Traces of Confucianism through stone rubbings
Kerrianne Stone, former Curator, Prints, Archives and Special Collections, University of Melbourne
Ancient China is associated with innovations in the development and use of paper, printing, and another process, that of rubbing. In the Rare East Asian Collection there are several fine examples of the technique of stone rubbings, including large format sheets as well as books.
Despite the humble terminology, creating a rubbing uses meticulous methods and is itself an historic practice dating from the second century. Explained simply, it involves dampening a sheet of paper and placing it over words and images to be transferred, often from an ancient artefact such as a stone stele (marker). An artisan tamps the paper throughout with a lightly inked dabber or brush until the inscription or image appears white against a contrasting background of black ink. The paper has sunken into the incised marks and remerged holding the ancient outline. Crinkles in the paper and soft ink borders around the image are evidence of the process. Sometimes these rubbings are the only traces of artefacts lost or worn away by time. Copies held in the Rare East Asian Collection demonstrate the high contrast effects of the process and the details are clear, indicating the skill of the artisan.
One of the many purposes of stone rubbings was to record inscriptions from the Classics or Confucianism, the ideology of the pre-Qing dynasty, and disseminate it more broadly. Knowledge of the classics was essential for a proper education.1 Texts from Confucian teachings were often recorded on steles and placed in temples and the Imperial College as monuments of lasting knowledge. A rubbing produced on tissue paper was a lower cost and more transportable version which could be distributed to scholars.
One prolific example is the portrait of Confucius2 (c. 551–c. 479 BCE) which is from a stele thought to be originally painted by Wu Daozi (689-759), while the rubbing itself probably dates from the nineteenth century. This stele is situated in Qufu (formerly Lu), Shandong Province, a location which marks the birthplace of Confucius and where stands a grand dedicatory temple featuring more than 500 stelae. No contemporary portrait of Confucius is recorded, but the image created by Wu Daozi depicting the philosopher as a wise old man with his hands clasped together has since become a prototype of his representation.
Another rubbing in the collection shows a plan of the Temple of Confucius at Qufu. Shortly after his death, a temple was built to venerate Confucius at the site of his family home, and progressively over the centuries, it changed and evolved as more buildings were replaced and added. The rubbing shows how the temple complex is organised from a central axis and includes 460 rooms and nine courtyards. The Pan pond can be seen in the foreground, followed by the Lingxing Gate, and is where visitors enter the site. As the eye moves up the sheet, it encounters the largest building Dacheng Hall or the Hall of Great Perfection, seen at the upper centre of the sheet. This is the heart of the complex where offerings are made to the memory of Confucius.3
Adding an even wider perspective onto the temple at Qufu is the map Zhi sheng xian shi Kongzi lin tu (c.1945) which shows the Confucius family cemetery, located approximately two kilometres north of the temple. In his final years Confucius returned to his hometown; by this stage he had gained many disciples and perhaps it was also the time when he worked on his famous texts, such as the Analects which traces his life. Confucius is buried in this cemetery, along with some of his disciples and thousands of his descendants. The stone rubbing shows the 7,000-meter-long wall surrounding the cemetery as well as several details which emulate the Master’s teachings. The many carved cypress and pine trees featured in the rubbing echo the forested appearance of the cemetery trees which remind us of the quote: ‘岁寒，然后知松柏之后凋也’ (‘Only when the year becomes cold do we know how the pine and the cypress are the last to fade’.) In the foreground of the image, we see the trees lining the road taking us to the tombstones at the top of the scene and at left a rain cloud hovers over a single conifer.
In these three stone rubbings we trace artefacts located at the Confucius Temple, a place which represents ideas of religion and society; in a broader sense and in a time and location as removed as the University of Melbourne, we transfer their ancient teachings. Confucius began as a humble citizen, which we might compare to the simplicity of the surface of a rubbing, but through one man’s words grew the deep and profound roots of culture.
Endnotes
[1] Kenneth Starr, ‘The history and functions of rubbings’, in Black Tigers, University of Washington Press, 2008, p.19.
[2] ‘Confucius’ is a Latinised name based on the family name of Kong, also written as Kongfuzi or Kongzi and K'ung Fu-tzu (Great Master K'ung).
[3] Confucius Temple (Qufu) - Discover the Life of Confucius in His Birthplace, www.chinadiscovery.com/shandong/qufu/confucius-temple.html accessed July 2022.