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

Company) and the other one was purchased at an auction held by the same company. Though they were purchased separately the identical decoration of the vases, the similarities of their measurements and technique, as well as their lack of lids all indicate that they were a pair of burial jars and they originated from the same private collection. According to the analogies and the art history evidence the shape and decoration of the Song burial jars represent Mt. Kunlun, an intermediary realm between heaven and this world, closer to heaven than to earth. A flying figure riding a dragon can be interpreted as a symbol of the soul of the deceased, who after ascending to heaven on the back of dragon is greeted by celestial officials. The peaceful realm of immortals is represented by the row of fourteen standing female figures at the lowest border of the decoration. The central seated figure in the scene can be identified as the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu), who as the main deity of the immortals looked after the ascended hun soul of the deceased figure in her heavenly resort on Mt. Kunlun. Animals around her - snake, bird, tortoise, dog - are assurance for the safe ascent of the soul of the deceased to heaven. Guardian animals were popular in Han burial art. Dogs as friends and protectors of the deceased were also often depicted. By the Tang dynasty, highly realistic figures of dogs were common. The bird on the top of the lid of the burial jar was considered differently in the shamanist tradition: as a heavenly mesanger, a heavenly helping spirit, or as the soul of a deceased person. In a later legend a blue bird is a messenger of the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu). With regard to the function and decoration of burial jars, it can be supposed that a bird placed on top of the mountain (on the top of the lid) certainly refers to communication with heaven. Chinese tombs and burial objects were an extension of a netherworld. Our pair of burial jars, as their function and decoration show, was influenced by 13th century Chinese ideas concerning the netherworld. They undoubtedly represent Mt. Kunlun as a benign place where the protective deities such as The Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu), guardian animals (among them the Four Guardian animals) or even the immortals who were nothing more than "realized" human beings resided. This paper has tried to examine SongYuan burial jars in the wider religious, historical and cultural context, and has presented only one possible solution for interpretation of their function and decortion. Hopefully, how these objects followed a very long tradition and how they preented characteristics of their own time can help illustrate the complexity of Chinese culture.