244 CHRIST IN "LI TAI SHEN HSIEN T'UNG CHIEN. " 



lion i him his essential thick Nazarite hair and characteristic 

 heard and clothing him in Nestorian garments, I am forced 

 io ask- what remains by which to identify this figure as 

 Christ? Is it the shape of the eyes, the nose, the feet, or 

 the toes? Again I see no hope of agreement. 



Coming now to the motto i§j H ^ — on the back of 

 the ink-tablet, it is quite unthinkable that the word H 

 "three" in the motto should not be considered as referring 

 to the. three figures in the picture. The three who> are ®-ed 

 into one are these three persons or what they repre- 

 sent. To admit Professor Giles' contention would involve 

 the conclusion that the Holy Trinity is or was composed 

 of Christ and two Nestorian priests ! The usual phrase for 

 the Trinity is H & — ft and this meaning does not seem 

 to be conveyed by Si H ^ — . As to the subject of @i, 

 the gist of a long, elaborate explanation by a native scholar 

 is that the two circles surrounding the picture (representing 

 respectively heaven and earth — all that is comprehended in 

 the term i£ If) are to be taken as embracing and unifying 

 the three doctrines personified in it. (This view derives 

 support from the sentence in the ^ fi? referred to by Pro- 

 fessor Giles, which evidently refers to the illustration itself.) 

 According to this explanation, the picture is composed of 

 5c. i&, A, 0, and J3, and these, when personified (the 

 human figures standing for the religions or doctrines they 

 represent), fall naturally into the places assigned them 

 in the picture, those places corresponding to the posi- 

 tions in the well-known 1^ Wi diagram (sometimes called 

 the "duplex fishes") composed of the two concentric circles 

 representing ^ (fg) and ifi (**), and of % (ft Buddhism), 

 B (it Taoism), and A (1i Confucianism). The order is 

 determined by the priority (of origin, not of arrival in China) 

 of Buddhism to the other two , If & ^ M at Si ^ ^ ) 

 (Note also that the order is ft it ff not ff M. ft or & ff ft 

 etc. It is also obvious that Confucius in the picture is 

 listening to Lao Tzti, not worshipping Christ — or Buddha — 

 as maintained by Professor Giles). This diagram was 

 evidently the ground-plan of the picture in question, and 

 the above explanation (which also shows the raison d'etre 

 of the two concentric circles — not hitherto explained — in- 

 stead of a single-line rectangular border) would seem to be the 

 most reasonable and probable solution of the problem. 



This explanation differs somewhat from the one (also 

 founded on discussions with learned native scholars) given in 

 my paper, but it does not differ in the essential facts, namely, 

 tli at the figure in question is one of Buddha, and that 



