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Symbolism and Function: Reflections on Changan and Other Great Cities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Arthur F. Wright
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When people build cities—and particularly planned cities—they intend more and do more than simply meet their practical needs. The cities they build and the cities they leave behind in archeological remains and in the pages of history dramatize for us their social order—both actual and ideal—their view of the cosmos and their place in it, their hierarchy of values. Thus, for example, Akbar's palace city of Fatehpur Sikri is more than a vainglorious display of newly-won power; its subtle blending of Hindu and Islamic elements symbolizes Akbar's dream of an ecumenical Indian order informed with tolerance and mutual respect.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , August 1965 , pp. 667 - 679
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1965

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References

1 Ku, Pan, “Hsi-tu Fu” Wen Hsüan (P'o-yang Hu Shih 1809 reprint of Sung ed. of the period 1174–1189), ch. I, p. 3a.Google Scholar

2 For summary discussions of the plan for a new capital, cf. Sui-shu (all histories T'ung-wen ed. of 1884) 1.17–18a; Pei-shih 11.120–130, Tzu-chih t'ung-chien (Peking ed., 1956) 175.5457. Individual memorials on the problem can be found in Sui-shu 37–3a–4a and 78.4b.

3 Vitruvius on Architecture (De Architectura) translated by Granger, Frank (two vols., London and New York, 1931, 1934) vol. I, pp. 41–42.Google Scholar I am indebted to Dr. Kurt Forster of the Department of the History of Art at Yale University for many helpful suggestions regarding the history of Western cities and city planning.

4 Cf. Thrupp, Sylvia, “The City as the Idea of Social Order” in Handlin, and Burchard, , eds., The Historian and the City (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), p. 122.Google Scholar The term “cosmicize” is from Mircea Eliade.

5 Chou-li 43. Cf. Biot, , Le Tcheou Li (Paris, 1851) vol. II, pp. 554–555.Google Scholar See also Needham, , Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge, 1959) vol. III.Google Scholar The Shih-ching, “Odes of Yung” no. 6 attests to the use of many of these techniques in 658 B.C. See Legge, , The She King, vol. I, p. 81.Google Scholar

6 Cf. the 1955–58 preliminary site survey, K'ao-ku Hsüeh-pao 3 (1958), 79–94.Google Scholar

7 For the story of Romulus, cf. Plutarch, , Lives Dryden-Clough, translation (New York N.D.) p. 31.Google Scholar

8 Frontinus in Thulin, ed., Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum (Leipzig, 1913) vol. 12, pp. 2–4.Google Scholar Constantine is said to have followed traditional practice in laying out the New Rome. Cf. Bréhier, Louis, “Constantin et la Fondation de Constantinople” Revue Historique vol. 119 (1915); p. 247.Google Scholar

9 Cf. Chou Li 43, Biot, . op. cit., II, 555–57.Google Scholar

10 Aristotle, Politics II, 5 and VII, 10 translation by Rackham, H. (London 1959) pp. 121 and 589.Google ScholarBriggs, Martin S., “Town Planning from the Ancient World to die Renaissance” in Singer, Charleset al., History of Technology vol. III, p. 270Google Scholar states that the earliest known city built to a grid plan was Kahun in Egypt laid out as a residence for workers on a nearby pyramid. It dates from 1900 B.C.

11 Cf. Ichisada, Miyazaki, “Les Villes en Chine à l'epoque des Han” T'oung Pao 48 (1960) 2–18Google Scholar, passim.

12 Cf. Yin-k'o, Ch'en, Sui T'ang chih-tu yüan-yüan lüeh-lun kao (“Preliminary discourse on the origins of Sui and T'ang institutions”) (first printing, Chungking, 1944–1945), pp. 44–58Google Scholar and Toshisada, Naba, “Shina shuto-keikakushijō yori Kōsatsushitaru Tō no Chōanjō” (T'ang Ch'ang-an considered in the light of the history of Chinese metropolitan planning”) Kuwabara Memorial Volume (Kyoto, 1931) pp. 1203–69.Google Scholar

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14 Maspero, Henri, “La Vie Courante Sous les Han” in Etudes Historiques (Paris, 1950), pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

15 Hui-yao, T'ang (Peking, 1955) ch. 86, p. 1575.Google Scholar

16 Tzu-chih T'ung-chien ch. 178, pp. 5540–42. The year is 593. Under the second Sui emperor the plan was again presented and this time approved, but the northeast campaigns prevented its being built. Yü-wen K'ai, in the course of his architectural career, did build an enormous wooden pagoda. Cf. Liang-ching Hsin-chi (Kyoto text) 20a-b. Bréhier, , op. cit. p. 264Google Scholar cites the “Patria” as evidence for the fact that the baths of Constantine had seven galleries symbolizing the seven planets and twelve gates symbolizing the months.

17 On the Buddhist origin of hospitals cf. Hu San-hsing's commentary to Tzu-chih t'ung-chien, 214Google Scholar, 6809.

18 Cf. Schafer, Edward H., “The Development of Bathing Customs in Ancient and Medieval China …” Jour. American Oriental Society 76 (1956) pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

19 Hsin T'ang-shu 3.9b; Chiu T'ang-shu 4.17a. The Institute of Archeology, Academia Sinica, Peking, published in 1959 an excellent report on its excavations, 1957–1959, of the Ta-ming palace site entitled T'ang Ch'ang-an Ta-ming Kung.

20 Moore, F. G., “On Urbs Aeterna and Urba Sacra” Transactions of the American Philological Association XXV (1894), p. 53.Google Scholar

21 Cf. Jones, A. H. M., “The Cities of the Roman Empire” Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin VI, La Ville (Brussels, 1954), pp. 135–64.Google Scholar

22 Ku, Pan, “Rhyme-prose on the Western Capital” Wen-hsüan I, p. 3b.Google Scholar Cf. also Margouliès, Le ‘Fou’ dans le Wen-siuan (Paris, 1925), p. 37.Google Scholar

23 T'ang Hui-yao eh. 86, p. 1583–4; T'ung-chien ch. 199, p. 6286.

24 Sung, Hsü, T'ang Liang-ching ch'eng-fang k'ao (Kyoto text) eh. 3, p. 3b.Google Scholar This was the house of Wei Cheng.

25 Ts'e-fu Yüan-kuei (photolith, Chung-hwa. ed.,) eh. 105, p. 26a.Google Scholar

26 Vitruvius, , op. cit. vol. I, p. 5.Google Scholar

27 Cf. Aurigemma, Salvatore, The Baths of Diocletian (Rome, The Ministry of Public Instruction, 1958) pp. 3–12.Google Scholar Aurigemma, p. 7 notes a Medieval tradition that 40,000 Christians were employed in the construction.

28 Cf. F. G. Moore, op. cit., and Pratt, Kenneth J., “Rome as Eternal” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. XXVI (1965), pp. 25–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 The architectural conspectus known as die Ying-tsao fa-shih was compiled under an imperial order of 1092. Its author drew on previous works and on interviews with craftsmen. The work shows die un challenged persistence of traditional building practices. It contains little on construction of buildings in stone or masonry. See Demiéville's review of die 1920 edition of this work BEFEO 25 (1925) 213–64. On problems of building materials and techniques see also Yang, L. S., Les Aspects Economiques des Travaux Publics dans la Chine imperiale (Paris, 1964) pp. 40–47Google Scholar and passim.