northwards on the road to the West.
The Sinologist’s agent was a careful, silent man. He had been born in a peasant village, but his studious intelligence had lifted him to another life. He wanted to be called Peter. Southward beyond the smog and detritus of Xian, we drove together towards mountains we could not see. It was early April and the foxglove trees were in lilac bloom along the fields. In the villages the cottage walls were stacked with last year’s maize, and New Year posters still dangled from their doors. Once we came behind a truckload of mourners, their heads bound in white bands, who threw out symbolic money to blow like blossom over the road. Beyond them, we foundourselves traversing empty fields and patches of scrubland alive with sand-coloured marmots.
Then the shadow-waves of mountains came pouring to the plain. Our road twisted into green foothills. The air was limpid, as if after rain. China had become beautiful. As we entered the Pass to the West, imagined exiles and merchants rode past us the other way. Suddenly Peter said: ‘There’s Da Qin!’
The pagoda was leaning against the mountain mists. Wheat-sown hills curved in green terraces around it, and poplars made faint brush-strokes in the valleys. It was utterly still: a willow-pattern dream of rural China. This pagoda was all that was left, Peter said. Its seven creamy tiers, their roofs limned with grass, tapered to a ribbed pinnacle. It kept a lonely grace. Thirteen centuries had pushed it aslant to the wind.
But as we drew near, it loomed into harder focus. What had appeared frail in the hills’ spaces was in fact formidably solid and ninety foot high. It dwarfed everything beneath it: a rustic shrine, two farmhouses. A lone survivor from the Tang–a monastery library, perhaps–it betrayed some once-opulent community.
I wandered the rutted ground beneath it for a long time. A Buddhist monk and nun had guarded the place for years. Now she lay under its earth–her tombstone put her age at 116–while he tended her grave, but had gone mad. But if Da Qin had been Buddhist, Peter said, its temples would have probably aligned north–south, whereas this plateau ran east–west. It was covered by a weft of yellow flowers shifting with black butterflies; there was an orchard of kiwi fruit, and the monk had planted some garlic. East of the pagoda, perhaps, the Nestorian dead had awaited in their graves Christ’s coming from the sunrise. On its other side, the church may have lain. But even the excavator’s spade might unearth no conclusion. Long after Christianity was suppressed in 845, Buddhists had spread their own temple here. In 1556 an earthquake had emptied the site of its last inhabitants. Now a caretaker kept the few fragments come to light: some clay tracery painted chrome green; a torn stone wing.
The doors of the pagoda were blocked. Earthquake and repair alike had sealed it. The corn-coloured plaster was flaking off itsbrick. But someone stretched a huge ladder against one wall for me, reaching to the third storey, and on this I climbed shakily in. Through the window’s tunnel, its stone smooth and dry under my hands, I crawled into a high chamber. The light faded away. Pigeons were moaning somewhere. In front of me, against the walls’ angle and startlingly pale in the semi-darkness, a ten-foot-high plaster statue was splashed against the brick. In a double mandorla of foliage and mountains, its figure had been reduced to a pair of mysteriously reclining legs. Where the plaster had been torn away, wisps of straw still showed in the clay, and a wooden peg jutted empty. The upper body had left no outline there. Only the legs–an outstretched calf and a bent knee–rested in formal eloquence. They were dressed in wide trousers caught up under the knee in the Persian fashion, and the hem of a short tunic survived above.
Who this figure was–overarched by a froth of Taoist hills–was still unknown. The Sinologist believes
The Sinologist’s agent was a careful, silent man. He had been born in a peasant village, but his studious intelligence had lifted him to another life. He wanted to be called Peter. Southward beyond the smog and detritus of Xian, we drove together towards mountains we could not see. It was early April and the foxglove trees were in lilac bloom along the fields. In the villages the cottage walls were stacked with last year’s maize, and New Year posters still dangled from their doors. Once we came behind a truckload of mourners, their heads bound in white bands, who threw out symbolic money to blow like blossom over the road. Beyond them, we foundourselves traversing empty fields and patches of scrubland alive with sand-coloured marmots.
Then the shadow-waves of mountains came pouring to the plain. Our road twisted into green foothills. The air was limpid, as if after rain. China had become beautiful. As we entered the Pass to the West, imagined exiles and merchants rode past us the other way. Suddenly Peter said: ‘There’s Da Qin!’
The pagoda was leaning against the mountain mists. Wheat-sown hills curved in green terraces around it, and poplars made faint brush-strokes in the valleys. It was utterly still: a willow-pattern dream of rural China. This pagoda was all that was left, Peter said. Its seven creamy tiers, their roofs limned with grass, tapered to a ribbed pinnacle. It kept a lonely grace. Thirteen centuries had pushed it aslant to the wind.
But as we drew near, it loomed into harder focus. What had appeared frail in the hills’ spaces was in fact formidably solid and ninety foot high. It dwarfed everything beneath it: a rustic shrine, two farmhouses. A lone survivor from the Tang–a monastery library, perhaps–it betrayed some once-opulent community.
I wandered the rutted ground beneath it for a long time. A Buddhist monk and nun had guarded the place for years. Now she lay under its earth–her tombstone put her age at 116–while he tended her grave, but had gone mad. But if Da Qin had been Buddhist, Peter said, its temples would have probably aligned north–south, whereas this plateau ran east–west. It was covered by a weft of yellow flowers shifting with black butterflies; there was an orchard of kiwi fruit, and the monk had planted some garlic. East of the pagoda, perhaps, the Nestorian dead had awaited in their graves Christ’s coming from the sunrise. On its other side, the church may have lain. But even the excavator’s spade might unearth no conclusion. Long after Christianity was suppressed in 845, Buddhists had spread their own temple here. In 1556 an earthquake had emptied the site of its last inhabitants. Now a caretaker kept the few fragments come to light: some clay tracery painted chrome green; a torn stone wing.
The doors of the pagoda were blocked. Earthquake and repair alike had sealed it. The corn-coloured plaster was flaking off itsbrick. But someone stretched a huge ladder against one wall for me, reaching to the third storey, and on this I climbed shakily in. Through the window’s tunnel, its stone smooth and dry under my hands, I crawled into a high chamber. The light faded away. Pigeons were moaning somewhere. In front of me, against the walls’ angle and startlingly pale in the semi-darkness, a ten-foot-high plaster statue was splashed against the brick. In a double mandorla of foliage and mountains, its figure had been reduced to a pair of mysteriously reclining legs. Where the plaster had been torn away, wisps of straw still showed in the clay, and a wooden peg jutted empty. The upper body had left no outline there. Only the legs–an outstretched calf and a bent knee–rested in formal eloquence. They were dressed in wide trousers caught up under the knee in the Persian fashion, and the hem of a short tunic survived above.
Who this figure was–overarched by a froth of Taoist hills–was still unknown. The Sinologist believes
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