*6.1. Description of How the Two Worlds Overlap*

The name the Wu Liang Shrine is the abbreviation of Jiaxiang Wu Family shrines. It was unearthed in the north of Wudishan Village, Jiaxiang County, Shandong Province. It dates back to the first year of Emperor Heng's reign (Yuanjia reign era) of the Eastern Han dynasty (151 AD) and is a typical work created in the heyday of the cult of the Queen Mother. Among the stone portraits in the Wu Liang Shrine, the most eye-catching is the "Sage Kings Image". This stone portrait is carved on the west wall of Wu Liang Shrine. The archaeological report describes it as follows:

Carvings on the west wall of the Wu Liang Shrine: The original number of the stone is Wu Liang Shrine III. The upper part of this stone has a sharp arch. The image is divided into five layers from top to bottom with friezes or straight bars that are decorated with curling moire patterns, double diamond patterns, connected arc patterns, and so on. In the arch of the first layer, the Queen Mother sits in the middle, flanked by supernatural creatures and servants such as feathered deities, the moon rabbit, the three-legged toad (transformation of Chang'e), and a human-headed bird. On the second layer, pictures of creation mythology figures Fuxi and Nüwa, as well as ancient emperors are engraved, including Zhurong 祝融 (god of fire), Shennong 神農 (second of the mythical emperors), Huangdi 黃帝 (or the "Yellow Emperor", third of ancient China's mythological emperors), Zhuanxu 顓頊 (or Gaoyang, grandson of the "Yellow Emperor"), Emperor Ku 帝嚳 (or Gaoxin 高辛, one of the Five Emperors, a descendant of the Yellow Emperor, the "White Emperor"), Emperor Yao 帝堯 (second son to Emperor Ku), Emperor Shun 帝舜 (the last of the Five Emperors), Xia Yu 夏禹 (or Yu the Great 大禹, legendary king in ancient China who established the Xia dynasty), and Xia Jie 夏桀 (or Jie of Xia, last ruler of the Xia dynasty), along with their titles from right to left. On the third layer, from the right, there are the tales of four filial sons, with their titles as well: mother of Zengzi throwing away the shuttle after hearing rumors (*Zeng mu tou zhu*), Min Ziqian losing control of the whip and the carriage while driving, hermit Laolaizi finding ways to entertain his parents, and Ding Lan making woodcarvings of his parents. On the fourth layer, starting from the right side are the famous assassin stories including Cao Zi coercing Duke Huan of Qi to return the land to Lu, Zhuan Zhu killing King Liao in a party with a dagger hidden in a fish, Jing Ke's attempted assassination of King Zheng of Qin, all with titles. The fifth layer paints a line of chariots' procession to the left (Jiang 2000, p. 16).

In "Wu Liang Shrine III", two worlds are depicted. The first layer is the world of longevity and immortality that the Queen Mother resides in, and the four layers below are the real world. Although the immortal world has only one layer, while the real world has four, the Queen Mother is located at the top, thus creating a visual effect of her dominating everything from above. The idea is that the Queen Mother can guide the owner of the tomb from the real world to longevity and immortality. It is a deliberate arrangemen<sup>t</sup> to elevate her within the picture. The composition of the Queen Mother being high up above everything is also common in other Han stone reliefs. However, there are eleven mythical emperors below the Queen Mother, a phenomenon that also demands our attention.

These eleven mythological emperors held an extremely lofty position in the real world of the Han Dynasty. In addition to being worshipped and respected, they also assumed many specific social governance functions. For example, Fuxi and Nüwa nurtured the human species, and the Yellow Emperor assumed the role of ancestor god. These functions were not directly related to the daily life of the owner of the ancestral hall, but they had a clear logical relationship with the governance of society. If the Queen Mother bore the same function of society governance, then the composition of her being above the mythical emperors was reasonable. Under the emperors, there are also pictures of filial sons, stories of the Warring States period, and pictures of chariot procession, etc., all of which were major events in the real world and hence can also be placed under the scope of social governance.

Scholars have noticed this phenomenon of the Queen Mother residing in two worlds. Professor Wu Hung believes that the images of the Queen Mother, the King Father, and their immortal planes are "iconic," while the parts below the celestial land adopt an "episodic" composition. He, therefore, claims that the two compositional methods "imply two different ways of creating and seeing works of art" (Wu 1989, p. 134). Especially with the elevation of the Queen Mother's religious significance, her established divine status "necessitated a new iconic image to represent such a deity ... The appearance of this art form reflects a development toward a purely devotional image (that culminates in later Buddhist art during the Northern and Southern dynasties)" (Wu 1989, p. 141). Professor Wu analyzes

the two worlds of the Queen Mother from the "iconic" and "episodic" compositional methods, a method which is not completely consistent with our common understanding of the dichotomy of the real world versus the world of longevity and immortality, but it can remind us of the importance of this dichotomy.

In essence, the image of Queen Mother is placed above those of eleven mythological or legendary rulers is of symbolic meaning, indicating the social and theological function of the Queen Mother as a supreme ruler over mortal beings. This theme does not escape the attention of Michael Loewe or Weiyi Lu (2009, p. 31), who argues:

The image elucidates this theme in two ways. First of all, the Queen Mother of the West usually wears a unique crown as a necessary attribute. This crown can be interpreted as a symbol of her power to weave the web of the universe, symbolizing the power of perpetuating the human life. Second, the theme of Yin and Yang is often presented in other ways: either as a description or as a symbol.

Loewe's associating "weaving the web of the universe" with "perpetuating the human life" is in agreemen<sup>t</sup> with our view that the Queen Mother is entrusted with two different ye<sup>t</sup> interrelated divine responsibilities, that is, to rule over both the immortal world and the mortal world.
