CHINA
CHINA
the altar of every Chinese Buddhist temple, as well as repeated ad infinitum in architectural decoration.
They are derived from India.”
g.—A bell (chung). This is often replaced by the /un or chakra, the wheel of the law.
to.—An univalve shell (/o), the chank-shell of the Buddhists. It is carried by masters of ships to insure a prosperous voyage.
11. — A State umbrella (saz), supposed to represent the W an-min-san, or “ umbrella of ten thousand people,” “ which is presented to a Mandarin on his leaving his district, as a token of the purity of his administration.”
12. A canopy (kae).
13. — The lotus flower (Awa). This is the sacred blossom of the Buddhists. It takes several forms, varying from the original in proportion to the painter’s want of skill.
14. — A sacred urn (kwan).
15.— Iwo fishes (yz) united by fillets. This is sup- posed to “allude to domestic felicity, because a fresh-water fish like a perch is said to go about in pairs, always faithful to each other.’’ Two fishes, not necessarily united by a fillet, are the oldest of all ornaments found on porcelain. They occur frequently in relief, or incised, upon plates and bowls of Sung céladon.
16.— The angular knot, the intestines (chang), used as an emblem of longevity.
Some other common symbolical devices are : —
17.—A circularly arranged seal character for sho, longev- ity. This ideograph has no less than a hundred different forms, and not infrequently a vase or a cup has for sole dec- oration different forms of the ideograph. It occurs in all kinds of combinations, and shares with the ideograph fuh (“felicity”), of which also there are many forms, the dis- tinction of figuring most frequently in keramic decoration.
18.— A bat (fuh). The word “ fuh,” a bat, has exactly the same sound — though of course its ideograph is different —as fuh, felicity. Hence a delineation of a bat has come
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