Chapter 1,215 The masterpiece of Millennium Ding porcelain
The cultural relics hidden in the underground palace of Jingzhi Temple are all related to the buried relics.
This is a kind of sacrificial ritual. In the end, these precious porcelains, or the porcelains considered the best by people at the time, were enshrined to the gods.
These charity items based on religious religious images were often the most valuable items made with the highest level of craftsmanship at that time.
In terms of Ding porcelain alone, most of the items in the two underground palaces of Jingzhongyuan of Jingzhi Temple in Dingzhou are rare art treasures.
Where did the word "art treasure" come from?
Could it only be a famous kiln and blessed with tributes?
Definitely not, it mainly depends on the craftsmanship.
Just look at a Northern Song Dynasty white-glazed "Meng" lotus pattern bowl unearthed from the underground palace of Jingzhi Temple. Its craftsmanship can illustrate the problem.
Northern Song Dynasty white glaze "Meng" lotus pattern bowl, height 7.4 cm, diameter 21.7 cm, full diameter 9 cm.
The straight mouth of the bowl is slightly inward, the oblique belly is inward, and the ring foot is outward.
The outer wall is engraved with three layers of upward lotus patterns, and the carving skills are skillful.
The word "Meng" is engraved on the outer bottom, which should be the offerings made by the donor surnamed Meng and then placed in the base of the pagoda.
The reason why this porcelain bowl is mentioned is that its craftsmanship uses engraving and printing techniques.
Also, its white glaze is not just a simple white glaze, it can also be called pink glaze. This porcelain can also be said to be powdered.
As mentioned before, printing is to first carve patterns on the pottery mold, and then press the clay onto the pottery mold to make the pattern imprinted on the inside of the object. It is an advanced process that integrates decoration and molding in one process.
Craftsmanship.
Xu Zhiheng's "Yin Liu Zhai Talks about Porcelain" says: "The most beautiful porcelain in the Song Dynasty is none other than powder-ding. The carvings made of powder-ding are extremely beautiful and are almost miraculous in their craftsmanship."
The so-called Fending refers to the fine Ding kiln white porcelain whose body is white like powder and whose glaze is white glass.
Qiongyanjili is almost a miraculous craftsmanship, which refers to the engraving and printing techniques of Ding porcelain.
In the Song Dynasty, there were five famous kilns: Chai, Ru, Guan, Ge, and Ding. Most of them were famous for their colored glazed porcelain.
Only Ding kiln uses white glazed porcelain. Without these exquisite carvings, markings, seals and other decorative techniques, it would be difficult for Ding kiln to compete with other famous kilns.
This is why many Ding kiln wares are art treasures.
Now that Chen Wenzhe has imitated bowls and plates, he cannot let go of the bottles.
Because there are quite a lot of bottles in the collection in the Jingzhi Temple Underground Palace.
There are also many fine products, such as the white-glazed gold long-neck bottle with lotus pattern from the underground palace of Jingzhongyuan.
It is 19.3 cm high, 6 cm in diameter, and 8.9 cm in foot diameter.
It has a wide mouth, a long straight neck, a round belly, and large round feet.
The neck is decorated with string patterns and the shoulders are decorated with chrysanthemum patterns;
The abdomen is engraved with three layers of upward lotus patterns, and the flowers are slender and full of three-dimensionality.
The mouth of the bottle is equipped with a gilt silver cover with rolled branch buttons covered with leaf patterns, and the base is encrusted with gilt silver pieces, which is the so-called "gold fixing device".
In the early days, the decoration of Ding porcelain was mainly based on molding and swirling patterns on the body.
After the Song Dynasty, engraving, molding and printing were developed.
Engraving is to carve various patterns on the inside and outside of objects such as plates, bowls, bottles, jars, etc. to give them a bas-relief artistic effect.
The main theme is lotus pattern, which comes in single layer, double layer, triple layer and deformed lotus pattern.
A white-glazed long-neck vase engraved with lotus pattern from the Northern Song Dynasty was unearthed from the underground palace of Jingzhongyuan. It has a diameter of 4.4 cm, an abdominal diameter of 12.2 cm, a foot diameter of 8.4 cm, and a height of 18 cm.
It has a trumpet mouth, a long and slender neck, and the neck is decorated with a six-petal upward lotus pattern, and the flower pattern is lined with veins.
The shoulders are broad, carved with lotus patterns, and the veins of the flowers and leaves are obvious.
The abdomen is flat and round, with two concave chord patterns at the junction of the shoulders and abdomen, a heavy upward lotus pattern on the abdomen, a flat bottom, and wide circle feet.
The entire body of this vase is graceful and elegant. Its solid white glaze and exquisite carved patterns make this vase a rare fine piece of Ding porcelain.
In addition, there are also the largest number of purification bottles, such as the dragon head purification bottle.
The Ding porcelain unearthed from the two underground palaces of Jingzhi Temple and Jingzhongyuan in Dingzhou include many magnificent and extraordinary artifacts.
For example, there are many white glazed pure bottles. Among them, the large pure bottle with dragon head and lotus pattern unearthed from Jingzhongyuan is 60.9 centimeters tall. It is the largest piece of Ding porcelain discovered so far.
This vase has a slender neck, a bulging belly, lying feet, and a short flowing dragon head.
The upper part of the bottle neck is engraved with a lotus pattern, the middle part is a round disk with a lotus pattern, and the lower part is a bamboo pattern.
The shoulders are engraved with three layers of lotus patterns, with a circle of twining flowers underneath, and four layers of upward lotus patterns are engraved on the lower abdomen.
The shoulders are shaped like a dragon's head, with its head held high, its forehead protruding, and its mouth open and teeth exposed.
The lower jaw is decorated with a dragon beard, the shape of the vessel is slender and elegant, and the decoration is fine and smooth. It can be said to be a representative work of Ding porcelain for thousands of years.
Although there are not many such masterpieces unearthed in Jingzhi Temple, there are also quite a few.
So how many pure bottles were unearthed from the two stupas in the underground palace of Jingzhongyuan of Jingzhi Temple, and what are pure bottles?
What is the function of this bottle? Why does it appear in the underground palace of the pagoda?
In fact, it is very simple. The purification bottle is the vessel used by monks to drink water.
Liang Tao Hongjing's "Ten Lai Essays on Lu Jingyou" says: "With a stone bath jar and a handkerchief as a pair, you can go to the temple to worship, and go in and out to wash up."
The so-called bath jar here refers to the purification bottle.
This kind of utensil has a thin neck and a thick belly. The thick belly has a large capacity to hold water. The thin neck prevents floating dust, insects and mosquitoes from entering and protects it.
The origin of the purification bottle may be traced back to the time when Buddhism was first taught.
Tang Falin's "Dialectics" records: "Seng Zhi and others should take the Dharma bath and swallow the thin and thick abdomen to protect the purification, and it will be easy to develop good deeds. The most important thing is to use it. This is what the Buddha praised."
Using a purifying bottle as a drinking utensil is mainly for the purpose of generating good deeds and cultivating the Tao.
Tang Yijing's "Nan Hai Ji Gui Nei Fa Zhuan" records: "Every time water is purified, there are two bottles. To purify, use tiles and porcelain, and to touch, use copper and iron. If you want to purify water, use it for drinking at irregular times. Touching is necessary for convenience.
If you are clean, you can only hold it with clean hands. It must be placed in a clean place. If you touch it, you can hold it with your tentacles and handle it by touching it. Only the water contained in the pure bottles and new purifiers should be drank together when the time is not right. The water in the remaining containers is called the time.
water.
If you drink before the middle of the day, you will have no fault. If you drink after the middle of the day, you will have no fault."
Here it is said that bottles are divided into pure and touching.
According to Buddhism, there is a precept of not eating in the afternoon. Afternoon is the wrong time. Water from a clean bottle can be drunk after noon, while water from a clean bottle can only be drunk before noon.
In addition, Yijing's "Dharma for Receiving and Utilizing Three Waters" also says: "The purification vase must be made of tiles, not copper bath pots. Because there is copper in the vase, it is impure and cannot be wiped with ashes... However, in the land of the five heavens, there are five generals.
If a copper vase is a pure vase, firstly, it will cause dirt to be touched, and secondly, the smell of copper will harm people."
If the bottle is made of copper and iron, it will be prone to scale and rust inside the bottle.
It is impossible to wipe an instrument with such a long and slender neck from the inside.
Therefore, the purification bottles used by monks at that time were mainly porcelain.
The unearthed objects in Jingzhi Temple also prove this. However, the pure vases stored in Jingzhi Temple and Jingzhongyuan are all Ding kiln white porcelain, and only one is a copper pure vase.
There are many types of net bottles, mainly double-mouth and single-mouth.
It is shaped into a long tapered neck with a narrow mouth facing upward.
There is a pointed and flat wheel-shaped platform in the middle of the neck and bulging shoulders.
The abdomen is in the shape of a drum or the shoulders are downward and inward until it reaches the bottom. There is another large mouth next to the shoulder, which is like a bottle mouth, larger at the top and smaller at the bottom.
There are those that are directly covered with hinge buckles, and there are also those without hinges that have no hinge buckles.