DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63296#0149
DRAGON, CICADA, TOAD
days, but by the full moon had probably all settled in the mulberry trees,
the planes and the poplars, and were singing in the foliage out of the way
of watchers?
By degrees the cicada became associated with the idea of death and im-
mortality* The Emperor Hang Ts'ung (735 a*d.) believed that the
cicada was the symbol of the passage from mortal life to a higher state*
In speaking of death, a Chinese poet, K'in Yuan (314 b*c*), said, ** He
divested himself of his body as the cicada divests itself of the impure and the
abject*”2 In Taoism the cicada is regarded as the natural symbol of the hsien
or soul disengaging itself from the body at death* This figuration was in
vogue in the days of Lao Tze when parallels were drawn between the cicada
and the hsien. “ In the island mountains there are hsien. They eat the wind
and drink the dew, they do not feed on the five cereals*”3 This characteristic
was always ascribed to the cicada* It was a simple step for the imagination
to take to conclude that the hsien took on the semblance of a cicada in order
to appear to mortals, but this belief caused the cicada to be held in greater
regard than ever*
According to Taoist rites it was customary to make use of the image of
the cicada in preparing for the burial of a corpse* Just when this custom
was introduced it is impossible to state with accuracy, but the probability
is that not until Han days was a jade cicada placed in the mouth of the dead*
The earlier mouth jades were probably of another shape and engraved
with a t(ao t(ielis head*
Dr* Laufer represents all jade cicadas as mouth jades, but Dr* Gieseler
distinguishes two categories of jade cicada, one pierced with two orifices
in the head through which a cord may be threaded, and one of rather
plainer workmanship without such orifices* The first mentioned are gener-
ally made of russet and black jade—the colours of the full-grown insect-
and are merely amulets to be worn at the summer solstice as symbols of
the harmony between yin and yang, just as dragon amulets and dragon
buckles are symbols of the vernal equinox* One or two rare examples of
ju-i hooks not in jade but in bronze, with a dragon's head at one end and a
cicada at the other, are in existence* It is improbable that these dark
cicada amulets ever passed from the wear of the living to the use of the
dead since, apart from other considerations, the colour was not correct and,
besides, those placed upon the tongue are of rather different workmanship,
plainer and unpierced without indication of wings or thorax, so plain
1 Rev. Arch., 1919, IX. 2 Textes historiques, Wieger.
3 P. 153, Rev. Arch., 1919, IX.
125
days, but by the full moon had probably all settled in the mulberry trees,
the planes and the poplars, and were singing in the foliage out of the way
of watchers?
By degrees the cicada became associated with the idea of death and im-
mortality* The Emperor Hang Ts'ung (735 a*d.) believed that the
cicada was the symbol of the passage from mortal life to a higher state*
In speaking of death, a Chinese poet, K'in Yuan (314 b*c*), said, ** He
divested himself of his body as the cicada divests itself of the impure and the
abject*”2 In Taoism the cicada is regarded as the natural symbol of the hsien
or soul disengaging itself from the body at death* This figuration was in
vogue in the days of Lao Tze when parallels were drawn between the cicada
and the hsien. “ In the island mountains there are hsien. They eat the wind
and drink the dew, they do not feed on the five cereals*”3 This characteristic
was always ascribed to the cicada* It was a simple step for the imagination
to take to conclude that the hsien took on the semblance of a cicada in order
to appear to mortals, but this belief caused the cicada to be held in greater
regard than ever*
According to Taoist rites it was customary to make use of the image of
the cicada in preparing for the burial of a corpse* Just when this custom
was introduced it is impossible to state with accuracy, but the probability
is that not until Han days was a jade cicada placed in the mouth of the dead*
The earlier mouth jades were probably of another shape and engraved
with a t(ao t(ielis head*
Dr* Laufer represents all jade cicadas as mouth jades, but Dr* Gieseler
distinguishes two categories of jade cicada, one pierced with two orifices
in the head through which a cord may be threaded, and one of rather
plainer workmanship without such orifices* The first mentioned are gener-
ally made of russet and black jade—the colours of the full-grown insect-
and are merely amulets to be worn at the summer solstice as symbols of
the harmony between yin and yang, just as dragon amulets and dragon
buckles are symbols of the vernal equinox* One or two rare examples of
ju-i hooks not in jade but in bronze, with a dragon's head at one end and a
cicada at the other, are in existence* It is improbable that these dark
cicada amulets ever passed from the wear of the living to the use of the
dead since, apart from other considerations, the colour was not correct and,
besides, those placed upon the tongue are of rather different workmanship,
plainer and unpierced without indication of wings or thorax, so plain
1 Rev. Arch., 1919, IX. 2 Textes historiques, Wieger.
3 P. 153, Rev. Arch., 1919, IX.
125