THE CERAMIC ART IN CHINA. 449 



Li T'ieh-kuai, or T'ieli-Kuai-Tsien-Sbeug, i. e., "Li of the Iron Staff," or 

 " the gentleman of the Iron Staif." His birth is assigned to no pre- 

 cise era; his name, however, is stated to have been Li, and he is de- 

 scribed as of commanding stature and of dignified mien. He was 

 entirely devoted to the stndy of Taoist lore, his instructor haviug 

 been the philosopher Lao Tz'u himself, who for that purpose descended 

 at times from Heaveu, and at others summoned his pupil to his celes- 

 tial abode. " On one occasion, when about to mount on high,'' says 

 the legend as given by Mayers (No. 718), "at his patron's bidding 

 the pupil, before departing in spirit to voyage through the air, left 

 a disciple of bis own to watch over his material soul (p'o), with the 

 command that if, after seven days had expired, his spirit (htm) did 

 not return, the material essence might be dismissed into apace. 

 Unfortunately, at the expiration of six days the watcher was called 

 away to the death-bed of his mother, and, his trust being neglected, 

 when the disembodied spirit returned on the evening of the seventh 

 day it found its earthly habitation no longer vitalized. It, therefore 

 entered the first available refuge, which was the body of a lame and 

 crooked beggar whose spirit had at that moment been exhaled, and 

 in this shape the philosopher continued his existence, supporting his 

 halting footsteps with an iron staff." Li T'ieh-kuai is, in consequence, 

 usually depicted as a lame and ragged beggar exhaling his spiritual 

 essence in the form of a shadowy miniature of his corporeal form, or 

 conjuring five bats, symbolical of the five kinds of happiness (see No. 

 27) from a gourd. 



Han Hsiang-tz'u is reputed to have been the grandson of the famous 

 statesman, philosopher, and poet of the T'ang dynasty, and to have 

 lived in the latter half of the ninth century. He was an ardent 

 votary of transcendental study, and the pupil of Lii Tung-pin (see 

 ante), himself one of the immortals, who appeared to him in the flesh. 

 Having been carried up into the peach-tree of the Genii (see Nos. 27 

 and 28), he fell from its branches, and in falling entered into immor- 

 tality. He is usually depicted playing upon a flute or sittiug upon 

 a portion of the trunk of a peach-tree. 



Lan Ts'ai-ho is of uucertain sex, but usually reputed a female. The t'ai- 

 p'ing-Kuang-chi states that she wandered abroad clad in a tattered 

 blue gown, with one foot shoeless and the other shod, in summer 

 wearing a wadded garment next the skin, and in winter sleeping 

 amid snow and ice. " In this guise," says Mayers, "the weird being 

 begged a livelihood in the streets, waving a wand aloft and chant- 

 ing a doggerel verse denunciatory of fleeting life and its delusive 

 pleasures." Lan Ts'ai-ho is usually drawn as an aged man or as a 

 female clad in leaves or rags, carrying a basket, (?) to hold the alms 

 given. 



Ho Hsien-Ku was the daughter of one Ho T'ai. a native of Tseng-ch'eng, 

 near Canton, and was born in the latter half of the seventh century. 

 Born with six hairs growing on the top of her head, she at fourteen 

 years of age dreamed that a spirit visited her and instructed her in 

 the art of obtaining immortality by eating powdered mother-of-pearl. 

 She complied with this injunction and vowed herself to a life of vir- 

 ginity. Her days were henceforth passed in solitary wanderings 

 among the hills, among which she moved as on wings, to gather 

 herbs, and eventually renounced all mortal food. Her fame having 

 reached the ears of the Empress Mu, a concubine endowed with a 

 masterful intellect, Avho succeeded iu usurping the sovereign power, 



H. Mis. 142, pt. 2—29 



