An Inquire into the Origin of Sharawadgi

Daohuan Yang, January 30, 2024

Sharawadgi (or sharawaggi) (1) is a term commonly used in landscape gardening or architecture. This term first appeared in Sir William Temple’s (1628–99) Upon the Gardens of Epicurus (1685). In contrast to the French style garden emphasizing on straight lines, regularity, and symmetries, Sharawadgi was introduced to describe the Chinese garden style, ‘without any order of disposition of parts’ and ‘Irregular but agreeable’. Temple believed this was the feature of the Chinese gardens, which apparently was inspiring to him and his contemporaries.

The word, sharawadgi, was believed to be the homophonic translation from a Chinese word (maybe by Temple), which would be the etymologically origin of sharawadgi. But so far there has been no luck in finding such a Chinese word.

It was proposed by some that the word may rather originated from Japan. But the closest match, ‘soravaji’ in Japanese, means ‘not being regular’. This meaning can hardly be applied on a newly found beautiful gardening style.(2) There’s nothing new or inspiring in ‘not being regular’, which fell into the same level or inferior to regular. Rather, sharawadgi means the next level of ‘regularity’ or ‘symmetricity’. Though some still tried to continue this line of thinking, the argument was from weak to totally un-based without finding the Japanese word. (3)

Some Chinese scholars and others proposed several candidate in Chinese. But none of them was satisfying:

洒落瑰奇by张沅长(Y.Z.Chang, google translation: Sprinkled with wonder);

散乱疏落by钱钟书(Qian Zhongshu, google translation: Scattered and sparse);

散乱无纪(3, google translation: Undisciplined);

疏落位置 (wiki, scattered and disorderly in position and arrangement).

Chang’s suggestion was not an idiom in Chinese, which was composed of 2 words un-necessarilly related. This 2-word combination almost never appeared together in any ancient text or was used by anyone, not to mention in the description of a garden. It was probably due to exact the same reason, Qian brought up his version. Qian’s version was appropriate for describing a normal garden, but barely appropriate for a beautiful one. The 3rd version proposed was appropriate for a backyard or junk yard, but not a garden. The 4th version was a combination of 2 words as well. For the 2nd word, the meaning of position was introduced very recently. The original meaning referred to the social status of a person and the seating position according to it.

If the original Chinese word for sharawadgi existed, it had to include 4 characters, with similar pronunciation, and embedded with the meaning of beautiful. It should be describing something not artificially geometrically agreeable, but naturally in-symmetric beauty. This word may not contain any standard or rule for landscape gardening. It’s too short. But it should at least serve as a touchstone phrase which summarized or symbolized the unique and unmistaken feature of a genuine Chinese garden.

What could be the real meaning of sharawadgi? It most likely reflected the Chinese idea of art: art is not natural, but in depth is created naturally. After all, it arose from the raw spirit of human, not anything else.

The 4 suggestions above had similar ideas. Among them, all but one has the character 落 in them. 落 means fall, e.g., leaves fall in the Autumn. When it’s used to describe a painter or calligrapher at working, the moment brush pen touching the paper is also referred as 落. It is almost like saying the artist made his pen ‘fall’ in (proper) position, rather than used it to draw, introducing a stroke rather than making.

The ancient Chinese believed the beauty of the Nature was not lying in orders, not in disorders (or a mess), but in a chaotic liveliness(混沌), which is elusive and subtle. It’s not trivial to understand or appreciate the Chinese idea of art, not to mention to express or explain it in English. In this sense, there was almost a necessity to introduce a new word like sharawadgi.

I suppose such a word also was fitful to the feeling of the Europeans in 17th century to the exotic Chinese art style, which was demonstrated on paintings, porcelain decoration, furniture, gardening, etc. (4)

Before the Europeans learned to make porcelain, they deemed the Chinese or Japanese porcelain preciously yet beautiful. But the irregular motif used to decorate the porcelain may have baffled some. Later the Kraak porcelain became popular. According to Wiki, ‘most characteristic of Kraak decoration is the use of foliated radial panels. In other words, the surface of the porcelain is divided into segments, each containing its own discrete image.’ The very regular segments arrangement was not of Chinese origin, but rather mid-east. The design made it easy to contain the ‘irregular’. This might have played an role in Kraak porcelain popularity. Sharawadgi might have served the same function of containing the idea of irregularity in landscape gardening.

Regarding the pronunciation, the word sharawadgi may have kept the original English sound, but the Chinese pronunciation may have changed since. The Chinese word corresponding to sharawadgi must have similar pronunciation in historical Chinese phonology, rather than modern Chinese speaking. Further, in different cultures, the words for describing the same sound may be different. So, it would be beneficial to compare and verify the pronunciation in western study of the ancient Chinese phonology.

With above considerations in mind, I would like to propose 错落有致 as a good candidate for the origin Chinese word for sharawadgi. This idiom was translated as visually intermingled in a picturesque disorder or irregular arrangement with charming effect. (5)

We can first check the pronunciation with the study of Russian linguist Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin. A Chinese database at kaom.net included the data of Starostin’s Chinese phonology study. It is searchable by Chinese which make the job very easy. According to this website, the sound and meaning of 错落有致 by character is as below:

错, ‘shāk or châk, be crossing, mixed, ornate’；

落, ‘rāk or lâk, to fall, drop, die’；

有, ‘wh?? or wh??w, impers. existential copula: there is, to have’；

致, ‘trits or ?ì, to bring, bring about, effect’.

In ‘châk’, the -k sound is not common in Chinese. It was there probably due to the English speaker’s habit to have more than one syllable in a word. After removing the -k. According to Starostin’s work, 错落有致 could be pronounced or written as Sharawh??tri. It is easy to see it resembles sharawadgi.

错 originally is the technique to inlay with gold, silver, etc. to create a pattern for decoration, such as inlaying on a bronze sword in bronze age China. When used as 错落, it means ‘strewn at random’ according to Chinese-English dictionary. But the random meaning here is always commendatory. This word typically is used to describe scenery, painting, ikebana, etc. meaning a beautiful irregularity. For example, the layout of the 7 stars in the Big Dipper can be said to be 错落, which usage can be found in the poem (错落北斗星) from Tang dynasty.

This word also appeared in the masterpiece of garden literature, the earliest of its kind in the world, The Craft of Gardens (by Ji Cheng, 1631, 《园冶》, Garden Smelting (as smelting metal) ) The Japanese translation of this book’s title means craft stealing from heaven.

致was mentioned multiple time in The Craft of Gardens. It means to reach, deliver, acquire, etc. In ancient times, 致 was used with an adjective to get the meaning, such as high-reach (high standard or goal,高致), in a high state of gracefulness (雅致), etc. Later, 致 by itself got the meaning of beautiful, such as other-reach(别致, diversifying beautiful), standard-reach(标致, peugeot), extreme-reach(极致, the best), etc. In The Craft of Gardens, this latter meaning was widely used, like gracefulness-reach (雅致), multiple-reach(多致, scenery with many tasty aspects)，wilderness-reach(野致), getting-reach(得致, acquiring the beauty), etc. As a result, 致became essentially the definitive word in gardening art. Somehow, any garden has to have certain reach(致) to be a good one, and one goes to a garden to enjoy its scenery-reach(景致).

The remaining character, 有, does not have a good homophonic translation comparing to others. In Chinese, this situation can be referred as unstable(character)(不稳). 有 means to have, own, possess, exist, etc. In 错落有致, it may just mean ‘to have’. But the original means of 有 is, something exists, but it should not have. For example, when the eclipse of the moon happens, it is called 有, an unconventional existence. This meaning actually makes perfect sense in 错落有致.

In summary, 错落有致 is a good candidate for the origin Chinese word of sharawadgi. But there is another issue that needs to be addressed. 错落有致 was a idiom. But the etymology origin of it(all 4 characters used together as a whole phrase) or its first record, so far was found only after 1800 which was later than that of Sharawadgi(1685). It can be argued the first record does not necessarily mean the first usage. Nonetheless, this creates a problem which means the search of the real origin of sharawadgi cannot simply end here, not stable enough.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharawadgi
2. https://www.jstor.org/stable/517603
3. https://xbzs.ecnu.edu.cn/CN/html/2017-4-65.htm
4. 中国文化在启蒙时期的英国， Chinese culture in Britain during the period of Enlightenment， 范存忠/Cunzhong Fan (This book is the Chinese translation of Fan’s Ph. D dissertation in Harvard University in 1931.)
5. https://www.linguee.com/chinese-english/translation/%E9%8C%AF%E8%90%BD%E6%9C%89%E8%87%B4.html