

Feb., 1912. Jade. 247 



of offering the horse to his lord." 1 This revelation throws an interest- 

 ing light on that fatal Chinese custom of restoring and fixing up frag- 

 mentary objects which certainly lose a great deal of their archaeological 

 value by such acts of violence. This is practised universally at the 

 present time and admonishes the collector to use great caution; and we 

 now see that it is a time-honored practice too. 



In this connection I may be allowed by the way to sound a warning 

 to those who are interested in the mediaeval mortuary terra-cotta 

 figurines which have been unearthed from graves in large quantities 

 during recent years. The complete finds have naturally been rare, 

 and in most cases masses of single heads and parts of the body have 

 come to light which were stuck together haphazardly by inventive 

 Chinamen or even completed with additional clay substances in the 

 hope of an increase in price from the prospective sale to the foreigner. 

 The most grotesque monstrosities have originated in this way, and 

 collectors should be on their guard for such "fakes," and still more 

 archaeologists before venturing to base any conclusions on these an- 

 tiquities. The addition of the man to' the jade figure of the horse is 

 certainly silly and in contradiction to all artistic traditions, as there is 

 no connection between the two, neither by action nor by any technical 

 means; the ancient artwork has been degraded into a toy. 2 



Figure 2 on Plate XXXII represents a standing lion, of white jade 

 (6.5 cm X 4 cm), in the Indian-Buddhistic style, nose, brows, mane and 

 joints of feet being represented by spirals. The head is elegantly 

 curved back, which has become a favorite position in animals ever 

 since the Han period. In the open jaws, the tongue, four fangs and the 

 incisors are cut out with minute care. 



Figure 3 shows a squatting tiger (9 cm X 3 cm) looking backward 

 carved from a pure clear rock-crystal without flaw. The spiral 



1 Another horse, belonging to the Sung period, is shown in the Ku yu t'u p'u 

 (Ch. 37, p. 7). It is the full figure of a standing horse tied to a post, forming the 

 handle of a jade seal used by the emperor Hui-tsung (1 101-1 125 A. d.). The carving 

 is ascribed to a certain Wang Yu, and the editors express a deep admiration for this 

 work. 



2 In the Bishop collection (Vol. II, p. 145) there is a jade-carved horse called 

 t'o shu ma "the horse carrying books" which is explained by Bushell as "the horse 

 emerging from the Yellow River with the nine volumes containing the nine (?) 

 mystic diagrams." This is due to a confusion with the legendary dragon-horse 

 (lung ma) carrying a tablet (not books which were not then invented) on which the 

 eight diagrams were inscribed. But that horse is the famous white horse (pat ma) 

 of the Buddhist pilgrim and traveller Hsuan Tsang who is supposed to have carried 

 on its back his Sanskrit books from India to Lo-yang; the temple Pai-ma se east of 

 the city of Ho-nan fu is named for this horse who plays a great r61e in the fantastic 

 novel Si yu ki and is familiar to every visitor of the Chinese theatre. The drawing 

 in Bishop's work conspicuously shows nine Buddhistic volumes of the peculiar oblong 



1 size of the Tripitaka bound in a wrapper and covered with a silk cloth, — carried 

 on the back of the horse. 



