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Orientations | Volume 55 Number 2 | MARCH/APRIL 2024 Village Abstraction: Patchwork Textiles in Rural China Nancy Berliner Walking into a dusty, cluttered compound of three abutting households, a visitor cannot help but be drawn to a pink, red, blue, and grey patterned textile hanging over one doorway (fig. 1). Several windows also display uniquely designed patchwork covers. For what could easily be deemed a drab façade of arched entranceways, the householders have created dynamic and distinctive textiles in an array of abstract, geometric compositions. But if a visitor makes any inquiries about patchwork textiles, in most villages the women shake their heads ‘no’. They answer: ‘We threw them out’; ‘I burned them all’. Thus arises the urgency to research, understand, and capture the explosion of creativity that for many years resulted in a rich artistic panoply of textiles made by women in rural China. The historical trail of these Chinese patchworked textiles winds back almost two thousand years, with the entrance of Buddhism to China, and back at least another five hundred years in India. The tradition carried with it not only the concept of stitching together fabric scraps but also layers of meanings attached to such assembling. A direct though somewhat curvaceous line can be traced back from the doors and windows of northern Chinese villages to the teachings of the Shakyamuni Buddha in northeastern India. Before exploring the grand variety of patchwork creations by 20th and 21st century artists in the villages of Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hebei provinces, it is valuable and illuminating to follow the path that led to this current and quickly disappearing art form. The teachings of the Gautama Buddha, born in Lumbini, in what is today Nepal, in the 6th or 5th century BCEBCE, articulated a path to enlightenment available to all beings. He preached that, while his disciples were cultivating themselves, they should don a set of robes, which came to be called kashaya. The outermost of those robes, he detailed, should be constructed of rags, including those 1 House façade, Lüliang county, Shanxi province, March 2019 Photo courtesy of Lois Conner 118
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2 Typical kashaya pattern as proscribed in Buddhist texts Based on design in Yuan Zhao, Fozhi Biqiu Liuwu Tu (1080) ‘chewed by cows, chewed by rodents, burnt, used for menstruation, used in childbirth, carried away from a shrine by birds, animals or the wind, taken from the graveyard, used to wrap corpses’, as was recorded in the Vinaya texts. In conversation with Ananda, his devoted attendant and disciple, the Buddha further instructed that these rags should be stitched together in a configuration of rectangles arranged to resemble the pattern of rice paddies. The decreed pattern consisted of cloth strips (from 5 to 25, depending on the importance of the individual and the ritual), each strip constructed of a line of rectangular cloth pieces, surrounded by a frame, with a square in each corner. The rectangles in each adjacent strip are offset, creating a pattern like a ‘running bond’ in brick walls (fig. 2). The sullied rags represented the monks’ rejection of luxury, and, as the Shakyamuni Buddha explained, the rice paddies symbolized the ability for all individuals to cultivate themselves and grow. The root of the word kashaya in Sanskrit means brown, which would have been the colour of the rags that the Buddha had deemed appropriate for monks’ robes. Though some specified attributes of the kashaya, such as the colour, varied over time and across cultures, many Buddhist monks in China, Japan, and Korea still wear robes patched in the exact grid pattern laid out 2,500 years ago. Sculpted images of the Buddha and his disciples became more common in the 2nd century CECE in India, and with them came visual manifestations of the kashaya. Prior to the 1st century CECE, the Buddha was visually represented by nonfigural imagery such as his footprints, an empty throne, a dharma wheel, or a bodhi tree. By the latter half of the Kushan period (2nd century BCEBCE–3rd century CECE), artisans were creating sculptural depictions of the Buddha. In some extant stone sculptures, the patchwork robes can be recognized by engraved grid lines in the stone. The patchwork of these robes follows the precise grid patterns prescribed by the Buddha. One instance is on a sculpture from the Mathura region displaying the Buddha dressed in a patchworked kashaya. The detail is within a group of decorated railing pillars (now in the Indian Museum in Kolkata) that once surrounded the Bhutesvara stupa. On the front of the pillars are images of yakshis, while on the back are illustrations from the life of the Buddha. One scene depicts the story of the evil king Ajatasattu setting a wildly drunk elephant, Nalagiri, upon the Buddha, who ultimately subdues the raging animal (fig. 3). The Buddha wears a robe created from distinct vertical strips of cloth rectangles. As Buddhism spread from India through what is today Pakistan and Afghanistan and into China, the concept of the kashaya travelled with it. In China, 3 Subjugation of Nalagiri India, Uttar Pradesh, Mathura; 2nd century CECE Sandstone; dimensions unknown Indian Museum, Kolkata (After Wikimedia Commons, https://w.wiki/8yER, accessed 26 January 2024) 119

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2 Typical kashaya pattern as proscribed in Buddhist texts Based on design in Yuan Zhao, Fozhi Biqiu Liuwu Tu (1080)

‘chewed by cows, chewed by rodents, burnt, used for menstruation, used in childbirth, carried away from a shrine by birds, animals or the wind, taken from the graveyard, used to wrap corpses’, as was recorded in the Vinaya texts. In conversation with Ananda, his devoted attendant and disciple, the Buddha further instructed that these rags should be stitched together in a configuration of rectangles arranged to resemble the pattern of rice paddies. The decreed pattern consisted of cloth strips (from 5 to 25, depending on the importance of the individual and the ritual), each strip constructed of a line of rectangular cloth pieces, surrounded by a frame, with a square in each corner. The rectangles in each adjacent strip are offset, creating a pattern like a ‘running bond’ in brick walls (fig. 2). The sullied rags represented the monks’ rejection of luxury, and, as the Shakyamuni Buddha explained, the rice paddies symbolized the ability for all individuals to cultivate themselves and grow.

The root of the word kashaya in Sanskrit means brown, which would have been the colour of the rags that the Buddha had deemed appropriate for monks’ robes. Though some specified attributes of the kashaya, such as the colour, varied over time and across cultures, many Buddhist monks in China, Japan, and Korea still wear robes patched in the exact grid pattern laid out 2,500 years ago.

Sculpted images of the Buddha and his disciples became more common in the 2nd century CECE in India, and with them came visual manifestations of the kashaya. Prior to the 1st century CECE, the Buddha was visually represented by nonfigural imagery such as his footprints, an empty throne, a dharma wheel, or a bodhi tree. By the latter half of the Kushan period (2nd century BCEBCE–3rd century CECE), artisans were creating sculptural depictions of the Buddha. In some extant stone sculptures, the patchwork robes can be recognized by engraved grid lines in the stone. The patchwork of these robes follows the precise grid patterns prescribed by the Buddha. One instance is on a sculpture from the Mathura region displaying the Buddha dressed in a patchworked kashaya. The detail is within a group of decorated railing pillars (now in the Indian Museum in Kolkata) that once surrounded the Bhutesvara stupa. On the front of the pillars are images of yakshis, while on the back are illustrations from the life of the Buddha. One scene depicts the story of the evil king Ajatasattu setting a wildly drunk elephant, Nalagiri, upon the Buddha, who ultimately subdues the raging animal (fig. 3). The Buddha wears a robe created from distinct vertical strips of cloth rectangles.

As Buddhism spread from India through what is today Pakistan and Afghanistan and into China, the concept of the kashaya travelled with it. In China,

3 Subjugation of Nalagiri India, Uttar Pradesh, Mathura; 2nd century CECE Sandstone; dimensions unknown Indian Museum, Kolkata (After Wikimedia Commons, https://w.wiki/8yER, accessed 26 January 2024)

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