Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 18. (Budapest, 1999)

Györgyi FAJCSÁK: The hun soul's wanderings. A pair of Chinese burial jars from the 13th century

Symbols of the sacred mountains in early Chinese thought, because one of the most important powers attributed to the great mountains was their ability to produce clouds, which bring rain, the life source for agricultural communities. The symbolic cloud scrolls in the paintings were auspicious symbols of the vital energy and creative power of the mountains. Painters of the Six Dynasty period wandered in the mountains and depicted them in their paintings. As they wandered, however, they created a symbolic world in that they did not paint the real area - peaks and valleys but rather an ideal place for becoming immortal. The wilderness of the mountains was gradually changed by the expansion of the civilized Chinese world into the mountains in the Six Dynasties period. This progress was continued in the next period, in the reign of the Tang dynasty (618-907). Representations of mountains became more familiar, reflecting a human-like vision of realizing one's own existence in a transcendental world. Therefore, personal, intimate contacts with the mountains -as new phenomena - appeared in the art of the Tang dynasty. REPRESENTATIONS OF MT. KUNLUN AND THE REALM OF IMMORTALS Mt. Kunlun as depiction of the far western region, which features the imaginary cosmic mountain and the mystical hills in its vicinity as well as depictions of the realm of immortals, can be investigated in the archaeological findings excavated at Mawangdui near Changsha dated to the 2nd century B. C. Four wooden coffins placed in each other were decorated with lacquer paintings and one of these paintings depicted Mt. Kunlun as the gate of heaven (Fig. 10.). On the left side of the mountain are a tiger and a horse, on the right side there is a bird. All the animals are placed on twisting dragons bordered the mountain. Beside the bird there is a human figure holding a feather as he climbs the slope. One of the interpretations of this scene is as follows: this is a representation of the difficulties on the way up to Mt Kunlun, which are insurmountable hindrances in the absence of help from the transcendental power. Another depiction of Mt. Kunlun could be also found at this archaeological site, representing Mt. Kunlun with white deers on the sides of the mountain (Fig. 11.). Inside the triangularshaped, pointed mountain there are two other three-peaked mountains pointed in a special cloud motif which represent the three layers of Mt. Kunlun, decribed in the Huainanzi, such as the lowest Cool Breeze (liangfeng), the middle one, Hanging Garden (xuanpu)

18 and the top peak the Upper Heaven (shangtian). It is supposed that representations of Mt. Kunlun excavated at Mawangdui formed an integral system. They presented particularly important information about the lowest region of the Mt. Kunlun showing many creatures in various activities on the mountain or in the air above: dragons, tigers and birds are running, roaming and flying. However, depictions of Mt. Kunlun give only scanly information about the highest region of the mountain. Mt. Kunlun was undoubtedly a cosmic mountain in the Zhou period, and its basic concept was most likely derived from the shamanistic trip between heaven and earth, as mentioned above. Mt. Kunlun became the central axis of the universe in early Han cosmology, though several questions are still unanswered concerning its cult. Archaeological items found at Mawangdui have proved that shamanism was still practiced in the Middle Yangzi River, in the cultural centre of the former Chu state, during the reign of the Han dynasty. The association of the Mt. Kunlun cult with funerals, that is, its association with the idea of the soul ascending to heaven, might