Ba-Shu Totem and Chinese Cultural Symbol — Cultural Interpretation of the White Tiger Motif on the “When the Five Planets Appear in the East, It will Benefit the Central States” Brocade

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_124How to use a DOI?

Keywords

When the Five Planets appear in the East; It will benefit the Central States; White Tiger motif; Chinese cultural symbols; Cultural interpretation

Abstract

Since the excavation of the brocade inscribed with “When the Five Planets appear in the East, it will benefit the Central States”(五星出東方利中國), remarkable achievements have been made in multi-angle research and interpretation. However, the cultural interpretation of the brocade patterns still needs to be enriched, and in particular, the relationship between the White Tiger motif itself and the Great Unity (大一統) requires further exploration.The White Tiger motif on this brocade is an integral part of the Chinese cultural symbol and image system. It can demonstrate the exchanges, interactions and integration between the Han Dynasty and the Ba-Shu region at that time, thereby reflecting the process of territorial construction of the Great Unity (大一統) in the Han Dynasty.Taking the White Tiger motif on the “When the Five Planets appear in the East, it will benefit the Central States” (五星出東方利中國) brocade as the entry point, this paper sorts out the relationship between the White Tiger on the brocade and the local White Tiger motifs in the Ba-Shu region, expounds the fact that the Chinese cultural symbol and image system was established in the Han Dynasty, and then attempts to examine the evolution and formation of the pattern of the unity in diversity (多元一體) in the Han Dynasty.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Jingyi Lin
AU  - Yuxin Li
AU  - Weigang Feng
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/07
TI  - Ba-Shu Totem and Chinese Cultural Symbol — Cultural Interpretation of the White Tiger Motif on the “When the Five Planets Appear in the East, It will Benefit the Central States” Brocade
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 12th International Conference on Digital Humanities and Frontiers in Social Sciences (DHFSS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1158
EP  - 1171
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_124
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_124
ID  - Lin2026
ER  -