Page 96 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

colours are symbolised by their animals in the appropriate quar-
ters. Many bear inscriptions which clearly set out the meaning and
purpose of the design, such as this one on a mirror in the Museum
of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm:
The Imperial mirror of the Shang-jang [imperial workshop] is truly
without blemish; a skilled artisan has engraved it and achieved a deco-
ration; to the left the Dragon and to the right the Tiger eliminate what
is baleful; the Red Bird and Black Warrior conform to the yin and yang
forces; may your sons and grandsons be complete in number and be in
the centre; on it arc Immortals such as arc customary [on mirrors]; may
you long preserve your two parents; may yourjoy and wealth be splen-
did; may your longevity outstrip that of metal and stone; may you be
like a prince or a king. J
100 Immortals playing liu-po. Rubbing
from a stone relief in a tomb at Hsin-
chin, Szechwan. Han Dynasty.

The TLV design was primarily an auspicious cosmological dia-
gram combining celestial and terrestrial symbols. Its terrestrial
elements made up the board for playing liu-po, a popular game in
Han times that is represented on a number of Han reliefs and in
clay models. The object of this game, which Professor Yang Lien-
sheng has reconstructed from ancient texts, is to capture your op-
ponent's men or drive them into the "benders" (presumably the Ls
on the outer edge) in order to attain the centre, or, as Cammann
has put it: "to establish an axis for symbolic control of the Uni-
verse." In Han mythology liu-po was a favourite game of Tung
Wang Kung and of ambitious human heroes who sought to pitch
their skill against that of the gods and, by defeating them, to ac-
quire magic powers. To judge by the mirror designs, the game
seems to have gone out of fashion toward the end of the Han Dy-
nasty. The mirror backs of Late Han and the Three Kingdoms
101 Mirror with Taoist motifs. Bronie. produced in the Shao-hsing district of present-day Chekiang
Late Eastern Han period, second to third
century A, D. often preserve the directional symbolism but now become
crowded with figures fully modelled in relief; for the most part
these are Taoist fairies and immortals, but after a. d. 300, Buddhist
themes begin to appear as well.
JADE The advances in jade carving techniques made in the Warring
States were continued under the Han. Now the lapidary could
hollow out quite large pebbles in the form of toilet boxes and
bowls such as the yu-shang ("winged cup"), a small oval bowl for