1) Observations on Mani heaps by previous studies
Although Mani heaps were described by early traveling scholars in the Himalaya[4], (G.Tucci,1994) and widely photographed in the tourist literature, the scholarly literature on Mani heaps is amazing sparse. There have been only 25 scholarly literatures about Mani heaps in Chinese and 6 in English since 2019. Because of the geographically restricted, the Chinese researchers mainly focused on the Mani stones or heaps in Tibet. the first research paper was published under the title “A Elementary Introduction to Carving on Mani Stone in Tibet” in 1985. (Han SL, 1985) Since then, several researchers from different academic backgrounds (e.g. anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, historians, archaeologists and architects) have studied different aspects of the Mani heaps. These studies generally fall in three broad categories:
- Studies on causes of the formation of Mani heaps. Almost every researcher has recognized the close relationship between the belief and the formation of Mani heaps. they believed the formation of Mani heaps originated from the original nature worship and animistic concept in Tibetan areas (Dun ZM, 2014, Suo NJ, 2019, Lin L,2005), and pointed out that the primitive people in Tibet believed every mountain had a god and they piled up stones to heaps for worship which are called "Laze"[5], (Dun ZM, 2014,Gesangyixi, 2011) and with the origination of Bon and the introduction of Buddhism and integration development of the two, the stone heaps gradually evolved into Mani heaps. (Mao JZ, 1987)
- Studies on the form and function of Mani heaps. Most research on the form of Mani heaps has been concentrated on introducing the engraved content on stones of Mani heaps and briefly classified them into several types, such as texts (including Avalokitesvara’s six syllable mantra and excerpts from sutra texts), portraits of religious figures (including Buddha, Bodhisattva, deities, eminent monks), religious symbols (including stupa, auspicious patterns and other symbols) and mundane images. Figure 3 shows the Mani stone carved with abundant religion elements, and figure 4 shows a dog carved on the Mani stone. As for the studies on Mani heaps’ function, it is widely believed that Mani heaps are built mainly as religious altars (Buddhism and Bon), and also some of them have been used for landmark, landslide warning, signpost and so on. (Lin L,2005)
- Studies of the value of Mani heaps. Mani heaps have very high value in research on religion, history, culture and art of Tibet. Firstly, as a kind of folk art, the Mani stone carving art has the significance of promoting social harmony, social enlightenment and psychological counseling. (Lv CX,2009) Secondly, as a kind of cultural heritage, Mani heaps provide a wealth of material for the study of Tibetan history, religion, culture and the relationship between Tibetan and Han. (Luo SKZ, 2010, Song WZ, 2012)
In general, these scholarly literatures in Chinese are principally using the method by introducing or describing a certain issue, which can help us to have an overall idea about Mani heaps of Tibet, but it may also make the discussed issues in these literature repetitive and recapitulative. (Feng XH, Xiang JC, 2016) Comparatively, in the few published literatures in English, the scholars’ research is more creative and profound in some respect. Johannes T. Weidinger was interested in the Mani stone-walls in Nepal areas where mountain hazards such as torrent, debris flow and snow avalanche occur. By carefully observing the location of these structures and their geographical environment, he believed the Mani-walls erected not only to motivate by religious thinking and faith, but also to serve as indicators, silent witnesses and even to protect settlements and farmland from hazards (Weidinger,2002). John Ardussi, devoted to the Mani walls of Bhutan, defined the Mani walls as communication medium in the service of a religious and political project in his two specific articles (Ardussi 2004, 2006). According to John Ardussi, the appropriation of these monuments as public media began around the seventeenth century when religious hierarchs used stone inscriptions to promote and reaffirm religious values and secular law. Anthropologist Monia Chies has taken an active interest in the greatest Mani wall in the world—the Gyanak Mani in Qinghai, west China. Although the paper is mainly an account of ethnographic records which aims to highlight temporary cultural responses to the earthquake in 2010, the description about the place making process and geography of Gyanak Mani provide a well understanding about Mani heaps (Monia 2014). Yannick Laurent analyzed the unique corpus and text information on four Mani stone inscriptions from Spiti in Nepal and found out their content with full of historic information “stressed the importance of epigraphic documentation for the study of Tibet and the Himalayas and raises question about the nature and function of inscribed Mani stones.” He believed that “the study of stone inscriptions offers a vibrant testimony to lesser known aspects of Tibetan and Himalayan history.” (Yannick,2017)
It’s worth noting that there is also a scientific paper by geologists and environmental scientists, which seems the adminicular evidence for Weidinger’s research by lichenometry. In this paper, the growth rate of Rhizocarpon geographicum, a lichen found on Mani walls in the Langtang Valley in Nepal was studied as a potential dating technique to confirm the age of Mani walls, which verified the hypothesis of Weidinger’s view that the Mani walls were constructed as landslide warnings. it seems the first paper by using geological research method on Mani heaps’ study. (Emmerman, S.H. et al.2016) Although the result of this study appears relatively limited in scope, (Yannick,2017) its analysis still not only offers a very useful complement to the traditional ethnographic fieldwork in Mani heaps, but also provides a transdisciplinary research perspective for us to study these monuments.
2) The need for a more quantitative approach to the case study of Mani heaps in Tibet
Actually, exploring more in-depth research to Mani heaps in Tibet is not so easy, especially only using the qualitative empirical observations. The reason for this may be in two aspects, one is that the widespread Mani heaps and their dynamic styles make the complete collection of research data become difficult. Mani heaps are scattered over almost everywhere in Tibet and most of them are changing and growing all the time because the new carved Mani stones are being deposited on the top of heaps constantly with the Tibetan’s praying. The other is that the extensive mass foundation and unplanned design for Mani heaps make the exploration become complex, especially based on qualitative empirical observations. A Mani heap is less likely finished by individual, its formation and growth is accumulated by different people including craftsmen, monks, donators, even villagers for years even centuries. Figure 5 shows a man is carving mantra on a Mani stone who is one of the craftsmen in Dingqing County. The long-time efforts from different participants make the Mani heaps amassed abundant information from the historic, social and religious circumstances and folk wisdom throughout years or centuries.
Therefore, only using the methods of interview and observation for research seemed insufficient, as Yannick Laurent said, “local informants interviewed in this regard, however, often presented differing views”. (Yannick Laurent 2017) it is necessary to carry out multidisciplinary study and extend the research methods from other disciplines in studying (Feng XH, Xiang JC 2016). Given the qualitative empirical observation used in previous research, more quantitative approach should be considered or employed in the future study process. Obviously, the quantitative approach could be more objectivity, clarity and persuasion than qualitative method especially in analyzing the features, relationship and variation of the quantity. In view of the great number, the constant variation and the accumulated information of Mani heaps, emphasizing the combination of qualitative and quantitative approach to analyze Mani heaps seems more beneficial and in-depth.
Besides the quantitative approach, the ‘case study’ is also necessary for the in-depth study of Mani heaps, which the Six paper in English provide a useful reference. All these paper are focused on one aspect of Mani heaps, such as function, inscriptions, in specific locations, which make us have insight into the Mani heaps in these places. As we known, Tibet is so vast in territory that the number of Mani heaps is much large than the number of neighbor countries, like Bhutan, Nepal. Studies that analyze the characteristics of Mani heaps from one place in a micro-cosmic view may give us a fresh perspective for Mani heaps research in Tibet.
In short, using more than one research method of different disciplines is more important to the in-depth research of Mani heaps in Tibet. The review of previous studies also demonstrates that the quantitative analysis of Mani heaps’ characteristics has not yet been conducted in Tibet. Even internationally, few studies incorporate both quantitative study and case study in the analysis of Mani heaps.
In this paper, the research selects the color feature of Mani heap in Dingqing county as a study sample for better understanding of the relation between the color of Mani heaps and area. Compared with previous studies, the study is based on a lot of high resolution data of collected by field work about Mani heaps, and obtained the results through the data processing, and the method employed is the combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. Figure 6 shows the research areas in previous study in English and in this paper. Figure 7 shows the data collection of Mani heaps in Tibet from 2016-2019. More importantly, the study tries to propose a methodological framework that best adapts to the study of Mani heaps in Tibet.
3) A brief overview of DingQing County
The differences between the Mani heaps in DingQing county and those in other areas of Tibet must be identified. Dingqing county is located in the east of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of Changdu. Figure 8 shows the geographical location of Dingqing county. Dingqing county also has long history and culture. In the folklore of Dingqing county, the ancient Khyung tribe moved from the west Zhang Zhung to the east, then the Khyungpo settled down in Dingqing area, where they spread their Bon[6] culture. In the 7th century, after the Buddhist introduced into Tibet from India, the competition between Bon and Buddhist become more and more intensive and lasted for more than 1300 years’ struggle, the sphere of influence of Bon religion was dissipated and the turf in Tibet was almost disappeared except Dingqing county because of the special culture reasons and geographical location.(Cai TR, 2006) After more than 2000 years of development, Dingqing County has been gradually formed a characteristic tradition of Bon culture and now become one of the most concentrated Bon monasteries and believers in Tibetan areas of China and formed a very stable Bon culture circle.
Mani heaps are also very special in Dingqing county, as Ma LH said, “Tibet is the only place in world where the people are so keen to build Mani heaps, and in Tibet is Changdu city, and in Changdu is Dingqing county. We have never seen any other places where Tibetans like Dingqing have the passion for building Mani heaps.” (Ma LH,1995) the distribution of Mani heaps is almost covered about 80% of Dingqing area and also is the densest area in Tibet. Figure 9 shows the shape of Dingqing county and the geographical distribution of Mani heaps in this place. Therefore, Mani heaps are such a common sight in Dingqing area that can be indirectly reflected the culture, religious, folk art and so on and studying the Mani heaps in this area may provide a micro sample for the deep research for other places of Tibet.
4) The Colors of Mani heaps
“Color, as one of the most important dimensions of vision, plays a key role in place identity and people’s experience in the environment.” (Yang MH:2020) Colors of various buildings, structures and landscapes in one place or an area could not only provide both information and pleasure, but also, perhaps most importantly, communicate a cultural identity bound in history and tradition. As for Tibet, because of the influence of natural environment and the cultural and religious tradition, people tend to choose the high-saturated and purity colors, mainly blue, green, red, yellow, white and black to decorate their buildings, landscapes, costume, and artworks. (Shu JY.2013)
The main colors of Mani heaps are also about the six colors. However, Mani heaps is not like other religious art in Tibet, such as Tangka, murals, temple buildings, which need to observe the strict rules on coloring. On the basis of maintaining the basic rules and requirement of Buddhist painting, the craftsmen also have some freedom to follow their own aesthetic design to make the color of Mani heaps present visual harmony. (Luo SKZ, 2010) Accordingly, Relative freedom in producing make the prevailing color and the display order of six colors be quite different as for being affected by the different area, culture, religion and aesthetic. Figure 10 shows the different color on Mani heaps in different area. Therefore, in this paper, colors’ feature of Mani heaps in Dingqing county are investigated by analyzing the collected photo data, and through the color analysis and information visualization, the results show the aesthetic in color directly of the contemporary people living there, and reflect the relationship between the color characteristics on Mani heaps and cultural and religious tradition in Dingqing county.