

35) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.13; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 20. 36) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.13; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 20-21. 37) For studies of Bodhidharma and Chan Buddhism, see T. Griffith Foulk, “The Spread of Chan (Zen) Buddhism,” in The Spread of Buddhism, ed. Ann Heirman and Stephan Peter Bumbacher (Leiden: Brill, 2007) 433-56; John R. McRae, “The Hagiography of Bodhidharma: Reconstructing the Point of Origin of Chinese Chan Buddhism,” in India in the Chinese Im- agination, ed. John Kieschnick and Meir Shahar (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 125-38. 38) Bodhidharma’s age here, identified as one hundred and fifty, also gives weight to his comments because of the association of advanced age with religious cultivation and authority in East Asia. See McRae, “The Hagiography of Bodhidharma,” 134. 39) In this regard, the longstanding debates over whether Yang was a supporter of Bud- dhism in the memoir, in light of his reputation as an opponent in other sources, assume too simplistic a distinction between his so-called pro- and anti-Buddhist positions. For a recent summary and critique of the debates, see Zhao Li 趙莉, “Luoyang qielan ji fojiao sixiang chuyi” 《洛陽伽藍記》佛教思想芻議, Duanpian xiaoshuo 短篇小說 2015.1: 27-28.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 54 Manling Luo achieved through massive human labor and material costs. This runs against the conventional Confucian advocacy for frugality, a sensibility that Yang himself conveys in his comment on the Eternal Peace Monas- tery that “[its] construction was excessive” 營造過度也.40 Moreover, the sponsorship of a monastery can turn Luoyang’s space into an arena for asserting one’s own desires, status, and control. In this regard, the relationship between the Eternal Peace Monastery, the very first one that Yang features in the collection, and its patron Empress Dowager Ling is particularly illuminating. A beautiful and clever woman, she managed to escape the common fate of Northern Wei imperial consorts, who were put to death if their sons were designated as heirs-apparent (to prevent the consorts’ future manipulation of the court through their sons).41 After the death of her husband, she immediately put her six- year old son on the throne and monopolized power from behind him. As Yang Xuanzhi tells us, she established the magnificent Eternal Peace Monastery in 516, the same year her son ascended the throne. Its nine- story pagoda was the highest structure in the city, which “could be seen as far away from the capital as one hundred li” 去京師百里，已遙見之.42 While the monastery and the pagoda may have demonstrated the Em- press Dowager’s religious devotion, as the most resplendent Buddhist constructions in Luoyang they also showcased her power and authority as the unrivaled patron in the city and indeed, in the whole empire. The pagoda towering over Luoyang, in particular, epitomizes her domination with its indisputable monumentality, embodying a seamless fusion of religious and political symbolism. Such intersection between religious and secular power points to in- ternal competitions among the rich and powerful for spatial-cum-sociopolitical visibility, which can have deadly consequences. This point is seen most clearly in the fate of the Eternal Peace Monastery. As Yang Xuanzhi tells us, in 528, after Erzhu Rong took over Luoyang and killed Empress Dowager Ling and a number of Northern Wei royals and officials, he quartered in none other than Eternal Peace Monastery.43 As the

40) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.11. My own translation. 41) For this institution, see Li Ping 李憑, Beiwei Pingcheng shidai 北魏平城時代 (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2000), 139-74. 42) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.11; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 16. 43) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.13.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 55 most powerful person at court then, it was only fitting that Erzhu Rong chose to occupy the most imposing monastery in Luoyang, thereby dis- placing Empress Dowager Ling as its rightful master. Emperor Xiao zhuang, the figurehead that he set up, however, was not content to be a puppet. Plotting with his close associates, he ambushed and killed Erzhu Rong in 530. Erzhu Rong’s relatives and army thereafter regrouped and attacked Luoyang. The emperor was captured and imprisoned in that same Eternal Peace Monastery, before he was eventually taken north and murdered.44 By turning the monastery into a prison, Erzhu Zhao 爾朱兆 (d. 533), Rong’s nephew, makes a pointed statement about his political domination and revenge. Precisely because of the high visibility and symbolic value of the Eternal Peace Monastery in Luoyang’s religious and political landscape, it became the very site of power struggles at the heart of Northern Wei political history. It is thus no coincidence that Yang chooses the monastery as the very first one to introduce in his collection. The changed meaning of the monastery also betrays the brutal reality that sheer might determines political victory, and it also propels the whims of the winner in architectural place-making. The disruptive events contradict the implicit logic in Yang Xuanzhi’s earlier endorse- ment of Emperor Xiaowen’s place-making activities: the status of the Northern Wei as a victor that could lay claim to Luoyang, unlike its southern Chinese competitors, proves Heaven’s ordainment of the dynasty as the new successor to legitimate rulership. In fact, Erzhu Zhao’s attack on Luoyang and murder of Emperor Xiaozhuang subvert Yang Xuanzhi’s fundamental belief in a moral cosmos. He comments on Erzhu Zhao and his army’s successful wade across the Yellow River as a result of its unusually low water level:

Now, with regard to such a man as [Erzhu] Zhao: his eyes are like a hornet’s, his voice like a jackal’s, and his behavior as horrid as animals that eat their parents. Relying on military power and accustomed to committing atrocities, he murdered his own parent-monarch. If only the holy spirits are conscious, they should have witnessed to this evil character [and done everything possible to punish him]! Quite to the contrary, they caused the Meng Ford water to reach only the [horses’] knees, and thus endorsed [Erzhu Zhao’s] wicked designs. The Book of Changes

44) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.16.

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says, “The Way of Heaven is to bring calamity [to those who act] flagrantly, and ghosts and spirits benefit [those who act with] restraint.” This is proof that the say- ing is groundless. 若兆者，蜂目豺聲，行窮梟獍，阻兵安忍，賊害君親，皇靈有知，鑒其凶德。反使孟津由膝，贊其逆心。易稱『天道禍淫，鬼神褔謙。』以此驗之，信爲虛說。45

In contrast to earlier stories about founding emperors blessed with supernatural assistance, the case of Erzhu Zhao undermines the traditional belief in and the canonical teaching about Heaven’s power to re- ward the good and punish the bad. In his disillusionment, Yang Xuanzhi reveals his strong sense of pain over the vicious cycle of conflicts and violence that had put Luoyang and the Northern Wei on the path of decline.

Literary Place-Making and the Power of Literature Despite Yang Xuanzhi’s misgivings about the self-serving architectural place-making of the rich and powerful, those figures occupy the most of his attention because they were the major players on the arena of Luo yang’s cityscape. As a man of culture, however, Yang takes a special interest in alternative modes of place-making. His inclusion of the full text of literary compositions for various sites indicates his interest in and promotion of literary place-making. Meanwhile, the contexts that he provides for those works also reflect his keen awareness of both the power of literature and its limits in the politics of place-making in Luo yang. Yang Xuanzhi’s representation of the scholar-official Chang Jing 常景 (d. 550) illustrates his ideal of an educated man’s superior, non-egoisti- cal place-making. As Yang tells us, “Even though Chang Jing had at times served as a close attendant to the emperor in the capital and at other times served as governor outside of it, his residence was poor and simple, with conditions similar to an ordinary farmer’s home. His only possessions consisted of classical and historical books, which filled his carriages [when he traveled] and his shelves [when at home]” 景入參近侍，出爲侯牧，居室貧儉，事等農家；唯有經史，盈車滿架.46

45) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.17; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 38-39. 46) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.13; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 19-20.

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Chang Jing was a neighbor of Zhang Lun, Chamberlain for the National Treasury 司農張倫, whose extravagant residence featured a massive artificial mountain in the garden with layered peaks, running creeks, deep caverns, giant trees, strange vines, and high forests. Although Zhang Lun tried to showcase his cultured taste for “nature,” in line with a growing fashion of garden constructions in the medieval period,47 the gesture ironically exposes his hypocrisy. His efforts to transpose “authentic” nature to his urban home serve really to outdo other extravagant architectural place-makers in Luoyang. In stark contrast, Chang Jing’s shabby residence reveals a deliberate moral choice: given his successful official career, Chang clearly has the resources to construct a decent home for himself, but he opts for a humble abode and turns it into a trove of scholarship and learning. In addition, Yang Xuanzhi highlights Chang Jing’s success in achiev- ing a different kind of prestige through literary place-making. As he tells us, Empress Dowager Ling selected Chang Jing to compose the com- memorative stele inscription for the Eternal Peace Monastery upon its completion.48 Despite Yang’s critique of her excessive construction of the monastery, his enthusiastic tone here indicates that he considers the selection an honor, an official recognition of Chang’s status as the most outstanding writer of the time. Chang’s literary place-making earned him a prominent position in the most impressive monastery of the city, as the stele would occupy a highly visible spot there. Although Yang does not include the full text of the stele in his collection, he does so with another composition by Chang Jing, the “Rui song” 汭頌 (Hymn on the [Luo] Bend). According to Yang, the hymn was inscribed next to the Eternal Bridge (Yongqiao 永橋) on the Luo River (Luoshui 洛水), which lay to the south of the city and controlled access to it.49 Following the canonical form established by the Shijing 詩經, Chang Jing’s hymn is an elaborate praise of Luoyang as the Northern Wei capital. It starts with an affirmation of the Luo River’s prominent status and singles out the Bend, the site of the city on the north bank (the name Luoyang literally means “the yang, or north, side of the Luo River”), as

47) For a history of gardens from the 3rd through the 10th century, see Chu Zhaowen 儲兆文, Zhongguo yuanlin shi 中國園林史 (Shanghai: Dongfang chubanshe, 2008), 44-158. 48) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.12. 49) Ibid., 3.144.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 58 Manling Luo the auspicious center of the world. Chang Jing states, “It responds to the good omens of the Luo, / and is indeed located in the center of the earth. / It corresponds to the constellations Zhang and Liu above, / and is guarded by the [Yellow] River and the Song [Mountain] below” 兆唯洛食，實曰土中。上映張柳，下據河嵩.50 The site’s cosmic centrality leads to its political one, as conveyed by the couplet “The glorious home of generations of emperors, / its influence, like wind, sweeps the whole empire” 帝世光宅，函夏同風.51 Chang Jing goes on to trace the lineage of rulership from the legendary sage kings Yao, Shun, and Yu to the Three Kingdoms Wei (220-266) and the Western Jin, which were succeeded by the Northern Wei. He declares, “Wei has receipt of the Heavenly Ap- pointment; / magic charms in its possession shine [everywhere]” 魏籙仰天，玄符握鏡.52 The location of Luoyang as the Northern Wei capital is the very evidence for heaven’s conferral of its mandate and the dynasty’s moral superiority to the exiled southern competitors, as stated in the lines “[A dynasty sited here] is safe if it relies on virtue, / but per- ishes if it loses the Way” 恃德則固，失道則亡.53 In contrast to the earlier genre of the capital rhapsody, which celebrates the grandiosity of the city as the embodiment of the unified powerful empire,54 Chang Jing’s hymn glorifies the locale of Luoyang and claims political legitimacy for the Northern Wei dynasty. Although the hymn fulfills an ideological function similar to Emperor Xiaowen’s reconstruction and naming of the city walls, its distinctive power lies in its effective appropriation of the textual tradition to construct a grand spatiotemporal perspective on the site. We can see this point better if we consider the spatial context of the inscribed hymn. We are told that to the south of the Eternal Bridge lay the Lodges for Foreigner of the Four Directions (Siyi guan 四夷館) as well as the cor-

50) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 3.144; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 146. 51) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 3.144; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 146. 52) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 3.144; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 147. 53) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 3.144; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 147. 54) See David R. Knetchges, “‘Have You Not Seen the Beauty of the Large?’: An Inquiry into Early Imperial Chinese Aesthetics,” in Wenxue, wenhua, yu shibian: Di dan jie guoji hanxue huiyi lunwen ji 文學、文化與世變：第三屆國際漢學會議論文集, ed. Li Fengmao 李豐楙 (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiusuo, 2000), 41-66; idem, “To Praise the Han: The Eastern Capital Fu of Pan Ku and His Contemporaries,” in Thought and Law in Qin and Han China: Studies Dedicated to Anthony Hulsewé on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed. W.L. Idema and E. Zürcher (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 118-39.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 59 responding four wards for them. For instance, “Eastern foreigners who came to surrender were assigned to the Fusang Lodge and [later] given residences in the Ward of Aspiring to Civilization” 東夷來附者，處扶桑舘，賜宅慕化里.55 The term yi 夷 (foreigner, barbarian) was central to the longstanding rhetoric of the Hua-Xia 華夏 and Yi-Di 夷狄, or “Chi- nese-barbarian” distinction, which can be traced to the Spring and Au- tumn period (722-453 BCE).56 Whether or not its usage by the Northern Wei should be considered problematic since the rulers were not ethnic Han themselves,57 relevant here is that the lodges and wards constitute the spatial reification of the regime’s two-step program of civilizing and integrating outsiders. Nonetheless, their location to the south of the Luo River means that they are still spatially separate from Luoyang proper. As a “public writing” inscribed on stone,58 the hymn next to the Eternal Bridge marks the entrance to Luoyang proper, demarcating the hierar- chical spaces on the two sides of the Luo River. More than a simple orna- ment, it weaves together phrases from and allusions to canonical texts, such as the Shijing, Shangshu, and Zuozhuan 左傳, to position Luoyang spatially and temporally in the center of the natural-cum-political world. If the lodges and wards vis-à-vis Luoyang proper show the power of architectural place-making to symbolically convey the Northern Wei’s political domination over its neighbors, Chang Jing’s composition demonstrates the power of literary place-making to historicize and natural- ize this meaning. It does so by opening up spatiotemporal dimensions not readily discernable in the landscape and by delivering a layered, sophisticated message of the site’s cosmic and historical centrality.

55) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 3.144-45; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 148-49. 56) Yuri Pines, “Beasts or Humans: Pre-Imperial Origins of the ‘Sino-Barbarian’ Dichotomy,” in Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World, ed. Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 59-102. For related issues in the later periods, see Marc S. Abramson, Ethnic Identity in Tang China (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2008); Shao-yun Yang, “Reinventing the Barbarian: Rhetorical and Philosophical Uses of the Yi-Di in Mid-Imperial China, 600-1300” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of California, Berkeley, 2014). 57) The Northern Wei’s sinicization is an issue of scholarly contention. For examples of those in support of the sinicization thesis, see Sun Tongxun 孫同勛, Tuoba shi de Han hua ji qita 拓跋氏的漢化及其他 (Taipei: Daoxiang chubanshe, 2005), 3-176; Jenner, Memories of Loyang, 26-32, 57-60. For a critique of the thesis, see Jennifer Holmgren, “Northern Wei as a Conquest Dynasty: Current Perceptions; Past Scholarship,” Papers on Far Eastern History 40 (1989): 1-50. For a middle ground (i.e., argument on Northern Wei’s hybrid features), see Holcombe, “The Xianbei in Chinese History,” 1-38. 58) For comments on such “public writing,” see Harrist, The Landscape of Words, 32.

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Literary place-making not only plays a crucial role in political sancti- fications, but also functions as an important tool of social promotion, as demonstrated by another full composition that Yang Xuanzhi includes in his collection. Entitled “Tingshan fu” 庭山賦 (Rhapsody on a Court- yard Mountain), the rhapsody was composed for Zhang Lun’s aforemen- tioned artificial mountain by a man named Jiang Zhi 姜質, who is said to “have the principles of a hermit” 有逸民之操.59 As an epitome of Zhang Lun’s profligacy, the mountain easily invites Confucian denunci- ations. Although Yang Xuanzhi’s descriptions of the mountain, similar to those of major monasteries, indicate his amazement at its astonish- ing beauty, his comment on Zhang Lun’s lifestyle illustrates precisely such a Confucian perspective, as he states,

But [Zhang] Lun, unlike them [i.e. the neighbors Li Biao and Chang Jing], was ex- tremely extravagant and given to luxury. His study and house were bright and beautiful, and his costumes and curios were the choicest and rarest. The carriages and horses that he used for travel were superior to those of the state rulers. The excellence of his park, shrubbery, mountain, and pond could not be matched by those of the princes. 惟倫最爲豪侈，齋宇光麗，服翫精奇，車馬出入，逾於邦君。園林山池之美，諸王莫及。60

The excessive nature of Zhang Lun’s self-indulgences is foregrounded by his outdoing of state rulers and princes and compounded by his transgression of sociopolitical hierarchy. Jiang Zhi’s rhapsody, however, succeeds in creating a positive Daoist perspective on Zhang Lun’s artificial mountain. First, Jiang emphasizes the conceptual congruity of the mountain with the philosophy of “the visitor to the Hao River [i.e., Zhuangzi] and the historian under the pil- lar [i.e., Laozi]” 濠上之客，柱下之史.61 Since “as a rule, they attached great value to mountains and rivers, but held official posts in low es- teem” 輙以山水爲富，不以章甫爲貴,62 Zhang Lun’s mountain is in line

59) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.93; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 92. In other editions, the composition is entitled “Tingshan fu” 亭山賦 (Rhapsody on the Mountain with Pavilions), which the editor Yang Yong emended to make better sense in the context. 60) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.93; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 91-92. 61) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.93; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 93. 62) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.93; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 93.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 61 with their lofty principles and, as a result, is endowed with philosophical legitimacy. Second, Jiang portrays the stunning beauty of the mountain’s rocks, hills, creeks, flowers, trees, and birds in the typical hyperbolic style of the rhapsody. The elaboration serves to redefine the artificiality of the mountain as a highest form of artistry, by which it surpasses even its counterparts in the real world. In the words of Jiang, “We know Wu Mountain does not measure up, but what about the Peng- lai [island of immortals]?” 則知巫山弗及，未審蓬萊如何.63 Finally, Jiang underscores the enthusiastic receptions of the artificial mountain by its visitors. As he puts it, the mountain is, “afar, appreciated by immortals, and, nearby, known to court officials” 遠爲神僊所賞，近爲朝士所知.64 It serves as a safe haven for pure enjoyment of nature and pursuit of Daoist transcendence, allowing visitors to escape from the surrounding world of men. By transforming the artificial mountain from an object of criticism into one of celebration, Jiang Zhi’s work shows the efficacy of literary place-making in refashioning cultural value, which serves to elevate the social status of the mountain and its owner. Although Jiang Zhi’s Daoist perspective conveys values that run op- posite to the Confucian inclinations of Yang Xuanzhi, the inclusion of the full rhapsody indicates Yang’s admiration of Jiang’s literary talent. He does not do so without ambivalence, however. The rhapsody appears after Yang’s disapproving description of Zhang Lun’s lifestyle and his ob- servation on the contrast between the humble abodes of Li Biao and Chang Jing and the extravagant residence of Zhang Lun. In this context, Jiang Zhi’s praise of the mountain as the embodiment of Zhang’s pursuit of chunpu 純樸 (purity and simplicity) is jarring, since it costs a huge fortune to build a mountain of that scale, and it was Zhang’s position as the Chamberlain for the National Treasury that made it possible. His statement that Zhang “really follows in the footsteps of [Laozi and Zhuangzi]” 實踵其人 thus becomes ironic.65 The irony calls attention to how the rhapsody’s celebration of the mountain creates a flattering image of Zhang Lun and confers on him the social approval and cultural prestige that he sought by his investments in garden construction. In this sense, Jiang Zhi’s literary place-making betrays its implicit, addi-

63) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.94; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 94-95. 64) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.94; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 96. 65) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.93; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 93-94.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 62 Manling Luo tional function as a tool of social exchange, in which Jiang, a court out- sider, curries Zhang’s favor likely in return for continued access to Zhang’s magnificent mountain (with which he fell in love, we are told) and by extension, his upper-class circle. Although there seems to be nothing that prevents Yang Xuanzhi from making explicit comments on this more disconcerting aspect, the reticence is consistent with his re- spect for literary place-makers, whose writings can fulfill diverse functions. In contrast to his ambivalence toward Jiang Zhi’s case, Yang Xuanzhi is clearly more sympathetic toward the use of literary place-making by powerless individuals to make their voices heard. A case in point is his inclusion of the last poem by Emperor Xiaozhuang, the figurehead installed by Erzhu Rong and murdered by Erzhu Zhao. We are told that after being imprisoned at Eternal Peace Monastery, the emperor was taken north to Jinyang 晉陽 (today’s Taiyuan 太原 in Shanxi), the Erzhu family’s stronghold, and strangled to death in the Three Steps Monas- tery (Sanji si 三級寺). The emperor composed the following poem on the verge of his death:

權去生道促， Power has left me, and the path of life is hastening [to its end]; 憂來死路長； Haunted by worries, my road to death has been long. 懷恨出國門， Regretfully, I have gone out of the capital gate; 含悲入鬼鄉。 Sorrowfully, I now enter the netherworld. 隧門一時閉， Once the gate of the underground tunnel is closed, 幽庭豈復光？ How could there be further light in the dark hall? 思鳥吟青松， Longing birds cry in the green pines; 哀風吹白楊； A mournful wind blows through the white poplars. 昔來聞死苦， I have ever heard that death is bitter; 何言身自當！66 But never thought I myself would meet it!

By envisioning the space of death as the destination of his exile, the emperor’s literary place-making turns the execution ground into the stage of his poetic performance. His portrayal of the tomb as a sad, bitter confinement for eternity calls attention to the injustice that he suffers and the crimes of his captor and murderer Erzhu Zhao. Yang Xuanzhi’s sympathy for the emperor is obvious in his description of everyone cry-

66) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.17; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 40.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 63 ing at the emperor’s funerary procession through Luoyang accompa- nied by the singing of this poem as a dirge. Yang Xuanzhi’s account of Emperor Xiaozhuang and his poem, however, also reveals his recognition of limits on the power of literary place- making. He does not mention any Buddhist monastery or other constructions in Luoyang sponsored by the emperor. Although the ab- sence of the emperor’s architectural place-making activities in the memoir points to the instability of his short reign, his inaction is also symptomatic of his reduced political power as a mere puppet. In stark contrast to Emperor Xiaowen’s shaping of Luoyang to define the North- ern Wei dynastic identity, Emperor Xiaozhuang is limited to poetically delineating his personal death-space. This also contrasts with other monarchs in history, such as the First Emperor of the Qin 秦始皇帝 (259-210 BCE), who constructed massive tombs to create subterranean places of comfort and luxury for their afterlives.67 As the first ruler en- throned and deposed by military generals, the emperor’s death marks the twilight of Northern Wei rule and epitomizes the tragic fate of Northern Wei figurehead monarchs. If Chang Jing’s hymn and Jiang Zhi’s rhapsody demonstrate the unique function of literary place-making in defining perspectives and conferring meanings on space, Emper- or Xiaozhuang’s pentasyllabic poem shows that such place-making does not have any real hold on the physical space, in contrast to its architectural counterpart. In other words, the power of literature is subordinate to sociopolitical power in terms of their impacts on the physical space. The inscription and emplacement of Chang Jing’s hymn next to the Eternal Bridge could not have happened without a court order, just as his stele composition for Eternal Peace Monastery was commissioned by Empress Dowager Ling.

Hermeneutic Place-Making and the Power of Historical Knowledge We have seen that architectural place-making is dominated by sociopolitical winners and that literary place-making is a prerogative of men of culture. In his memoir, Yang Xuanzhi also describes instances of

67) Jie Shi, “Incorporating All for One: The First Emperor’s Tomb Mound,” Early China 37 (2014): 359-91.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 64 Manling Luo hermeneutic place-making, which was in theory open to all residents. Hermeneutic place-making uncovers the historical dimension of specific sites, an interpretive process that relies on historical knowledge. While Yang affirms the relative powers of various forms of historical knowledge including preserved traces of the past, the textual tradition, and personal experiences, he also admits to uncertainties. These representations and contemplations indicate his sophisticated understanding of hermeneutic place-making as instances of complex negotiations that spatialize history and historicize space. As Yang Xuanzhi sees it, discovering and interpreting physical traces of Luoyang’s past is the very privilege of Northern Wei residents that distinguishes them from their less fortunate counterparts in rival states. Heather Blair has coined the term “trace-ism” for belief in the power of historical traces to endure and outlast time, allowing the past or the di- vine to be reactivated or accessed in place.68 While Yang’s evocation of traces, such as historical constructions, inscriptions, and treasures, also bespeaks such “trace-ism,” his emphasis is on the active engagements of Northern Wei residents with those traces as physical imprints of their predecessors.69 Such imprints can exist as part of Luoyang’s cityscape, as in the case of a stone bridge with the inscription: “Built in the fourth year of Yangjia (135) of the Han [under the supervision] of Ma Xian, the Court Architect” 漢陽嘉四年將作大匠馬憲造.70 Yang criticizes two southern literati, Liu Chengzhi 劉澄之 and Dai Yanzhi 戴延之, for wrongly indicating in their books that the bridge was built in the first year of the Taikang reign (280). He states,

Regarding past events, they mostly were not eyewitnesses. Based on hearsay, [their remarks] are therefore speculative. For a long time they have misled men of later generations. 至於舊事，多非親覽，聞諸道路，便爲穿鑿，誤我後學，日月已甚。71

68) Heather Blair, Real and Imagined: The Peak of Gold in Heian Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2015), 8-9, 131-89. 69) For a discussion on the related issue of the experience of traces, see Stephen Owen, Remembrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1986), 66-79. 70) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.70; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 66-68. 71) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.70; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 68. Liu Chengzhi’s work is entitled Shanchuan gujin ji 山川古今記, and Dai Yanzhi’s Xizheng ji 西征記.

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While Yang’s criticism is in line with his argument about the superiority and legitimacy of the Northern Wei vis-à-vis its southern Chinese ri- vals, relevant here is his assumption that, as authentic residues of the past, traces provide direct, privileged access to true historical knowledge. Traces also mean that history takes the form of spatial sedimentation, the underground versions of which would require archaeological excavation. To Yang Xuanzhi, such excavations can unleash the uncanny power of traces to activate ghosts attached to them and turn hermeneutic place-making into a potentially dangerous encounter with the past. We are told, for instance, that Xing Luan, Minister of the Ministry of Personnel 吏部尚書邢巒 (464-514), dug on his property and discov- ered cinnabar and tens of thousands of coins, along with an inscription: “Possessions of Grand Preceptor Dong [Zhuo]” 董太師之物. He then had a dream in which Dong Zhuo 董卓 (d. 192) demanded the return of his possessions, but Xing refused. He died a year later.72 In official histories, Dong Zhuo is known as a warlord who hijacked the Han court and ruled with cruelty and greed, while Xing Luan is presented as a man with a record of military success and a once-strong appetite for wealth (he later reformed himself).73 Consistent with these character traits, the story casts Xing as the rival of Dong Zhuo’s ghost to articulate a belief in the antagonism between past and present property rights. To Xing Luan, the place that he currently occupies and owns entitles him to both its present configuration above the ground and its past traces as sediments underneath. Dong Zhuo’s ghost, however, presses for the rights of the original owner despite his physical demise. The story affirms both kinds of claim by presenting the competition as a stalemate. On one hand, Xing Luan refuses to recognize Dong Zhuo’s demand because he con- trols the present, physical space. On the other hand, Dong Zhuo’s venge- ful ghost presumably causes Xing Luan’s premature death, cutting short Xing’s confident claim. While the surface residence and the underground treasure, with their respective living and deceased owners, em- body in spatial terms the distinction and continuity between the present

72) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.58. 73) For a biography of Dong Zhuo, see Hou Hanshu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 72.2319- 45. For a biography of Xing Luan, see Weishu, 65.1437-47.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 66 Manling Luo and the past, the interface is also fluid, marked by mutual encroach- ments and malicious conflicts. Yet through traces, hermeneutic place-making can also create more amicable dynamics between past and present. As Yang Xuanzhi tells us, red lights radiated from underground in front of the main hall in the residence of Gao Xianluo, Clerk in the Section for the Three Dukes 三公令史高顯洛, prompting an excavation that turned up a hundred pounds of gold, along with an inscription: “The gold of Su Qin’s family. The find- er shall perform meritorious deeds on my behalf” 蘇秦家金，得者爲吾造功德. Gao therefore established the Monastery of Summoning Bless- ing (Zhaofu si 招福寺).74 A native of the area that later became Luoyang, Su Qin (d. 284 BCE) was a skillful diplomat who successfully organized a six-state alliance against the seventh state, Qin, when its growing power and territorial ambitions made it a serious threat to the others during the Warring States period.75 Consistent with such an image of Su Qin in historical records, the story emphasizes the tactful nature of his inscription, which acknowledges the right of the future excavator to claim the gold but asks him to honor Su’s original right and wish. Gao Xianluo’s compliance with Su Qin’s request establishes him as a symbolic, filial “descendant.” In stark contrast to the story of bitter struggle between Dong Zhuo and Xing Luan, this story of the collegiality between Su Qin and Gao Xianluo emphasizes their joint ownership of the place and their mutual benefits. Su relies on Gao to fulfill his wish and become relevant to the present, while Gao garners prestige from his association with Su, a famous rhetorician who started out as a poor scholar but later became the chief minister for all the six states. The newly established monastery embodies the collaborative relationship and even bonding between Luoyang’s past and present residents. While Yang Xuanzhi admires the power of traces, he also considers the textual tradition an equally important source of historical knowledge for hermeneutic place-making. It is impossible to make sense of the unearthed inscriptions without the chronological history established in transmitted texts. In fact, Yang Xuanzhi himself comments on

74) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 3.131; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 131. The term gongde refers to Buddhist forms of generating merit, including monastery constructions, sutra cop- ying, and monetary donations. 75) For biography of Su Qin, see Shiji 史記 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 69.2241-77.

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Gao Xianluo’s story, “In Su Qin’s time there still was no Buddhist teaching [in China]. The term ‘meritorious deeds’ did not necessarily mean [the construction of] a temple, but probably [the preparation of] a stone inscription or the like in praise of [Su Qin’s] achievements” 蘇秦時未有佛法，功德者不必是寺，應是碑銘之類，頌其聲跡也.76 As a learned scholar, Yang Xuanzhi recognizes the anachronism in the alleged unearthed inscription, which, intriguingly, does not lead him to question the authenticity of the inscription or the Gao Xianluo story. While his insight clearly stems from his erudition in the textual tradition, he also underscores that only a careful reader can put it to great use. According to him, many students (xuetu 學徒) in Luoyang believed that the pond at a nunnery was the Di Spring (Diquan 翟泉), where Prince Hu 王子虎 of the Eastern Zhou 東周 (770-255 BCE) made an oath with the leader of the Jin army and the representatives of other states, as described in the Zuozhuan.77 Citing the famous scholar-official Du Yu’s 杜預 (222-285) annotations of the text, Yang points out that the students make the mistake of using the current Imperial Granaries, rather than the granaries of Western Jin dynasty, as explained by Du, as the reference point to identify the ancient Di Spring. To him, an accurate con- nection between textual records and physical landscape depends on parsing the different layers of textual transmission. Yet even a careful reader may not be immune to mistakes; the most authoritative hermeneutic place-maker would be a living historical witness, whose first-hand knowledge can reveal a place’s hidden history. Yang Xuanzhi’s collection features one such person, the hermit Zhao Yi 趙逸, who claimed to have lived for centuries. Zhao Yi pointed out to a man named Du Zixiu 杜子休 that his residence had been the site of the Monastery of Great Prosperity (Taikang si 太康寺) during the Western Jin. Du then dug down and unearthed tens of thousands of bricks, along with a stone inscription that confirmed Zhao’s assertion.78 Here Zhao demonstrates the superior power of a historical witness by locating a site described in textual records and turning underground traces into the evidence for his authority. In addition, Zhao claimed that the afore- mentioned pond at the nunnery belonged to the Western Jin profligate

76) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 3.131; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 132. 77) Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhengyi 春秋左傳正義, in Shisanjing zhushu, 17.1830a-b. 78) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 2.83.

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Shi Chong 石崇 (249-300), and to its south lay the Green Pearl Tower (Lüzhu lou 綠珠樓).79 Green Pearl, a beautiful flutist favored by Shi Chong, is best known for her refusal to be taken away from her master and her subsequent suicide by jumping off a tower.80 Zhao Yi’s words give this famous story a spatial reification. As Yang Xuanzhi notes, “Thereafter, the students began to realize that [they were mistaken]. Those who passed this place were able to visualize the beautiful appear- ance of Green Pearl” 於是學徒始寤，經過者想見綠珠之容也.81 Zhao Yi’s alleged knowledge enables the previously careless, ignorant students to engage in the “right” historical imagination. Whether Zhao Yi was a hoaxer who successfully duped Northern Wei Luoyang residents is beside the point. In Yang Xuanzhi’s collection, he embodies an idealized mode of hermeneutic place-making that perfectly bridges historical gaps. This point is reinforced by Yang’s recognition of the reality that historical knowledge can be divergent or even contradictory. In describing a stone bridge outside a city gate, for instance, he notes that the bridge was built during the Western Jin to divert the flood waters of the Gu River (Gushui 榖水) into the Luo River and was thus named Rise and Diversion Bridge (Zhangfen qiao 長分橋). He mentions an alternative account, “Someone said that this was the camping site of General Zhang Fang’s army in his expedition against the Prince of Changsha, as in- structed by the Prince of Hejian from Chang’an. Thus, it was named Zhang Fang Bridge” 或云晉河間王在長安遣張方征長沙王，營軍於此，因爲張方橋也.82 Zhang Fang is known as a ruthless general who played a significant role in the conflicts among Western Jin princes that eventually brought down the dynasty.83 While Yang Xuanzhi opines that he “does not know which version is correct” 未知孰是, he states that a third is wrong, “Now because of a phonetic error among the populace, it is known as Madam Zhang Bridge” 今民間語訛, 號爲張夫人橋.84 The phonetic similarities among the three names of the bridge suggest that

79) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.53. 80) Jinshu 晉書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 33.1008. 81) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.53; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 54. 82) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 4.201; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 209. 83) Jinshu, 60.1644-46. 84) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 4.201; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 209.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 69 they share the same linguistic roots, yet their different meanings and associations also indicate that they emanate from diverse traditions of historical understanding. Rise and Diversion Bridge commemorates a state project of flood control that showcases the court’s achievements, while Zhang Fang Bridge marks the traumatic impact of an individual who wreaked havoc on Luoyang and its residents. Although it is not clear whether Madam Zhang Bridge is linked to any legend about a local goddess or female spirit,85 the name suggests some heterodox tradition that was popular among commoners. While Yang Xuanzhi’s dismissal of Madam Zhang Bridge as a derivative mistake demonstrates his elitist bias, the existence of these different names foregrounds the ambiguities and challenges of hermeneutic place-making. To Yang Xuanzhi, such challenges are still part of the privilege of hermeneutic place-making, which binds Northern Wei residents with their predecessors into a community emplaced in Luoyang across time. Even the struggle between Dong Zhuo’s ghost and Xing Luan is in effect a conflict between “cohabitants.” The accounts that Yang includes, however, only emphasize the spatialized history of regimes in the Northern Wei’s lineage of dynastic legitimacy, including the Eastern Zhou, East- ern Han, and Western Jin.86 Consistent with his promotion of Emperor Xiaowen’s reconstruction of city gates and Chang Jing’s hymn, this selec- tivity indicates his loyalist stance. Meanwhile, by focusing on hermeneutic place-making, he also subtly exposes the limits of the power of architectural place-making: however grandiose a building may look now, it will be reduced to traces or even completely erased with the pas- sage of time. This is also what befell Northern Wei Luoyang.

Luoyang’s Physical Destruction and Textual Survival While Northern Wei residents’ place-making as represented by Yang Xuanzhi indicates his understanding of the very politics involved, his memoir of Luoyang, written later in the new capital of Ye, reflected the

85) For a discussion of female deities in the early medieval period, see Zhang Chengzong 張承宗, “Wei Jin Nanbeichao funü de zongjiao xinyang” 魏晉南北朝婦女的宗教信仰, Nan- tong daxue xuebao 南通大學學報 22.2 (2006): 91-97. 86) For how the Northern Wei traced the line of dynastic succession, see Wang Wenjin, Luoyang qielan ji: Jingtu shang de fengyan, 30-31.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 70 Manling Luo politics of that new environment. Scholars have understood this aspect of Yang’s politics in terms of his cultural and political loyalty. As mentioned above, Wang Mei-Hsiu emphasizes his elevation of Han Chinese culture. W.J.F. Jenner, for another, points out that General Gao Huan is conspicuously absent from the memoir, arguing that Yang’s work was an implicit act of political resistance since, besides omitting Gao himself, it also casts the Northern Wei officials persecuted by the Gaos in a positive light.87 While these observations are important, we have to recognize the extent to which Yang’s politics is bound with his role as a textual place-maker. A focus on this role reveals his understanding of his own power and limits and helps us see more clearly the innovative nature of his work. The Gaos are, in fact, not completely absent in Yang Xuanzhi’s memoir, and his subtle representation of them as place-makers skillfully un- dercuts their legitimacy. In willfully discarding an old capital and starting a new one as the de facto ruler of the court, General Gao Huan proved himself to be a most powerful architectural place-maker on a par with Emperor Xiaowen. Yang’s repeated statement that “the capital was moved to Ye” 京師遷鄴 avoids identifying the decision-maker,88 thereby denying Gao’s agency. Moreover, Yang indicates that the relocation of the capital did not portend well. According to him, before the move, the pagoda of Eternal Peace Monastery, the highest building in Luoyang, was destroyed by a mysterious fire; a stone elephant in front of a monastery moved its head up and down for a full day; and a statue of the Bud- dha, previously proven to be numinous, suddenly disappeared.89 These strange, inauspicious portents suggest that the relocation of the capital was a bad idea, calling into question the wisdom of Gao Huan’s decision. In addition, Yang states, “In the fourth year of the Wuding reign (546), the Great General had the stone classics moved to Ye” 武定四年，大將軍遷石經於鄴.90 Although scholars generally take the Great General to be Gao Cheng 高澄 (521-549), Gao Huan’s eldest son and successor, Gao Huan was still in charge and did not die until one year later. Given Yang’s earlier emphasis on the aura of the stone classics at the site of the

87) Jenner, Memories of Loyang, 5-8. 88) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 1.17, 2.103, 4.201. 89) Ibid. 90) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, 3.135; Wang, Record of Buddhist Monasteries, 138.

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National University of the Eastern Han, moving them to Ye disconnects them from their historical, “authentic” root in Luoyang, exposing the contrived nature of the Gaos’ efforts to boost Ye’s status as the new capital. By identifying the Great General as the one who uprooted the stone classics, Yang also avoids placing the blame on the Northern Wei puppet emperor and lays bare the Gaos’ usurpation of the imperial power of architectural place-making. Furthermore, Yang Xuanzhi’s focus on the destroyed and abandoned Luoyang itself also foregrounds Gao Huan’s destructive role as an architectural place-maker. He makes no mention of the constructions in Ye completed or in progress under the Gaos. By contrast, he describes the desolation of Luoyang in his preface and evokes two poetic predecessors, stating, “The sorrow of ‘Ears of Wheat’ is not linked only to ruins of the Shang capital, and the sadness of ‘Heavy Hangs the Millet’ for the Zhou house is still true” 麥秀之感，非獨殷墟，黍離之悲，信哉周室.91 Attributed respectively to a descendant of the Shang royal house and an Eastern Zhou official who visited the sites of their former capitals, the poems convey the sentiments of pain and nostalgia through the image- ry of ruins overtaken by vegetation. Significantly, the Shang prince’s former dynasty is no more, whereas the Zhou official’s dynasty contin- ues in a different locale. The analogy that Yang Xuanzhi draws becomes ambiguous: Is his Great Wei going to be replaced by a new dynasty as in the former case or revived like the latter? If he indeed finished the Records before Gao Huan’s son established a new dynasty in 550, as many have believed, Gao Huan’s abandonment of Luoyang would not bode well to Yang in considering the future of the Northern Wei. Gao Huan’s decision not only had doomed the city to ruins, it also had dis- placed the Northern Wei, thereby undermining its in situ claim to the Heavenly Mandate. Yang Xuanzhi’s sentimentality also reveals his ambivalence about his own role as a textual place-maker. On one hand, he outdoes his poetic predecessors by recreating a historical Luoyang complete in architectural detail and animated by historical people and events, a textual res- urrection of the city that mitigates Gao Huan’s abandonment of it. As a

91) Yang Xuanzhi, LQJ, xu, 2. My own translation. For the full poems, see Shiji, 38.1620-21; and Shijing, Mao 65 (“Heavy Hangs the Millet” 黍離).

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access 72 Manling Luo historical witness, he is a modern-day Zhao Yi who illuminates the spatialized history of the city with unquestionable authority; as a writer, he is similar to Chang Jing and others in fashioning a sophisticated literary lens through which readers can perceive and understand the textual landscape. On the other hand, the sentimentality he shares with his poetic predecessors marks the limits of his power, for his textual reconstructions cannot change the reality of Luoyang’s ruins. In this regard, he shares the plight of Emperor Xiaozhuang in substituting textual for architectural place-making, the former being no match for the latter in controlling physical space. Yet what Yang Xuanzhi did not foresee is that his ground-breaking work would win out in the long run. While his focus on Northern Wei Luoyang is in line with the tradition of early medieval geographical writing,92 in effect he establishes a new kind of unofficial, space-centered historiography by systematically linking the city’s layout and buildings to relevant people and events. With the annals of rulers and biographies of noteworthy individuals making up the bulk of their content, official histories prioritize chronology and reiterate the court-centered, vertical power structure as narration moves from higher-status to lower-status figures. By contrast, individuals in Yang’s work are anchored spatially as residents and place-makers. Although his space-centered narration also recognizes the prominence of sociopolitical power, rei- fied in the Buddhist monasteries as the landmarks of Luoyang, he enables a horizontal “stroll” in the city that shows aspects invisible in official histories, such as quarters occupied by merchants and artisans and their lives. In this regard, Yang can be said to have achieved a balance among spatiality, temporality, and sociality advocated by the urban geographer and theorist Edward Soja. Criticizing modern historiography’s reduc- tion of space to a static stage on which sociohistorical events unfold temporally, Soja calls for new alternatives that accord with the essential role of spatiality in what he terms the “trialectics of being.”93 Although

92) For a succinct discussion of the early geographical writing tradition, see Andrew Chit- tick, “The Development of Local Writing in Early Medieval China,” Early Medieval China 9 (2003): 35-70. For the links between early medieval geographical writings and later gazetteers, see James M. Hargett, “Song Dynasty Local Gazetteers and Their Place in the History of Difangzhi Writing,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56 (1996): 405-12. 93) Soja, Thirdspace, 70-73.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 73 these postmodern reflections may seem remote from Yang’s world and were certainly not part of his concerns, his new mode of historiography did succeed in emplacing history in sites, thereby turning the ruined city into a virtual museum. In their “strolls” through it, readers can stop at different sites to activate hidden histories. Yang’s text thus also pre- serves what philosopher Edward Casey has called a “place-world,”94 a lively Luoyang that was made by Northern Wei residents and defined their lives therein. Although most early medieval geographical writings are no longer extant and accident might have played a role in the pres- ervation of Yang’s Records, the innovative nature of the work likely in- creased its appeal as an important historical source.95 The very survival of Yang Xuanzhi’s work can be said to ultimately vindicate Emperor Xiaozhuang. Comparing the Records to Wei Shou’s 魏收 (507-572) Weishu 魏書 commissioned by the Northern Qi after it overthrew the Eastern Wei, Wang Wenjin emphasizes the bias of the pro-Gao historian Wei Shou and praises Yang for preserving historical truth and for his staunch loyalty to the Northern Wei.96 Apart from of- fering alternative historical perspectives, Yang’s writing also enables the textual survival of the Northern Wei Luoyang, an afterlife that in effect defeats the Gaos’ efforts to condemn the city to ruins and irrelevance. As the discursive imprints of Yang’s hermeneutic and literary place- making, the Records outlasted the physical counterparts of architectural place-making by Gao Huan and others like him precisely because the text was dedicated to space but not bound by it. The mobility of texts makes it possible for culture to trump sociopolitical power, and the textual place-maker can have the last word after all.

94) See Casey, Getting Back Into Place, xi-xvii. 95) Some writers after Yang Xuanzhi adopted a similar style of space-centered historiography, albeit with their own distinct touches, the examples of which include Duan Chengshi’s 段成式 (d. 863) Si ta ji 寺塔記 and Meng Yuanlao’s 孟元老 (fl. mid-12th century) Dongjing meng Hua lu 東京夢華錄. For discussions of these later works, see Alexei Ditter, “Concep- tion of Urban Space in Duan Chengshi’s ‘Record of Monasteries and Stupas,’” T’ang Studies 29 (2011): 62-83; Stephen H. West, “The Interpretation of a Dream: The Sources, Evaluation, and Influence of the Dongjing meng Hua lu,” T’oung Pao 71 (1985): 63-108. In addition, Luoyang continued to figure prominently in the works of later writers. For an analysis of such writings produced in the Song, see Christian de Pee, “Wards of Words: Textual Geogra- phies and Urban Space in Song-Dynasty Luoyang, 960-1127,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 52 (2009): 85-116. 96) See Wang Wenjin, Luoyang qielan ji: Jingtu shang de fengyan, 22-24, 90-96.

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Acknowledgments A number of people have read different incarnations of this article and offered useful suggestions: Heather Blair, Robert E. Hegel, Michelle Re- nee Moyd, Morten Oxenboell, Joannah Peterson, Anya Peterson Royce, Edith Sarra, Lynn Struve, and Sarah Van der Laan. I presented various ideas at the New College of Florida, College of William and Mary, and University of Washington, as well as at the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies held in Chapel Hill, the New England re- gion Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference held in Boston, and the conference “To Remember, Re-member, and Disremember: In- strumentality of Traditional Chinese Texts” held at Arizona State Uni- versity. I thank the hosts, organizers, discussants, and audiences at those venues. I am also grateful for the insightful comments of the two anony- mous readers.

Abstract Although the Luoyang qielan ji (Records of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang, ca. 547 CE) by the Northern Wei official Yang Xuanzhi has received much critical attention, existing studies have tended to treat space as mere settings or a given reality. This essay examines an ignored but central issue in the memoir, Yang’s preoccupation with the power and limitations of individuals’ engagements with Luoyang’s space, or place-making. His representations of Northern Wei residents’ place-making activities shed light on his nuanced perceptions of the intersection among place, power, and human agency. The analysis also enables us to better understand the political implications of Yang’s textual reconstruction of Luoyang and the innovative nature of his work.

Résumé Le Luoyang qielan ji (Mémoires sur les monastères bouddhiques à Luoyang, ca. 547 CE) écrit par Yang Xuanzhi, un fonctionnaire des Wei du Nord, a été l’objet d’une attention critique soutenue. Les travaux existants, cependant, tendent à traiter de l’espace décrit dans ce texte comme un simple cadre ou une réalité a priori. Cet article examine un aspect central du texte : la préoccupation de l’auteur pour la force et les limites de l’engagement des individus dans l’espace propre à Luoyang et la construction de cet espace. Les façons dont Yang représente les résidents de la capitale des Wei du Nord participant activement à la construction de l’espace

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 08:24:47PM via free access The Politics of Place-Making 75 urbain éclairent ses perceptions des rapports entre espace, pouvoir et agentivité. Cette analyse nous permet également de mieux comprendre les implications poli- tiques et l’originalité de la reconstruction textuelle de la ville de Luoyang par Yang Xuanzhi.

提要儘管北魏官員楊衒之所撰《洛陽伽藍記》（約公元547年）歷來多經檢視，現有的研究仍傾向於將其中的空間僅僅視爲環境設定或是特定現實。本文檢視了這部回憶錄中一個被忽視但卻處於核心的因素，即楊對於個人在參與洛陽城市空間，也就是場所構建，時所體現出的權力與局限性的關注。他對北魏居民場所構建活動的表現揭示了他對場所、權力和人的主體性之間交互關係的精微認識。這一分析也使我們得以更好地理解潛藏在楊對洛陽的文本化重構中的政治意蘊，以及其作品的創造性。

Keywords Northern Wei – Geographical Writing – Place-making – Place-makers – Power – Imprints

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