The Calligrapher — Qiú Jìng 仇靖

Han clerical-script master famed for the Xixia Song stele.

Han calligrapher (), master of clerical script — known for 《西狭颂》. Han dynasty

Cultural Story

浒 means the bank of a river, the lit shore where land meets flowing water. The Shi jing opens with 在河之浒, on the bank of the river, a lover's vantage. It is a word of edge and meeting, where people gather to draw water, wash, and watch the current. The famous 水浒 means at the riverside.

Common words & phrases

• 水浒 Water Margin · riverside
• 江浒 riverside · river bank

Read the story behind the character

Readers know 水浒 (Water Margin, riverside) as the tale of outlaws by the marsh, and poets still write of 江浒 (riverside, river bank) where lanterns float at night. Though we say riverbank more often, 浒 survives in place names and in that old image of standing at the water's edge at dusk.

Why this character belongs on skin

The oldest poems put their heroes on the water's edge. The Shijing sings of the bank of the Ju, of willows and herons, of people standing at the margin where solid ground negotiates with the current. This character is that margin — the bank, the shore, the rim where land ends its certainty. It gives its name to one of China's great novels, Outlaws of the Marsh, where a hundred renegades build their fortress at a marsh's edge: free men, outside the law, inside their loyalty to each other. There is a philosophy in standing at the rim. The shore belongs to neither element; you are of the earth but your face is to the water, and everything arriving — weather, change, otherness — arrives at your feet first. Daoists loved thresholds like this. Ink for the one who lives at edges, who keeps one foot on trustworthy ground and lets the other toe the current. The river is coming. Be there to meet it.