Page 56 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 49
Taoist literature like the Tai-ping-jing: ‘You really are too stupid! Are you really asking
whether my Dao can be weighed in some sort of scales? Yes? You are asking me to put a
price on all I have told you, all I have done to enlighten you and give you insight into the
world of the divine Dao? If, instead, I had given you 1,000 pounds of gold to be used in
the service of the state – would you then be in a position to place a cheerful heart at the
service of heaven and earth, and match yin and yang so that natural catastrophes and
inauspicious signs vanish, rulers live long and the government enters upon the stage of
“Supreme Peace”?’
Tradition says that there was a ‘Burning of the Books’ in the 2nd century BC – to be
precise, in 213 BC, when Li Si, the all-powerful Chancellor of Qin, is said to have
forbidden the private ownership of certain books – including the Shi-jing (the ‘Book of
Odes’) and the Shu-jing (the ‘Book of Documents’) – on pain of death: all copies were to
be handed over for destruction by the authorities. The ban applied to all the works of the
philosophical schools, and all of the historical literature, apart from the annals of Qin and
certain books of use in everyday life.

Bo-shi

In modern Chinese, bo-shi means ‘Professor’, ‘Doctor’, ‘scholar’. In the old language it
simply referred to a scholar versed in the classics, who had passed the state examinations.
By the Middle Ages, men who worked in the corn mills were called ‘mill professors’.
And similarly, employees in wine-shops were known as ‘tea professors’.

Bottle-gourd

hu-lu

The bottle-gourd is a typical part of the magician’s or the Taoist’s para-phernalia.
It contains his magic potions and so forth. The story about a Taoist who goes inside a
bottle-gourd is well-known; his voice can be heard outside before he emerges.
The bottle-gourd is a miniature replica of heaven and earth: in its shape it
unites the two. When it is opened, a sort of cloud comes out which can be used to trap
demons. Temple paintings depicting the battles between good and evil gods (scenes
based usually on the celebrated early 17th-century novel ‘The Metamorphoses of the
Gods’) show the bottle-gourd as an active protagonist on the side of the good, helping
them to victory over their evil opponents. A bottle-gourd embellished with arabesques