The Calligrapher — Kǒng Línzhī 孔琳之

Liu Song calligrapher famed with Yang Xin as 'Yang-true, Kong-grass'; master of cursive script

南朝宋 calligrapher (), master of running script — known for 《日月帖》. Liu Song dynasty (Southern Dynasties)

Cultural Story

舔 is to lick, and its most tender classical use is 舔犊 — the old cow licking her calf, the image behind 舔犊之爱, parental love at its most instinctive. When the historian's young son died, the grieving father could say only that he still harbored the old ox's love. The same tongue that tended wounds — 舔伤, licking one's hurts — also licked its lips in hunger.

Common words & phrases

• 舔舐 lick · lap up · tongue
• 舔食 lick food · lap up
• 舔嘴唇 lick one's lips
• 舔犊 lick the calf · parental love
• 舔伤 lick one's wounds · nurse a hurt

Read the story behind the character

Your cat 舔舐 — licks — her paw clean for the fourth time tonight, then goes to 舔食, lap up, the milk you left out. The steak ad makes you 舔嘴唇, lick your lips, in the elevator, hoping no one saw. Your grandfather compares himself to the old ox of the idiom 舔犊, still licking the calf, as he slips money into your backpack; you go home and 舔伤, nurse your wounds, quietly.

Why this character belongs on skin

There is nothing in language more intimate than the tongue. 舔 is the character for licking — a wound, an envelope, a lover's skin — and it is frank in a way English rarely permits. Animals lick their young into life; mothers cleaned children's scrapes with salt and saliva and the healers of old villages swore by it. The dog that licks your hand has chosen you without reservation. So the character carries a strange dignity: instinct as devotion, the most animal gesture turned into the purest loyalty. Buddhism reminds us the body is not the enemy of the sacred — sensation is just another door, and some doors open only when touched, gently, by mouth and breath. To wear 舔 is a whisper, not a shout: I trust my senses, I follow my appetite, I love without embarrassment. Ink it at the nape of the neck or inside the finger — somewhere only the closest will ever find.