S925 Silver Three Purities Pendant

The Three Clarities are the highest three figures in Daoism, and the arrangement in the hall is fixed: Yuanshi Tianzun at the center, Lingbao Tianzun to the east, Daode Tianzun to the west. All three are seated, with different hand gestures. Yuanshi usually holds the hunyuan pearl, Lingbao the ruyi, Daode a fan. Identify what is in the hand and you know who it is. All three faces are old men with long brows and beards down to the chest; the difference lies in the crown and the object held, and it takes looking a while to tell them apart.

Yuqing Yuanshi Tianzun dwells in the Qingwei heaven and is a divinity from before heaven and earth divided. Daoist scriptures say he was born before the great beginning, with no origin to tell, being the starting point itself. Shangqing Lingbao Tianzun dwells in the Yuyu heaven and transmits the Lingbao line of scripture, saving the most people, so his images often carry a scroll. Taiqing Daode Tianzun dwells in the Dachitian heaven and is Laozi, surnamed Li and named Er, who kept the archives for the Zhou court, rode a green ox through the pass and left five thousand words behind. Together the three are honored in the Three Caverns: Dongzhen belongs to Yuanshi, Dongxuan to Lingbao, Dongshen to Daode, each body of scripture to one figure. In temples Laozi often has a hall of his own, the Taiqing Palace, separate from the hall of the Three Clarities.

This design makes the three separately, one to a piece, so you can take one or wear three together. Worn as three, the order follows the hall: center, east, west, which on the body means center, left, right. Do not push Yuanshi out to the edge. Worn singly, Daode Tianzun is the most common choice; Laozi is historically attested and easy to talk about. Yuanshi Tianzun's image is the most imposing and suits a study.

The silver face is low relief. Images of the Three Clarities fail by being all wrinkles, since the older you make them the faker they look. Here only brow, beard and crown are separated into layers and the rest is left blank. The ridges of the crown and the objects in the hands are a thin layer, visible only when light rakes across; head-on they flatten out. The back is plain, hollowed slightly at the center to save metal and to keep the pendant from pressing into the chest.

Pair it with a plain silver chain and add nothing below. Take the length to the chest and leave two fingers of space between the three pieces; too close and they press on each other. Silver darkens with wear, so wipe it with a soft cloth and do not soak it in silver dip. One soak and the shadow in the recesses is gone, and the figures go blurry. Three worn together will knock, so leave distance or put a soft spacer between them, since silver against silver marks most easily.