National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Innermost Asia : vol.2 |
Appendix I] CHINESE INSCRIPTIONS AND RECORDS 1045
III
CHINESE CHARACTERS ON FIGURED SILKS
L. C. 03.
(See above, i. p. 246 ; Pl. xxxv.)
q `c
` Resplendent joy.'
L. C. 07. a.
(See above, i. p. 247 ; Pl. xxxiv.)
May this decorative pattern of Han Jên bring great good fortune to his descendants
(for generations) without end.'
M. L. Aurousseau has discussed this sentence at some length in the Bulletin de l'École Française d'ExtrêsneOrient, 192o, Pt. 4, p. 175, and reads it thus:—
fli (?) ~u f M
` Broderie de Han Jen . . . grand bonheur (à vos) enfants (et) petits enfants (jusqu'à) dix mille générations.' ifq, of course, is a surname, so that 4 can hardly be anything but the personal name (z). At first I was
inclined to take g together as forming a rather more likely name ; but, on the other hand, the fourth
character is almost certainly , which gives exactly the meaning required in combination with f. As
M. Aurousseau points out, stands probably for great'. The last two characters are the most perplexing,
and -g seems to be only a rather wild guess, in order to make the sense obviously needed, without much
regard for their actual shape. In the reading which I offer, would stand for4, the character being written
without its radical, like above. According to Wang Hsi, the two forms are interchangeable. fl. is
a very common locution, of which no fewer than twenty-one examples are given in the Pei wen yün fu. My reading as a whole is supported by the nature of the design on the brocade, consisting as it does of six auspicious animals displayed on a background into which certain birds and other objects of good augury are worked.
[The sixth character in the sentence (which is not very accurately reproduced in Mr. Andrews's article in the Burlington Magazine for July–September, 1920) is so doubtful that I am tempted to suggest the alternative reading; (or possibly a) 4. The meaning then might be : ` May Han Jên-hsiu and Wen Kung-chê have
period of twenty-five days were exempted from the Liao tax, and those who served for thirty days were exempted from both Isu and tiao.'
The corresponding passage in Chiu tang shu, eh. xlviii, f. 3, differs in a few details. The laws dealing with land are
assigned to the year 624, and the term -g (i.e. ÿ )
is explained as land which after the owner's death descended
to his heir, whereas 11 ,j ► was land that reverted to the
State and might be allotted to some other individual. The tiao tax is said to have consisted of `2o-ft. rolls of ling, chilan, or shin, or a quantity of hempen cloth greater by one-fifth. Those who paid in these silken fabrics also contributed 3 ounces of floss silk ; those who paid in cloth contributed 3 catties of raw hemp.' Finally, the period of extra service exempting one from the Liao tax is given as fifteen instead of
II
twenty-five days.
' Lan-ch'i Hsien still exists under the same name.
8 12 September--i r October, 7o6. The mark inserted before the date may be an abbreviation of J f catties and ounces ', together with a numeral, indicating the weight
of the luau. After comes another mark which I cannot
identify, and at the end the character ;, of doubtful meaning in this connexion, is written with the same brush.
There are four red seals on this piece, each 5.5 cm. square. The first contains four characters, of which only
the last two (z seal of ... ') are decipherable. The
second appears to consist of eight characters, the last two again being z ro. The third seal may be a repetition of the second, but the fourth is quite illegible.
6s
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