Stele Forest

Listen for a soft, steady tapping. Somewhere in these halls, a craftsman is pressing damp paper onto carved stone and patting it with a ball of ink. Tap, tap, tap. The air smells faintly of ink and old dust. Around you stand stone slabs, row after row, many taller than a person. The light comes in sideways through wooden doors. It falls across thousands of carved characters. Welcome to the Stele Forest of Xi'an, known in Chinese as Beilin.

First, what is a stele? It is an upright stone slab carved with text, and sometimes with images. In imperial China, steles recorded laws, prayers, memorials, poems and the classics of learning. They were made to last far longer than paper or silk. Here, so many have been gathered in one place that people began to call it a forest. Walk slowly between the rows, and you will see why. The slabs rise around you like dark grey trunks.

The story of this place begins with a problem of safekeeping. In the ninth century, during the Tang dynasty, Xi'an was the imperial capital, then called Chang'an. Scholars wanted one correct version of the Confucian classics, the core texts every official had to study. So the court had these texts carved into stone in the 830s. The set is known as the Kaicheng Stone Classics, named after the reign period. It covers more than a hundred stones, carved on both sides.

Think about why someone would carve a whole library into rock. Copying by hand introduced mistakes. Every student made small errors, and errors spread. A stone text could not be quietly changed. Scholars could come and check their copies against it. In a way, these slabs were the master file of an empire. When the Tang capital declined, the stones were moved more than once. In 1087, under the Song dynasty, they were brought together near this site. Most historians treat that moment as the true start of the collection.

Over the following centuries, more steles arrived. Some were carved here. Others were brought in from temples, tombs and ruined buildings around the region. The museum grounds sit within the old Confucian Temple complex, near the south wall of the city. As you walk, notice the courtyards, the old trees and the curved tiled roofs. This layout belongs to a temple of learning, not a palace. It is quiet by design. It was a place for reading, copying and respect for the written word.

Now for something many visitors walk straight past. Near the entrance, look for a large stele inside its own pavilion. It carries the Classic of Filial Piety, a short text about duty to parents. This stele is linked to Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang, who wrote a commentary on the text. Look at its base and its carved top. It is one of the oldest and grandest pieces here, and it sets the tone for everything behind it.

For many Chinese visitors, the real treasure here is calligraphy. Calligraphy means the art of writing with a brush, and in China it ranks among the highest arts. Great masters wrote on paper or silk, and carvers then copied their brushwork into stone. Here you can find work associated with Tang masters such as Yan Zhenqing, Ouyang Xun and Liu Gongquan. Students of calligraphy still learn from rubbings of these very stones. Look closely at one character. The carver had to follow every swelling and thinning of the brush.

This is where the tapping sound comes in. For centuries, people have made ink rubbings from steles. Damp paper is laid on the stone and pressed into the carved lines. Then the surface is dabbed with ink. The flat stone turns black on the paper, while the carved strokes stay white. It was the earliest kind of printing in practice. Today, the most precious originals are protected, and the rubbings sold here are often taken from copies. But the method is the same old craft.

Here is a second surprise. One stele in this collection records the arrival of Christianity in China during the Tang dynasty. It is often called the Nestorian Stele, and it dates to the late eighth century. Its text describes a branch of the Church of the East that reached Chang'an along the Silk Road. Look near the bottom and at the sides. You will see lines in Syriac script, a language of Middle Eastern Christians, next to the Chinese. The stone was rediscovered in the early seventeenth century.

That stele tells you something about Tang Chang'an. This city stood at the eastern end of the Silk Road. Merchants, monks and envoys came from Central Asia, Persia and beyond. Buddhists, Christians, Manichaeans and others lived and worshipped here. The Stele Forest holds that mixed world in stone. As you walk the halls, notice how many hands, languages and beliefs are recorded. This was not only a Chinese archive. It was also a record of contact between peoples.

Do not leave without visiting the stone sculpture gallery. Here you will find carved animals, Buddhist figures and tomb guardians. The most famous pieces are reliefs of horses from the tomb of Emperor Taizong of the Tang. The set is known as the Six Steeds of Zhaoling, showing the emperor's favourite war horses. Four of them are here. The other two left China in the early twentieth century and are now in a museum in Philadelphia. Look for the arrow carved into one horse's chest.

As you move between the halls, pay attention to the stones themselves. Many sit on the backs of large carved tortoises. In Chinese tradition, this creature is a strong, long-lived beast that can carry great weight. Its job is to hold the record up forever. Look also at the carved dragons that curl around the tops of many steles. Some surfaces are smooth and dark, polished by centuries of touching and rubbing. Others are worn pale, with characters almost lost.

When you step back outside, walk along the street toward the city wall. Shops here sell brushes, ink sticks, paper and rubbings. You will see people testing brushes and comparing inks. This trade grew around the museum, because scholars and students have always come here to copy and study. The connection between the stones and daily life has never fully broken. Calligraphy is still practised, discussed and bought on this very street.

Before you go, stand for a moment between two rows of steles. Look at the shapes of the characters around you. Some were written more than a thousand years ago. Many can still be read by people in this city today. Listen again for the tapping of ink on paper. Feel the cool air of the hall. Then walk out slowly into the courtyard, and notice how the trees and the stones stand together, both quiet, both very old.