. Guide leaflet. e wife ofShen I, the divinearcher. She ate oneof the pills of immor-tality and flew to themoon. Seized with aviolent fit of cough-ing, she presently coughed up the coatingof the pill she had eaten, which immedi-ately became a rabbit as white as purest JADK 19 jade, riiiis was created the ancestor ofthe /////, the negative or female principleof universal life, whose prototype is themoon. The essence of the Yhikj or male prin-ciple resides in the person of thedrag;on, that mythical animalor being endowed by theChinese mind with su-pernatural powerswhich are generallyassumed to b
. Guide leaflet. e wife ofShen I, the divinearcher. She ate oneof the pills of immor-tality and flew to themoon. Seized with aviolent fit of cough-ing, she presently coughed up the coatingof the pill she had eaten, which immedi-ately became a rabbit as white as purest JADK 19 jade, riiiis was created the ancestor ofthe /////, the negative or female principleof universal life, whose prototype is themoon. The essence of the Yhikj or male prin-ciple resides in the person of thedrag;on, that mythical animalor being endowed by theChinese mind with su-pernatural powerswhich are generallyassumed to be ex-ercised for goodrather than evil, aswhen a dragon wasinvoked in times ofdrought to bring fer-tihzing rain. In thissense dragons werelooked upon as veritabledeities, and according toBert hold Laufer the manifoldtypes and variations of dragons metwith in ancient Chinese art are representa-tive of different forces of nature, that is,of different deities. In a measure thiswould explain why dragons are so univer-. IJade: A Study in Chinese Archaeology and Museum of Natural History Publication 154, 1912. sally represented in jade carvings, and why they vary so richly and amazingly. Some are full-bodied like lions, while some are attenuated, convoluted, and very reptilian indeed. Some have branching horns and others are decorated with manes that are singularly ike human hair. An old (hinese classic ascribes nine resemblances to the dragon; its horns are like those of a deer, its head that of a camel, its eyes are those of a devil, it has the neck of a snake, the abdomen of a cockle shell, the scales of a carp, the claws of an eagle, the soles of its feet are like those of a tiger, and its ear like those of an ox. Even in the matter of claws this miraculous beast holds to no fixed rule for, although the imperial dragon has five to each of its four feet, ordinary dragons have but four. Perhaps because of the fact that Chinese designs and decorative motives
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectnatural, bookyear1901
