Classic Illustrations of the Classic of Mountains and Seas

Author: Wang Hongqi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-08-01
Features: Let us together appreciate this profound and extensive work—this is the ancient masterpiece and Chinese treasure, Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas). This book records the splendid journey of Chinese civilization. The creation of Shan Hai Jing spanned two thousand years, and its public circulation since then has endured another two thousand years. The era in which Shan Hai Jing was produced was not primordial, as it was a work created after the maturation of writing. It contains over thirty thousand characters, with concise and accurate language, primarily composed of declarative sentences—simply stating what is. Shan Hai Jing is a gem of ancient Chinese culture, recognized since the Warring States period to the early Han dynasty as a remarkable book. It is called a masterpiece for two reasons: first, within its three thousand one hundred words, it records approximately forty states, five hundred fifty mountains, three hundred waterways, over one hundred historical figures, and more than four hundred mythical creatures and fearsome beasts. Shan Hai Jing combines elements of geographical records, flora and fauna records (minerals, plants, and animals), ethnic records, and folk customs records, serving as both a work of shamanism and a repository of the earliest myths of the Chinese nation. Second, it pioneered the tradition of narrative texts accompanied by illustrations in China, with its diverse and vivid illustrations reflected in the Shan Hai Jing maps. In ancient times, books often included both images and text, and the combination of illustrations and text was a long-standing tradition in China. Over fifteen hundred years ago, the renowned Jin Dynasty poet Tao Yuanming wrote the line "flowing images of mountains and seas," and Guo Ling of the Jin Dynasty composed a praise for the Shan Hai Jing maps. In his annotations to Shan Hai Jing, he mentioned that the maps were shaped like oxen, appeared among illustrations of fearsome beasts, and were described as "red birds" in later texts, indicating that the Shan Hai Jing still had illustrations during the Jin Dynasty. Moreover, in the text of Shan Hai Jing, some descriptions of directions and human actions clearly serve as explanations for the illustrations (e.g., in the "Great Wilderness East" section, it records Wang Hai: "holding birds in both hands, eating their heads"; in the "Foreign West" section: "Kaiming Beast standing eastward on Kunlun"). Unfortunately, the maps of Shan Hai Jing seen by Tao and Guo have not been preserved. However, it is certain that Shan Hai Jing had illustrations—it was a book that followed images with text (with illustrations preceding the text). Although the ancient maps have been lost, the text has been passed down, which is what we see today in Shan Hai Jing.