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As if all the symbols mentioned were not enough, China accumulated increasing numbers of them through the long centuries. Buddhism brought along the Eight Happy Omens and the Seven Gems. Taoism added the Eight Emblems of the Taoist Immortals. There are the Hundred Antiques, the Eight Precious Things, and other groups. Further, there are many individual symbols such as the swastika, which represents Buddha’s doctrines or, more often, Buddha’s heart, and the lotus flower representing Buddhist enlightenment.
The forms of the jade carvings themselves are often as significant as the symbols inscribed on them. Perhaps best known of the ancient carvings of significant form are the Six Ritual Jades. The Book of Rites, believed to have been originally by Chou Kung about 1100 B.C., helps us to understand much about early religious practices. Translation of a passage from the book in its fourteenth-century edition by Li Ki tells us:
With a sky-blue Pi worship is paid to Heaven
With a yellow Ts’ung to Earth
With a green Kuei to the East
With a red Ch’ang to the South
With a white Hu to the West
With a black Huang to the North. The Pi, symbolizing Heaven, is a simple, flat, circular disk with a round hole in the middle. A Ts’ung is much more complex, but just as beautiful in form. In its simplest version it is a hollow cylinder carved in such a way that it appears to be inserted into a rectangular box of square cross section. The carving skills and dedication required to form a Ts’ung were far greater than for a simple Pi. As with most of the Six Ritual Jades, the original reasons for the particular forms are obscure, but from earliest times the Ts’ung has symbolized the earth. Later, when it became traditional to use these jades for burial purposes, the Ts’ung was placed on the chest and the Pi at the back, placing the departed squarely between heaven and earth. Check also design your own engagement ring.