Page 56 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

24 CHINESE PORCELAIN.

of the Kishis at Kw'en Lun, her mountain home, is one of
the common art-motives of the older Chinese and Japanese
artists." No. 11 is taken from a blue and white vase in the
Collection at South
Salting Kensington.
Home of the Genii.
Mayers, at p. 108, gives the following description of the
home of the genii and their queen, which it may be useful
"
here to quote : Kw'en Lun, a mountain of Central Asia,
widely celebrated in Chinese legends. The actual range of
mountains to which this name is applied, is identified by
modern geographers with the Hindu Kush, but it is chiefly in
ancient fable and Taoist mythology that mention of it occurs.
The name is found in the Shu King, in the ancient record
entitled the ' Tribute of Yu,' where it is spoken of among the
whence the wild tribes of the West haircloth and
spots brought
skins ; but, at a very early period, the cosmogonists and mystics
appear to have elevated it to the position of the central moun-
'
tain of the earth, and the source whence the ' four rivers
great
'
take their rise. Thus, in the Shan Hai King,' it is alleged that
Mount Kw'en Lun is 10,000 li in circumference and 11,000 li
in Around its base flow the blue river, the white
height.
river, the red river, and the black river. Lieh Tsze, in his
based on the of Chow Mu
allegorical rhapsody, legend Wang,
dilated on its marvels as the residence of the queen of the genii,
Si Wang Mu, and from his day onward the fabulists have
vied with one another in fantastic of the wonders
descriptions
of this abode. Hwai Nan Tsze, with his accustomed
fairy
wealth of detail, portrays the mountain and its accessories in
terms which have birth to countless later fictions. He
given
says it has walls piled high in ninefold gradations, and upon
it there grow trees and grain. On the west there are the tree
of the tree of the tree of the silan and the
pearls, jadestone, gem,
tree of On the east there are the and
immortality. sha-fang
the lang lean, on the south there is the hiang tree, and on the
north the and the trees forms of
pi yao (different chrysoprase
or At its foot flows the
jade). yellow water, which, after three
windings, returns to its source. It is called the Tan water, and
those who drink of it death. The waters of the Ho
escape
flow from the mountain, and the Weak Water
(the yellow river)