Page 18 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book
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An amulet bearing the eight trigrams and the all-purpose benediction
‘(May you have) good fortune like the Eastern Ocean and long
life like the mountain of the South!’
Ancestral Tablet
zu
The memorial tablet is a small wooden board, often lacquered; it is about 10–20 cm broad
and at least twice as high. On it are inscribed the name and often the title of the deceased,
whose soul, it is popularly believed, lingers on the tablet, especially during sacrifices
when it has been ‘revived’ by means of a little chicken blood. In well-to-do families the
tablet is placed in a special temple dedicated to the ancestors in which all the members of
