From temples to garden estates and academies : landscape transformation of Suzhou during Yuan-Ming transition and beyond

Abstract

Though the scholarship on Chinese garden had extensively focused on gentries’ literati gardens in the late Ming Suzhou, temples’ prosperity in the Yuan that preceded the Ming garden-scape has been largely ignored. This thesis interrogates how the garden practices in the monastic estates were transferred into the gentry’s realm during the Yuan-Ming transition. It starts with GIS mapping, which shows that temple estates flourished in the Yuan but declined in the Ming, meanwhile gentries’ garden estates and government-owned Confucian institutions increased dramatically. Based on the records of several temples’ conversion into gentries and the government’s estates, the landscape transformation during this estate transference is examined. Shizi Lin Temple’s transformation into Lion Grove Garden and Great Propagation Temple’s transformation into Unsuccessful Politician’s Garden demonstrate gentries’ conversions of temples. The evolution of Southern Chan Temple into academies and shrines surrounding the Surging Wave showcases the government’s conversion of temples. Assisted with 3-D digital modelling, the research examines estates’ landscape transformation in the aspects such as ways of seeing, ideology, and hydrology. It finds that gentries and the government established their culture on the converted monastic estates by erasing Buddhist traces. Meanwhile, gentries and the government exploited the hydrological infrastructure previously established by Buddhists. It argues that Buddhists’ garden practice was transferred to the gentry’s realm by gentries’ erasure of Buddhist traces and inheritance of hydrological topography. It finds three spatial strategies in gentries’ and the government’s conversion of temples during the Yuan-Ming transition. The research further reveals the Yuan monastic estates’ spatial influence on the conception of today’s Chinese garden. This landscape transformation pinpoints an evolution of social structure. Buddhists were dispossessed of their well-established hydraulic estates, and Buddhism declined in the Ming. Meanwhile, gentries and the government rose to be the largest land holders, with the literati and Confucian culture established. By contending with Buddhists for hydraulic estates, Gentries gained autonomy, meanwhile the government gained local control. This research provides an alternative spatial and social history of Chinese garden. This aim is realised by experimenting digital tools such as GIS mapping and 3-D modelling’s capability in studying architectural expressions of ways of seeing and ideologies in history.