Sea of Ink Read Online Free PDF

with ideas such as lotus leaf, death head, raindrop and broken jade clasp . Or more fancy ones such as dragon’s head, silk thread, bundles of kindling, contorted cloud and untied rope.
    When a name had been agreed, it was written beneath the character. At night, in the darkness, the names were called out once more. Now the guests had to describe from memory the character associated with a particular name.
    Lü, or Poyun Qiaozhe, as Zhu Da now called himself, tried to recreate the painter’s brushstrokes with words as he fashioned the shape they had entitled folded medal ribbon . When the servant with the oil lamp then lit up the relevant character on the wall, everyone thought that Poyun had actually used his words as a brush, so precisely had the woodcutter of the evaporated clouds described the medal ribbon.

 
    22 Poyun Qiaozhe was visited by one of his former pupils. The latter told him that old Abbot Hongmin was terminally ill and had called for him. They set off for the mountains together and found the master on his deathbed, in a temple outside the monastery complex.
    ‘All I live on now is ginseng and other medicinal plants, but these do not help; it is too late. My body is a barren tree which waits for the crows of winter and will not see another summer. I am delighted that you have come. You are seeing me for the last time in this life.’
    The old man pointed to a box by the wall.
    ‘I am bequeathing you my paintbrushes. They must stay in motion. I know that you will use them wisely. You will not let them lie idle; you will capture on paper the mountains and lakes that you come across and you will not waste your time.’
    It was spring and the door to the veranda had been pushed open, offering a view of the landscape bathed in a soft light.
    ‘When you have my brushes in your hand, then remember my words,’ the master said. ‘The water that flows between the mountains and the sea will teach you all that you need to know to understand the world. It has the rare quality of being able to benefit all beings without dispute. Knowing the functions of the mountain without knowing the functions of the water is like the man who sinks into the sea without knowing its beaches or who stands on the beach without knowing the immense spaces which fill the sea.’
    The master paused. Finally he said, ‘Ink is water rendered visible, nothing more. The brush divides what is fluid from everything superfluous.’

 
    23 When the dynasties changed in 1644, the Shunzhi emperor, then a boy, was set on the Dragon Throne. He favoured Chinese officials and placed particular trust in the advice of the eunuchs. His defeat of the rebellion led by General Wu was an important step towards consolidating Manchu rule. When he died in 1661, still a young man, he was succeeded by his eight-year-old son, Kangxi.
    Kangxi was greatly interested in classical Chinese culture and supported everything which helped to preserve tradition. Wherever possible he sought to cooperate with the native upper class and benefit from their knowledge.
    After the master’s death, Poyun avoided all occasions that he suspected had been organized by the new administration . One day, however, he received a request from the highest office of imperial government to take part, alongside the noble men of letters of the old regime, in a specially arranged examination officially designated as an ‘Investigation into Great Scholarship’. The new rulers wished to write the history of their empire and for this they needed experts on previous eras.
    Poyun was unable to dodge this summons. And so he sat the examination with a large number of hand-picked scholars.
    Months later, when the results were assessed, he received an official invitation to place his knowledge as a historian of the Ming period at the disposal of the new rulers. The magistrate Hu Yitang invited him to spend a year in his residence, where, free of all worries, he would be able to devote himself to his