Page 27 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

was used to
with water
Boy Bufalo ranslucent white nephrite centuries. The ox (niu is Chinese for both "ox"
............................................................................ create this appealing image of a small and "water buffalo") and herdsman as a para-
i8th
Qing dynasty, century boy attending large water buffalo. The carver ble is an ancient Buddhist tradition and can be
a
Nephrite carefully detailed the docile bulk of the ani- traced back to an early Indian text describing
H. 51/4 in. (13.3 cm) mal and the liveliness of the child, who gently the eleven different ways of tending oxen and
R.
Gft ofHeber Bishop, 1902 prods him with a shaft of rice, often used in comparing them with the responsibilities of a
Chinese art as a for monk. A similar tradition is known in
02.18.438 symbol peace. Tibet,
of
Representations young boys and water where the same word is used for both "cow"
buffalo were frequently carved in jade and and "elephant," and the parable refers to a
other stones. On the one hand, these sculp- mahout and his mount.
tures illustrate familiar subjects in the pros- At least a dozen Chinese versions of the
life of China. On the other,
perous agricultural oxherding cycle are preserved today, but
their frequency suggests that they may have those by the mid-twelfth-century Chan mas-
had some symbolic meaning. The theme of a ters Puming and Guo'an are the best known.
in
youth herding a water buffalo is found in Puming's version was widespread China,
Chinese and Japanese paintings, particularly while Guo'an's was preferred Japan. Both
in
those associated with Chan (Zen) Buddhism. were available in series and in books of wood-
These works usually feature a barefoot youth block prints illustrating the ten songs, each of
a
to
and often exploit the contrast between the which represents step on the path enlight-
potential power of the animal and the vulner- enment, beginning with looking for the ox,
ability of its keeper. sighting it, herding it, and ending with the ox
Such images derive from a cycle of parables alone, then the boy, and then a great emptiness
known as the Ten Oxherding Songs, which symbolizing enlightenment.
became popular in the eleventh and twelfth DPL

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