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Reinventing the Past: Antiquarianism in East Asian Art and Visual Culture—Part 2 |
< Back Replicating Zhou Bells at the Court of Song Huizong Patricia Ebrey University of Washington Early strains of Chinese thought, continued in Song times by scholars of the ritual classics, saw the performance of ritual and music as central to the role of the ruler and indeed to the maintenance of good order in the cosmos. The Rites of Zhou states “Rites and music are the means to adjust the transformations of Heaven and Earth and the production of all creation, to serve the ghosts and gods, bring harmony to the myriad people, and perfect all creation.” Not any music or rites would do, however. Although the ancient sage kings had achieved the potential of rites and music, over time perfection had been lost. Much of the improperly tuned music of later times was more likely to lead men astray than elevate them. In terms of instruments, chime bells were considered the most fundamental to proper court music, and the tuning bell was of particular importance because it set an absolute pitch that other instruments, such as stringed instruments and flutes, had to harmonize with. During the Northern Song period, both rulers and officials were committed to the idea that the court should model its music on true ancient models, yet found it very difficult to make bronze chime bells that both worked musically and matched the descriptions in such ancient texts as the Rites of Zhou. During Renzong’s reign (1022-1063), scholars debated back and forth the proper measurements to use to set the pitch pipes and the right shape of the bells, coming to no consensus. More than once chime bells were cast to try out a theory, with disappointing results. In the 1030s a recently discovered set of three ancient bells was used as a model, but musically this casting proved no more satisfactory and the bells were left unused. In 1102, only two years after he took the throne, Huizong (r. 1100-1125) decided to initiate his own reform of court music. Complaining that government music officials argued endlessly about music theory to no effect, he called for a nationwide search for music masters whose knowledge of music came from personal transmission rather than books. Among those recommended to him was Wei Hanjin, a man over ninety who proposed resetting the musical scale. He argued that because of the burning of the books in the Qin dynasty, the true ancient method of calculating the length of the pitch pipes had been lost. Wei asked for the measurements of Huizong’s middle, fourth, and fifth fingers so that he could revive the method of the ancient sage king Yu. Once the new pitches were set, he would “first cast the nine tripods, and then the imperial big bells, the four clear-tones bells, and the twenty-four solar-term bells.” On that basis, the string and wind instruments would be retuned “to make new music for this generation.” Wei’s theory involved a conflation of the implements most sacred to sacrificial rites and music, that is, tripods and bells. The tuning bell would be the largest of the tripods turned upside down. Before the first bell was cast, however, an auspicious discovery was made that greatly facilitated the design of the new bells. In 1104 a set of six bo bells from the Zhou state of Song was discovered at a Buddhist temple in “Responding to the Mandate” (Yingtian) prefecture in modern Henan province, the prefecture where the founder of the Song dynasty had begun his rise to power a century and a half earlier. Given where they were found and the fact that they were inscribed with the name of a Duke Cheng of Song, the discovery of these bells was taken as an auspicious omen for both the dynasty and its current emperor. The newly discovered bells were soon used as the model for casting several full chimes of bells. Unlike the chime bells cast in the eleventh century, the ones cast based on a combination of Wei’s theories and the set of six Duke Cheng bells were a musical success. The music that resulted from the combination of Wei’s theories and these new instruments was given the name Da Sheng (Great Brilliance) to associate it with famed ancient musics, the Yao’s Da Zhang music and Shun’s Da Shao music. Before long Huizong had numerous copies of the bells made. One set was even sent to the King of Korea. Twenty-seven individual bells have survived into modern times from the bells cast at Huizong’s court. None of them resemble tripods in any fashion, casting doubt on the importance of Wei’s theories in the actual design of the bells. But they all closely resemble the pictures of the Duke Cheng bells in Huizong’s catalogue of his antiquities. This essay will sketch the background to Huizong’s replication of the Duke Cheng bells and explore why his bells worked musically when the eleventh century efforts had failed. It will relate his efforts to the burst of scholarly interest in antiquities in the Northern Song. Reading of the notes of scholars like Ouyang Xiu, Liu Chang, Lu Dalin, Li Gonglin, Zhao Mingcheng, Huang Bosi, and Dong You shows that they frequently found it difficult to reconcile revered texts and actual objects. The essay will end with a briefer discussion of one of the outcomes of the success of the bells: Huizong’s decision also to cast new ritual vessels based on ancient ones held at court. |
