UNDERSTANDING HEAVEN BY VISUALIZATION AND
SENSIBILITY IN JESUIT CARTOGRAPHY IN CHINA
BY
HUI-HUNGCHEN*
This paper discusses the religious meaning of Jesuit world maps that were produced in China by their missionaries from the late sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries.These world maps serve as a visual proof to emphasize the greatness of the world and the minuscule nature of man, and by means of these maps man “can see” the truth of God because of the visual ability granted via God’s omnipotence. Jesuit cartography is not only a visual image of geographical configura-tion. It paved the way for the comprehension of the Creator’s signifi-cance. It was an embodiment of the Renaissance tradition of cartog-raphy as the graphical representation of the universe, which included the idea of understanding nature through mathematical science as well as of understanding Heaven by visualization and sensibility. In this Renaissance tradition, geography was associated with cosmol-ogy that was based upon Christian theolcosmol-ogy, and Aristotle’s sensibil-ity toward the comprehension of the universe formed the core of Catholic epistemology and natural philosophy. The religious implica-tions of Jesuit cartography in China explain how the Jesuits could have used it strategically in their evangelization.
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*Dr. Chen is an assistant professor of history in National Taiwan University, Taiwan. The final version of this paper was revised according to the constructive comments of two anonymous reviewers. She wishes to express her deep gratitude to them, and espe-cially for the detailed line-by-line comments and rewording provided by one of them. This article is a revised version of an earlier paper with the same title presented at the Second International Junior Scholars’ Conference on Sinology, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu,Taiwan, in November 2004. The author is grateful to the commenta-tor and the professors from the university for their insights and suggestions. The con-ference paper had been revised from her dissertation,“Encounters in Peoples, Religions, and Sciences: Jesuit Visual Culture in Seventeenth Century China” (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 2004). She would like to express gratitude to her adviser, Professor Jeffrey Muller, for his advice on the original research, and to Professor Pingyi Chu, an associate fellow of the Institute of History and Philology at the Academia Sinica,Taiwan, and the adviser of Dr. Chen’s postdoctoral project, as the revision was carried out while she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Academia Sinica.
This work and the publication are supported in part by National Taiwan University of Taiwan under Grant No. 95R0033-4, and National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan Grant No. NSC 95-2411-H-002-023.
Although my body in the universe is so minuscule and only one point, the capacities of the soul were endowed by the Creator, so that I can compre-hend the whole Heaven and Earth and come to some understanding of the real master of the universe. It is said: the so-called human body is a small universe. Because we believe in this and understand that the physical body is so small in size, we will not become haughty. Moreover, because our intel-lectual mind—in contrast to the small physical body—will perceive the supreme greatness, there is no reason to abandon oneself and be self-derogatory. If we understand all of these things, the Heaven and Earth seen by the eyes are not illusory.1
In Aleni’s eyes, the whole human body bears the full meaning of the universe. On the one hand, the world map serves as a visual proof to emphasize the greatness of the world and the minuscule nature of the human; on the other hand, because of the ability to visualize—one of the talents granted to us by an all-powerful God, humans “can see” through, and by means of a world map to perceive the truth of God. With God’s grace, one understands the value of man, and therefore we should not undervalue ourselves. It thus appears that Jesuit cartogra-phy is not only “a visual image of a geographical configuration.”2It also paved the way for the comprehension of the Creator’s significance.
1Giulio Aleni, Wanguo tu xiaoyin (Little Preface of the Wanguo tu). It
only appears in an edition of Aleni’s Wanguo quantu in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV), call number Barberini Oriente 151 (1a). A modern facsimile of this map is provided by Howard L. Goodman,“Paper Obelisks: East Asia in the Vatican Vaults,” in Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture, ed. Anthony Grafton (Washington, 1993), p. 259.
2This term is appropriated from Donald Lach’s term “visual image of Asia’s
configu-ration” of European printed maps, see his work Asia in the Making of Europe, vol. 1, bk. 1 (Chicago, 1965), p. 218.
This paper intends to discuss the religious meaning of Jesuit world maps produced in China by their missionaries from the late Ming to the early Qing periods. Aleni’s statement quoted above reveals a method by which the Jesuits interpreted world maps, and a meaning that may have been given to this Jesuit cartography destined for the Chinese people. The “method” and “meaning” are both related to the religious dimension of the Jesuits. Cartography was a very important aspect of the Jesuits’ China mission strategy in terms of both visual cul-ture and sciences. How Jesuits used cartography as part of their visual methods of evangelization is a topic that needs to be investigated. The linkage between art and science, something unfamiliar in Chinese cul-ture, was practiced in Early Modern Europe, and thus known to the Jesuits. Perhaps, due to this condition, Jesuit cartography in China was rarely discussed as it pertained to visual culture, and it has been much
Fig. 1. Giulio Aleni, Wanguo quantu (Universal Map of Countries), c. 1620, woodcut and color on paper, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,Vatican City, Barberini Oriente 151 (1a), © Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,Vatican City
expression” or “a visual image of geographical configuration” should not be excluded from the topic of visual culture.5 Cartography is regarded as an “art,” in the current tendency to treat it as a “genre of pictorial image,” to borrow Marcia Kupfer’s term.6Reading maps is a process of reading images, so the iconographical character of maps becomes the central theme of the interpretation. Particularly interest-ing is that the Jesuit mappinterest-ing techniques demonstrated a visual lan-guage different, both in form and content, from what was presented in the local traditions. This visual language, as I will argue, cannot be understood without the missionary contexts. Therefore, the religious dimension in the Jesuit cartography is crucial for deciphering that visu-ality, for a religious meaning is embedded into the iconography of their maps.Thanks to recent scholarship on the question of cartography as art, we are encouraged to investigate the iconography of Jesuit cartog-raphy in China, then to look for the religious meaning associated with the iconography.We can understand Aleni’s words in the above quota-tion to be a Jesuit iconographical interpretaquota-tion of the world map. This paper will discuss the religious meaning of the Jesuit world maps in China by looking into how and by what means the Jesuits presented and interpreted their “graphic mode of expression” or “visual image of
3For instance, the recently comprehensive reference to the Jesuits or Christianity in
China put the topic “cartography” under the category of “science and technology,” sepa-rate from the category of “arts, crafts, and language.” See Nicolas Standaert, ed., Hand-book of Christianity in China,Volume One, (635-1800) (Leiden, 2001), pp. 752, 809.
4For a review of these scholarly reflections about cartography, see David Woodward’s
introduction to the book edited by him, Art and Cartography—Six Historical Essays (Chicago, 1987), pp. 1-9.
5The term “a graphic mode of expression” comes from Sergio Bosticco,“Cosmology
and Cartography,” in Encyclopedia of World Art, vol. 3 (New York, 1960), p. 836; for the term “a visual image of geographical configuration,” please see note 2 above.
6Marcia Kupfer,“Medieval World Maps: Embedded Images, Interpretive Frames,” Word
geographical configuration” to the Chinese. The method that the Jesuits used, within the framework of European cartography, is summed up in two categories: visualization and sensibility.
Jesuit World Maps in China
The world map of Matteo Ricci’s (1552-1610) is the first European example of its kind presented to the Chinese. Ricci displayed his map to the Chinese for the first time in 1583-84 in Zhaoqing , a pre-fecture of the Province of Guangdong ( ), almost immediately after he arrived in Macau in 1582.7It is obvious that Ricci had brought this map with him from Europe. In the Jesuit educational system, math-ematics and astronomy were among the basic training courses for Jesuit students and were seen as a necessary preparation for theologi-cal studies.8 Maps could be used as visual material embodying the teachings of mathematics and astronomy. Ricci probably brought maps for the Jesuits’ own academic uses, that is for the same reason that he imported mathematical devices such as the globe and clocks. It is not surprising to notice that Euclid’s geometry, arithmetic, geography and cosmography, perspective, and horology—assigned courses for Jesuit mathematical training—can all be found in their theoretical and mate-rial fields for the Jesuit China mission.9 Jesuit engagement in mathe-matical and astronomical knowledge should be understood within the larger Jesuit intellectual structure. Given the study of these disciplines as preparation for divine knowledge, their introduction to the Chinese was aimed at persuading non-Christians to study Heavenly doctrines, in Chinese tianxue (literally meaning “Heavenly Studies”).
Among the several European books brought into China by the Jesuits in the early years of the mission, Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum
orbis terrarum (Antwerp, 1570) was the only European publication whose title Ricci included in his list of objects presented to the
7Pasquale M. d’Elia, Fonti Ricciane: Documenti originali concernenti Matteo Ricci a la
storia delle prime relazioni tra l’Europa e la Cina (1579-1615). Storia dell’ introduzione del Cristianesimo in Cina scritta da Matteo Ricci, 3 vols. (Rome, 1942-1949), I, p. 207.
8Nicolas Standaert,“The Classification of Sciences and the Jesuit Mission in Late Ming
China,” in Linked Faiths: Essays on Chinese Religions & Traditional Culture in Honour of Kristofer Schipper, ed. Jan A. M. De Meyer and Peter M. Engelfriet (Leiden, 2000), pp. 287-317.
9For these Jesuit mathematical courses, see Giuseppe Cosentino, “Le Matematiche
nella «Ratio Studiorum» della Compagnia di Gesù,” in Miscellanea storica ligure, vol. 2 (Genoa, 1970), pp. 171-213; also refer to Allan P. Farrell, S. J., trans., The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum of 1599 (Washington, D. C., 1970).
Sea, and Geography) or Yudi shanhai quantu (Universal
Map of Geography, Mountain, and Sea).12Afterwards this map was repeatedly revised and reprinted, for example, in Nanchang (c. 1596), Nanjing (1600), and Beijing (1601-1603).13 The Beijing example of 1602 was supervised by Li Zhizao (c. 1564-1630), and devel-oped a refined format with additional supplementary contents and commentaries. This was the exemplar most often cited, and the final version of Ricci’s mappamundi was re-entitled Kunyu wanguo
quantu (Universal Map of the World and Countries) (Fig. 2).14The 1603 edition from Beijing is also in a larger scale and format even than the one of 1602, and entitled Liangyi xuanlan tu (Universal Map of the Heaven and Earth). Although this
10D’Elia, Fonti Ricciane, II, pp. 90, 114, 123; Nicolas Trigault (1577-1628), China in the
Sixteenth Century: The Journal of Matthew Ricci: 1583-1610, trans. Louis J. Gallagher (New York, 1953), p. 364.
11Pasquale D’Elia, trans. and anno., Il Mappamondo Cinese del P. Matteo Ricci S.I.
(Vatican City, 1938), p. 169; D’Elia, Fonti Ricciane, I, p. 207.
12D’Elia, Fonti Ricciane, I, pp. 207-209; II, pp. 58-59.
13About the history of the printing of Ricci’s world maps, the following studies are
still seen as of the most comprehensive: Hung Weiliang ,“Kao Limadou de shijie ditu” (On the World Map of Matteo Ricci), Yu gong ban yue kan (The Chinese Historical Geography) 5 (1936), 2-5; Fang Hao , Li zhizao yanjiu (On Li Zhizao) (Taipei, 1966), pp. 78-79; Cao Wanru et al., “Zhongguo xiancun limadou shijie ditu de yanjiu” (Study of the World Map of Matteo Ricci Extant in China), Wenwu 12 (1983), 57-70. At least sixteen copies and editions of Ricci’s mappamundi dated from the sixteenth and sev-enteenth centuries are extant in Europe, China,Taiwan, and Japan.
14In addition to D’Elia’s Il Mappamondo, the earlier reprint and annotation of the
1602 version at the BAV, the latest full modern facsimile of this edition, with a complete enlargement of every division of the map, was published from the one housed in the Library of the Miyagi Prefecture , see Li Madou (Matteo Ricci), ed., Li madou kunyu wanguo quantu (Universal Map of the World and Countries of Matteo Ricci) (Tokyo, 1996).
1603 edition was expanded to eight vertical scrolls, compared to the six scrolls of the Kunyu wanguo quantu, in principle it follows the 1602 edition. However, this edition is less well known because of the fewer extant copies and versions based on it. Ricci’s map certainly gained much interest and popularity, as many revisions and reprints were made up to 1603 in China, and even later in Japan.15
The universal mapping method of Ricci is basically founded on Ptolemy’s model, but it seems intentionally to modify China’s position with respect to the other continents by placing China in the middle (the fourth scroll from the right side).16This can be demonstrated when Ricci’s map is compared with a European world map of the same time, for instance, with one from Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum orbis
ter-rarum, a version of which was sent to the Chinese court (China on the
Fig. 2. Matteo Ricci, Kunyu wanguo quantu (Universal Map of
the World and Countries), 1602, woodcut on paper, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City, Barberini Oriente 150 (1-6), © Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,Vatican City
15Although several European maps, such as those by Ortelius and Gerard Mercator,
were also brought to Japan via missionaries, Ricci’s world map, serving as the standard format in the mandarin style for neighboring Japan, played a significant role in the modern world cartography of this country. One annotation of a Japanese mappamundi of the eighteenth century (1775) states that Ricci’s map was the harbinger of western cartography introduced to the East that projected a three-dimensional object on a flat
surface (“ ”). This Japanese map was entitled
Chikyu Bankoku Sankai Yochi Zenzusetsu (Revised Earth Map of Countries), under the authorship of Sekisiu Nagakubo, housed in the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, U.S.A. (without a shelf number). The Library has two copies of this, one published in Mito, the other in Osaka.
far right side) (Fig. 3). Although, in contrast to the Chinese mapping tra-ditions, the size of China was diminished on Ricci’s map in order to pres-ent an appearance of China relative to the rest of the world, the map’s overall modification was a concession to local mapping traditions. And yet, the position of China on the whole scale of the world in terms of both quantity and quality, still produced a culturally shocking visual experience for the Chinese. One anecdote, about a president of Nanjing looking at the world map that Ricci wanted to present to the Chinese Emperor, could be the first written record detailing a direct response to this new visual material from a Chinese scholar, Wang Zhongming
, President of the Board of Rites of Nanjing ( ):
The President took great pleasure in studying this tablet [on which the world map was drawn], wondering that he could see the great expanse of the world depicted on such a small surface, and that it contained the names of so many new kingdoms and a list of their customs. He would examine it over and over again and very attentively, in an effort to memorize this new idea of the world.17
Fig. 3. Abraham Ortelius, World Map, from Theatrum orbis terrarium, 1570, color engraving, Leiden University Library, The Netherlands, Atlas 36, © Leiden University Library, Leiden, The Netherlands
17Trigault, China in the Sixteenth Century, p. 301; the relevant but briefer passage in
According to Ricci’s own account, his observations of popular, self-oriented Chinese conventions in mapping the world were based on his studies of Chinese cartography, thus he might have foreseen the possible effect of his European-based map on Chinese traditions.18In his famous work on Ricci’s map, the Chinese scholar Hung Weiliang, , held that Ricci’s interest in Chinese geography upon his arrival in China explained why he endeavored to translate European geogra-phy into Chinese.19One of the most important sources Ricci used for his mapping was Guang yu tu (Atlas of Universal Land), an atlas based on the work of an earlier cartographer, Zhu Siben (1273-1333), expanded and revised in the sixteenth century by Luo Hongxian (1504-1564) and first printed in 1555. This carto-graphical work had a wide influence on the Chinese geocarto-graphical tra-dition.20According to Zhang Zhejia , the mapping style shown in the maps of the Guang yu tu was aimed at accuracy, in contrast to a popular sketchy style seen in several types of maps produced by the local gazetteers of Ming China.21If the Guang yu tu pursued accuracy in mapping more than other traditional cartographical modes, Ricci’s reliance on it could correspond to the missionary’s intention to offer a better and more precise mapping skill to the Chinese.
After Ricci’s maps (1583-1603), Giulio Aleni’s world map Wanguo
quantu was made around 1620, following Ricci’s format and contents. This world map was included in some editions of Aleni’s geographical work, Zhifang waiji (Descriptions of Foreign Land), his pref-ace to which is dated 1623.This prefpref-ace states that another Jesuit, Diego de Pantoja (1571-1618), on the command of the emperor, had translated a different European map, also following Ricci’s model, but we have no direct knowledge of this work at the present.22Aleni’s Wanguo quantu is much smaller in size (49 cm 24 cm) than Ricci’s Kunyu wanguo
18D’Elia, Fonti Ricciane, I, pp. 207-210. 19Hung,“Kao Limadou,” p. 7.
20For the Guang yu tu’s influence on Ricci’s geographical work in Chinese, see
Goodman,“Paper Obelisks,” p. 257.
21Zhang Zhejia , “Mingdai fangzhi de ditu” (The Maps in the
Local Gazetteers of the Ming Dynasty), in Jindai zhongguo de shijue biaoshu yu
wenhua goutu (The Visual Representations and Cultural
Mappings in Early Modern China), ed. Huang Kewu (Taipei, 2003), pp. 184-207.
22One edition of the Zhi fang wai ji, including Aleni’s world map, is reproduced in
its modern facsimile, see Giulio Aleni, Zhi fang wai ji (Descriptions of Foreign Lands), in Congshu jicheng chubian (The First Compilation of Various Books) (Shanghai, 1936). Aleni mentioning Pantoja is on the preface’s page 1 of this facsimile.
quantu(each scroll of which is 174 cm 67 cm, and a total of six scrolls vertically connected); therefore, the former could be easily made to fit into the Zhifang waiji.23The Jesuit Francesco Sambiasi (1582-1649) composed and annotated another world map, entitled Kunyu
quantu (Universal Map of the World), in Nan-jing in 1633.24 The most important Jesuit publication of the world map for the China
Fig. 4. Ferdinand Verbiest, Kunyu quantu (Universal Map of the
World), 1674, woodcut and color on paper, Kobe City Museum, Japan, © Kobe City Museum, Kobe, Japan
23Here the size of the Wanguo quantu is taken from Takato Tokio’s catalogue for the
edition housed in BAV, call number Barberini Oriente 151 (1a) and (1b) (two copies), see P. Pelliot, Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits et imprimés chinois de la Bibliothèque Vaticane, ed. Takata Tokio (Kyoto, 1995). The one with the number 151 (1a) has a single image alone, above a preface written by Aleni and the colored Wanguo quantu below. That of 151 (1b) is also a single yet uncolored sheet with the Wanguo quantu above and the Beiyu ditu (Northern Polar Hemisphere Map) and Nanyu ditu (Southern Polar Hemisphere Map) below. This one is identified as the same as the other extant copies of this work housed in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, and in the Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma, Rome (call number 72C494 1&2). For the one in Ambrosiana, the following catalogue wrongly attributed it to Ricci: Paolo Revelli, I Codici Ambrosiani di contenuto geografico, vol. 1 of Fontes Ambrosiani (Milano, 1929), p. 188. The information in this catalogue offers the similar measurement (49.4 cm 24.3 cm) as that of BAV’s.The old attribution could be seen as a result of the promi-nence of Ricci’s role in translating the European cartographical mode into Chinese for the traditional European scholarship.As for Ricci’s map, the measuring information also comes from Takata’s catalogue for the edition in BAV, call number Barberini Oriente 150 (1-6). This one serves as the subject of D’Elia’s Il Mappamondo.
24There are six copies of the Kunyu quantu known at present. See the most recent
research of Paolo de Troia and Ann Heirman,“The World-Map of Father Franceso Sambiasi (1582-1649)” (paper presented at the XVth Biennial Conference of the European Associa-tion of Chinese Studies (EACS), University of Heidelberg, Germany,August 25-29, 2004).
mission in the second half of the seventeenth century is the Kunyu
quantu (1674) of Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688). It bears the same title as Sambiasi’s, yet is in a different format (each scroll 179 cm 54 cm, a total of eight scrolls vertically connected) (Fig. 4).Verbiest’s map consists of two hemispheres, and the two outer scrolls individually depict cartouches that contain several kinds of information on geogra-phy and meteorology. This projection, which had been devised by the famous cartographer Gerard Mercator (1512-1594) in his Orbis terrae
compendiosa descriptio (1587), depicts a different mode from the Ptolemiac one, that was illustrated in Ricci’s, Aleni’s, and Sambiasi’s rep-resentations of universal cartography. Although Verbiest’s Kunyu
quantuwas the first Chinese translation of a Mercator projection, we can see a map made with this mapping method that had hung previ-ously on the wall of the Beijing studio of the Jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1591-1666), in a depiction of this missionary’s office found in
China Illustrata(1667) of the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) (Fig. 5). The making of Verbiest’s Kunyu quantu was intended to meet the interest of the Kangxi emperor, as Verbiest’s introductory ded-ication implies. There are at least fourteen to fifteen copies and editions of this map dating from the seventeenth century currently extant in Europe, Japan,Taiwan,America, and Australia.25
Through the above brief history of the Jesuits’ making of the world map in the China mission, we can see why the missionaries introduced such a map from the very beginning and how the ensuing develop-ment was part of the important work of some major missionaries. Most maps described here were printed. That the Jesuits made use of the Chinese printing industry to distribute the European mode of the
uni-25For the above information about Verbiest’s Kunyu quantu, see Lin Tongyang
, “Ferdinand Verbiest’s Contribution to Chinese Geography and Cartography,” in Ferdinand Verbiest: Jesuit Missionary, Scientist, Engineer and Diplomat, ed. John W. Witek (Nettetal, 1994), pp. 136-138; and his “Nanhuairen de shijie ditu—kunyu quantu” (Ferdinand Verbiest’s World Map—Kunyu quantu), Donghai daxue lishi xuebao (Bulletin of the Graduate Institute of History and the Department of History Tunghai University) 5 (1982), 69-84; Christine Vertente, “Nan Huai-Jen’s Maps of the World,” in Succès et échecs de la rencontre Chine et Occident, du XVIe au XXe siècle(San Francisco, 1993), pp. 257-263; Monique Cohen and Nathalie Monnet, Impressions de Chine (Paris, 1992), pp. 126-127. However, there is one copy or edition of Verbiest’s Kunyu quantu never mentioned by the above three articles, i. e., the one hanging on a side wall of the public entry lobby of BAV, entitled Mappamonde Terreste (1674 ed.), in contrast to Johann Adam Schall von Bell’s Planisfero Celeste(1634 ed.) on the opposite wall. Both works do not have shelf num-bers, so they are not entered in any of the library’s catalogues.
versal cartography is seen in the several editions and copies of Ricci’s and Verbiest’s maps. Ricci’s and other later Jesuits’ studies of Chinese geography for making the world map were meant to incorporate the growing knowledge about “China” into the “geography of Jesuit knowl-edge,” to use the phrase of Steven Harris.26This Jesuit case in China exemplified the “local” and “distributed” characters of their scientific knowledge, the term “distributed” referring to Jesuit efforts to translate
Fig. 5. Johann Adam Schall von Bell, from Athanasius Kircher’s China Illustrata, 1667, engraving, Stanford University, U.S.A., RBC DS708. K58 1667F, © Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, U.S.A.
26Steven J. Harris, “Mapping Jesuit Science: The Role of Travel in the Geography of
Knowledge,” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts 1540-1773, ed. John W. O’Malley, S.J., et al. (Toronto, 1999), p. 214. The following discussion about the “local” and “distributed” characters of scientific knowledge, the Jesuit geographical network, and the corporate or organized travels all refer to Harris’s theoretical framework, see esp. pp. 214-216. This theory intends to answer why the Society of Jesus published a great amount of works on geography and natural science.
a European-based map into a Chinese printed version, and to introduce new geographical knowledge of China back to Europe.27 Under this theoretical framework, we can say that the value of Jesuit cartography in China is contextualized within the Jesuit institutional geographical network, in the sense of Jesuit corporate or organized travels and mis-sions, which played a significant role for the Society. In this broader Jesuit context, the religious meaning of these world maps in China can hardly be dismissed, because they were made in conjunction with the evangelical concerns of the missionaries.
The Reception of Jesuit Cartography by the Chinese
What Jesuit cartography communicated to the Chinese people can be seen in the Chinese perception of European cartography. This per-ception illustrates the differences between two cartographical tradi-tions.While the Jesuits tried to convey implicit Christian messages by their strategic manipulation of cartography, the Chinese perceived these messages in different ways.
First, Jesuit cartography in China communicated to the Chinese the geographical knowledge of the world, from a European perspective. Along with their geographical works composed in Chinese, such as Aleni’s Zhifang waiji and Verbiest’s Kunyu tushuo (On the
Cartography of the World) (1672), the Jesuit world maps portray coun-tries other than China, all of which are drawn comparatively to scale. By so doing, they place the geographical position of China within the global framework more correctly than did the old Chinese geographi-cal tradition. Ricci’s Kunyu wanguo quantu and Aleni’s Wanguo
quantu both employ wanguo (literally, tens of thousands of
countries) in their titles, and in fact emphasize the comparative scale of the world in contrast to the domination of China, as it had been por-trayed formerly in Chinese geography and ideology. For Ricci and the Jesuits, one secular and strategic purpose for using the European geo-graphical knowledge in the missions was to eradicate Chinese fear of the missionaries and of their countries, which were considered by
27For the Jesuits’ introducing new knowledge of China to Europe and the ensuing
new style of maps of Asia in Europe, see Boleslaw Szczes´niak,“The Seventeenth Century Maps of China: An Inquiry into the Compilations of European Cartographers,” Imago Mundi13 (1956), 116-136; Theodore N. Foss,“A Western Interpretation of China: Jesuit Cartography,“ in East Meets West: The Jesuits in China, 1582-1773, ed. Charles E. Ronan and Bonnie B. C. Oh (Chicago, 1988), pp. 209-251; the same author as above, “Cartography,” in Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, pp. 752-770.
with the arms of the Signoria.29In addition to Ricci’s account, a simi-lar request appears in a letter written by the Jesuit Lazzaro Cattaneo (1560-1640) on October 12, 1599, that indicates that “alguas cousas di
architectura e uarias impressa di paços & de g’ la muito em Roma
(some architectural objects and various prints of parks and of the [city] wall in Rome)” were needed for the China mission.30 Like the world maps, the information revealed by these architectural sources attempted to direct the Chinese audience to an improved concept of Europe and European geography.
Therefore, this introduction to a fuller vision of the world through European cartographical models was a completely new experience for the Chinese both in visual format and contents. If we consider Samuel Edgerton’s “mental matrix” theory for the present discussion, the read-ing of Jesuit world maps by the Chinese might have presented a visual challenge to the local people. Edgerton thought that the western and eastern mental matrices for mapping were opposites of each other. The Chinese grid pattern superimposed on the world appears to have been “centripetal—aiming at a central focus,” which is different from the western grid, that was “centrifugal—aiming at expansion and dom-ination.”31As seen from a map of the whole of China made by the Chinese in the seventeenth century, the way towards the center of China is prominent (Fig. 6). Although this kind of the map meant the whole China, it usually and meanwhile meant the whole world in Chinese perception.This idea of centripetal movement from the
east-28D’Elia, Fonti Ricciane, I, pp. 211, 259. 29D’Elia, Fonti Ricciane, II, p. 131.
30ARSI (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Italy), JapSin 13-I, fol. 319v. 31Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr.,“From Mental Matrix to Mappamundi to Christian Empire:
The Heritage of Ptolemy Cartography in the Renaissance,” in Woodward, Art and Cartography, pp. 10-50, and Woodward’s introduction in this book, p. 4.
ern perspective is demonstrated especially well in a political geogra-phy, which actually dominated the geographical and cartographical tra-ditions of China over centuries (Fig. 7).32A popular style of mapping in Chinese local gazetteers also shows a centripetal point of view, i.e., it indicates that the perspective of the maker centers first on the impor-tant governmental building of the city or town, such as the city hall, and then looks outward. The central governmental building is enlarged, while the marginal areas appear diminished, even neglected (Fig. 8).33Perhaps, the contrast between the eastern and western con-ceptions for “mapping” countries and peoples on a universal scale is a
Fig. 6. Yuji tu (Map of the Tracks of Emperor Yu), woodcut, from Wang Qi , comp., Sancai tuhui , dili 13 (juan), pp. 49-51, from an edition of 1609, Fu-ssu Nien Library, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, A041 033, © Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica,Taipei,Taiwan
32John Henderson, “Chinese Cosmographical Thought: The High Intellectual
Tradition,” in The History of Cartography, ed. J. B. Harley and David Woodward, vol. 2, bk. 2 (Chicago, 1994), pp. 203-213.
better and more thoughtful way to explain local responses resulting from different visual experiences. The explanation can further our understanding of Chinese curiosity, as shown in the account of Wang Zhongming looking at Ricci’s map.
Second, this new geographical knowledge and representative format of world cartography had to direct the Chinese to an inevitable scientific fact: the Earth is a sphere. European cartographical projec-tions were carried out based upon this fact, which was again contrary to the traditional Chinese concept: that the Earth is flat or square. In
Fig. 7. Zhou jiufu tu (Diagram of the Nine Domains of the Zhou), woodcut, from Hu Wei , Yu gong zhuizhi (written 1694-97), from an edition of 1705, Fu-ssu Nien Library, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, 093.31 313, © Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica,Taipei,Taiwan
the conventional ideology held in China over centuries, only the Heaven be could round or spherical.34 It is legitimate, therefore, to point out the reason for the addition of the sun, moon, and stars to the globes that God holds in the images of the title page and in the last one, the “Coronation of the Virgin Mary,” in Aleni’s Chinese woodcuts
Tianzhu jiangsheng chuxiang jingjie (Biblical
Explanations and Illustrations of the Heavenly Lord’s Incarnation), a work which illustrates the life of Christ (Figs. 9, 10). It is not exactly correct to say that the sun, moon, and stars depicted on a globe in these images are new elements particularly in Chinese fashion, as their European models do not have these elements, because we find a simi-lar depiction in an engraving of the Flemish printer Maarten de Vos
34Chu Pingyi ,“Kua wenhua zhishi chuanbo de gean yanjiu—mingmo qingchu
guanyu diyuan shuo de zhengyi, 1600-1800”
, 1600-1800 (The Formation of Factual Knowledge in Trans-cultural Scientific Transactions:The Debate over the Sphericity of the Earth in China, 1600-1800), Zhong-yang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan (Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology) 69 (1998), 589-670.
Fig. 8. Town plan, woodcut, from Wanli suian xianzhi (Gazetteers
of the County of Suian of the Wanli Period), from an edition of 1612, National Taiwan Library,Taiwan, © National Taiwan Library,Taipei,Taiwan
(Fig. 11).35For the Chinese of the Ming period, a globe could only indi-cate a celestial body; by no means could it be used as a visualization of the terrestrial entity. So the sun, moon, and stars on the globes in the hands of Christ in Aleni’s woodcuts reinforce their identification as celestial bodies. However, the idea of the three-dimensional projec-tions in European cartographical modes could be realized only after it had been established that the Earth is a sphere. Aleni’s Beiyu ditu
Fig. 9.Title page, woodcut, from Giulio Aleni’s Tianzhu jiangsheng chuxiang
jingjie (Biblical Explanations and Illustrations of the
Heavenly Lord’s Incarnation), 1637, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Italy, JapSin I-187, © Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Italy
35Paul Rheinbay said that the globe on the title page of the Tianzhu jiangsheng
chuxiang jingjiewas “depicted according to Asian style,” meaning that they were only outlined in Asia. Paul Rheinbay,“Nadal’s Religious Iconography Reinterpreted by Aleni for China,” in “Scholar from the West:” Giulio Aleni S.J. (1582-1649) and the Dialogue Between Christianity and China, ed. Tiziana Lippiello and Roman Malek (Nettetal, Germany, 1997), p. 330.
(Northern Polar Hemisphere Map) and Nanyu ditu
(Southern Polar Hemisphere Map), included in one of the editions of his Wanguo quantu, and the depictions of the same hemispheres occupying prominent positions in the upper and lower left corners of Ricci’s Kunyu wanguo quantu, made explicit the Earth’s sphericity for the purposes of scientific theory (Fig. 12).
Sambiasi’s map contains at least four diagrams for illustrating the theory (Fig. 13).36On the top of this cartographical panel, Sambiasi’s
Fig. 10. Coronation of the Virgin Mary, woodcut, from Giulio Aleni’s Tianzhu
jiangsheng chuxiang jingjie (Biblical Explanations and
Illustra-tions of the Heavenly Lord’s Incarnation),1637, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Italy, JapSin I-187, © Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Italy
36The illustration shown here is also found in an earlier Jesuit work, Manuel Diaz, Jr.,
Tian wen lüe (On Astronomy; 1615) see Tianxue chuhan (The First Book Compilation of the “Heavenly Studies”), 6 vols. (Taipei, 1964),V, p. 2704.
text deals directly with the sphericity of the Earth.The beginning sen-tence goes to the core of the relevant geography and cosmology:
“ (In the beginning
when the Creator created things, he necessarily determined the essen-tial appearance of these things.The essenessen-tial appearance of the Earth is a sphere.”)37This statement also indicates the principal teaching at the center of Jesuit geography and its metaphysical foundation: the Creator, i.e., God. D’Elia pointed out that the European sources for Ricci’s world map would be Alessandro Piccolomini’s (1508-78) Sfera
del Mondo and Christophus Clavio’s (1538-1612) work also on the
37Although the map has Sambiasi’s signature to indicate that he wrote and annotated
it, this text had appeared in another Jesuit work, Sabastino de Ursis, Biao du shuo (On Gnomon)(1614), in Tianxue chuhan,V, pp. 2543-2544.
Fig. 11. Maarten de Vos, Salvator Mundi, from a series of “Christ Blessing,” early seventeenth century, engraving, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Belgium, SI38279, © Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium
Earth’s sphericity (Sphaeram Ioannis de Sacrobosco
Commen-tarius).38 Ricci’s world map and other Jesuit geographical and carto-graphical works alike resorted to this tradition, and the sphericity of the Earth was the theoretical premise by which to calculate the solar and lunar eclipses, locate the celestial positions of the star, and realize the relationships between the earth and other celestial entities.These astronomical observations were important for mapping the earth; thus the calculation of the relative distances among various places and celestial objects was a three-dimensional geometrical issue rather than merely a two-dimensional problem as it had been conceived in local Chinese traditions.39As Aleni’s Wanguo tu xiaoyin (Little
Preface of the Wanguo tu) explains lucidly, “
(The Earth and Heaven are both the same, a sphere, and their degrees correspond with each other. So mapping the Earth has to resort to the Heavens).”40 Regarding the matter of the Earth’s sphericity, Jesuit cartography was a cultural product imported as a modern concept for Chinese people. Therefore, Jesuit world maps
38D’Elia, Il Mappamondo, pp. 170-171.
39Foss, “A Western Interpretation of China,” p. 210; Chu, “Kua wenhua zhishi,” pp.
596-614.
40Aleni’s Wanguo tu xiaoyin.
Fig. 12. Beiyu ditu (Northern Polar Hemisphere Map) & Nanyu ditu (Southern Polar Hemisphere Map), from Giulio Aleni, Wanguo
quantu (Universal Map of Countries), c. 1620, woodcut on paper, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City, Barberini Oriente 151 (1b), © Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,Vatican City
were not only “a visual image of geographical configuration.” Various astronomical diagrams—such as those of the nine layers of the Heavens at the upper right corner of Ricci’s Kunyu wanguo quantu (Fig. 14), of the astrolabe at the lower right corner of Ricci’s (Fig. 15), as well as of the solar and lunar eclipses on Ricci’s and Sambiasi’s world maps, and Aleni’s Beiyu ditu and Nanyu ditu—all served as illustrations of the physical studies of the Heavens, which played a cru-cial role in mapping the earth. In the meanwhile, they paved the way toward the comprehension of the Creator’s significance.
The third difference between the two cartographical traditions revealed in the Chinese perception of European cartography concerns “time.” Jesuit world maps indicate a new concept, not only of the Earth and of global “space,” but also of “time.” Different places on the indi-vidual lines of longitude and latitude lines observe different times—a notion also foreign to the indigenous Chinese.Thus reading the maps in the European mode entailed a new conception of time. In his pref-ace to the Kunyu wanguo quantu, Ricci observes:
Fig. 13. Diagram, woodcut, from Manuel Diaz, Jr., Tian wen lüe (On
Astronomy), 1615, National Central Library, Taiwan, 305.2 06257, © National Central Library, Taipei, Taiwan
Use the longitude line to determine the distance between two places, which is called “time.” It is a day as the sun turns one circle. So each unit of time runs thirty degrees. If the distance between two places is thirty degrees, their time has the difference of one unit.41
Fig. 14. Jiu chong tien tu (Diagram of the Nine Layers of the
Heavens), from Matteo Ricci, Kunyu wanguo quantu (Universal
Map of the World and Countries), 1602, woodcut on paper, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City, Barberini Oriente 150 (1), © Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,Vatican City
41This preface is the text under the title of the map at the right side of the work. For
the texts on Ricci’s maps, refer also to Wang Mianhou ,“Lun li madou kunyu wang-guo quantu han liangyi xuanlan tu shang de xuba tishi”
(On the Prefaces and Texts on the Kunyu wanguo quantu and Liangyi xuanlan tuof Matteo Ricci), in Zhongguo gudai ditu ji—ming dai
(A Compilation of Chinese Ancient Maps—Ming Dynasty), ed. Cao Wanru et al. (Beijing, 1994), pp. 107-111.
One such practical example is found in Aleni’s Kou duo ri cha (Daily Account of the Vocal Assertion). By means of a map of Rome shown to Fujian’s followers in 1630, Aleni explained the difference in time between China and Rome based on the various degrees related to the position of the sun striking the earth, thereby illustrating the spher-ical configuration of the earth. He further confirmed a false presump-tion held by Chinese astrologers, as is clear from the quote below:
I [the Fujianese adherent Li Jiubiao ] said, “The [Chinese] astrologer who chooses dates and tells fortunes thinks that the world observes the same time. However, in this case (as explained by the Roman map regarding the dif-ferent time zones) there are differences in time even within the [Chinese] Fig. 15. Tien di yi (Diagram of the Astrolabe), from Matteo Ricci, Kunyu
wanguo quantu (Universal Map of the World and Countries),
1602, woodcut on paper, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City, Barberini Oriente 150 (1), © Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,Vatican City
empire. If so, by what means can Chinese astrologers determine auspicious and ill omens? Aleni answered, “This is why they [Chinese astrologers] are untruthful, yet also why commoners are still confused by them.42
This is a concrete example of the use of scientific visual material, a European map, to refute Chinese astrology, which was considered a discipline of science as well as of religion in Chinese traditions.Aleni’s attack shows the ridiculousness of this traditional discourse as it per-tained in the areas both of science and religion. This idea of a link between time and astrology could also have legitimized the Jesuits’ introduction of European clocks.43
The Human Body as a Universe:
Understanding Heaven by Visualization and Sensibility
In the above discussion of the differences between Chinese and European cartography, as the Chinese perceived the European world maps that Jesuit missionaries brought to China, we can see how the religious message was embedded in the Jesuit explanations of the maps. In what follows, I propose to look at the matter further from the Jesuit side, arguing that for the Jesuits, the religious implications in their cartography could be concerned with a broader European con-text, by which their intentions for employing such visual objects may be elucidated. I suggest that the visualization, as well as sensibility, can be two primary conceptions of the religious meaning of the mission-ary versions of world maps.
In 1589, Richard Hakluyt made the following sharp-witted remark: “From the Mappe he brought me to the Bible.”44This truth was also valid for Chinese Jesuit cartography as it was first presented to the Chinese.
42Giulio Aleni, Kou duo ri cha (Daily Account of the Vocal Assertion), in
Nicolas Standaert and Adrian Dudink, eds., : Chinese Christian Texts from the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus, 12 vols. (Taipei, 2002), VII, pp. 42-43.
43Regarding the tools the Jesuits brought to China for time and spatial measurement,
see Catherine Jami, “Western Devices for Measuring Time and Space: Clocks and Euclidian Geometry in Late Ming and Ch’ing China,” in Time and Space in Chinese Culture, ed. Chun-Chieh Huang and Erik Zürcher (Leiden, 1995), pp. 169-200.
44Cited by Frank Lestringant, Mapping the Renaissance World: The Geographical
Imagination in the Age of Discovery, trans. David Fausett (Berkeley, 1994) , p. 6. The “he” in the quotation is his cousin who, in Lestringant’s terms,“guided his reading from the planisphere to the Psalms.” The original source of the remark is Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, Made by Sea or Over Land. . . . (London, 1589), fol. 2r.
of the human body in relationship to the greatness of Heaven. Ricci’s text of 1602 on the Kunyu wanguo quantu expresses the magnitude of Heaven in a similar tone:
I have heard that the universe is a great book, and only the intelligent scholar can read it and then achieve the ultimate doctrine. By compre-hending the Heaven and Earth, one would be able to testify to the ultimate kindness, greatness, and oneness of the supreme power of the lord who rules over the Heaven and Earth. Those who do not study or pursue this way neglect Heaven. Not to ascribe this study to the sovereign of Heaven is not to study in the serious sense. Abandoning absolutely any malicious ideas in order to achieve the ultimate kindness is meritorios. To put aside the little [study or faith] and turn to pursue the great one, minimizing the multitude [regarding beliefs] in order to pledge allegiance to the utmost one, is not far from the study, is it?
Both Ricci’s and Aleni’s statements ascribe the metaphysical realm of human intelligence and the body to the Creator, emphasizing the greatness and uniqueness of God. Ricci in particular denounced the multitude of beliefs and of deities in Chinese traditions, in contrast to God’s existence as the only supreme power of the universe. Aleni points out the relationship between the human body and the universe in physical as well as in spiritual terms: that our human soul and talent are granted by God’s omnipotence. People can understand the uni-verse and should do so within the framework of this relationship, so
as to pay esteem to the Creator. The last sentence in Aleni’s statement is clever, implying that the map in front of our eyes serves as visual proof, given that the human eye “can see” it, through the faculty bestowed by the Creator.Therefore, it shows that the visual evidence provided by a map was a visualization of an understanding of God, and that it was used to point to this ultimate truth by means of the image itself and the ability of the viewer which depends on the ulti-mate one, both of which are inevitably interlinked.The importance of establishing the proof of God or the truth in the universe lies in the fact that the missionary had to preach the truth of Christianity to non-Christians, because the Chinese were not able to recognize Jesus Christ in their history and culture and questioned the veracity of him and his religion.
Therefore, it is not strange that Aleni’s Zhifang waiji was catego-rized under the section of li (literally, li means theory or principle; in the religious context of Christianity, it denotes “Christian doctrine”) instead of qi (those works on the physical studies of Heaven), in the Tianxue chuhan , the first book compilation of the Heavenly studies in China. It was compiled and published by Li Zhizao around 1629, who was responsible for Ricci’s Kunyu wanguo
quantu. Like cartography for the Jesuits, the Zhifang waiji is not simply an introduction to geographical knowledge.
However, Jesuit cartography and geography need physical studies to achieve their ends. Jesuit methods of teaching the Chinese to com-prehend the Heaven and Earth proceeded from the physical to the spiritual realms, and the former, the physical studies, were an essen-tial part of the process toward the understanding of the metaphysi-cal field of the universe. The most important basis for physimetaphysi-cal stud-ies was mathematics. Hence the section of qi of the Tianxue chuhan includes works and treatises on numerical theories and geometry. The mathematical disciplines and studies, as seen in the case of Venetian mapping in the sixteenth century, were understood as “being in the first degree of certainty.” Based on the Pythagorean-Platonic view of the mathematical and geometrical structures of the universe, the Jesuits believed that,“mathematical reason allows us to understand the harmonia mundi in the created universe and fur-ther, to grasp metaphysical concepts like the Trinity: ‘through the wonderful correspondence between God and the world, created on the model of divine harmony, a number becomes the means and cri-terion to elevate oneself from the sensible world to the invisible and
In addition, it is particularly interesting to note that Aristotelian sen-sibility was employed in cooperation with the understanding of math-ematics and mathematical practices for gaining knowledge of Heaven in the Jesuit China mission. Williem Hackmann articulated the rela-tionship between Sense and Reason in seventeenth-century European scholarship as follows: “Reason made it possible to comprehend the new phenomena produced by science, while observations on their own could never lead to understanding.” He pointed out further that the title page of the Jesuit work Ars magna lucis et umbrae (1646), a treatise on optics composed by Kircher, uses the telescope as an emblem for Sense as the only source of knowledge. Hackmann com-mented:“The Jesuits were keen to introduce science into the Vatican and they were among the most ardent diffusers of the new knowledge based on these novel instruments, but as their frontispieces indicate, they were very much concerned with the relationship between Reason and Sense.”47These remarks are appropriately applied to Jesuit sciences in their Chinese missionary work, because as in the case of cartography, the Jesuits introduced the Chinese to the comprehension of western knowledge and of Heaven by means of the cooperation of mathematics (Reason) and sensibility (Sense).
In the Jesuit framework, the visualization is carried out by the abil-ity of the human sense, the theory based upon the concept of
per-46Both quotations concerning Venetian mapping case studies are from Denis
Cosgrove,“Mapping New Worlds: Culture and Cartography in Sixteenth-Century Venice,” Imago Mundi49 (1992), 75. Here the author is talking about and citing Fra Luca Pacioli’s reference to the central positions of number, geometry, and proportion in measuring all things of the universe.
47Willem D. Hackmann, “Natural Philosophical Textbook Illustrations 1600-1800,” in
Non-Verbal Communication in Science Prior to 1900, ed. Renato G. Mazzolini (Florence, 1993), pp. 173-174.
ception or sensibility of Aristotle. This theory can be grasped by the Aleni’s statement: the human body as a universe. First, as Aleni’s pref-ace indicates, the human body, likened to a universe, is based upon that human faculty bestowed by the master of the universe, i.e., God. Also because of this understanding of the body as a microcosm of the universe, we can “comprehend the whole Heaven and Earth.” For the Jesuits, the whole meaning of the human body includes both its cor-porality and the soul. A man is different from other beings due to God’s bestowal of anima, the rational soul. As the Jesuit founder Ignatius de Loyola explains, anima, a denomination of “the rational soul,” suggests the co-operation of “body and soul,” and is “a compound of body and soul” and “the whole self,” even though the word “soul” alone is generally used as a translation of anima.48 In this sense,
animameans the essence of a human being.This concept of an able and rational soul is completely unfamiliar to the traditional Chinese concepts of hun and po .49These two Chinese terms, commonly used as equivalents for the word “soul” in modern English usage, do not indicate either a positive and realistic being, nor was the faculty of reason and intelligence associated with these terms.While hun and
po have a metaphysical sense, they are meaningless when detached from the physical body; the body and soul in Chinese thought are not opposed in any dualistic way.50In addition, the Aristotelian distinction of three souls for temporal beings, and the significance of the rational soul of man, as the third and highest among the three, are explicitly explained in various works of Jesuit literature for the Chinese. In Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi (The True Meaning of the Lord of
Heaven, 1603), among the earliest of these works, this anima of human beings was translated as ling hun , and Ricci said that ling
hunis shen (literally “spirit”).51In the Tianzhu shengjiao qimeng (Catechism for Catholicism, early seventeenth century) and Song nian zhu gui cheng (Method for Reciting the
Rosary, first edition circa 1619), bound together in a single volume,
48George E. Ganss, The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius—A Translation and
Commentary(St. Louis, 1992), p. 150.
49Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures
(Cambridge, 1985), pp. 146-150; Erik Zürcher,“Confucian and Christian Religiosity in Late Ming China,” The Catholic Historical Review 83 (October, 1997), 625-630.
50For this concept in the elaboration of Daoism, see Joseph Needham, Science and
Civilization in China, vol. 2, History of Scientific Thought (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 153-154.
51Matteo Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven),
minology such as shen or ling xing, in order to indicate the primary feature of the rational soul.To borrow a term from Erik Zürcher, as in the late Ming period when Neo-Confucianism was popular, the idea of “soul” was marginal but human nature (xing ) and mind (xin ) were considered in a positive light.54The Jesuit appropriation of shen or ling xing were much more associated with the xing and xin of Neo-Confucianism. The Jesuits could have thought that the Chinese terms shen and ling were appropriate to point out the conception of the body and soul in their highlighting of the rational soul.
The same concept of “the human body as a universe” was also seen in Chinese metaphysics. However, it represented a different cosmol-ogy. In the writings of the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi (365-290 B.C.), we see that man is similar to the universe in nature and structure. Their relationship, which was furthered in the Han period
52João da Rocha, Tianzhu shengjiao qimeng (Catechism for
Catholicism) and Song nian zhu gui cheng (Method for Reciting the Rosary) (ARSI, JapSin I, 43), fol. 1r. A modern facsimile of this work has been published, see Standaert and Dudink, Chinese Christian Texts, I, pp. 503-515, 515-574; the above folio 1r is on page 515; Francesco Sambiasi, Ling yan li shao (Treatise on Anima), in Tianxue chuhan, II, pp. 1127-1268.
53Diego de Pantoja, Pangzi yi quan (The Posthumous Work of Pantoja), in
Standaert and Dudink, Chinese Christian Texts, II, p. 109;Alfonso Vagnoni, Jiaoyao jie lüe (Brief Explanations of the Catholic Essentials), in Standaert and Dudink, Chinese Christian Texts, I, pp. 301-306; Giulio Aleni, Xingxue cushu (On Human Nature, Aleni’s preface dated in 1623), in Standaert and Dudink, Chinese Christian Texts,VI, pp. 104-108; Giulio Aleni, Sanshan lunxue ji (Account of Discussing Catholic Doctrine at Sanshan (Fuzhou)), in Tianzhujiao dongchuan wenxian xubian (Literature of Catholicism in the East, Second Series), 3 vols. (Taipei, 1966), I, pp. 469-477; Giulio Aleni, Dizui zhenggui
(Formal Rule and Statement of the Penitential Sacrament), in Standaert and Dudink, Chinese Christian Texts, IV, p. 360.
(206 B.C.-220 A.D.), is revealed in the correlative thought that was entrenched in Chinese astrological and cosmological discourses, whose influence determined the emperor’s deeds no less than folk religions and morality.55In Zhuangzi’s elaboration, each being in the universe has equal status, because they are all created or resulted from
qi (air). In other words, the Aristotelian distinction of three souls for temporal beings, with the rational soul as the third and highest, is in opposition to this cosmology. The meaning of human existence in Chinese cosmology is not to be established through the omnipotence of the real master of the universe—at least not from a Jesuit perspec-tive—but in the indiscriminate universe.56Basically, this conception of the universe formed the foundation of Chinese thought throughout subsequent centuries, as revealed in the Neo-Confucian analysis of the linked relationship between human beings and nature, and of that between nature and the universe.“The human body as a universe” was not brought about through the ultimate and only Creator, but it was understood through the concept of Tianren heyi “ ” (“Heavens and humans directed towards the same one, or being homogeneous”), or as the same derivation of heavens and humans from qi in the qi-immersed and non-discriminated world.57
Second, due to this shen or ling xing, in the Jesuit religious context, the human body has five senses.The sense of the eye occupies the first rank in the theory of the five senses, and the human faculty or intellect depends above all on the proper functioning of vision. Ignatius’
55As for the correlative thought in China, refer to Du Zhengsheng , “Xingti,
jingqi yu hunpo—zhongguo chuantong dui ren renshi de xingcheng”
(Body, Spirit and Soul—The Formation of the Knowledge of Humans in Chinese Traditions), Xin shixue (New History) 2 (3): 56-61 (September 1991); John B. Henderson, The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology(New York, 1984).
56About Zhuangzi’s writings and philosophy, see Young-bae Song ,“Dongfang
de xiangguan xing siwei moshi han dui youjiti shengming de lijie—yi Zhuangzi han zhongyi de youjiti shengming yuanli wei zhongxin”
(The Eastern Thinking Method of Relativity and the Comprehension of the Organic Being—the Principles of the Organic Being in Zhuangzi and Chinese Medicine), (paper presented at the International Meeting of the Formation of the Cosmic Order in Early Modern East Asia, Center for the Study of East Asian Civilizations, National Taiwan University,Taipei,Taiwan,August 20-21, 2004).
57For this concept of the universe in Neo-Confucianism, see Wu Zhan-liang ,
“Yangming de qihua shijieguan yu qi hexin sixiang xilun”
(The Qi Worldview of [Wang] Yangming),(paper presented at the International Conference on the Development of the Worldviews in Early Modern East Asia, Center for the Study of East Asian Civilizations, National Taiwan University,Taipei,Taiwan,August 5-6, 2005).
The human body has five senses. First are the eyes for the vision or sight; second, the ears for hearing; third, the mouth for tasting; fourth, the nose for smelling; fifth, four limbs for feeling.59
At least until the middle of the seventeenth century, Aristotle’s under-standing of the human soul’s sensibility, that is, the soul’s capacity to perceive things by the senses leading to a comprehension of the uni-verse, was central to Catholic epistemology and natural philosophy.60 The prominent historian of Chinese sciences, Joseph Needham, noted that,“the world-picture which the Jesuits brought was that of the closed Ptolemaic-Aristotelian geocentric universe of solid concentric crys-talline sphere.”61 In introducing this Ptolemaic-Aristotelian world pic-ture to the China mission, the Jesuits were more concerned with its reli-gious implication as it suited their missionary uses. Moreover, the Jesuits could use it in both symbolic and realistic senses. Their cartography based on the Ptolemaic world retained as much symbolic as scientific meaning for seventeenth-century Europe, considering the realistic
pic-58Ganss, The Spiritual Exercises, pp. 96-98, 186.
59The quotation comes from the Jiaoyao jie lüe. The Jiaoyao jie lüe and the
Shengjing yue luwere reprinted in full in the first volume of Standaert’s and Dudink’s Chinese Christian Texts. The texts discussing the five senses of the body are separately seen in the following pages, 110, 301-303 (the quotation on p. 301). Albert Chan attrib-uted the Shengjing yue lu to Ricci, composed after 1605, see Albert Chan, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome—A Descriptive Catalogue (Armonk, New York, 2002), p. 106.
60For the Aristotelian theory of the human sense in theology, a recent discussion on
this issue pertained to the Jesuit Ignatius de Loyola, is Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Sensuous Worship: Jesuits and the Art of the Early Catholic Reformation in Germany(Princeton, 2002), pp. 35-40.
61Joseph Needham, Chinese Astronomy and the Jesuit Mission: An Encounter of
Cultures(London, 1958), p. 1. The contents of this booklet are also part of Needham’s Science and Civilization in China, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1959).
ture of the world already brought back by several explorers from actual navigations and from geographical expansions. However, for the Chinese as well as for the missionaries, the symbolic image of the Ptolemaic world did, to a certain extent, present a more realistic picture than the local mapping conventions in China, as explained above.
The sense of sight is usually described as a bodily function in those earliest Chinese catechistic treatises, but the ability of the eyes, shown in the sense of sight and vision, is not conceived by the Jesuits only within the realm of the physical body. Vagnoni explained the interde-pendence of the human body and shen as follows:
Shenis a non-material thing. It cannot be independently realized without the image of the material, but has to rely on various images of external things [from the five senses] to receive and transmit them inward. For the external five senses, the transmitted images can be neither enlightened without the internal faculty [i.e., shen], nor be animated clearly and aptly to react to the principle of all of things.62
Therefore, the five senses have to be completed through the capacity of
shen, and shen has to be conceived by means of the five senses, as it receives the images of various external objects for a more complete per-ception.This Chinese description conforms to the whole meaning of the human body, that is, Ignatius’ co-operation of the body and the soul.
Ling xingor shen has one component regarding vision: mnemonics, which links ling xing or shen to the capacity of sensory perception, per-tained to the issue of visualization and imagination in its European con-text.The faculty of shen, following Vagnoni’s text, has three categories: ji
han (memory), ming wu (enlightenment and
comprehen-sion), and ai yu (will).63These three faculties of shen, repeated in various Jesuit works in Chinese, derive from the three mental powers of Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises—memory, intellect, and will:
62Vagnoni, Jiaoyao jie lüe, p. 304.
63Ibid., pp. 301-302. Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi (1603), Shengjing yue lu (ca. after 1605)
and Pantoja’s Renlei yuanshi (Origin of Human Beings, ca. 1610) are those earliest records of the three faculties of shen in Jesuit Chinese literature, see individually, Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, pp. 574-577; Shengjing yue lu, pp. 110-111; and for Pantoja’s, the edition in BAV, Borgia Cinese 350 (1), fol. 5v.
Jesuit Chinese works.65
“Memory” occupies the first rank among the three faculties of shen, because its quality would affect the operations of the other two capac-ities, intellect and will. Aleni’s explanation in 1634 states clearly and concisely the co-relationships between these three functions:
The first is to clean up memory. Memory is not clear; that is, miscellaneous thoughts come into brain. In this case, it will cause confusion and disturbance in meditation. So it [the memory] must resort to sacred books, adopting those good and exquisite ones and taking them into the memory, so they can be used at all times in order to inspire intelligence. Second, the fulfillment of intellect. The intellect has been enlightened, then can draw inferences in order to understand thoroughly any hidden meanings. Having pondered the action and significance [of the things or issues in question], we take it to be a standard. At this point the affection can be motivated. Third, the initiation of the affection. Once the comprehension of the principles is achieved, then the affection can be aroused. It can generate either the will of repentance or the thought of improvement. Be determined and supplicate God’s grant of spiritual power, in order for firm action. This is a summary of meditation.66
Memory is important for its just confirmation of the contents, from which derives the smooth advance of intellect and will. In the
64Ganss, The Spiritual Exercises, p. 41.
65Sambiasi, Ling yan li shao, pp. 1154-1211;Aleni, Xingxue cushu, pp. 283-302. 66Aleni, Kou duo ri chao, pp. 397-398.
European tradition of mnemotechnics dating from the classical period onward, imagination and visualization were the two primary methods for causing and arranging a trained memory. Thinking about the Aristotelian theory of knowledge, that he expounded in his De anima, formed an extremely prominent position in Jesuit thinking on the issues; as Frances Yates states,“The perceptions brought in by the five senses are first treated or worked upon by the faculty of imagina-tion.”67 Imagination relies on the brain to generate various mental images; this point is confirmed by the above quotation of Aleni’s expla-nation. However, the Jesuits distinguished the memory of the brain and that of the heart, emphasizing the heart as the ultimate source of a rational soul because the management of memory, such as building a visionary palace, lies therein.68The practical example of this building method in the management of memory in China is Ricci’s Xiguo jifa (Western Mnemonics; 1596), a prominent booklet of western mnemonics. Ricci introduces the western theory of mnemonics, and discusses the method of constructing an imaginative house with Chinese ideographs.69By speaking of Chinese ideographs as signs, he simultaneously made use of the imaginative and memory-oriented characteristics of the Chinese language in order to articulate the visual function of western mnemonics for the comprehension of the Chinese people. He thus discussed the idea of xiang (image) with many fig-urative samples of Chinese characters.70 In other words, Ricci appro-priates the hieroglyphic character of the Chinese language to express his concept of xiang and xiang’s significant uses, and he tries to estab-lish a common perceptive method between the image-oriented char-acteristics of the Chinese language and the visualization of western mnemonics. This link between imagery and linguistics formulated by
67Frances A.Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago, 1966), p. 32.
68Aleni, Xingxue cushu, pp. 283-302. In Aleni’s term, memory housed in the brain is
called she ji . The term ji han is used for memory of the heart. This theory con-forms to the relevant historical discourse in fifteenth-century Europe that is stated by Paul Saenger as follows:“In the fifteenth century, cognitive function was thought to be divided between the brain, which according to Galen was the locus of sense and memory, and the heart, which according to the Bible,Aristotle, and numerous Latin patristic authorities was the intangible seat of the rational soul,” see Paul Saenger,“Books of Hours and the Reading Habits of the Later Middle Ages,” in The Culture of Print—Power and the Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe, ed. Roger Chartier, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton, 1987), p. 145.
69This booklet forms the skeleton of Jonathan Spence’s well-known book, The
Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (New York, 1985).
70Matteo Ricci, Xiguo Jifa (Western Mnemonics), in Tianzhujiao
dong-chuan wenxian (Literature of Catholicism in the East), 3rd ed. (Taipei, 1997), pp. 1-70.
