Winner of the Levenson Prize sponsored by the Association for Asian
Studies
Shortlisted for the 2009 ICAS Book Award
Silk and bamboo are easily ruined,
But metal and stone are hard to destroy.
Placed on a high mountain
[The writing] will be passed down without limit.
- from Stone Eulogy, Mount Tie
To look at the mountains is like gazing at a painting, and roaming in
the mountains is like reading history.
- Chen Yuanlong (1652-1736), commentary on inscriptions in and near
Longyin Cave, Guilin
In this fascinating and meticulously researched book on the Chinese
landscape as a medium for literary inscription, Robert E. Harrist Jr.
focuses on the period prior to the eighth century C.E. to demonstrate
that the significance of inscriptions on stone embedded in nature
depends on the interaction of words with topography. Visitors do not
simply climb inscribed mountains, they read them, as the medium of the
written word has transformed geological formations into landscapes of
ideological and religious significance.
The widespread use of stone as a medium for writing did not begin in
China until around the first century C.E. - later than in the ancient
civilizations of Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome - but by the
twentieth century, more inscriptions had been carved in natural stone in
China than anywhere else in the world. The Landscape of Words is the
first study in a Western language devoted to these texts, moya or moya
shike, carved into the natural terrain on granite boulders and cliffs at
thousands of sites of historic or scenic interest. Like the writing
system itself, moya are one of the distinguishing features of Chinese
civilization. Carved in large, bold characters, they constitute a vast
repository of texts produced continuously for more than two thousand
years and are an important form of public art.
Harrist draws on insights from the fields of art history, social and
political history, literature, and religion to present detailed case
studies of important moya sites, such as the Stone Gate tunnel in
Shaanxi and Cloud Peak Mountain, Mount Tie, and Mount Tai in Shangdong.
The inscriptions analyzed represent a range of literary genres and
content, including poetry, Buddhist sutras, records of imperial rituals,
and commemorations of virtuous conduct in public life.
