German-Chinese project: How the Diamond Sutra survived the end of the world

When civilizations come into contact with each other, as the sinologist and essayist Simon Leys once remarked, they often miss what constitutes the center of the other culture – not because it is so hidden, but because it is, on the contrary, too obvious , in order to be recognized in its peculiarity. Leys demonstrated this with the Chinese script, the characters of which even Europeans could not overlook and which they misjudged for a long time, if not as a pure transmission of information, then as so-called “calligraphy”, as a decorative form of beautiful writing that is just nice to look at, like it it also exists in other languages.

What was overlooked was that writing in China has a completely different status than in alphabetically organized writing systems: it does not represent sounds, but immediate pre-linguistic meaning, similar to pictograms that show the way at airports. Long before their signs were combined with spoken languages, they functioned as a medium for political prophecies; they were therefore credited with the ability to order reality or even to bring it about in the first place. What was overlooked was that the writing of these characters developed extremely refined standards early on that went beyond the categories of the art genres known in Europe. They include elements of painting, dance, music and literature, but mix them into an aesthetic experience of their own kind. The standard is not set by complacency or beauty, but by naturalness, that informality of self-expression that can only be achieved when one has first learned all the rules of art for a lifetime and then left them behind.

Leys was therefore able to write that outsiders initially have no access to these “inner chambers” of culture – “unless they are willing to give up part of their original baggage”. In addition, in today’s China, a Communist Party warily watches over what it sees as national culture. You have to keep all of this in mind in order to notice what is special about a project by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, which has been exploring such an inner chamber of Chinese culture based on writing for eighteen years now, together with Chinese research institutions and publishers.

A monumental project

Specifically, it is about the complete documentation and analysis of a peculiar section of Chinese intellectual history. Between the sixth and tenth centuries, Buddhist monks carved sutras into the rocks of mountains, giving the symbols an additional dimension, being embedded in the Chinese landscape. In many cases, these inscriptions were later supplemented by comments carved in stone by other Buddhists, but also by Taoists, Confucians or communists; The resulting Land Art therefore represents a concentrated expression of traditional Chinese culture in its complex interplay.

In its scope, the Heidelberg project is reminiscent of the monumental editions of the nineteenth century, but unlike these, it not only reflects the thirst for research of European scholars that reached out into the whole world – which was also supported by colonialism at the time – but the attempt to To capture culture through cooperation from inside and outside at the same time. Access to the sites of culturally significant monuments in China is often restricted for foreigners. For the field research, numerous permits were required at all levels of the Chinese state, from the national monument protection authority to the responsible offices at provincial level to the officials in the towns and villages concerned, where, as the employees report, extensive joint banquets with plenty of Alcohol had to provide the required good mood. Scientifically, the project collaborates with the Art College in Hangzhou and with numerous archaeological and calligraphic institutes across the country.