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In ancient times, the most important district of China was the landlocked region which is today the province of Shaanxi. Xi’an, the oldest of China’s historical capital cities was/is located in Shaanxi at the eastern terminus of the silk road. Xi’an was the capital of the Western Zhou, Qin, Western Han, Sui and Tang dynasties (or “kingdom” if you are a stickler about the Western Zhou). Today Xi’an only barely makes the top ten list of Chinese cities by population (it is tenth, with a mere 12 million inhabitants), yet its ancient cultural history is unrivaled. The Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum (aka the the tomb of the Terra Cotta soldiers) is located in Xi’an as is the great Ming-era Drum Tower of Xi’an, yet the real symbol of the city is one of the most distinctive buildings of the ancient world, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda of Xi’an.
Built in 652 AD during the reign of the third Tang emperor (Gaozong of Tang, the son of the astonishing Emperor Taizong), the pagoda was literally a monument to the great 7th century flowering of Buddhism in China. Originally the temple was 5 stories tall (but five big stories for an original height of 60 meters). Although Gaozong built the edifice to honor his mother, it was also designed to house the holy sutras and Buddhist figurines which were brought to China by the traveling Buddhist monk Xuanzang, the real life Golden Cicada monk of “Journey to the West” (although I am still pretty sure that most of that book was fictional/allegorical). The pagoda was constructed of rammed earth with a stone exterior.
Fifty years after it was built, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda (an alternate translation might be the Large Swan Goose Pagoda) partially collapsed. It was rebuilt in 704 AD by Empress Wu Zetian, one of China’s most remarkable and divisive rulers (which is really, really saying something). Wu Zetian ordered an extra 5 stories added to the pagoda, and her version stood until a massive earthquake in 1556 reduced the pagoda to near ruins. The civil engineers of the Ming Dynasty rebuilt the pagoda (this time as a 7 story 64 meter building). It is this Ming dynasty version which stands today, although it now has a pronounced list of several degrees to the west (even after the Communists repaired it in 1964.
The Large Wild Goose Pagoda’s history mirrors that of China (and intersects several of the biggest names and stories of Chinese history) however it also has a notable “ship of Theseus” quality since it was redesigned and rebuilt so many times. There is no definitive story about the name (the swan goose is a magnificent migratory bird of central China), however there is an evocative myth. A group of fasting monks saw a flock of swan geese flying across the autumn sky. One of the younger brothers said “I wish I could taste one of those geese!”, whereupon the lead goose broke a wing and fell from the sky. The monks were horrified and saw the accident as a chastisement from Buddha for their weakness. They rushed to the spot where the bird fell and swore a vow of eternal vegetarianism. That spot was where this tower was built and has stood for 1300 years as a reminder to be gentle to nature and to be careful what you wish for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHqSNStGL8w
What with all the excitement and commotion, it is easy to overlook some of life’s simple pleasures…like watching this enormous python slither across a golf course in Zimbali, South Africa. The python apparently lives near (or just plain is) a water hazard, but every once in a while, he takes a constitutional crawl around the course for exercise and to see what is going on. Of course, just like it does not allow text below pictures, or images which expand to be wider than the window, WordPress prohibits video embeds (unless I pay a hundred dollars a year) so you will have to navigate away from this page to Youtube. I pasted the link above.
I feel like there is surely some sort of larger picture here. The elements seem to go together: a snake in the garden; an apex predator indolently slithering around the golf course; an invasive species invading another creature’s territory…and building an extravagant game there (wait…are both scary creatures native Africans?). However, I cannot quite find the links (snicker) between these elements.
The mighty Tibetan mastiff!
High on the Tibetan plateau life is hard. Roving bands of marauders have been lurking in the mountains and skree for millennia. Wolves, snow leopards, eagles, and high-altitude jumping spiders are always leaping out from behind glaciers to gobble up unwary travelers and/or their domestic animals. In this adversarial alpine world of unending peril, the herdsmen, weak-boned monks, and goodhearted family folk have only one consta\
Picture of Cangni–a Tibetan Mastiff (Giuseppe Castiglione, Ching Dynasty, ink and watercolor on silk)
The Tibetan mastiff is a huge furry guard dog noted for great power and constant vigilance (although it is not really a mastiff but a large spitz-type dog that reminded European explorers of mastiffs back home). The dogs weigh between 45–68 kg (100-160 pounds) although “mastiffs” at the upper extremes of these sizes are from Chinese and Western kennels. The historical Tibetan mastiff was somewhat smaller so that its nomadic owners could keep it fed. Unlike many large dogs, Tibetan mastiffs have comparatively lon lives of up to 14 years. The breed is considered a “primitive breed” which means it has fewer genetic differences from wolves then most modern dogs and its ancestors were presumably thus among the first domestic dog breeds (although geneticists dispute when and how the Tibetan mastiff came into being). To survive in the inclement Himalayan weather mastiffs have double coats of coarse weatherproof outer hair which protect down-like inner hair. These magnificent heavy coats come in many colors, including black, black and tan, gold, orange, red, and bluish-gray. Additionally many of the dogs have white markings on their coats.
Tibetan Mastiff with Owner
Tibetan mastiffs are meant to be fearless guardians of flocks, camps, villages, and monasteries. Although they have the size and strength to fight wolves, leopards, and varlets, they mostly just bark, growl, and mark their territory in traditional canine fashion to ward off interlopers. The big furry guards are famous for lazily sleeping all day so that they can be awake and alert at night when danger is on the prowl. The dog came briefly into popularity in England in the early nineteenth century when George IV owned a pair. Today they are back in popularity—but this time in booming China, where they are the status symbol du jour for the nouveau riche. Of course buyers need to be alert in the wild wild east where there are frequently shenanigans afoot. Rich Chinese will pay millions (or tens of millions) of yuan for show quality Tibetan mastiffs. When they get home and wash their new furry friends, the dye in the dog hair washes out to reve3al sub-optimum colors! Even worse, the Tibetan mastiffs are sometimes revealed to have hair extensions so they look more like lions! Oh, the duplicity!
What the…? Are Tibetan mastiffs masters of disguise?
Years ago, when I first moved to New York and was a bright optimistic young person, I would travel around the city via subway. Every day I entered and left the same entrance to the same underground train stop. One day somebody dropped a bag of cheap glitter stars right by the exit. These stars were different colors and different shapes. They started as a glittering clump at the top of the stairs but thanks to foot traffic and weather, they quickly got everywhere. Blocks away one would come upon glistening stars dotted along the sidewalk.
Then the stars began to fade and deteriorate. Their shininess wore off in the rain. Their arms broke as people walked on them, but every once in a while you would see one that had caught in a protected location and survived. Eventually there were no glitter stars left at all, but I suppose that the stuff they are made out of—bits of plastic and metal foil—is still out there in a landfill, or running down through drains into the ocean, or just blowing in the wind.
I mention all of this because it is a poignant metaphor for the currently projected fate of the expanding universe. The ultimate destiny of the universe was once a problem relegated to theologians and mystics (and crazy people). However, when cosmologists fathomed how the universe began–with the big bang 13 plus billion years ago–the question of how the universe would end became a legitimate scientific topic. Edwin Hubble’s discovery that the universe was expanding provided an ominous hint as to the ending.
The way the universe will end is contingent on whether the momentum of the universe’s expansion is greater than the force of gravity (which in turn depends on the amount of matter in the universe and the density of that matter). The current scientific consensus–based on carefully considered estimates of the universe’s mass density and on the most recently observed rate of cosmic expansion—is that the universe will continue to expand indefinitely.
Physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists therefore now project a rather glum fate for everything that exists. The death of the universe is divided into 4 stages summarized below:
Stelliferous: (Now to 100 trillion years into the future) This is an era teaming with stars: great masses of matter coalesce together into stellar masses and begin fusing together and releasing all sorts of energy as they do so. Bit by bit though the brightest stars will wink out and only long-lived red dwarfs will remain.
Degenerate (100 trillion to 1037 years in the future) After even the red dwarfs fade into darkness, most of the universe’s mass will remain in the dying husks of stars, or in the remains of more exotic stellar death (black holes left by the destruction of super massive stars, neutron stars, and white dwarfs). Electromagnetic energy in the Degenerate era will be generated by particle annihilation and proton decay rather than stellar fusion.
Black Hole Era (1038 to 10100 years into the future) After protons all decay away from the universe, the only large objects creating energy will be black holes which will themselves slowly evaporate into exotic matter over a vast expanse of empty time.
Dark Era (10100 years into the future to eternity) Protons and black holes will be gone and only the effluvia radiation from their passing will still exists in the universe. All that remains will be photons of immense wavelength, neutrinos, positrons, and electrons–sad burned-out remnants which lack any order or meaning. The universe will be incredibly vast, a horrible dark cold broken thing and it will remain that way forever.
So there you have it. The fate of the universe is to slowly freeze and decay over trillions and trillions of years and then dissipate away into dark nothingness over eternity.
Of course 10100 years is a very long time indeed. There is still plenty of time for beach parties and flower gardening, but this is not the end I would have wanted for anything I esteem as much as the universe. There isn’t much I can do about it though, except to hope that some unknown aspect of the cosmos provides a more spectacular and fiery end or that Vishnu intervenes. Or maybe there is a multiverse in which our cosmos floats like an abstract bubble: in the past, every time we thought we understood the universe it turned out that we were only looking at a small part of a greater whole. It wouldn’t surprise me if something still eludes us.
"Vishnu, you out there buddy? Some help?"
ferrebeekeeper 