Variations on a Theme
Ma's production may be considered an innovative offshoot of a genre of "complete maps of all under Heaven" (Tianxia quantu) that arose in the late seventeenth century and seems to have dominated Chinese visual representations of "the world" until at least the mid-nineteenth century. Although these maps all conformed to the basic Liang Zhou model, they also included cartographic symbols of the sort found in the Guang Yutu, and easily accomodated variations such as those in Ma's Jingban tianwen quantu. Different editions of these attractive, often delicately tinted maps were produced by a series of Qing scholars, including Ma, at least two predecessors--Yan Yong (fl. c. 1710) and Huang Qianren (fl. c. 1770)--and at least one successor, Zhu Xiling (fl. c. 1820). Of these individuals, only Yan is known to have employed a grid system, following the lead of the great Qing scholar, Huang Zongxi, who produced a rather stark "map of China" (Zhongguo ditu) in 1673. Later versions of the Tianxia quantu genre--at least the ones that I have seen--lack any traces of a grid, although they generally acknowledge a direct cartographic debt to Huang Zongxi (Qianren's grandfather).

Most maps of this variety are known by the title Da Qing yitong tianxia quantu (Complete Map of the Comprehensive Great Qing Empire) or a close equivalent. Some, however, bear significantly different names as a way of highlighting certain additions to the basic cartographic format. For example, in addition to Ma Junliang's Jingban tianwen quantu we find an anonymous work titled Jingban tiandi quantu (Capital Edition of a Complete Map of Heaven and Earth), which includes a round star chart above the standard terrestrial image. There are also certain minor differences in quality, color, commentaries and a few place names in Tianxia maps.

Some discrepancies appear to be simple scribal mistakes, such as writing "ten thousand li" instead of "twenty thousand li" (the usual figure) for the extent of the Russian empire; or confusing Zhu Siben's family name with another, similar-looking character. Others involve the expansion or contraction of information--the inclusion or omission of a certain source of authority, or varying degrees of specificity regarding time periods and other minor details. Once in a while there is a major discrepancy. For instance, on some maps the characters "Small Western Ocean" appear where the characters "Great Western Ocean" would be expected. Occasionally, delicate coloring gives way to much darker and less attractive tones. On the whole, however, the similarities are far more striking than the differences.

Like virtually all large-scale Chinese maps, works of the Tianxia quantu genre convey a vivid sense of China's vast and varied landscape: its mountain ranges, overland travel routes, river systems, lakes, coastal communications, and deserts (particularly the Gobi), as well as other prominent landmarks--notably the Great Wall and the "Sea of Constellations" (Xingxu hai)--the legendary source of the Yellow River. An intriguing feature of every Tianxia map I have seen is a prominent stone tablet (bei) erected to Zhuge Liang in the far southwest, presumably out of appreciation for his role in pacifying China's borders during the Three Kingdoms period (222-265). This is the only example of an individual so honored in these maps; even the birthplace of Confucius at Qufu has only a general reference to the Kong family graveyard (Konglin), not a specific tablet.

As with works of the Yu Shi tradition and those undertaken with Jesuit assistance in the early eighteenth century, maps of the Tianxia quantu variety pay close and careful attention to administrative changes within China's provincial boundaries--changes resulting from divisions, consolidations and other adjustments. All maps of this sort employ sets of eight or so cartographic symbols to indicate important administrative centers such as provincial capitals (sheng), prefectures (fu), departments (zhou), districts (xian), passes (guan), garrison towns (yingzhen) and so forth. They also mark the presence of local headmen (tusi)--members of ethnic minorities responsible for supervising their own people and for reporting periodically on them to regular Qing officials.

Of particular importance to the authors of Tianxia maps are changes in the size and shape of the Chinese empire occasioned by Qing military conquests during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The introduction to every new edition of these maps begins with exactly the same proud phrase: "The land ruled by the present dynasty is unprecedented in its extent." Each cartographer then proceeds to describe the specific political and military developments that made a new map necessary. For the most part, these developments had to do with campaigns by either the Kangxi or the Qianlong emperor which brought large areas of the Inner Asian frontier under direct Qing control. But they also involved negotiations between the Chinese and representatives of various "outer" peoples, from Tibetans to Europeans.

Significantly, "outer" areas are not at all well defined in maps of the Tianxia quantu genre. Representationally speaking, there are no ovious borders separating China from Russia or clearly delineating the individual kingdoms and territories of, say, Central Asia, India, or mainland Southeast Asia. In a few cases boundaries are suggested by written inscriptions; but only the oceans and seas allow certain countries to appear fully detached from the Central Kingdom. On three sides of the mainland such places are represented as islands, with written descriptions of varying lengths. There is no effort to show the relative size of foreign realms pictorially, however. Rather, following a pattern established by the Huayi tu and continued by such cartographers as Yu Shi and Liang Zhou, the size of foreign territories often appears to be a function of the amount of text deemed necessary to tell the viewer what needs to be known about them. (Unlike these works, however, Tianxi maps do not refer to mythical lands from the Shanhai jing). Most inscriptions provide useful historical background on the "barbarians" in question, including place-name changes and changes in their relationship to China over time. Sometimes they also supply data on distances, including travel routes and the length of an occasional border.

We should not think, however, that cartographers working in the Tianxia quantu tradition were unconcerned with representing foreign lands and peoples as accurately as possible. In a lengthy introduction to his map of 1714, Yan Yong candidly admits that limitations of both information and cartographic space prevent him from showing the actual locations of far away places. Nonetheless, he has tried to indicate their relative positions and to include textual information on their approximate distance from China. Although most later maps of the Tianxia quantu genre do not bother to make this point or to offer systematic data on distances, Ma Junliang's Jingban tianwen quantu offers an interesting solution to the problem, as we have seen. By combining two radically different types of maps in one document, he gives his viewers an epistemological choice. Rather than trying to reconcil the two versions, Ma leaves the issue open--a cartographic compromise reminiscent of the Song dynasty stele bearing the two radically different maps of 1136.