Page 115 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols 108
Eight

ba

Like all even numbers, eight is feminine, i.e. it is a yin number. It appears in various
combinations: the eight symbols of the scholar, for example, are pearls, the
musical stone, the coin ( money), the rhombus, books, paintings, the
rhinoceros horn and the Artemisia leaf ( yarrow). In many pictures these symbols
appear in greatly reduced form. They may be reduced in number to four or expanded to
fourteen. Many see in them the eight treasures of Confucianism. The eight symbols of
the Immortals (also known as the eight Taoist saints) are: the fan, the
sword, the bottle-gourd, the castanets, the flower basket, the bamboo cane,
the flute, the lotus. These are personal emblems.
Like Confucianism and Taoism, China’s third great religious system – Buddhism –
also has its eight emblems: the sea-slug, the umbrella, the canopy, the lotus,
the vase, the fish, the endless knot, the wheel of learning symbolise various
aspects of Buddhism.
The eight trigrams (ba gua) of the yi-jing give all possible combinations of a
complex of three broken and unbroken lines. These trigrams appear as symbolical
decorative motifs in paintings, embroidery, etc.

The symbols of the eight Immortals

Although eight is a yin number, it is connected in mystical numerology with the male,
i.e. with a yang being: ‘The life of a man is ruled by the number 8. At 8 months he gets
his milk teeth, at 8 years he loses them. At 2 × 8 years of age he becomes a man, at 8 × 8