The last statue

■ He Zhen

The "Qixia Danfeng" with frost leaves red in February was once one of the ten scenic spots in the ancient city of Jinling. In late autumn, Qixia Mountain is lined with maple forests, black oak forests, maple forests, and beech forests, and the layers of forests are dyed; bright red, bloody red, deep red, purple red, and the mountains are red.

"A Qixia Mountain, half of the history of Jinling." In addition to the unique natural scenery, Qixia Mountain also has rich historical and cultural relics; in addition to the Thousand Buddha Cliff, which gathers the essence of the southern dynasty stone carving art, there are also unforgettable stonemasons in the "Stonemason Hall".

That was the last statue. He is not a Buddha, he is a layman around us. Like an old friend who has been waiting for us for hundreds of years.

Entering the mountain gate and passing through the Famous Qixia Temple of the Southern Dynasty, the Thousand Buddha Cliff, known as "Jiangnan Yungang", is presented in front of you. The Thousand Buddha Cliffs are the largest and earliest excavated grottoes in the southern part of the continent, 17 years before the Luoyang Longmen Grottoes. The statue of Thousand Buddha Cliff is elegant and vivid, showing the rich connotation of Buddhism and the unique style of carving art, although its grandeur and magnificence are not as good as Yungang and Longmen Grottoes, but it is similar to Yungang and Longmen, and it is also a precious heritage of the golden age of Buddhist art in mainland China. Because it is located in the south, it has a unique and important historical value in the history of religious stone carving art on the mainland. Therefore, although the statue is only a thousand and a half, it is still honored with the title of "Thousand Buddhas".

The "Stonemason Hall" is located on the east side of the Infinite Hall and is the last grotto of the Thousand Buddha Cliffs. Inside the hall is not a Buddha statue, but a stone statue with a hammer in the right hand, a chisel in the left hand, a mountain cliff with its back, and a round eye. The Ming Dynasty's "Record of rebuilding Qixia Temple" records that in the twenty-seventh year of the Ming Wanli Calendar, the Kansai monk Sankong saw that the Buddha statue of the Thousand Buddha Cliffs was seriously peeled off, so he and the monk Ming Tong planned to repair the matter, and the main repairer was the stonemason Wang Shou. Wang Shou, a famous mason in the Qixia Mountains, not only designed the new shrine, but also repaired the ancient shrine since Qiliang. In order to commemorate him, the descendants chiseled a stone statue for Wang Shou, which is the origin of the stonemason's hall. Unfortunately, the stonemason statues seen today no longer exist in the ten years of catastrophe.

The history of the continent has always been the history of kings and heroes, and historians rarely or never pay attention to ordinary little people. You see, at the foot of the Great Wall, on the banks of the Grand Canal, next to Dujiangyan, on the side of the Shi Huang Mausoleum... The glorious artificial feats seem to be silently telling the achievements of ordinary workers. Here, the stone statue is like a lightning bolt illuminating the sky of history, because it embodies a rare respect for ordinary laborers and small people. It reminds me of the origin of the Oscars, as well as another story about the statue of a little swedish man.

In 1927, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences established the Film Award, which represents the film industry's highest honor, in recognition of outstanding talents who have made outstanding contributions to the development of the film industry to a higher level, higher quality, and higher technology. Cedric Gibbons, artistic director of MGM Pictures, was responsible for designing the statue of the little golden man, which is now known all over the world. Originally, the official name of this award was "Academy Award", but the world knows another name - the Oscars. The reason why people call the Academy Awards the Oscars is because the Society's librarian, Ms. Margaret Herrick, thinks the figurine resembles her uncle Oscar, so she calls it that. Later, other members of the Society also used "Oscar" as the nickname for the figurine. By 1939, the Society officially recognized the name Oscar and began to use it officially. Since then, the name Oscar has continued. How incredible it seems to us that a famous film award that is famous all over the world should be named after a small person. And that's so natural.

The Stockholm City Hall, the capital of Sweden, is a Nordic landmark, and both its red-brick-and-gold façade and its grand, extremely sophisticated interior design are classics in the history of architecture. Entering the interior of the city hall, it is the famous "Blue Hall". Every year on December 10, the annual Nobel Prize Dinner is held there. Entering the Blue Room, the first thing that catches your eye is the sculpture of a young man's head. This statue is not a Swedish national leader, nor a Nobel Prize-winning scientific and technological celebrity, but a young man who worked hardest in building the Blue Hall. A few steps further, I saw a huge portrait painting. Similarly, the protagonist of the painting is not a celebrity, but a porter who delivered beer to the Construction Site of the Blue Hall. The statues and portraits of "little people" are made in the Hall of Elegance, which shows respect for ordinary laborers. All those who enter the Blue Room, whether they are swedish kings, queens and dignitaries, or the scientific and technological and cultural elites of various countries, without exception, must first pay tribute to these two ordinary workers of the year and remember their exploits.

The maple leaves of Qixia Mountain are indeed beautiful, and if there is no Thousand Buddha Cliff, Qixia Mountain will definitely lose a lot of weight and charm. But the Qi Liang nobles could not directly create the Thousand Buddha Cliffs, and it was ordinary stonemasons who gave life and spirituality to the stones of Qixia Mountain. It can be seen that small people cannot be ignored. The most precious thing in the talent pyramid is not the top few white-collar workers, but the broad masses at the grassroots level, who are supporting the whole country to strive and not be overthrown.

Friends, if you go to Qixia Mountain, in addition to visiting the Red Leaf Valley, Viewing Maple Forest Lake, Admiring the Green Pond, and visiting the Qixia Temple, please don't forget to go to see the ordinary little person and see the last statue.

In fact, if you go to see him, you don't have to wait until late autumn. In other seasons where people are rarely heard, under the Cliff of the Thousand Buddhas, you may be able to hear more clearly the clanging sound of stonemasons sweating and chiseling stones in the depths of history.

(The author is a member of jiangsu provincial writers association, working in the Department of Ecology and Environment of Jiangsu Province)

★ This newspaper owns the copyright of this article, if you need to reprint or copy, please indicate the source of the Chinese government procurement newspaper, mark the author, and maintain the integrity of the article. Otherwise, legal liability will be pursued.