書法聯

琴言清若水
詩夢暖扵春 

Zither expressions are as clear as water
Poetic dreams are warmer than Spring

Paired scrolls are also called pillar inscriptions because their origin began thousands of years ago with the custom of placing auspicious images or words on either side of a doorway. The earliest record of scrolls such as these is in 964. The tradition is to have total parity-a balance of thought, characters, nouns, verbs and all parts of speech. Each should have a philosophical or poetic thought that harmonizes with the other.

An early stone engraving of this famous couplet is in the House of a Thousand Tang Records 千唐志齋in Xin'an, Henan province. It is now a museum with 1,419 stone records that date from the Western Jin dynasty, 265-316, to the 20th century.