376 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1900. 



28-;)l. I'litdti (4) of wliito jiorcelain. Hyi Wang Mu, depicted as a beautiful female 

 in the ancient ChineHe dress, is represented accompanied by one of her 

 attendant maiilens holding a tray containing peaches and other articles, and 

 1 ly the spotted stag, symbolical of longevity, very delii-ately painted in enamel 

 colors. The rim is ornamented with a narrow band in vermilion red of 

 detached flowers of the Chinese peony {Pxonia moutan) and of butterflies. 

 Mark Ta-Ming-ch'eiig-hua-nie.n-chih, "Made during the Ch'enghua period 

 (1465 to 1487) of the great Ming or Bright (dynasty);" the colors and style 

 of i)ainting, however, point rather to the K'anghsi period as that of their 

 manufacture. Diameter, 6| inches. 



Hsi Wang Mu, literally Royal Mother of the West, is the legendary 

 (jueen of the (lenii, who is supposed to have dwelt in a palace in 

 central Asia among the K'unlun ^lountains, where she held court 

 with her fairy legions. Upon some slight allusions to this personage 

 in earlier works the philosopher Lieh Tz'u, in the fifth century, 

 B. C, based a fanciful and perhaps allegorical tale of the entertain- 

 ment with which King Mu of the Chou dynasty was honored and 

 enthralled by the fairy (jueen during his famous journeyings B. C. 

 985. In later ages the superstitious vagaries of the Emperor Wu Ti 

 of the Hau dynasty gave rise to innumerable fables respecting the 

 alleged visits paid to that monarch by Hsi Wang Mu and her fairy 

 troop; and the imagination of the Taoist writers of the ensuing cen- 

 turies was exercised in glowing descriptions of the magnificence of 

 her mountain palace. Here, by the borders of the Lake of Gems, 

 grows the peach tree of the Genii, whose fruit confers the gift of 

 immortality, bestowed by the goddess upon the favored beings 

 admitted to her presence, and hence she dispatches the azure- winged 

 birds, Ch' ing-niao, which serve, like Venus' s doves, as her attendants 

 and messengers. In process of time a consort was found for her in 

 the person of Tung Wang Kung, or King Lord of the East, whose name 

 is designed in obvious imitation of her own, and who appears to owe 

 many of his attributes to the Hindoo legends respecting India. By 

 the time of the Sung dynasty (the tenth century, A. D. ) a highly 

 mystical doctrine respecting the pair, represented as the first created 

 and creative results of the powers of nature in their primary process 

 of development, was elaborated in the Kuang-Clii. The more sober 

 research of modern writers leads to the suggestion that Wang Mu 

 was the name either of a region or of a sovereign in the ancient West. 

 ii2, :'>:-'>. Bi)ii-/s (a })air), everted, of thin white K'anghsi porcelain decorated with the 

 eighteen Lolum or ArhUx in groups, very delicately painted in vermilion. 

 Mark as in No. 26. Height, 2| inches; diameter, 6 inches. 



In his Handljook of Chinese Buddhism, Dr. Eitel says that the orig- 

 inal meaning of Arhat ("deserving" ) is overlooked by most Chinese 

 commentators, who explain the term as though it were written Arihat, 

 "destroyer of the enemy," i.e., of the passions, and "not to be 

 reborn," *. c, exempt from transmigration. A third explanation, 

 l»ased on the original conception, is "deserving of worship." The 

 Arhat is the perfected Arya, and can therefore only be attained by 

 passing through the different degrees of saintship. It implies the 

 possession of supernatural powers, and is to be succeeded either by 

 Buddhaship or by inmiediate entrance into Nirvana. In popular 

 acceptation, however, it has a wider range, designating not only the 

 perfected saint, but all the disciples of S'akyamuni, and thus it 

 includes not only the smaller circles of eighteen and five hundred 

 disciples, but also the largest circle of one thousand two hundred. 



