The structure of Dajishan as designed by Zheng Daozhao revolves around one focal point: a triangular stone named the “Altar of Central Brightness” (Zhongmingtan 中明壇; we follow Harrist 2008 translations for the five inscriptions mentioned in this post). Two mountain gates flanked by a lake mark the valley’s entrances, and four more altars mark its edges on higher peaks. To the North, a crown-shaped peak bears the inscription of the Palace of the Dark Numinous (Xuanlinggong 玄靈宮). Following the mountain ridge southeast from here, one can reach the highest peak of Dajishan, with the inscriptions fo the Temple of for the Azure Mist (Qingyansi 青煙寺). Continuing southwest along the mountain top, crossing over several peaks, there is an inscription for the Terrace of Vermilion Solarity (Zhuyangtai 朱陽台). Finally, accross the valley to the West, is the Hall of the White Cloud (Baiyuntang 白雲堂).
In this post, we learn how these five structuring inscriptions, crucial for the understanding of Zheng Daozhao’s vision, have been altered along the years.
Quest for (the original location of) the 5th peak
The triangular stone inscribed on three sides that marked the centre of the valley, the Altar of Central Brightness was moved next to their temple by local Daoists in the late Qing Dynasty after an attempted theft of the stone by a rubbing merchant.
On our first day in Dajishan during survey (3 September 2024), Xue Lei and Tchou-Tchou Tophoven talked to the Taoist nun (daogu 道姑) leading the small community occupying the nearby temple. Apparently the nun is in quest of the original location of Dajishan’s 5th peak. The next day, we stopped with Li Yuanquan (Laizhou museum) at the parking lot in front of the Daoist temple, where Li showed us where the Zhongmingtan used to be before being moved to its present location. According to Li, who heard the story from his master Liu Shencheng, rubbing maker whose lineage goes back to the last dynasty, the stone’s original location was halfway up the hills, Southeast of the Taoist temple. When a forestry workstation was built next to the Taoist temple in the 1950s, the stone was moved to the garden of this building, at the foot of a stone wall.
Then, when the temple complex was suddenly enlarged and the forestry office destroyed in the 2000s, the stone was brought to its present location, and encaged in a pavilion.
The “madman” Ren Zuoguan
On our second and third day in Dajishan, Li Yuanquan showed us the way to the three inscribed peaks among four that have been damaged by Ren Zuoguan 任作官, a local villager who used to live just at the foot of the mountain on its Southeast side. The peaks were hard to reach, and no clear path has been marked to access the locations. When he saw that we were logging each turn of the path, its position and altitude, in order to produce accurate maps, Li Yuanquan asked us to later share the itineraries. He is so worried that no one after him – who spent many years in the mountains to make rubbings with his master, and later on his own – will know how to get to the inscriptions. Then he started telling us about the “madman” who destroyed Zheng Daozhao’s vision.
At first, Li said that Ren Zuoguan 任作官 was not an official name, but a nickname he chose for himself, 作官 literally meaning “to become an official” or to hold an official function. But Ren had a brother, Ren Zuoshan 任作山, whose name 作山 could be translated as “making the mountain”. That is pretty much all we learned about the background of Ren Zuoguan.
Most inscriptions by Ren Zuoguan start by stating a date, 1991 or 一九九一年, followed by his name 任作官, and concluding with the expression 长年青, which we could perhaps understand as green/pure all year long, or perhaps forever young?
The deep cut strokes of his large characters – about twice or thrice the size of our 6th century characters – cover the ancient inscription completely. To achieve such depth, he must have spent quite a while on the mountaintop. We have interviewed the stonemason hired back in 1991, Master Song Jiansheng, to reproduce the damaged Zheng Daozhao inscriptions on the same rock, or on a suitable nearby rock. Master Song said that he needed a few days to reproduce the carvings. Ren Zuoguan thus also spent a few days on top of these three peaks, after finding the spots engraved back in the 6th century, to carry out his work.
Why did Ren Zuoguan destroy the 6th century inscriptions?
Visitors to the sites in the 1980s and early 1990s were mostly Japanese calligraphy amateurs, and the production and commercialization of rubbings was important at that time. Could it be that local villaggers were frustrated by the on-going exchanges? In any case, it is the paths opened by these early tourists and rubbing makers that he followed when preparing his intervention.
Why did he specifically pick the less accessible ones, on top of the peaks to which, until today, no path is leading?
Perhaps the choice of locations was more guided by the need to find a discreet spot to carry out his work, during several days. Or perhaps he really wanted to get to each of the four peaks for strategic, symbolic reasons, who knows.
The reaction to Ren Zuoguan’s destructive oeuvre was immediate: as mentioned above, dispositions were taken to reproduce the inscriptions in situ, so that visitors could still see them, and rubbings could still be produced. Ren was declared “mad”, so that no legal prosecution followed.
More importantly, and perhaps we’ll be able to understand the following years better by talking more about it with Li Yuanquan and Sakata Gensho, the destruction seems to have triggered an intense activity of building pavilions and cages around incriptions, to regulate access. These infrastructures themselves altered or even destroyed the environment to a certain degree, as we have seen in previous posts. Some of the protagonists of this drama have already expressed their regret in the way things were handled.
Ren Zuoguan is thus not the only one to have affected the valley.
A radio tower was even built on top of Qinyansi, the highest crest of the valley. Groups of two or three workers come up the hill 7 or 8 times a year for maintenance, and when we met them, they were busy fixing the tower, and resting in the concrete chamber built next to it. They kept asking questions about us and the inscriptions: they had never noticed them before. They knew – had created – a better path to climb up and down the mountain than the one we took with Dir. Li, who was grateful for that information.
The following text is an excerpt from the diaries of the participants to the September 2024 Altergraphy survey, which were edited and displayed at the exhibition “Sculpter les nuages, la montagne enlacée”.
Paula Suméra, Le Fou et le Sage du Mont Daji1
Il est midi, Roxanne et moi arrivons enfin à la plateforme de Baiyuntang. C’est un large conglomérat de blocs de granit, au sommet d’un des pics du mont Daji. Il nous a fallu se frayer un passage dans la végétation, escalader les rochers, changer de direction à plusieurs reprises, pour parvenir à cet endroit. À Baiyuntang, il y a plusieurs monticules de pierres, potentiels supports à inscription.
Nous en avons scruté quelques-uns avant d’arriver ici, sans rien. Puis, elle est là ; mais l’inscription paraît avoir été fraîchement gravée. Lia et monsieur Li, qui devait nous montrer un chemin plus accessible pour la descente, nous rejoignent. Ensemble, on fait le tour du bloc de granit, repérons plusieurs inscriptions, dont une qui n’avait pas encore été recensée. Surtout, il y a celle du fou, qui remplace le « Ceci est le Hall du nuage blanc » de Zheng Daozhao. Le fou, c’est Ren Zuoguan 仁做官, un nom bien officiel et bien rigoureux, qui laisse penser qu’il deviendra fonctionnaire. Monsieur Li nous raconte. C’est un gars du coin, du village d’à côté. À la fin des années 1980, il s’est mis en tête de remplacer les inscriptions gravées sur les cinq pics de Daji.
Tabassant méthodiquement les inscriptions attribuées à Zheng Daozhao avec ses outils, il grave son nom, la date, quelques caractères sur la surface nouvellement créée. Les traits sont larges, parfois irréguliers. À certains endroits, on distingue les coups de ciseau et de burin du graveur en série. Seule l’inscription de Xuanlinggong, sur le pic oriental à partir duquel on peut contempler toute la vallée, a été épargnée.
Les amateurs d’épigraphie, chinois et japonais, sont véritablement scandalisés. On rédige des rapports, on fait l’état des lieux des dégâts. La construction de pavillons censés protéger les inscriptions se multiplie. On engage un graveur qui doit reproduire à l’exact les inscriptions perdues. C’est bien celui-là, dont on a remarqué les coups de ciseau récents avec Roxane. C’est aussi avec ce graveur que Francesca aura un entretien.
Tout le monde est offusqué, donc. Une telle destruction, vous vous rendez compte, un vrai massacre. Nous, on y voit presque quelque chose de beau ; c’est l’histoire d’un fou du village, qui, un jour, décida de détruire à grand coup de burin l’oeuvre, qui avait traversé pourtant tant de siècles, du grand Sage de la Calligraphie du Nord.
- Extrait de texte présenté dans l’exposition. ↩︎
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Lia Wei (September 29, 2024). 5 – Quest for the fifth peak and the Madman. ALTERGRAPHY. Retrieved September 9, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/12eo8