The Sky-Ladder Tree at the Center of the World
Within the southern seas, between the Black and Green rivers, lie nine mounds ringed by water, says the final chapter. There grows a tree with green leaves, a purple trunk, black flowers, and yellow fruit: the Jianmu, the 'Erected Tree'. It rises a hundred ren without a single side branch, bearing nine twisting boughs only at its crown and nine coiling roots at its base; its fruit is like hemp seed, its leaves like those of the mang tree. Taihao — Fuxi — passed up and down by it, and the Yellow Emperor, in the old commentaries' reading, planted and tended it.
The Huainanzi states its cosmic office: 'The Jianmu is in Duguang, whence the assembled gods ascend and descend. At noon it casts no shadow; a shout raises no echo; for it stands at the very center of heaven and earth.' The final chapter describes the plain around it: Houji, lord of millet, is buried there; rich beans, rice, and millets grow of themselves, sowable in winter and summer alike, while luan-birds sing and phoenixes dance unbidden. At the foot of the world-axis lies a field that farms itself.
With the Fusang lifting the suns in the east and the Ruomu receiving them in the west, the Jianmu completes the tree-frame of the book's cosmos. Scholars following Meng Wentong identify Duguang with the Chengdu Plain, and when researchers discuss the four-meter bronze trees unearthed at Sanxingdui in 1986, tiered with perching birds, Jianmu and Fusang remain the two names most often invoked.
