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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2009
As is usual in texts which were composed more as
panegyrics than as strict historical records, the
epitaph inscription for Wu Liang 
, who died
at the age of 74 in A.D. 151, tells of his virtues
and his qualities as a scholar. But in common with a
number of famous men of ability and learning of his
time, such as Zhang Heng 
(78–139),
Ma Rong 
(79–166) or
Wang Fu 
(c. 90–165), Wu Liang showed a
persistent reluctance to serve in an official
capacity, preferring to devote himself to a study of
history and philosophy. In all probability he felt,
like the others, that in the prevailing political
circumstances, it was not possible both to embark on
an official career and to retain a measure of
personal integrity. Be that as it may, other members
of his family evidently felt no such scruples; his
nephew Wu Ban 
, for
example, was appointed to be chief clerk at
Dunhuang.
1 Hung, Wu, The Wu Liang Shrine: the Ideology of Early Chinese Pictorial Art, pp. xxiii, 412, 151 figs, map. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1989. US $60.00.Google Scholar
2 See Loewe, Michael, “The failure of the Confucian ethic in later Han times”, forthcoming in Kuhfus, Peter M. (ed.), China: Dimensionen der Geschichte. Festschrift für Tielmann Grimm anlässlich seiner Emeritierung (Tübingen, 1990).Google Scholar
3 Hou Han shu (Peking, 1965), pp. 1843f.Google Scholar
4
For a recent study of the Queen Mother and her
iconography, see Minao, Hayashi
Kan dai no kamigami
(Kyoto,
1990), pp.
97–126.Google Scholar
5
For representations of the Queen on Han mirrors, see
Loewe, Michael,
Ways to Paradise: the Chinese Quest for
Immortality
(London,
1979), pp. 101,
151, notes 74, 75, 163, 168 and
186, s.v. X 1004Google Scholar. A
photograph of that mirror appears in Shodó zenshú
vol.
2
(Tokyo:
Heibonsha,
1958) no. 29Google Scholar. Its features
differ from those of regular TLV mirrors of Wang
Mang's time in the following respects: the centre is
circular rather than square; there are 7 in place of
12 central bosses; the TLV lines are incomplete,
with no Ls; there is no representation of the animal
symbols of the four shen; only one
side of the Queen Mother's sheng is
depicted; the outer inscription is in archaised
style, rather than the usual li
shu; and the inscription reads in an
anti-clockwise direction. In addition, specification
of a particular year is highly suspect.
6
E.g. see no. 182, from Jiaxiang 
, in
bowuguan, Shandon
and yanjiuso, Shandong
wenwu kaogu (ed.),
Shandong Han hua xiangshi xuanji
(Qilu she,
1982).Google Scholar
