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4510372 Xiaoning Song Report1 Report_1 Daoism and its related architectural forms A literary study from the meaning of Daoism to the ritual life of Daoism and its architectural forms Vivian Song 4510372 [email protected] Irene Cieraad Research Seminar AR3AI055 03.2017 !2/!15 Keywords: Daoism, ritual life, yang and yang, wuwei, equality, meditation, architectural forms. Abstract: Daoism, like Christianity, is one of the most influential religious in Eastern culture. The founder of Daoism, Laotzu, is believed to have lived 500-600 years before the birth of Christ. Daoism began as a philosophy, but evolved into a religious belief system around 440 AD. It contains many philosophies which are alien to the western culture. For instance, the thinking of ‘yin and yang’, the ‘wu wei’ attitude, and the meaning of ‘oneness’…The philosophies and spirits of Daoism decide the typologies of the Daoist temples and buildings. For instance, the equality of the rooms, the layouts of the temples…Also, they shape the ritual life of the followers. As one of the most crucial religion in Eastern culture, it also influenced the renewal and meditation of Christianity after the Protestant Reformation in 17th century. The motivation of the thesis is issuing an idea that converting the Roosenberg Abbey into a study center of Daoism. Thus, It is intriguing to understand the philosophies of Daoism and its spirit rules. The relations between the Daoist temples and Daoist ritual sequences are also referred. In this way, it is very helpful to manage the design of the new program for the Roosenberg Abbey. Also, it is possible to compare Dom Hans van der Laan’s architectural languages with the Daoist buildings, by which way I could find some aspects in common. In this thesis, I mainly name the term as ‘Daoism’ according to Chinese pronunciation, but in some references it is named as ‘Taosim’ based on a similar pronunciation. Structure: Chapter 01 The meaning of Daoism. Chapter 02 From the ritual life to architectural sequence. Chapter 03 Conclusion of the literary study. !3/!15 Chapter 01 The meaning of Daoism. Dao is fairly well known in the west today. As the multiple explanations of Christian, it exists various statements under Daoism based on different understandings of it nowadays. It is not the emphasis of the thesis which is to elaborate the deep meanings and differences between the various explanations. Instead, in this chapter, the general philosophies of Daoism and its basic meaning would be referred. It would give some clues to understand how does this religion influences the daily life of its followers, and in a way changed the layouts and decorations of their religious buildings. Tao cannot be defined in words and is not and idea or concept. Thus the Tao is the course, the flow, the drift, or the process of nature. The person who lives in Tao understands the polarity and the inner unity of Yin and Yang, the feminine and the masculine principle. He knows the wisdom of acting without violence, he follows the ‘watercourse way’, because everything in life is fluid. Without decay, there is no growth, without death no life and without pain no joy.1 In his book Tao: The watercourse way2, Alan Watts introduced the meaning of Daoism as the watercourse in 1975. He found that in Chinese perspective, knowledge and action are not two separate issues. There is but one concern and it encompasses both the way of things and their use. The Chinese have summarized this in a single term: Dao. Daoism strives to adapt to the rhythms of the universe and the order of natural law. Neither lawmaker nor creator regulates metaphysical space. Each individual element has its place in the cosmos. In Daoist philosophy, the world is referred to as tiandi, meaning heaven and earth.The human head, with its round shape, is compared to heaven and human feet, with their rectangular shape, are compare to earth. Heaven embodies the masculine and the mind, earth represents the feminine and the material. Thus, understanding the world becomes a matter of realizing that those who are driven by the mind may be no different than those driven by materialistic behavior. This is expressed in the famous Daoist saying: ‘Heaven and earth are father and mother of the ten thousand things.’ 1 Watts, A. (1975). Tao: the watercourse way. New York: Pantheon Books.pp.41,42ff. 2 Watts, pp.41,42ff. !4/!15 Daoist philosopher He Shang-gong described the relationship thus:’(in the beginning,)the Way gave birth to the One. The One gave birth to the Two: it created Yin and Yang. The Two gave birth to the Three: Yin and Yang create the harmonious, the clear and the clouded, the Three breaths, which are divided into Heaven, Earth and Man. The Three gave birth to creations: Heaven, Earth and Man together create everything. The heaven spreads, the Earth transforms, and Man educates and nourishes.’3 Interestingly, the creation of the world in Daoism is totally different from the creationism in western Europe who believes it is the god who created everything. By the contrast, in Daoism, humankind is part of the unity, part of heaven and earth. It forms a single body and a single experience. This is the central thesis of Daoist thought. It concerns itself with humankind as a reflection of the cosmos. There is no single god, creator and ruler of humankind and the cosmos in Daoism. In Chinese philosophy, there is no such separation between man and god. By archiving an understanding of the self as its relates to the cosmos, the individual becomes part of the great cosmic game. A set of principles serve to guide us along the path: the principle of respect, as expressed through symbol and gestalt; of harmony, as expressed through yin and yang; and of mindfulness, as expressed through wu wei. Based on these principles, the Daoism not only build a series of daily rules for the monks and its followers, but also be reflected on its architectural forms. In the next chapter, the three mentioned principles would be elaborated with their ritual rules and corresponding spatial organizations. 3 Roman Malek, Das Tao des Himmels (Freiburg: Herder, 1996) p.24 !5/!15 Chapter 02 From the ritual life to architectural sequence The focus on Daoism should not be limited by its profound philosophies, but pay attention to its influences on people’s ritual life and its reflections on its container— the architecture of Daoism. In this chapter, three main philosophies of Daoism will be elaborated, as a lens to understand the complexity between the religion and its relatednesses with others. Symbol and Gestalt Distinguished from the western alphabet, the Chinese script contains a lot of symbolic qualities. The earliest characters of Daoism are created based on ancients’ observations of astrometry. (figure 1.) Many of the characters are directly transferred from the images of the natural scenes and human’s behaviors. Each character is a symbol of an image, which contains thoughts, ideas and internal imagery. Daoist culture draws on symbolic and aesthetic qualities. Daoist art and culture, while continuously seeking meaning in all things, are also charactered by a search for a refined aesthetic. The way that Daoist followers carry and dress, their personal appearance, are also a kind of gestalt. The same is true for its building typologies. The Daoist temples and buildings reveal their identity through architectural gestalt. Gottfried Semper, the master of nineteenth century, noted that, ‘the individual peculiarities of the different systems of architecture will remain incomprehensible to us until we have gained an understanding of the socio-political and religious conditions of those nations and ages to which the architectural monuments are indeed no more than the artistic expression of these social, political, and religious institutions.’4 Based on this, the summarized three links from the Daoist philosophy to architectural form should be referred. Linking Heaven and Earth with a magical line The unity of heaven and earth, of nature and man, is one of the central tenets of Daoist philosophy. This theme must therefore all be incorporate into gestalt of their religious buildings. this connection is revealed through the use of virtual, and sometimes visible, lines that lead from a heavenly spot, usually a mountain or hilltop, to the city.5 4 Gottfried Semper, Kleine Schriften (reprint, Mittenwald, 1979) p.351. 5 Alfred Schinz, The Magic Square, Cities in Ancient China. ( Stuttgart/London: Alex Menges) p.416. !6/!15 Jietansi, Peking « The dynamics of interacting forces of nature Kraftespiel der aufeinander einwirkenden Naturgewalten V' < Ancient Chinese observation of astronomical constellations Sternbilder nach den Beobachtungen im alten China i t A i ié fit 0 4» «fit ^ ox «1 ^ - ifL 4 ® föt J f 1 1 «1# %%^. • «-il IS A t t « i . /L Figure 1. Ancient Chinese observation of astronomical constellations. O 2 4m Reconstructed master plan of Jiqingwei showing its Rekonstruierter Aniageplan von Jiqingwei, aus dem der defensive character and castle-lil<e appearance Wehrchorakter und das kostellartige Aufiere der Anlage a Entrance gate ersichtlich sind b Gun tower a Eingongstor c Passage b Wehrturm d Dwellings c Durchgong e Ancestral shrine d Wohnbereich f Storerooms e Ahnenoltor g Poultry and animal pen f Vorratsraume h Elders' quarters Figure 2.g HühnerhoMasterf und Tierpferch plane of Jiqingwei. i Moat h Wohnbereich für die Alten i Groben 181 !7/!15 Linking Heaven and Earth with square and circle The layouts of most Daoist temples can be seen as the dialogue with heaven. The square represents the earth, which corresponding to the circle of the heaven. In the master plan of a religious building Jiqingwei(Figure 2.), we can see that the outlines of the building shaped as a square which contains four towers on each edge of it.
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