A Study On The Inscriptions Of Guanzhong In Tang Dynasty

Guanzhong was the location of Tang capital Chang’an, which leaving a lot of Tang Dynasty ancient steles. The ancient stele contains a lot of historical information as an important Tang Dynasty cultural relic, provides a lot of valuable information for our study of the Tang Dynasty politics, economy, military, culture, history and geography, ethnic relations and foreign exchange, and offers our studies on Chinese ancient sculpture and decorative arts some valuable in-kind basis.Since the Northern Song Dynasty, there were many scholars have made the researches on the Tang Dynasty ancient steles of Guanzhong and have made a lot of achievements. But overall, they are all not centralized and systematic enough to have a comprehensive study on the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient stele. This situation is incompatible with the historical status of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient stele. In the new historical period, it is necessary to make some comprehensive studies on the connotation and denotation, main form, the basic content, historical value, artistic value, protection and utilization of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles, and to make some investigations and researches comprehensively and systematically about that. From the academic research perspective, the exploration for the academic value and theoretical significance of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient stele is a creative scientific work.From a historical point of view, Guanzhong inscriptions originated in the Han Dynasty. Through the development of Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, the growing prosperity came to the Tang Dynasty. According to the statistics, there are52literatures recording Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles, in which mentioned3017kinds of inscriptions. After a thousand years of vicissitudes of time, of which1493inscriptions has ceased to exist, but there are still1,524kinds preserved. These inscriptions have steles, epitaphs, Stone Pillars, Taming, Statues and many other forms, including note, Mourning memory, classical literature and many other aspects. Tang Dynasty steless from GuanZhong has distinct characteristics of the times:there are largely number of the Guanzhong steles before An Lushan Rebellion, but the amount was gradually reduced later. In the spatial distribution, GuanZhong Tang Dynasty steles also behave obviously:the ancient steles of the central part are large in quantity, and rich in content; and western steles’distribution is relatively concentrated, mostly are from early Tang; while eastern steles are distributed and focused well, mostly are from lately Tang. Generally speaking, the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles show the features of large quantity, high specifications, advanced technology and rich content.Of course, the flourishing of Guanzhong Tang Dynasty inscriptions, is not accidental, there are various reasons. Fuping black jade provides the most favorable material conditions for the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty ancient steles in GuanZhong; centuries-old carved stone steles tradition with strong Time continuity, stretching continuously, has accumulated a rich cultural experience; numerous tombs, in addition to Tang eighteen mausoleum and its attendant tombs, there also distributed a large number of high-profile burials near Chang’an Gyeonggi, creating superior preconditions; Guanzhong is the crucial town of education development in Tang Dynasty, from central to local, official to private, education is very prosperous, which had cultivated various talents managed perfect in mang aspects such as written statue inscription, Shu Dan and the carving etc. The inscriptions of the qualified textbook for the prosperous education, and the Nomination marks on the steles from the scholar students as well, became the permanent memory of Tang Dynasty steles in GuanZhong; with advanced religion development, despite Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, other foreign religions like Jing, fire Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, all kinds of religions gathered here, greatly enriched the ancient steles both in content and form, played a catalytic role, and has created a very predominant condition for the rise of Guanzhong Tang Dynasty inscriptions. As the promotion by the emperors of Tang Dynasty on filial piety, and the settings on the officials responsible for stele incscription and raw material acquisition by the central government agency, effectively promoted the development of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty inscriptions; Carving steles with mature technology, the simulation of "Wu Le Gong Ming", increasing income, had greatly improved the social status of the carved. With the pursue of Calligraphic style and remarkable improvement of carved standards, a high level of carving ethnic groups drawing near, all above made the carved team effectively expanded, providing the following-up of workers resources to the GuanZhong Tang Dynasty carved inscriptions; the prosperity of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty steles can’t be independent in the development of the Tang Dynasty calligraphy art. Due to the emperor’s hobbies and advocacy, the imperial examination, official election and other systems closely related to the calligraphy, the art of calligraphy had been unprecedentedly developed, large numbers calligrapher pouring out, the level of calligraphy getting further enhancement, which had a positive impact in the Tang Dynasty carved statues, greatly promoting the development of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles, so the calligraphy art has become an important condition for the prosperous GuanZhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles.Thankfully, the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles have a high historical material value, it is an indispensable and important information of Tang Dynasty researches. They have the features different from other handed down literatures, compared with the historical documents, these historical materials are more credible, especially they have many incomparable advantages to other materials in correcting and complementing the historical records. The characteristics of the ancient stele determined that it should be history books mainly, take the general knowledge into consideration, distinguish the right from the wrong when using the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles. The Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles have rich contents involving all aspects of the Tang Dynasty such as politics, economy, military, culture, nation, religion, society and international relations, etc., which provides the Tang Dynasty a number of informative and reliable first-hand information, and play an very important role on the studies of the Tang Dynasty political, economic, military, cultural, ethnic, religious, social and international relation history. Some of the information can interoperate with each other when they have been recorded in the historical documents, can fill the incomplete history when some historical documents missing load occurred and become the only precious historical materials.In addition, the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles also have a high artistic value. Since the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles were mostly come from the hands of masters, Zhen, Cao, Li, and Zhun bodies are all included, and the Kai script is the best one. In the Tang Dynasty289, the calligraphy art have occurred a series of changes, from the early Tang Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty and then to the late Tang, the ancient stele calligraphies have all shown the significant characteristics of the times, and each time owned some representative calligrapher. As the creator of the calligraphy art, the calligrapher’s calligraphic style and character have a direct impact on the calligraphy art. On the other hand, the additional ornamentations and typical subject-matters of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles are very rich. These ornamentations are the important parts of the artistic values, they are greatly significant to the researches on dating, staging of the ancient steles and the aesthetic of the Tang Dynasty.By all means, the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles are number huge, class variety, save scattered, severely damaged and their current status is not optimistic. The great damage of the Guanzhong ancient steles during the historical periods is a good example. The tendency to be destroyed is still exist and the urgent protection should be launched now. Government departments should integrate resources, build information platform, and make the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient stele character file and information resource library, effectively strengthen the protection of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles and developing their functions to serve the world.There are mainly4creative points in this paper:firstly, by using interdisciplinary and comprehensive research method to combine the history science, historical philology and the calligraphy, to integrate the macro and micro research for the study on the massive Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles. Secondly, we have documented Existing and Disappeared Reporting Table Of Guanzhong Tang Danasty ancient steles in light of more than fifty goldstone monograghs, annals, original articles and journal materials, which had been distributed before June2014in public, classifying and counting the number of the available and lost ancient steles of Guanzhong Tang Dynasty in detail for the first time. Thirdly, we have made some comprehensive studies on the major forms and the basic content of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles, and many detailed analyses of the geographical distribution and characteristics of the times on the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles also have been done. Finally, we have done a deep analysis on the historical and artistic value of the Guanzhong Tang Dynasty ancient steles and have proposed some new ideas. There are some problems still never get an detail analysis in this paper due to the large number of the Tang Dynasty ancient steles and the short of time. In the future, I will continue to conduct research on such type issues, and strive for greater breakthroughs.