Stone Coffin of Chen Zuocai in Weishan County, Dali

The Chen Zuocai Stone Coffin (陈佐才石棺) is located in the mountain ravine of Mengshihe (盟石河山箐), behind Tangta Village (塔村) of the Mengshi Village Committee (盟石村公所), Miaojie Township (庙街乡), Weishan County (巍山县), Yunnan Province (云南省). Carved atop a natural boulder, it serves as the clothing and cap burial site (衣冠冢) of the late Ming and early Qing patriotic scholar Chen Zuocai (陈佐才).

The stone coffin is over 10 meters long, 8 meters wide, and about 2 meters high, shaped similarly to a wooden coffin and covered with a massive stone lid. In front of the tomb stand two inscribed steles: one written by Li Shiyang (李士扬) in the 44th year of Qianlong (1779), titled Epitaph of the Ming Righteous Scholar Mr. Chen Yishu (《明义士翼叔陈老先生墓志》); the other erected by local gentry of Menghua (蒙化) in 1936, titled Epitaph of the Loyal and Righteous Immortal Master Chen Yishu of the Ming (《明忠义陈翼叔仙师墓志》).

Stone brushes bearing couplets flank both sides of the coffin, with a stone pavilion on the right. More than ten Ming and Qing dynasty-era poetic inscriptions by scholars are preserved around the site, collectively expressing Chen Zuocai’s steadfast principle of “not buried in Qing soil, not under Qing skies.”

Geological Features

The coffin is situated on a massive, freestanding boulder in the Mengshihe mountain ravine (盟石河山箐). The rock measures 10 meters east-west, 8 meters north-south, and 3 meters in height. A coffin-shaped groove—2.3 meters long and 0.8 meters wide—was chiseled into its flat top, with a thick, solid stone slab serving as the lid.

In front of the tomb stands a platform with two steles. The left stele bears the Epitaph of the Ming Righteous Scholar Mr. Chen Yishu (《明义士翼叔陈老先生墓志》) written by Li Shiyang (李士扬), a local scholar of the Qianlong era. The right stele, erected in 1936 (25th year of the Republic), is the Epitaph of the Loyal and Righteous Immortal Master Chen Yishu of the Ming (《明忠义陈翼叔仙师墓志》) by local gentry including Zhao Shuliang (赵叔良). Both inscriptions are done in intaglio, recording Chen’s life and the origins of the tomb.

Historical Background

Chen Zuocai (陈佐才, 1627–1697) served as an imperial bodyguard under the Yongli Emperor (永历帝) of the Southern Ming. After the fall of the Southern Ming, he retired to Menghua Prefecture (蒙化府) and swore to “never tread on Qing soil nor look up to Qing skies.” Before his death, he selected the giant boulder as his burial site.

Construction of the stone coffin began in the early Kangxi reign. Though Chen's physical remains were not placed inside, the coffin contains his manuscripts and personal items such as a bamboo hat and a rattan staff.

Surviving Inscriptions

Stone brushes stand on either side of the coffin. The left is inscribed with:
“Pledging to enter the Yellow Springs, the stream still carries the sorrow of southern exile.”
The right reads:
“Chiseling a coffin in white stone, no grave tree ever grows a branch facing north.”

These lines were composed by Menghua scholar Rao Zhuo (饶着) during the Qianlong period.

On the stone pavilion’s right side is a column engraved with the couplet:
“In life, a subject of Ming; in death, a ghost of Ming.
Not buried in Qing soil, not under Qing skies.”
The horizontal inscription reads “Unbending Integrity Defies Frost (劲节凌霜).”

On the north face of the boulder, 17 inscriptions by Ming and Qing literati remain, including Ode to the Stone Coffin (《石棺赋》) and Elegy for the Righteous Chen (《吊陈义士》) by Li Shiyang (李士扬), Zhang Jinyun (张锦蕴), and others.

Conservation Status

In 1978, the site was first surveyed and documented during Weishan County’s (巍山县) cultural relic census. In 1985, the damaged stone pavilion was restored, and a protective fence was added.

The surfaces of the steles have suffered varying degrees of weathering. In 2014, a protective anti-weathering coating was applied to the inscriptions. The stone coffin itself remains structurally intact, with recent monitoring showing that annual displacement at the coffin lid seam is less than 0.3 millimeters.