Abstract:Yuan Ye and Treatise on Garden Design are the earliest gardening monographs in China and Japan respectively. Although the times and regions of the books are different, the profound influence of Chinese culture embodied in the latter makes the comparative reading of the two great significance. Through the text comparison and analysis of the internal similarities and differences between the two, it can be seen that the notes of Treatise on Garden Design reflects the garden characteristics of emphasizing miniature nature instead of human entry in the early gardening activities, the idea of water and stone going together with water management as the goal and stone lifting as the means, and the characteristics of sea and island formed under the influence of Japanese marine culture. Yuan Ye reflects the development of regional gardening thought in the late gardening activities, which emphasizes the characteristics of people's life, the independence and perfection of mountain and stone aesthetics and the degradation of water aesthetics. Meanwhile, the concept of gardening adapting to site conditions runs through these two theoretical works of gardening with different backgrounds, proving the consistent importance of site to East Asian gardening culture.
