Where does the Summer Palace reflect the traditional culture of China?

The Summer Palace is a masterpiece of China's traditional culture, the essence of China's traditional auspicious culture and an "out-of-print royal garden".

Some people say that she is a romantic garden;

Some people say that she is the swan song of creating landscapes;

Others say that she is a beautiful woman who has fallen to the world;

She has many factors, such as poetry, painting, Feng Shui, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. 259 years ago, Qianlong built this out-of-print Summer Palace. Then, do you know how Qianlong carefully designed the bricks, tiles, grass and trees in the garden?

Auspicious culture in China often expresses the pursuit of blessings through a pattern. Now, if you look down from the sky, Kunming Lake looks like a peach, and the buildings on both sides of Foxiang Pavilion in Wanshou Mountain are only in the shape of bat wings. The whole looks like a bat, flapping its wings and wanting to fly. Most people who have been to the Summer Palace know about the Summer Palace, but few people know about this landscape planning layout which means "longevity".

What does the feng shui layout of the Summer Palace imply? What kind of auspicious culture of China can we feel from it? Let's talk about the out-of-print Summer Palace first. (The following text is taken from the author of Out of Print Summer Palace/Li Mingxin Yue Xiang Photography/Yao Tianxin, etc. )

Many people say that Gan Long loves the scenery in the south of the Yangtze River, especially the West Lake in Hangzhou, because he has visited it six times in his life. Therefore, in the gardens he managed, he spared no effort to reproduce the beauty of landscape and garden art in the south of the Yangtze River. It's true. For example, in Yuanmingyuan, Qianlong successively built the Xiaoyu Garden, Longjing Temple, Huashen Temple and other scenic spots that imitated the West Lake, and even named the other nine scenic spots in the park one by one according to the ten scenic spots of the West Lake, making up all ten scenic spots. So how many Jiangnan scenery does Qingyi Garden have? Let's get to know the general appearance of Qingyi Garden first. Qingyi Garden is Beishan (Wanshou Mountain) and Nanhu (Kunming Lake), and Xishan is a mountain peak. However, Wanshou Mountain is relatively low and does not extend enough; The water surface of Kunming Lake is roughly a long and narrow shape inclined to the southeast, and the relationship between mountains and water is somewhat alienated. How to transform? The goal of Gan Long is to combine the lake and mountain improvement project with the water conservancy control project. As mentioned above, firstly, the lake expands eastward and northward to the south slope of Wanshou Mountain. Then the excavated earthwork was piled in the eastern half of the mountain, which greatly improved the shape of the mountain. As a result, the lake is wider and the mountains are stronger.

Then, on the west side of the lake, he added a west dike which is almost the same as the West Lake Su Causeway, dividing Kunming Lake into "inner lake" and "outer lake", and added a branch dike to further divide the outer lake into two parts. In this way, Kunming Lake, like Hangzhou West Lake, has become a "sunken lake" with several layers inside and outside. Others said that considering that several islands of different sizes in the West Lake in Hangzhou have become an important ornament, Qingyi Garden deliberately reserved three large islands and two small islands on the water while digging the lake for piling. These statements may not be wrong. However, if we only imitate Jiangnan, we will have a shallow understanding of Qianlong. Another function of dividing lakes into inner lakes and outer lakes is to guide water to the side and back of mountains, so as to achieve the pattern of "mountains surrounded by water"

Fairy Island in the Lake: an island symbolizing Penglai, abbot and Yingzhou in Kunming Lake, which was specially designed and built by Emperor Qianlong according to the Taoist idea of seeking immortals. If Long Beach is compared to a necklace, then these three islands are like three scattered gems, shining on the sparkling water. They are located in the center of three lakes of different sizes divided by the western dike, echoing each other from afar.

Why do you want to rely on mountains and rivers? "Where there are mountains and water, there must be gas", which is an important law of traditional geomantic omen. Some people think that traditional Feng Shui is superstition and nonsense. Traditional geomantic omen is actually a study of factors affecting people's physical and mental health in a special way. Its essence is to emphasize beauty-a feeling beneficial to people's physical and mental health. This kind of beauty is natural, harmonious, gentle and pleasant. Therefore, in traditional geomantic omen, the mountains should have winding and undulating songs, the water should have lingering songs, the roads should have bright flowers, the bridges should have arch tickets, and the corridors should have ileal songs. What does this song mean? Be reserved, embrace, save, be affectionate, and then be energetic. Therefore, we should "embrace the mountains and rivers". It can be said that this idea is not only the acme of China garden culture, but also the essence of China culture. Gan Long is well aware of this. What do you think when the dredging project of Kunming Lake is completed and Qianlong climbs to the top of Wanshou Mountain and sees the vast lake and the western hills in the distance?

More than 250 years later, a man climbed to the top of Wanshou Mountain like Qianlong, overlooking the beautiful scenery around him. It's just that he doesn't want to decorate pavilions, but to confirm a legend-the feng shui feature of the Summer Palace: floating mountains and guarding the sea. When Lu Yuan, a member of Beijing Xicheng Writers Association, stood in front of the Buddha Pavilion, he felt a little sorry, because the shapes of longevity peaches and bats could not be seen in the outlines of Kunming Lake and Wanshou Mountain, and it was impossible to confirm whether Qianlong intended to embody the meaning of "longevity" in garden design.

Can you see it if the angle of view is higher? Lu Yuan immediately found an old friend, Kui Zhongyu, a researcher at China Academy of Surveying and Mapping, and asked him to find a remote sensing map of the Summer Palace. When I got the remote sensing map, Lu Yuan was a little excited. He clearly saw that the outer contour of Kunming Lake, which accounts for four-fifths of the picture, is like a peach, the west dike is like the middle seam of a peach, the water inlet of Kunming Lake is like the pedicle of a peach, and the water outlet is like a crooked tip on a peach.

The outline of the north bank of Kunming Lake is arched, which is the head of a bat, and its wings extend like bats' wings. Lu Yuan even found two small claws of bats from the picture, that is, pavilions with wings above the water-lotus root boat and fish algae pavilion.

Fairy Island in the Lake: an island symbolizing Penglai, abbot and Yingzhou in Kunming Lake, which was specially designed and built by Emperor Qianlong according to the Taoist idea of seeking immortals. If Long Beach is compared to a necklace, then these three islands are like three scattered gems, shining on the sparkling water. They are located in the center of three lakes of different sizes divided by the western dike, echoing each other from afar.

Is this just a coincidence? Looking through almost all the ancient books related to the Summer Palace, Wangdao Chengdu failed to find relevant proof. However, he thinks this may not be a coincidence, because there are many sculptures on this theme in the Summer Palace. For example, there is a pattern on a door, and five bats surround 65,438+0 peach blossoms, which means that Five Blessingg has a long life. After continuous investigation, Lu Yuan also believes that this is not a simple coincidence. His argument has two points: first, when Qianlong dredged Kunming Lake, its shape and size were not limited by the geographical environment at that time. Theoretically, it can be dug into any shape, so it is not excluded to deliberately dig into a peach shape and pile the lake mud into a bat shape to cater to the birthday theme of the whole park; Secondly, during the Qianlong period, the auspicious meaning of longevity was embodied in the artistic modeling and architectural form of gardens. There are many examples, such as two peach-shaped pools made of stone in front of the site of Yuanmingyuan Square.

Besides Lu Yuan, there are many people who are keen to interpret the secrets of the Summer Palace landform. For example, some people think that the landscape system of the Summer Palace is more like Artest Taiji Diagram, and Kunming Lake and Wanshou Mountain constitute the S-shaped yin and yang parts of Taiji Diagram respectively. If this speculation is speculative, then the setting of Sanxian Island in Kunming Lake is undoubtedly the embodiment of Taoist thought of seeking immortality. Imitating the three mountains on the sea in the palace gardens of Qin and Han Dynasties, the shape of "one pool and three mountains" has always been the main style of the landscape layout of royal gardens in past dynasties. There are three bird islands in the Summer Palace, namely Nanhu Island, Jianzao Hall and Zhijing Pavilion, which respectively symbolize the three fairy mountains of Penglai, Abbot and Yingzhou in the myth.

However, Wang Daocheng pointed out that compared with the Taoist and Confucian meanings embodied in the garden, the birthday ceremony is the theme of this garden. In The Story of Qingyi Garden in Wanshou Mountain, Qianlong divided the functions of three mountains and five gardens in detail: Changchun Garden was used to serve mother, Yuanmingyuan was used to handle state affairs, Qingyi Garden and Jingming Garden separated by water were leisure places after work. The large-scale distribution of religious buildings in Qingyi Garden makes worshipping God and Buddha one of its important functions. In fact, this is not only a landscape need, but also a political need.

This view has also been recognized by Wang Hongyan, director of the Research Office of the Summer Palace Management Office. She has specially studied the religious architecture of Qingyi Garden. She made a rough count of the deities and buddhas in each temple and found that there were more than15,000 buddhas in the garden, while there were only 35 statues. This disparity has obvious digital meaning: as far as its religious nature is concerned, Qingyi Garden architecture embodies the typical characteristics of Buddhist architecture. These main Buddhist buildings appear in a special form: they are concentrated on the central axis and are raised for the second time. There are eight Buddhist temples, including yanshou temple, Cifu Building, Luohantang, Baoyunge, Runwheel Tibetan, Houda Temple, Yunhui Temple and Shanxian Temple, and there are other Buddhist buildings around.

Qianlong repaid his gratitude by celebrating his birthday, and he also believed in Buddhism. At that time, there were quite a lot of Buddhist temple activities in the park, and the longevity hill was filled with incense. In the 18th year of Qianlong (1753), before the Foxiang Pavilion project was completed, Emperor Qianlong went to yanshou temple to worship the Buddha at the Buddha Bath Festival. After the completion of yanshou temple, even during the busy Spring Festival, Emperor Qianlong took time to worship Buddha. On Buddhist festivals, Emperor Qianlong will never forget that the Buddha repaid yanshou temple. In the 25th year of Qianlong (1760), after the emperor Qianlong paid tribute to yanshou temple, he specially wrote a poem, reiterating his intention to build a temple for his mother's birthday-"May it be a blessing".

Qingyi Garden was destroyed in 1860 and rebuilt on the ruins in the 12th year of Guangxu (1886). However, at that time, the national strength of the Qing Dynasty declined, and a large amount of funds could not be used for garden construction. The restoration of Qingyi Garden was secretly started by misappropriating naval funds, not to mention the comprehensive restoration of Sanshan and Wuyuan Garden. Therefore, the rebuilt Summer Palace is bound to undertake many main functions of the original royal gardens, including handling state affairs, taking care of the empress dowager and dispersing ambitions. These functions are of course more important to Guangxu than dispersing ambitions. Therefore, the Summer Palace rebuilt by Guangxu has actually become a political activity place for the emperor to manage politics, residence, sightseeing, celebrations and diplomacy, and has become the second power center outside the Forbidden City. It is no longer an ideal paradise created by Qianlong, and it is no longer a palace only for scattered ambitions and worship of gods and buddhas.

It is worth mentioning that the central building "Foxiang Pavilion" had several floors in Qingyi Garden, which also caused quite a controversy. Some people say that the building was originally built on nine floors, but when the British and French allied forces invaded the Summer Palace, they were destroyed by shells, leaving only three floors; It is also said that the 9-story building and the Buddha Pavilion are two buildings that exist at the same time. However, this historical mystery was solved by Wang Daocheng in the late 1970s.

In order to rewrite the guide to the Summer Palace, Wang Daocheng, Geng and Ye Jiechun formed a three-person writing team to look around for historical materials of the Summer Palace, including the Qing Dynasty house drawings collected by Beijing Library (now the National Library). In this pile of materials that have never been studied, Wang Daocheng found a drawing with two yellow labels on it, which is a three-story Buddha pavilion. One of the yellow labels says "Be respectful and kind", and the other says "Rebuild as usual". "What's the problem with these two bills? First of all, this picture is to be sent to Cixi for review after the design of the style room is completed. In addition, the words' still like reconstruction' just show that the Buddha Pavilion before it was burned was three stories. " Wang Daocheng said.

But why do nine floors say it exists? Is it groundless? Wang Daocheng began to look for evidence in historical materials. He found that, according to historical records, Qianlong really wanted to build a 9-story life-prolonging tower on the roof of Wanshou Mountain, just like Pagoda of Six Harmonies in Hangzhou, but by the eighth floor, Qianlong suddenly ordered all the buildings to be demolished and converted into a 3-story Buddha Pavilion. What made Gan Long make such a sudden change at all costs? Wang Daocheng believes that it should not be a simple engineering accident. According to the habit of doing things in Qianlong, if this happens, the relevant officials will definitely be punished, but no one will be held accountable this time. Later, an imperial poem by Qianlong gave Wang Daocheng a hint. The main idea of this poem is that after the return of Qianlong's southern tour, a 9-story life extension tower will be built in Qingyi Garden, and a gratitude tower will be built after Dahongzhi in Nanjing in the West. The two echo each other from afar. However, just as the Yanshou Tower was about to be completed, a fire broke out in the Thanksgiving Tower, and the Yanshou Tower collapsed seriously. Qianlong thought that these two things were not accidental, but that God was warning him, so he immediately ordered the specifications of these two buildings to be lowered, so there was a historical fact that the "tower" became a "pavilion". Yao Tianxin has his own different understanding from the perspective of photographic composition. He thinks that after the eighth floor was built, Qianlong suddenly found that the 9-story tower at the top of Wanshou Mountain was a bit abrupt. Qianlong, who was critical of art, resolutely demolished it and chose to rebuild a shorter Buddhist pavilion.