Jia Daishan
贾代善
“The Grandfather Baoyu Resembles”
His Story
Grandmother Jia’s husband, dead before the novel opens. Chapter 2 gives him in a sentence: the Rongguo Duke died, his eldest son Jia Daishan inherited the office, and he married a daughter of the Shi marquisate of Jinling. His last act shapes everything after it — a memorial submitted from his deathbed moved the Emperor to grant his second son, Jia Zheng, a post outright. In Chapter 29 Grandmother Jia says of Baoyu that of all her children and grandchildren only this one takes after his grandfather.
In Xiang Li's Hands
He stands in a crimson robe crowded with gold dragons, beard blown sideways, one hand raised. Behind him, instead of landscape, a wall of oversized characters reversed out white on black like a stone rubbing. The dead man is backed by an inscription, which is all he now is.
The Calligraphy
贾代善, brushed small and low on the left against the black of the rubbing, the generation name 代 carried like his cousin’s and the whole inscription dwarfed by the monumental characters behind it.
Connections
- Jia Mu 贾母 — his widow, who outlives him by the length of the novel.
- Jia Zheng 贾政 — his second son, whose office came from his dying memorial.
- Jia Min 贾敏 — his daughter, Lin Daiyu’s mother.
Others of the same kind · Jia clan – Rongguo House Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 · Jia Yuanchun 贾元春 · Jia Tanchun 贾探春 · Jia Yingchun 贾迎春 · Jia Mu 贾母 · Jia Zheng 贾政 · Jia She 贾赦 · Jia Lian 贾琏 · Jia Huan 贾环 · Jia Lan 贾兰 · Jia Zhu 贾珠 · Jia Min 贾敏
Named on these pages Jia Daihua 贾代化
Dream of the Red Chamber
Xiang Li painted all 413 characters of the novel between 1975 and 1985, the first person to complete the entire cast. See the whole collection · Chinese Empresses
