Re: Mah-Jong Review

[..] This is a review item first posted months ago. Answer to the
following question may help us to understand Mah-Jong history.
al:
What was the "purpose" of Ma Diao?

al:
There is more than "purpose". Cards had "applications" according to
the writing of Pan about "Leaves" [cards].

quote from page 87, The playing-Card Volume 31, number2. Translation
by Lo...

"There are a hundred games and more, because the applications are
numerous, and changes are the fashion."
+++++++

al:
"APPLICATIONS ARE NUMEROUS". WHAT APPLICATION?
By definition, application means USE, FUNCTION, PURPOSE, APPLIANCE.

“When cards for wine drinking appeared, the ancient purpose [of these
cards] was lost, and the applications became all the more shallow.”
al:
This is in reference to Ma Diao,[..]
[This]
COULD [only] MEAN MA DIAO HAD A PURPOSE AND AN APPLICATION OR A USEFUL FUNCTION IN EARLIER TIME BEFORE PAN.
[..]
al:
Tarot cards typically have purposeful function.

The important historical reference is the knowledge that paper cards
like Ma Diao and hundred others had purposeful applications, as
implied in Pan's writing.

What game in olden days didn't have a purpose and application?
[..]
> The question becomes what [purpose] did “zero> Cash” and Half Cash” have?

No answer yet.
Did Ma Diao have more relevance with actual symbols like TAIJI diagram
and "Grand Ultimate" , "Guest with missing teeth" and Quo in earlier time?
Obviously, these I-Ching symbols have lost their meaning in Pan's
manual and in Lo's translation. Did the same I-Ching symbols serve
some useful purpose long ago?

Good questions for scholars and historians, but nothing being
discussed.

[..][..]
From earlier discussion, the best information on suo3 (索) has been
typically as follows. [Thanks to Julian].
[..] according to [dictionar]
suo3 (索) has a wide range of meanings, the main ones being (from
CEDICT)

/ to search / to demand / o ask / to exact / large rope / isolated /

That definition is potentially purposeful. I have yet to hear a
response to it one way or another, except one, "So what".
[..]
I know of...
No scholar or historian has ever related suo3 (索) to the meaning of
[asking, demanding, searching or exacting].

So far I have not heard of any response to the above.
Yet...> [..] Why was the “wide range of meanings” ignored?

[..]
Divination is n exercise that search, and ecact answers to thousands
of questions for tens of thousands of people through the ages.
The link below shows divination evidence.

http://www.taopage.org/iching/iching_symbols.html

++++++++
800 bamboo strips with recorded Chinese characters discovered in a
tomb dating back to the fourth century B.C.
Bamboo has longer history than string.

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2001/02.22/photos/07-chinese1-300.jpg

[..]. Bamboo symbol in mahjong could well be a
metaphor for written divination answers.
It would have served a purpose more than a string.
[..]
Cheers....al


.

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