Influences
of the Nestorian Monument (781 AD) on 13th Century Gravestones in China
by Fr. Dale A. Johnson
The port city of Zayton was described by Marco Polo as "one of the two greatest havens in the world" and "the Alexandria of the East". The location of Zayton was the subject of a heated debate amongst 19th-century Orientalists, with arguments raised in support of various cities along in southern China, including Guangzhou, Zhangzhou and Hangzhou.
In 1920, Henri Cordier identified Persian, Chinese and European sources to show that Marco Polo's Zaytoon was in fact Quanzhou in Fujian province, which had been a major port city since the Tang dynasty.[1] The name Zaytoon is Syriac meaning olive that is a play on the word from the city's popular Chinese name of Citong, after the coral trees
(Erythrina variegata) that once lined the streets of the city. However, research on this once-great city is hampered by a lack of published material evidence of the cosmopolitan trading community that had flourished there during the Yuan dynasty (1206-1368).
A rare publication on this subject was the first edition of Religious inscriptions of Quanzhou published in 1957. It was the first major academic publication in which archaeological findings linking the famous medieval port city of Zaytoon with the site of modern Quanzhou were gathered and discussed. It included illustrations of some two hundred stone items taken from the grave sites and ruined monuments of the religious communities that lived in Quanzhou during the 13th and 14th centuries. These included stone inscriptions in a dozen languages, some of which were translated into Chinese, as well as decorative stone carvings and tomb monuments. The author, Wu Wenliang, who based the text on his own archaeological findings, was a high school teacher and amateur collector in Quanzhou. For two decades he spent his free time searching the countryside for fragments of carved stone. In 1953, Wu Wenliang donated his private collection to the newly founded Communist state, and later participated in the preparations for the opening of the Quanzhou Maritime History Museum, where his collection is housed. Wu Wenliang kept augmenting this manuscript until his research activities were curtailed by the onset of the Cultural Revolution (2).
The second edition of Religious Inscriptions of Quanzhou, published in May 2005, includes Wu Wenliang's own additions to the 1st edition, as well as further findings and research carried out by his son Wu
Youxiong.
The 2nd edition is a well-presented catalogue of some 600 stone remains of the religious communities of medieval Quanzhou. The items are arranged by religion into seven sections—Islam, Christianity, Manicheanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and Folk Religion—with inscriptions and other carved stone fragments from Islamic monuments constituting over half of the items. What is perhaps the most exciting discovery is the evidence of the rich tradition of decorative carving that flourished in Quanzhou during the Yuan dynasty (3).
Most of the stone items were found at sites to the east and south of the old city wall of Quanzhou. The Tonghuai Gate area is where the ruins of the Ashab Mosque are located, and includes the grounds of an old Muslim cemetery. This area is of particular historical interest as it was once home to Pu Shougeng's clan, the wealthiest Muslim merchant clan in Quanzhou during the Yuan dynasty and that best documented by historical sources. Dozens of tombstones and grave monuments were unearthed during local construction projects in the 1950s, and initially stored at the Ashab Mosque before being relocated to the Quanzhou Maritime History Museum.
The current location of most of the items is also given, though this is not possible for many of the large grave monuments and structures photographed in the 1930s and 1950s that have since been destroyed, such as the corridors of stone archways (paifang) that stood outside the East Gate. The main institutional home for the items is the Quanzhou Maritime History Museum. Other museums that hold major collections of stone items are the Museum of History and Anthropology at Xiamen University, and the Quanzhou Studies Centre of the Quanzhou Teachers" College where Wu Youxiong is now based (4). Further collections are housed in local museums near to archaeological sites in the greater Quanzhou district.
The dominant language appears to have been Uyghur, written in the Syriac script, though some of the inscriptions in Syriac script are not fully described. These Christian inscriptions have been the subject of much academic research, and some of this research is reviewed by Wu Youxiong.[2]
The widespread use of Uyghur on the Nestorian monuments, in combination with the dominance of central Asian artistic styles and motifs on the Christian, Islamic and Buddhist monuments, highlights the central role played by Mongol and Semu (central and western Asian subjects of the Yuan empire) migrants in the religious institutions of Quanzhou during the Yuan.
The Syriac text is a motif of the Nestorian cross on swirling clouds. The text begins, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit..." Syriac is the most common of several scripts found on Nestorian tombs in Quanzhou. Notice the remarkable similarity of the icon above the inscription to the 8th century Nestorian stone.
The text is identified by Niu Ruji as Weiwu'er (Gaochang Uyghur) with extensive borrowings from Syriac. The text reads, "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the year 1613 [1301] by the calendar of Alexander the Great, or on the 26th of the tenth month of the year of the ox by the Chinese (Taohuashi, i.e. Taugas, the Byzantine and Islamic name for the China calendar.) The son of Takmis Ad Ayr of Gaochang, Ostak Taskhan, came to Zaytun City in his 67th year and completed his God-sent mission. May his soul rest peacefully in heaven. Amen." The crosses are in the same pattern as the ones found on the Nestorian monument of Xian.
The Nestorian grave monuments found in Quanzhou are of two styles. The most common is the ridged grave monument. The second style is the altar-type grave monument, which has a flat top on which a small stone grave marker would once have been placed. Diagrams by Wu Wenliang of Nestorian altar-type grave monuments are shown below.
The most common motif found on Nestorian monuments is the Nestorian cross resting on top of a lotus flower, which in turn is supported by swirling clouds. In a number of instances, an ornamental cover (huagai), or parasol, is shown over the cross. The tri-partite motif made up of the lotus, the cross and cover resonate with the carvings on Buddhist stone art from Quanzhou which may be the source to both the Nestorian monument and the Quanzhou grave stones. But there is little doubt that the stones are an echo of the Nestorian monument.
Finally, there are a number of stone statues and figures carved in relief, although little attempt is made by the authors to give a systematic presentation of their origins and archaeological significance. A number of illustrations are an example of the figurative carving practices that developed in Quanzhou during the Yuan dynasty. These include Nestorian angels portrayed in a style similar to figurative paintings of apsaras (feitian) from the Dunhuang grottoes.
The Yuan dynasty came to an end in Quanzhou with ten years of violent conflict between rival factions of the Mongol military that reflected sectarian and religious divisions. The founding emperor of the Ming emerged out of one of these factions, and was also a member of the Mingjiao sect that is understood by historians to have been organized around Maitreyan Buddhist, White Lotus or Manichean beliefs.
Notes:
1. Pearson, Richard, Li Min and Li Guo, "Quanzhou Archaeology: A Brief Review", International Journal of Historical Archaeology 6:1 (2002), pp. 23-59.
2. Schottenhammer, A., ed., The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000–1400, Leiden: Brill, 2001.
3. Wu Wenliang, revised by Wu Youxiong, Quanzhou zongjiao shike (Religious inscriptions of Quanzhou), Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 2005, 648pp., +975 black and white illustrations.
4. Wu Wenliang, Quanzhou zongjiao shike (Religious inscriptions of Quanzhou), Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 1957 (1st ed.), 66pp., +94 pages of black and white plates.
