Who is the stone carver in Taishan Mountain Valley?

Stone Valley is one of the scenic spots in Mount Tai, named after a huge stone screen engraved with the Diamond Sutra in the valley. The characters on stone carvings are about 50 cm in diameter and 1-2 cm in depth, and there are more than 900 existing characters. The font is vigorous, and there are seal scripts and official scripts. It is a calligraphy style formed during the transition from Lishu to Tang Kai, and is called "Stone Valley Style" by the calligraphy circle. Stone calligraphers and connoisseurs in China all regarded the Stone Valley Stone Carvings as treasures and praised them as "the originator of big characters" and "the master of book lists".

Somehow, the scripture was terminated before it was finished. Therefore, stone carvings have not left the age of engraving and the title of the engraver, and have become an eternal mystery, attracting many calligraphers and scholars to conduct extensive research and textual research on them. Now the main points are summarized here:

Wei Yuan, Nie Jianguang and Guo Moruo, a modern scholar in the Qing Dynasty, all think that the stone belongs to the Northern Qi Dynasty, and Ci Hai, a comprehensive reference book with great influence in China's cultural and educational circles, holds this view. However, some people hold different opinions. Some people think it comes from the Northern Wei Dynasty, some people think it comes from the Tang Dynasty, and some people think it comes from the Song and Yuan Dynasties.

As for calligraphers, there are two main opinions: Wang Shimao and others in the Ming Dynasty suspected that it was the calligraphy of people in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, but did not specify who it was. According to research and textual research, during Wuping period of Northern Qi Dynasty (570-576), Prince Chun, the county magistrate, liked Buddhist classics. He once carved two scriptures in Culai Mountain, both of which are official scripts of ancient characters, just like the stone carving in Shigu, so the scriptures on the cliff of Shigu may have been written by Prince Chun. Second, represented by Wei Yuan, it is believed that it was written by Anyidao, a monk of the Northern Qi Dynasty. Wei said in the annotation of "Daishan Stone Google": "The diamond plate of the pear tree in Taishan Stone Valley is like a sutra, and the words are as big as a bucket. Noble and elegant, it is comparable to Manjusri Plate in Buffalo Cave in Culai Mountain and Tieshan in Zouxian County. It was written by a monk in Northern Qi Dynasty. " In addition, Wang Shizhen, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, also thought: "The pen is ancient and vigorous, and people who are not in the prosperous Tang Dynasty cannot write." Others are classified as Zheng Shu because their characters are similar to those written by Zheng Daozhao in Tianzhu Mountain, Pingdu and other places.