Spirituality and Chinese Rock Art

Abstract

Rock art of China is abundant and diverse. However, in all regions there are sites known to have been associated with local religious beliefs and worship. Because of the long-written history in China, it is possible to make the spirituality connection with more confidence further back in time than it is for many other parts of the world, but even in China the earliest rock art must rely on other means of analysis to determine its function.

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

China is the only country in the world with more than a 1,000 years of historical literature referencing rock art. About 2,300 years ago the ancient book, Han-FeiZi, recorded “big footprints” (a rock engraving) to provide the world’s earliest written record of a petroglyph (Liao 1939). According to ancient Chinese legends, there was a mysterious relationship between the birth of a remarkable leader and rock footprints. The great historical book Shih Chi (Watson 1993) reported that the mother of Zhou kingdom’s ancestor Houji was able to conceive her child because she accidentally stepped on a giant petroglyph footprint. Li Daoyuan, a geographer who lived and wrote during the North Wei dynasty (fifth century AD), is known for his work Shui Jing Zhu (Commentary on the Waterways Classic), in which he reported on rock art in different geographic zones. Even with this rich historical literature it is difficult to find rock art interpretations based on historical records that apply to all time periods because of continual change. However, this literature provides an insight into the historical reasons for rock art, which aids in examining rock art in terms of spirituality.

Research History of Chinese Rock Art

Scientific investigations and studies of rock art in the country began in the twentieth century. In 1915, Huang Zhong Qin, a professor at Lingnan University, visited HuaAn county, Fujian province, and did a field survey of the petroglyph site Xianzhi-Tan (Fig. 6.1). Although almost 20 years passed before he published on this site, his field investigation and empirical research is recognized as the pioneering scientific study in this area (Huang Zhong Qin 1935). By the end of 1949, rock art discovery in China was exclusively the realm of foreign archaeologists or explorers because at that time petroglyphs and pictographs seldom drew the attention of Chinese people. However, even these sporadic findings by foreigners were only occasionally mentioned.

Fig. 6.1

Xianzhi-Tan petroglyph site in Fujian province (photo by Zhang Yasha)

Shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic of China two pictograph sites were discovered in southwestern China that generated considerable discussion. These cliff painting sites are HuaShan in Guangxi province, which was found during the 1950s (Chen Hanliu 1956), and Cangyuan in Yunnan province, which was found during the 1960s (Investigation Team of Historic Institute of Yunnan 1966). These discoveries were big events in local cultural circles, but they were isolated from each other, and no one investigated their relationship to one another nor did they comprehend the significance of these rock paintings.

The real advances in rock art research came in the 1980s, initially with the rock art found in Yinshan (Fig. 6.2), which was followed by large-scale findings in northern China with sites in the Wulanchabu grasslands, Yinshan mountains, and Danbajilin desert in Inner Mongolia, among others. Rock images were found stretching from the east to the west in northern China eventually forming a very long and broad gallery of rock art (Cheng Zhenguo and Zhang Yuzhong 1984; Ge Shanlin 1980; Li YinPing 1988; Zhang Songbai and Liu Zhiyi 1984). Meanwhile, in the western part of China on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, unique yak engravings were found. These discoveries were followed by sites in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangdong provinces extending the rock art gallery from the west to the south and southeast so that the distribution of Chinese rock art images formed a big “C” without any missing links (Chen Zhaofu 1991; Zhang Yasha 2011).

Fig. 6.2

Mask-shaped petroglyphs in Yinshan, Inner Mongolia (photo by Ge Shanlin)

The golden age of Chinese rock art discoveries at the end of the twentieth century resulted in great achievements and were so exciting that they created shock waves in the academic circles of art history and archaeology. However, as is probably unavoidable, a depression came after the climax. During the next 10 years (1997–2007), Chinese rock art studies came to a standstill, but at the end of 2008 the rediscovery of the Juci Mountain petroglyphs in Henan province reignited the field (Fig. 6.3). Rock art studies benefited from a general survey to find and record the cultural resources of the region, which resulted in a large number of new rock art sites being found (Fig. 6.4). Additionally, at this time, the Rock Art Research Association of China (RARAC) began to communicate with the International Federation of Rock Art Organizations (IFRAO) and a relationship with other rock art researchers was established after 10 years of isolation. All these occurrences united to allow Chinese rock art research to embrace a resurgence.

Fig. 6.3

Petroglyph in the Juci Mountains, Henan province (photo by Zhang Yasha)

Fig. 6.4

Distribution map of Chinese rock art. Blue dots refer to petroglyphs, and red dots refer to pictographs (map by Zhang Yasha)

Spirituality and Rock Art of the North

The rock art of the north spread from the east at the DaXingAn mountains in the northeastern China through the long and narrow Inner Mongolian plateau to the western end at Tianshan in Xinjiang, which is a distance of thousands of kilometers. These sites form an extremely long and broad distribution of the site type, which resembles the Great Wall and is as old and important as the famous Great Wall. Of course, this Rock Art Great Wall is more northerly, and its cultural attributes are also markedly different. The Great Wall was built by the southern farming empire as a defense from the invasion of northern nomadic ethnic groups, and it served as the economic and cultural boundary between them. However, the Rock Art Great Wall was created by the northern nomadic people because they lacked other ways of historical documentation within their society, and the rock art images were undoubtedly valuable historical records.

The many petroglyphs of the north are widely distributed from Inner Mongolia to Ningxia and Xinjiang, which are China’s three main provinces possessing tremendous rock art resources. According to preliminary statistics, there are at least 100,000 panels and no less than one million individual figures. The most prominent theme of the northern rock art is the zoomorph. There are two kinds of animals—(1) grazing animals, which include sheep, deer, horses, dogs, etc. (mostly the present local biological species), and (2) carnivores, which include tigers, wolves, leopards, etc. In these scenes, animals are struggling or fighting with one another (Fig. 6.5), and herbivores are shown being chased by preying beasts. Through the world of animals, the artists show social survival rules of human society and the economic mode of production in the grasslands. Whether it is the breathtaking scenes of animals fighting or fierce pictures of beasts being chased, these images remind us that the law of the wild is not only the basic law of the animal world but also the unique philosophy of life in the northern nomadic region (Li Fushun 1986; Sun Xinzhou 1989).

Fig. 6.5

Double beasts at the Yinshan Petroglyph site in Inner Mongolia (photo by Ge Shanlin)

The animal themes of the northern rock art also show us the religious orientation of these ancient peoples. There are two subjects associated with these beliefs that are displayed in the rock art—(1) the embodiment of Animal Gods for the northern nomads, and (2) the concept of Reproductive Worship, the latter which was emphasized by representations of animal hoof prints or copulating animals.

Animal Gods were portrayed as hordes of small animals ranked in the body or on the side of huge animal images such as ox or deer. This indicates that giant animals were the guardian angels of the small animals or animal species (Ge Shanlin 1980, 1996). These large animals were thought to possess a godhead or mysterious power. Deer Stones, which were widespread in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang (Fig. 6.6), showed an unusual animal of power, one with combined parts. For example, the image might have a raptor beak, deer horn, tiger stripes, and a horse’s body with wings, making it a powerful god beast with supernatural connections.

Fig. 6.6

The Deer Stone petroglyph in the Helan mountains, Ningxia province (photo by Ge Shanlin)

Reproductive Worship in the northern rock art took a variety of forms. For example, an arrangement of a large number of animal hoof prints appears to be the product of many magic processes (Fig. 6.7). Another way of portraying this concept in the northern region is by arranging tiny dots in an orderly fashion around the body of bigger animals, which appears to imply the nomadic people’s hope of high animal reproduction (Ge Shanlin 1989; Chen Zhaofu 2001).

Fig. 6.7

An animal hoof print arrangement in the Wulanchabu grassland, Inner Mongolia (photo by Chen Zhaofu)

Spirituality and Rock Art of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Yaks are the main rock art images in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. There are two themes in Tibetan rock paintings—(1) hunting wild yaks (Fig. 6.8), and (2) grazing yaks. Yak worship has a deep and long tradition in this region, and even today yak horns are universally deposited on Mani Stone altars in Tibet (Fig. 6.9). The yak is found in high-altitude regions, and its body is large and massive, its bristles are thick, and it is resistant to coldness and hypoxia. Because of these characteristics, the yak is deeply admired by Tibetan people. Within the rock art of this area there are many images of the yak, which is considered a religious symbol to these people (Li Yongxian 1998; Tang Huisheng 1989; Zhang Jianlin 1987; Zhang Yasha 1999).

Fig. 6.8

Wild yak at Sence of Hunging, Qinghai province (photo by Tang Huisheng)

Fig. 6.9

Yak horns are deposited on Mani Stone altars during the present day in western Tibet (photo by Zhang Yasha)

Although there is a long tradition of yak worship, based on the vast number of images on the rocks, it appears that another god is just as important, if not more so, in northern Tibet. This is a bird, generally called Khyung by local people, worshiped by these ethnic groups. The bird is characterized by stretched wings, horns on the head, and a manlike body with four limbs (Fig. 6.10). Khyung is also the greatest god in the primitive Bon religion.

Fig. 6.10

Khyung, a powerful god, shown in the paintings of a northern Tibetan. The god is recognized by its stretched wings, horns, and anthropomorphic body with four limbs (photo by John Vincent Bellezza)

Bon religious literature records that Khyung was the ancestor god of the Zhang-Zhung tribe. Other ancient Tibetans called these people either Khyung or Zhang-Zhung, while tribal members called themselves Zhang-Zhung. The name means a place (Zhang) of powerful groups (Zhung). Khyung is the same as Zhung in the ancient Tibetan pronunciation. Thus, it appears that Khyung (Zhung) refers not only to the tribe but also to the god they worshipped. Zhang-Zhung continued to be called a manlike bird tribe in the Dunhuang manuscripts written in the ancient Tibetan language. Also supporting this conclusion is that both in Tibetan rock art and in Zhang-Zhung culture there is evidence that the holy bird Khyung (Fig. 6.11) was worshiped and was considered the tribal totem (Tshering Thar 2005; Zhang Yasha 2005, 2006a, 2006b, 2007, 2009).

Fig. 6.11

A bronze sculpture of Khyung, the most powerful god of the Bon religion (photo by Zhang Yasha)

Thus, Tibetan rock art offers clues to the migration and expansion of the ancient Zhang-Zhung people and reflects the developmental sequence of the primitive Bon religion as it changes to the later Yong-Zhong Bon religion. Representative of the original Bon religious worship were images of realistic natural objects, such as the sun, moon, trees, and birds. The meanings hidden behind these symbols appear to be associated with the ethnic worship of the Tree god and Bird god. Contemporaneously, the tribe also apparently worshiped the sun and moon (Fig. 6.12). The people who made this rock art likely came from the eastern Tibetan plateau, which is covered by forest, so the Tree sign is a representative symbol to assure that the tribe does not forget their beautiful, hometown forest. Additionally, historical literature for this ethnic group records that they had a custom of tree god worship and a custom of practicing divination by the bird god. This group then moved west, and when these people settled on the westernmost Tibetan plateau and established a kingdom, a critical change occurred within the Bon religion. A large number of images of the pagoda shape and the god bird Khyung appeared together in the rock art of Tibet. These new depictions of towers appear to represent altars used for the worship of Khyung (Fig. 6.13). These new images are associated with the kingdom of Zhang-Zhung, which means that the earlier Bon religion had finished its process of changing into the Yong-Zhong Bon religion (Zhang Yasha 2008). Thus, the comprehensive social life of ancient Zhang-Zhung people can be reconstructed through Tibetan rock art, which is the most direct and also certainly the most vivid pictorial material available to teach us about the ancient Zhang-Zhung kingdom (Zhang Yasha 2006b).

Fig. 6.12

Sun, tree, and bird images, which are original symbols of the early Bon religion shown as they occur within the panel in the top photo and shown as extracted line drawings below (photo and drawings by Li Yongxian)

Fig. 6.13

The Khyung altar towers in Tibet shown in tapestry media on the left and rock art media on the right (photo by John Vincent Bellezza)

Spirituality and the Pictographs of Southwestern China

The most outstanding characteristic of southwestern pictographs is that the images were all painted in red. The geological structures of the cliffs are complex rocks with little hardness, so they are not suitable for carving. In addition, the climate is rainy and moist resulting in luxuriant vegetation and the use of red pigments made the rock art distinctive and easily identified. Additionally, the red pigment probably had a religious purpose. Red, whose hue is strong and full of contradiction, could be related to death or may be the symbol of vitality and divine power. A case in point is the depiction of the solemn religious sacrificial scene at the Cangyuan pictograph site in Yunnan province. These red paintings present a strong visual effect, and the minds and feelings of the viewers would have been stunned (Wang Liangfan and Luo Xiaoming 1989; Wang Ningsheng 1984).

The second characteristic of southwestern rock art is its focus on religious sacrifice scenes. Some of these are of large scale with overpowering momentum. For example, the Huashan pictographs along the Zuojiang River in Guangxi are a mass of red pictures on the cliff at a bend in the river. The site extends intermittently for hundreds of kilometers with almost all the images repeating the theme of large mass sacrifices. The most famous scene is 40 m high and about 21 m wide with a total of 1,818 images (Fig. 6.14). These images are mainly humans with raised arms dancing and looking in a fixed direction toward dominate humans or gods, who are portrayed as tall, with uplifted arms, squatting legs, and a dog lying under their feet (Wang Kerong et al. 1988).

Fig. 6.14

The most famous scene at the Huashan pictograph site in Guangxi province. People are shown with raised arms dancing and praying (photo by Zhang Yasha)

Jinsha River pictographs are in the northwestern part of Yunnan province. Although the images are red, their styles and subjects are different from those in the rest of the southwest, which mostly date to the Bronze Age (ca. 3000–2000 BP) and show realistic social and religious life. Conversely, the Jinsha River paintings are of a typical zoomorphic style with vivid and realistic characteristics. These animals are especially detailed in the portrayal of their small heads with strong and rotund bodies (Fig. 6.15). Some foreign rock art experts believe that the animal figures are similar to the cave painting style in Europe during the late Paleolithic (Paul Tacon et al. 2011). Geographically the Jinsha River area is on the edge of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and belongs to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River basin. Although there are hardly any people in this area today, in ancient times it was an important traffic artery between China and Southeast Asia (He Limin 1994; Li Gang 2006).

Fig. 6.15

Animal-style pictographs of the Jinsha River sites in Northwest Yunnan province (photo by Li Gang)

Spirituality and Petroglyphs of Eastern China

Eastern rock art is mostly petroglyphs on huge rocks that are north of Chifeng in Inner Mongolia and extend from the Liaodong peninsula and Shandong peninsula through Jiangsu province to the southeast coastal provinces. The most common characteristic of the eastern rock art is the consistency of the application technique. Apart from a few red paintings in the DaXingAn Mountains, all the images have been chiseled or grounded (Fig. 6.16). The second prominent characteristic of the region is that almost all the rock art sites have some recess (indentation) or cup shape, which are generally known as cupules around the world (Fig. 6.17). Recess rock cuttings can be divided into two kinds—(1) deep cup shape, and (2) shallow and small recess (indentation) or cup. The vast majority of these are circular concave holes, but a few of them are square recesses (Li Hongfu 1997; Lin Tao 1996).

Fig. 6.16

Mask-shaped petroglyphs in Chifeng, the southeasternmost area of Inner Mongolia (photo by Wu Jiacai)

Fig. 6.17

Some recess rock cuttings (cupules) in Fujian province, southeastern China (photo by Chen Zhaofu)

Many recessed rocks have been found in the Juci Mountains in the middle part of Henan province, Xinzheng, in the past few decades. As early as 1988, Juci Mountain recessed petroglyphs were identified, but it was 20 years before these sites had an impact on academia and attracted public attention. It is difficult to determine the cultural significance of these simple and crude recesses on rocks, which include both circular to square and linear grooves (Fig. 6.18) because they are so different from the elegant artistic paintings (Liu Jihui 2012; Liu Wuyi 2010).

Fig. 6.18

Lines engraved on the rock in the Juci Mountains in Henan province (photo by Liu Wuyi)

Mask-shaped images are another important and common theme in the eastern petroglyphs (Fig. 6.19). The site of JiangJunya, in Lianyungang city at the easternmost point of China, has human faces, suns, rice, and a large mass of round indentations (cupules). In the early 1980s, archaeologists pointed out the importance of this historical heritage and suggested that it could be the oldest rock paintings discovered in China (Li Hongfu 1987). However, this also appears to be a sacrificial place related to the primitive DongYi tribe (Li Hongfu 1987; Tang Huisheng 2004, 2012). The petroglyphs were made after the introduction of agriculture, but they show that fishing and hunting were still important to the people’s economic life. It has been suggested that this site may be related to the origin of the primeval calendar (Gao Wei 2007).

Fig. 6.19

Human faces and rice at the JiangJunYa site in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province (photo by Chen Zhaofu)

The mask petroglyphs and concave or recessed engravings (cupules and lines) in the eastern region of China appear to be an ancient cultural phenomenon found around the Pacific. The main rock art theme in the north semicircle of the Pacific includes images of masks and recesses, while the main rock art theme in the south Pacific includes images of the vortex, serpentine, and recess series (Song Yaoliang 1992).

Remains of the Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological cultures are abundant and developed in this region of eastern China. The large number of nonrepresentational rock art images, such as recesses (cupules and lines) and abstract symbols as well as simple masks, are difficult to relate to these archaeological cultures, but researchers have noticed that there seems to be a relationship between these figures and the megalithic sites of eastern China (Gao Wei 2007). Several suggestions about the function of the recesses (or cupules) have been put forth and include reproductive worship (the cup being associated with vulvas), ancient astrology, and border markers for ethnic groups, such as the DongYi. Another idea is that some large cupules represent access points to celestial places with ancient altars (Tang Huisheng 2012). Some of the larger, deep cup-shaped holes could have been used as a holy vessel for holding sacrificial blood. As for the masks, these may represent worship of the national ancestors (Song Yaoliang 1997).

Conclusions

Chinese rock art, whether realist or abstract, zoomorphs or simple cupules, can be connected to early human religion and spirituality, with different kinds of images used in different regions of the country at different times as people continued to change their ways of thinking. Researchers believe that cupules, abstracts, and simple mask images are the earliest rock art in China (Tang Huisheng 2012; Zhang Yasha 2011). Scenes with animals or human increased in the rock art and probably in the spiritual life of people in the Bronze Age.

Chinese rock art associated with religion and spirituality is also clearly based on the economics of the region. In the rock art of the northern grasslands, the animal gods and reproductive ceremonies were made by nomadic groups. On the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, changes in the indigenous Bon religion can be traced through changes in rock art, which also reflects movements of people. Southwestern China is an area of pictographs, and the large painted sites in this environment of closed mountains and valleys indicate that people focused on the strong function of the social organization. Collective tribal dance in this region was used to communicate worship to tribal ancestors. In the old rock art of eastern China are the simplest of abstracts, including many recesses or cupules. The meaning and function of this kind of rock art is the hardest to decipher due to its ambiguity, but even here we can determine some of their functions, and most have a spiritual connection. The cupules have a variety of suggested functions, and some of those are associated with ritual and spirituality, including seeking help from the supernatural to increase fertility (reproductive worship), access points to the celestial world where ancient altars await, and use as containers for sacrificial blood. Thus, although the meaning of rock art is difficult to ascertain even in an area with ancient historical records, the spirituality of the early human world and religious beliefs is reflected in China’s rock art.