Hunting Parks of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties
3 min readAccording to the historical records, Chinese garden culture can date back to theShang(16th-1lth century BC) and the Zhou dynasties (1046-771BC) and the imperial parks were the earliest form of Chinese gardens. In the beginning, gardens were called as Yuan (gardens) or You (hunting parks), where high terraces were built and birds and beasts were raised for emperors to hunt for pleasure.
In the Shang period, gardens were named Yuan. As The Basic Annals of the Yin Dynasty of the Records of the Historian recorded,”there are many imperial palaces for short stays from Chaoge (Qixian County, Henan Province at present) in the south to Handan and the Sand Dunes in the north.”In addition, it says that “it is good t collect uncommon dogs and horses and keep them in palaces; it is good to expand thesand dunes for building high terraces where people can breed wild beasts and birds”. So it can be assumed that the preliminary function of gardens originated from the ancestors’ primitive hunting activities.
During the Western Zhou period, Yuan acquired another name, You. Some officials were assigned to You to”take care of various kinds of beasts and birds”. Those who worked in You was called You Ren (garden person). In Explanation and Study of Principles of Composition of Characters, Xu Shen explained that “Yuan is a place where beasts and birds are raised”; and, according to the records concerning the activities held in Yuan, Pu, and You, it is evident that the features of gardens were best illustrated in You. As stated by some historical books, during the reign of King Wen of Zhou(the 1lth century BC), the rulers had a pleasure park built on a hill with woods near the Captial, Gaojing (West to Xi’ an at present), where a terrace named Ling Tai (platform garden),a fish pond named Ling Zhao(water garden and an animal farm named Ling You(hunting garden) were constructed. These are the primitive form of imperial gardens. In the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) and the Warring States Period(475-221 BC), all the kingdoms spared every effort to expand their gardens and renewed its forms with the purpose of showing off their power and economic strength.
The hunting park is not only a place for emperors and kings to hunt or to seek pleasure; it is also a place for them to take a close watch on the animals in the wild nature. Especially in the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period, the ideas of Confucianists, Taoists, Mohists, Legalists and Eclectics found their ways in various aspects of social life. Meanwhile, the fine arts developed to a higher level and the ideological domain has been further extended.A1l these added the aesthetic values to the gardening. During that period of time, the belief of immortality was prevalent, among which the legends of the immortals in the East Sea and Kunlun Mountains were the best known ones. The stories, especially those of the immortal mounts in the East Sea, exerted great influence on the forms of gardens at that time. Therefore, it becomes a major pursuit of the later gardens in China to miniaturize the imagined Immortal Mounts in the East Sea.
