"The Forbidden Classic of the Jade Hall: A Study of an Eleventh-century Compendium on Calligraphic Technique"

Specific texts regarding the scripts of the Chinese writing system and the art of calligraphy appear in China at the end of the first century CE. Since the Postface to the Discussion of Single Characters and Explanation of Compound Characters (Shuowen jiezi xu 說文解字序) by Xu Shen 許慎 (ca.55-ca.149), and the Shi on the Cursive Script (Caoshu shi 草書勢) by Cui Yuan 崔瑗 (77-142), China has seen throughout her history the massive production of texts related with the history of the writing scripts, and the evaluation of calligraphers and their works. In spite of such an early production of texts, the first treatise which describes the configurations of the strokes and the visual structure of characters in a relatively systematic way does not appear until the eleventh century, that is, the Forbidden Classic of the Jade Hall (Yutang jin jing 玉堂禁經). The text contains the explanation of eight basic brushstrokes of the standard script (kaishu 楷書), better known as the “eight methods of the character yong” (yong zi ba fa 永字八法), followed by the discussion of various brushwork issues, and of a series of technical devices for the arrangement of components. In addition, the Forbidden Classic of the Jade Hall also presents several theoretical passages which notably enrich the overall message of the text and help us better comprehend the creative process of calligraphy in traditional China. The earliest source which records the full text of the Forbidden Classic of the Jade Hall, is the Collection of the Ink Pond (Mochi bian 墨池編), a Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) compendium of texts on calligraphy compiled by Zhu Changwen 朱長文 (1039-1098) and completed in 1066 (preface dated April 12, 1066). The Forbidden Classic of the Jade Hall is included in the second part of section on brush technique (bifa 筆法), one of the eight sections which compose the Collection of the Ink Pond, and is ascribed to the Tang dynasty (618-907) calligraphy scholar Zhang Huaiguan 張懷瓘 (fl. first half of the eighth century), the author of the famous Judgements on Calligraphy (Shu duan 書斷, completed in 727), and various other texts on calligraphy. However, as we shall discuss below, not only was Zhu Changwen quite skeptical on Zhang Huaiguan’s authorship of the Forbidden Classic of the Jade Hall, but also the few scattered records in regards of the origin of its content make the interpretation of its authorship even more intricate. This paper aims to examine the origin, the authorship, and the meaning of the Forbidden Classic of the Jade Hall in the light of philological and calligraphic accuracies, and gives in the appendix the first English translation of the theoretical parts of the text.