Pentacolored

There were pentacolored cushions woven out of dragon hair, rugs whose borders were silk brocaded, couches made out of long elephants’ tusks, and mattresses plainted with purplish silk matting.[…]The story is about a handsome and amorous fisherman who once failed to catch a fish for three days, but instead obtained a pentacolored tortoise.

Two wildlife sanctuaries extinguished another, longer held, appetite – to meet Australia’s fauna. At the better of the two, Oasis Gardens, gravel paths sneaking through three acres of lush greenery led to cages of pentacolored birds, kangaroos of all ages and sizes, and irritable emus (one of which startled me by butting my camera on an attempted close - up).

There were two kinds of porcelain in the Sung Dynasty; celadon porcelain and a plain white one. If we compare those with the Tang Dynasty’s tricolored porcelain of the previous era, of the Ming Dynasty’s pentacolored one of a later era, Sung’s one gave us some impression of plainness and simplicity.

The extant Scripture of the Five Numinous Treasure Talismans (Lingbao wufu jing 靈寳五符經), a text assembled ca. 280 CE, features an exercise in which the cosmic “sprouts” of the pentacolored qi of the five directions are systematically ingested, leading to transcendence (HY 388, 3.12a–b).

Cover illustration: Ddaaddee, Lucky Pentacolored Flag (adapted from a photograph taken by Hu Geshan).

In the nine layers of heaven above we smelled the aroma of flowers, / And in pentacolored clouds responded to laughing sounds.