New book on garden studies: From Temples to Garden Estates and Academies

Pania Yanjie Mu, Research Associate, Institute of East Asian Art History, University of Heidelberg 

Suzhou is renowned as a city of gardens, especially since its incorporation as a heritage city in 1997 by UNESCO. The city boasts famous gardens such as the Surging Wave Pavilion, Lion Grove Garden, Unsuccessful Politician’s Garden, and Lingering Garden, collectively known as the four famous gardens of Suzhou. These gardens epitomize the best of literati culture, showcasing the sophisticated Chinese aesthetics and lifestyle from the Song to the Qing dynasties. The rich literati culture of these gardens makes it difficult to associate them with any Buddhist connotations. 

Pania Yanjie Mu’s new book, From Temples to Garden Estates and Academies: Landscape Transformation of Suzhou During the 13th-16th Centuries and Beyond, published in the Routledge Research on Gardens in History series, uncovers the Buddhist history of Suzhou gardens in the Yuan dynasty. This book reveals that the four famous Suzhou gardens were originally temples during the Yuan dynasty: the Surging Wave Pavilion was the Southern Chan Temple, Lion Grove Garden was Shizi Lin Temple, Unsuccessful Politician’s Garden was Great Propagation Temple, and Lingering Garden was Western Garden Temple. Xu Ben’s painting of Shizi Lin Temple, depicting a Dharma hall centered around a Great Lake rock, captures the garden setting of the temple in the Yuan dynasty. 

The book provides a detailed narrative and spatial analysis of how the monk Tianru Weize established Shizi Lin Temple in Suzhou, translating the Buddhist culture of crafting scenes from Mount Heaven Eye in Hangzhou. The second chapter is dedicated to Shizi Lin Temple, identifying its garden setting as a renovated style from previous axial Song dynasty monasteries. When Shizi Lin Temple was sold to a gentry family in the mid-Ming dynasty, it gradually transformed into a literati garden, with its former Buddhist traces erased. 

A second dimension consistently explored throughout the book is the hydraulic evolution of Suzhou from the Yuan to the Qing dynasty. The first chapter investigates the hydraulic infrastructures of Southern Chan Temple, Shizi Lin Temple, and Great Propagation Temple. Using 3D historical modelling and sectional urban hydrological analysis, it argues that the ‘mound-field-river’ topography shared by these temples formed a self-sufficient ecological estate that facilitated agricultural yields. The book demonstrates how this hydraulic topography of monastic estates attracted the gentry, leading to their seizure of temples. For example, despite the tranquil settings depicted in Wen Zhengming’s painting of Unsuccessful Politician’s Garden, its owner Wang Xiancheng actually seized the site from Great Propagation Temple. Some historical literature recorded Wang violently destroyed the temple and Buddhist statues. The book argues that the topography, rivers, mounds, and verdant trees were actually established by monks in the Great Propagation Temple. Interestingly, in all of Wen Zhengming’s representations of the garden, no Buddhist traces exist. 

A significant innovation in the book is its use of 3D architectural modeling and historical GIS mapping. The author simulates the evolution of these three temples into famous gardens, offering evidence-based illustrations of their transformations. By examining isometric model drawings of the transformations, readers could develop their own spatial understanding of how architecture acts as an agent in urban transformation. The author also uses GIS mapping to anchor the representative three temple-to-garden cases into the temple-scape of the Yuan and the garden-scape of the Ming. The urban transformation of Suzhou hints at the secularization of Chinese cities and societies since the early Ming dynasty. The history of Chinese gardens can thus be read as the gentry’s contention with Buddhists over hydraulic estates, social power, and cultural authority.