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- By the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), iron was in widescale use for farm implements, weapons, vessels and ornaments. During the period of disunification, known as the Six Dynasties period (220-589), cast iron was also used to make small statues for religious purposes. By the Tang (618-906) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, the Chinese iron masters developed an exceptional talent at producing massive casting, which included large iron men, lions, Buddhist statues, pagodas and bells. The most famous cast iron statues of this era are the huge 5.4 metre high lion (cast in 953) at Cangzhou, Hebei province, and the cast iron men at Zhongyue Miao temple, near Dongfeng, in Henan and at Jinci Temple, near Taiyuan in Shanxi province.
Numerous cast iron statues and bells continued to be made throughout the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.
NOTES
1 It should be pointed out that a number of large bells were removed from China roughly at the same time as the bell in Victoria. They can be found in Europe (especially Great Britain) and also in Australia, (see Bob Nicholas, Bluejackets and Boxers, London, page 128). In significance, the Chinese would have thousands upon thousands of other artifacts they would want returned from Europe, North America and Japan before the bells. Also there are literally hundreds of bells still in China of equal or greater quality and historical significance than the one in Victoria.
2 Note two spellings of Shan Hai Kwan (old spelling) and Shan Hai Guan (new spelling).
J The Boxer Rebellion was started by a Chinese secret society known as Yihechuan (often crudely translated as "Righteous and Harmonious Fists" or more simply as "Boxers"). Patriotic Chinese wanted to end Western and Japanese encroachments on their nation, so the society was organized to drive foreigners out of China. Many foreigners, in particular missionaries, and Chinese Christian converts were killed by the Boxers, who in June, 1900, laid siege to the foreign communities in both Tianjin (Tientsin) and Beijing (Peking). International forces (which included Europeans from Britain, France, Germany and Russia; Americans; and Japanese) entered China and quickly put an end to the rebellion and demanded large war indemnities.
4 See Judith Lavoie "Taxi Tourists Track Down Bell's Roots," Times Colonist, November 6, 1987.
5 See A Sino-Western Calendar for Two Thousand Years, 1 -2000 A.D., Hong Kong, 1961, page 329.
6 A large number of Chinese bells (including the one now in Devonport, England) have groupings of the Chinese trigrams or pa kua around the eight lobes. These trigrams composed of three horizontal lines, each either solid or broken at the centre, are featured in the Yi Jing (I Ching), which has played a prominent part in Chinese religion, philosophy and proto-science for more than two thousand years. Chinese scholars often discussed the symbolic significance of individual trigrams. They associated the two principal trigrams with Heaven and Earth, and the six lesser ones with the sun and the moon, wind and thunder, and seas and mountains. See Schuyler Cammann, "The Origin of the Trigram Circles in Ancient China," The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, No. 62,1990, page 187. The Chinese characters for the trigrams can be found on the Chinese bell in Victoria. However, even though these characters have the same meaning, they are not the regular ones associated with the pa kua. Perhaps it is a local variation.
Chinese trigrams or pa kua
Chinese characters associated with trigrams
Chinese characters on Victoria's Chinese bell
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II
II
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1
n
�
m
ft
SI
ifc
R
if
%
j*
X
m
a
zk
ill
m
Heaven; the sky.
Water collected as in a marsh or lake.
Fire, as in lightning; the sun.
Thunder.
The wind; wood.
Water, as in rain, clouds, springs, streams, and defiles; the moon.
Hills, or mountains.
The earth.
Untiring strength; power.
Pleasure;
complacent
satisfaction.
Brightness;
elegance.
Moving,
exciting
power.
Flexibility;
penetration.
Peril;
difficulty.
Resting; the act of arresting.
Capacious�ness;
submission.
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