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Monika Motsch THE MIRROR AND CHINESE AESTHETICS. A STUDY OF THE HONGLOUMENG1 1. Traditional Forms of the Mirror Image One of the five alternate tides of the Hongloumeng is Fengyue baojian Mfl W~ , "The Erotic Mirror". This image, which has a long tradition in Chinese literature, provides not only a key to the interpretation of the novel but also to an important concept of Chinese aesthetics. Chinese bronze mirrors are mentioned for the first time in 672 B.C. in Zuozhuan.2 Presumably they came into existence much earlier than that. In literature the mirror can take on the most diverse meanings. It serves as a means for the investigation of the self and of others, for the representation of Love and Death. It can symbolize self-knowledge and self-deception, the world that appears to us or the world beyond. The mirror is a myth of creation: As the World Creatress Nüwa saw herself reflected in a lake one day and feIt lonely, she grasped a handful of mud and formed human beings after her own image. 3 I The paper is based on an unpublished speech during the Symposion "Zweihundert Jahre Traum der Roten Kammer", Bonn, Germany, April 21-13, 1992. A slightly different version has appeared in Chinese (Motsch 1993, pp. 125-30). Some ideas have been discussed in my book on Qian Zhongshu's Guanzhuibian (Motsch 1992, pp. 130-180). 2Needham 1962, p. 87. J Taiping yulan, ch.78 (Fengsu tongyi). Yuan Ke 1986, p.l 03. Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:29:56AM via free access Monika Motsch Magic mirrors4 have been a popular motif in folk literature since the lin and Tang Dynasties. They can cure deseases, exorcise ghosts and even, like X-rays, make innards visible. Confucians, on the other hand, applied the motif with a moral turn for the differentiation between good and evil. Already in the Shujing ~*~ there appeared the moral injunction that a ruler should approach his subjects as he would a mirror. 5 When the tyranny of a king was "mirrored" in the poverty and suffering of his peopIe, then he would lose his heavenly mandate and his dynasty would fall. The fall of a dynasty in turn served as a warning mirror . 6 fior postenty. Confucian officials considered themselves to be critical mirrors whose duty it was to point out the defects of the government. In doing so, they often resorted to a mirror-simile that originated in Han Fei Zi ~~F-T (Guanxing IUT), a simile that became something of a proverb and is frequently used even nowadays by critics of the government: $:ßi~JjlAifELiffi It is not the fault of the mirror when it shows defects. Also in a personal sphere the mirror was an instrument for self­ examination and self-criticism. The most well-known and much imitated example is Du Fu's tim line: ~1J*iPJ!~ßi I often look into the mirror to spur me on to heroie efforts. In contrast, Daoists and Buddhists applied th image in a mythic sense. In Zhuang Zi the mirror symbolizes the spirit of the holy which reflects the whole universe as a calm water surface without bringing itse\f into turbulence - i.e., a mythic stillness and vacuum. But in Chinese literature, the most important stimulus for the mirror-myth came from Indian Buddhist literature. In Buddhist temples it is customary to hang up a multitude of mutually reflecting mirrors for meditation sessions, which reflect the image of a 4 .Qian Zhongshu 1991, pp. 728-80. See also De Groot, pp. 1000-1005. 5 Legge, p. 409. 6 Hall 1935, pp. 182-89. 118 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:29:56AM via free access The Mirror and Chinese Aesthetics. A Study 01 the Hongloumeng Buddha statue ad infinitum. By these means the adepts would see the mysterious unfathomable wisdom of Buddha before their eyes. Simultaneously, they should be able to grasp the subjective limitations of their own power of perception and, through this knowledge, achieve enlightenment. The Buddhists also compared the human soul to a mirror, which is bright and c\ear when in astate of enlightenment, but dark and murky when burdened by the sins ofthe world.7 The image of the "mo on in the water" (7J<: ~ Fl), so dear to Chinese poets, also originates from Buddhism. It possesses the ambivalent, positive-negative meaning of truth and illusion. In one case, the moon in the water suggests the mysterious, beautiful truth of Buddhist teachings; in the other, the illusion of earthly blessings, as the reflected moon always remains elusive and ineluctable, when one tries to grab at it in water.8 In the Hongloumeng different variants of the mirror image are combined and artistically reformed. I will deal with three different aspects: First, as a starting point of a total interpretation ofthe novel; secondly, as a technique of narrative perspective; and, thirdly, as a symbol of art. As the mirror motif also appears in the West, it is also possible to draw upon examples from Western literature and research. 2. The Episode of the Magie Mirror The episode of the magic mirror in chapter 12, to which the book owes its alternative title "The Erotic Mirror", can serve as a key to an interpretation of the whole work9 : Jia Rui Wfffif, burning in hopeless, unrequited love, receives a magie mirror from a monk to cure his love sickness, with the specific command that he only look at the reverse side of the mirror - which reflects a skull. On the front side appears his seductive beloved, inviting hirn to come into the mirror and engage in continuous lovemaking. Disregarding the 7 Demieville 1948, pp. 112-37. 8 Qian Zhongshu 1991, pp. 37f. 9 There exists an enonnous variety of different interpretations. For some outstanding studies see Hsia, C.T. 1980, pp. 245-297. Plaks 1976. Wang, John C.Y. 1978, pp. 189-220. Chan, Ping-Leung 1980. Saussy 1987. Yu, A. 1989. Yee 1990. Lin Shuen-Fu 1992. Shi Changyu 1994, pp. 379-95. Minford 1995. 119 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:29:56AM via free access Monika Motsch curative reverse side, the young man focuses his mind on the front side and dies - unenlightened - of sexual exhaustion. The episode is often dismissed as primitive leftovers of a lost urjassung. 10 Many commentators have sought to counteract what they regard as residual magic by means of an allegorical interpretation: The magic mirror projects destinies that are still to come in the novel - something misunderstood by lecherous readers.ll Actually the two-sided mirror is an expressive, widely understood symbol of life. In Western art and literature similar images can be found. In the Middle Ages the world is described as a woman graced with jewels and ravishingly beautiful from the front, but naked and crawling with worms from the back. In the Renaissance people often had themselves painted with a mirror on the side, in which they were prophetically shown as dead. In France, during the seventeenth century, double-sided portraits were popular, the front of which showed the face and the reverse a skul1. 12 And in the comedy Cardenio und Celinde, by the baroque poet Andreas Gryphius (1616- 1664), the hero embraces a beautiful woman, who turns into a skeleton in his arms, whereupon he becomes aware of his sinful passion. In the Hongloumeng there is a similar scene, in which Jia Baoyu's 'WW±' counterpart Zhen Baoyu embraces a beautiful girl who turns out to be a skeleton. For all their differences the representations possess a common antithetical basic structure: The front side and the reverse side of a mirror in each case embody the antithesis of Love and Death: beauty perceivable but fleeting, and the transience of aB things under the moon. In the Hongloumeng the episode of the magic mirror assurnes the role of a prologue which symbolically foreshadows developments in the plot: Thus Baoyu enters the Mirror of Sensuousness, so that, later, through the death of Lin Daiyu and ruin of his family, he should learn to know the reverse side of the mirror and become a monk. The theme has a certain relationship to a traditional concept of Chinese love stories, viz, "through sex to enlightenment" (§1~:r.g:.~). The idea can be 10 Hawkes 1973, vo!.3, p. 620. 11 Quoted in Saussy 1987, p. 36 (note 28). 12QianZhongshu 1991, pp. 32ff. 120 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:29:56AM via free access The Mirror and Chinese Aesthetics. A Study 0/ (he Hong1oumeng found in various Buddhist classics such as in the Weimojie suoshuojing "Fo d ao pm. 8" (2;if,~2;±-;h-='{4-<"'1't:t::r~)I'OPJl 6.71:.if& - j;IP17PJ.§.1J1J '* q ) : ~ fJH'F f=g :tc ijlMi H@~, 7tt)~~Sj~, f§% }d~'&· Or she appears as nymph And lures the lechers. Desire's her bait at first to lead to higher wisdom. \3 The earliest literary source is the preface to a late Tang-Dynasty short story about the imperial concubine Zhao Feiyan J:E11 ~ ~ old here that the emperor, after many sexual adventures, achieves enlightenment through the death of his concubine and becomes a monk. A passage at the beginning of the Hongloumeng (ch.l) has the same sense: fjEIIt~~~AIE1~~ @, El3@~'I~1i'I~ A.@, § @ 'I-g~, i~~;ß,F.ib'I~{t, cJ:1illJ[~c,F.ib'I~{t~. As a consequence of all this, Vanitas, starting off in the Void (which is Truth) came to the contemplation of Form (which is Illusion); and from Form engendered Passion; and by communicating Passion, entered again into Form; and from Form awoke to the Void (which is Truth).
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