Stele On the Back of Stone Tortoise

Visitors to China's mausoleums, temples and parks will come across many a stone standing on a stone stele standing on a stone pedestal in the form of a tortoise .Some of these stelae are well shaped out of high-grade smooth stone and bear inscriptions engraved in elegant calligraphy；the more important ones are sheltered by pavilions from weathering..

A stele of this type consists of three parts: the crown , the body and the pedestal. The crown is usually carved with a patern of chi , a mythological animal supposed to be one of the nine sons of Dragon. It has often been taken as a dragon's head, which it resembles.

The carving of inscriptions on stelae has a history extending a long time back. When a stele bears an inscription written by an emperor, it invariably has a stone tortoise as the base .Such inscriptions, whether written personally by emperors or by their ministers on their behalf, normally extol the emperors' virtues and achievements so that they might be remembered by posterity. Some stele were erected for other purposes, too.

A huge one standing in front of the hill in the Summer palace bears an account of the building of the Hill of Longevity and KunmingLake written in the hand of the 18th-century Qing Emperor Qianlong. The whole block, magnificently shaped and exquisitely carved, has an overall height of 9.8 metres with distinctive Chinese features.

Although ancient stele were meant to bear inscriptions, yet a small number have nothing in writing on them at all .These are popularly called “wordless stelae”, and most of those in front of the Ming Tombs fall into this category, though they are also named“stelae of divine achievements and holy virtues”.

The explanation for this can be found in a historical work devoted to the study of imperial mausoleums .ZhuYuanzhang (1328-1398),founding emperor of the Ming, once said, “Stele inscriptions at imperial tombs have always been written by scholars to whitewash the royal dead; the practice should not be taken as the standard for posterity.So, the practice was suspended .during the Ming(1368-1644),yet it did not prevent beautiful stelae from being carved and erected.

For instance, the one at Dingling, the tomb that has been opened for visitors, is sculpted in low relief with six chi coiled one another. so expressive that they seem to be fighting playfully on water for a big pearl. The huge stone tortoise at e base is no less a masterpiece of sculpture. Raising its head, it looks into the distance with almost real attention.