The cliff stone carvings in front of me are full of hundreds of characters, with majestic and casual strokes. The big one is 2 meters long, and the small one is less than a square inch. Some of the gestures are too long and hanging down. , word within word. But, what does this say? Not a word can be understood. On Qingquan Rock in Dananban Town, Zhangpu, local villagers have lived next to the stone carvings for generations, and they can’t explain clearly. But there is a legend that Qianlong once visited here and rewarded the monks of Qingquanyan with many treasures. Before his death, the monk left behind a heavenly book as a clue to the treasure hunt.
Some scholars from the Zhejiang Library came here, studied it carefully, and believed that this was a crazy calligraphy, written in Jigong's handwriting. It was like crazy, breaking the traditional pattern of calligraphy, and its artistic attainments were extremely high.
Strange Heavenly Book
Large characters of two meters and small characters of square inches are dancing wildly and incomprehensible
In Dananban Town, Zhangpu, there is a village at the foot of the northern foot of Liangshan Mountain, named Xialou Village, Cai Shiyuan and Cai Xin, the famous uncle and nephew emperors of the Qing Dynasty, were born here. Halfway up the mountain, there is a temple called Qingquanyan. It was built in the Song Dynasty. Cai Xinceng funded the renovation and studied at Qingquanyan.
Here there are lush forests and bamboos, the mountains are quiet but the birds are chirping, the fragrance is faint but the Buddha calls back, the strange rocks are towering, the springs are gurgling, the scenery is excellent, and literati of the past dynasties have left many stone carvings. Among them, the most famous cliff carving, located twenty meters away from Qingquan Temple, looks like a book from heaven.
This cliff carving is about 2 meters high and 5 meters long. Standing on a huge rock opposite, you can just overlook the whole scene. If you look closely, you can see that the words on the boulder are very clear, but they are written casually and are difficult to read. Except for the regular script inscribed "On the twelfth lunar month of Wanli Guiyou year, Qingquan Wengxugu Taoist Bhikkhu Zhishan carved stone", not a single word can be read.
The afterglow of the setting sun just stays on the sloping rock surface. There are red lines floating, like a group of dancing golden snakes, flying freely. The symbols that look like words and paintings, the big one is 2 meters long, and the small one is less than a square inch.
There are 13 lines of stone carvings, and 6 lines contain one or several extremely long strokes, some of which are as long as 2.1 meters in length.
What is this?
Legend has it that Emperor Qianlong gave the Heavenly Book of Treasures as a clue to the treasure
Local villager Cai Laobo often visited Qingquan Rock when he was a child. He saw the stone carvings and asked his family about it. Even the literate old people in the village, no one can read it.
"Legend has it to do with hiding treasures." Uncle Cai said that according to legend, Emperor Qianlong went to the south of the Yangtze River. When he arrived here, he saw the beautiful scenery of the rock temple. The dragon was so happy that he gave the old monk countless gold and jewelry. . Before his death, the old monk did not want his property to fall into the hands of future generations, so he buried it in a cave and carved this wonderful article. If you can read it well, you can find the property based on the clues provided by the inscription. It is also said that a foreign scholar once meditated in front of the stone carving for several days. When he was reading the last line, thunder and lightning suddenly came, and the wind and rain came. The scholar suddenly thought that the secret must not be leaked, and hurriedly ran down the mountain with his head in his arms.
The curator of the museum deciphered that it turned out to be a Buddhist scripture
Wang Wenjing, the former curator of the Zhangpu County Museum, once wrote an article recalling that he had seen stone carvings in the 1970s, but except for Except for the signature in regular script, not a single word of the text can be recognized. He went home and looked up the historical chronology. The signature "Wanli Guiyou" was the first year of Wanli, which was 1573.
In 1983, Wang Wenjing was transferred to the Zhangpu County Cultural Center. Once, he received the task of writing entries about cultural relics and historical celebrities, and he came up with the idea of ??deciphering the stone carvings again. He climbed to Qingquan Rock again and read the stone carvings carefully. After repeated identification, he half guessed and half read, and felt that there were a few words in it that seemed to be "Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra". He knew that this was a Buddhist scripture, and he remembered that in "Journey to the West" there was a description of Zen Master Bird's Nest teaching the Heart Sutra to Monk Tang, and found a pair of them, with more than 400 words, word for word.
Who wrote it?
Calligraphers believe that the artistic attainments of stone carvings are extremely high.
Lin Zhongwen, a member of the Chinese Calligraphy Association, believes that some of the long strokes in this stone carving are almost "top of the sky". , like long notes in music, express yourself to your heart’s content. These long brush strokes are connected with each other, and the words are wrapped in the words, creating strange things. Some are like dragons swimming in the sky, changing endlessly, and some are like hanging vines, scattered and graceful, giving the scriptures a layer of humorous interest. .
“This cliff stone carving is a good thing.” Chen Zhonghua, a member of the Chinese Calligraphy Association and vice chairman of the Zhangzhou Youth Calligraphy Association, believes that from the perspective of calligraphy art, this stone carving has extremely high artistic attainments and can be compared to Compared with Huai Su and Zhang Xu, several famous Kuang Cao masters in history, and in many places, he is bolder and more arrogant with his pen than them.
Scholars in Zhejiang identify that it may be Jigong’s handwriting
The “Book of Heaven” has been deciphered with high artistic attainments, but who wrote it has always been a mystery.
According to the "Zhangpu County Chronicle" of the Qing Dynasty, this was written by a monk from India. However, Lin Zhongwen, a member of the Chinese Calligraphy Association, believes that this is not the case. The writing is not Sanskrit, but Chinese characters. Some people say that it was written by a strange monk in the Jin Dynasty, and that it was the ink left by Huai Su, a crazy calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty. These are all speculations.
Xu Xuefan, a scholar from the Zhejiang Library who specializes in folk culture, went to Zhangpu for research. He believes that this is Jigong’s handwriting. He said in "An Examination of Jigong's Inscriptions on Cliffs" that Jigong was a prodigy, versatile, able to write good calligraphy, and was especially good at cursive writing. The cursive fonts on the Qingquan rock carvings resemble Sanskrit, majestic and weird. The signature at the end of the stele, "Bhikkhu Jisong wrote it" should be the handwriting of Daoji (Jigong's dharma title) of Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou during the Southern Song Dynasty. This stone carving is an original creation that breaks the calligraphy pattern of past dynasties and is something that ordinary calligraphers would not dare to do. It can be said that "the writing is like the man". This cliff scripture vividly shows a deviant, crazy, cynical and cynical Jigong.
"The signature has the word "Bhikkhu", so it should be a monk, but whether it is Jigong or not has not yet been determined." Chen Zhonghua, a member of the Chinese Calligraphy Association and vice chairman of the Zhangzhou Youth Calligraphy Association, believes that in any case, this The artistic value of the calligraphy is very high.
□Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra
"Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra" is also called "Maha Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra", referred to as "Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra" or "Heart Sutra", based on Tripitaka of the Tang Dynasty The translation by Master (i.e. Tang Monk in Journey to the West) is the most popular. Roughly speaking, it means "the fundamental way to transcend worldly hardships through broad-minded wisdom."
□Donkey Xing Route
Starting from Zhangzhou City, drive south along National Highway 324 for more than 50 kilometers. After passing Zhangpu County, drive further 5 kilometers to Dananhan After the town, turn left for a few kilometers and arrive at the northern foot of Liangshan Mountain. At the foot of the mountain is Xialou Village and halfway up the mountain is Qingquan Rock.