Chinese coins with a square hole: money, cosmos and good wishes
Ancient Chinese lucky coins: from the Qin banliang to the Tang kaiyuan tongbao, the symbolism of heaven and earth, the red ribbon and the amulet coins.
Round, bronze, with a square hole in the centre and four characters arranged around it, ancient Chinese coins are today a lucky charm found far beyond Asia. Tied with a red cord, hung on doors or tucked into wallets, they preserve the memory of a currency that for more than two thousand years accompanied the economic life of China, from village markets to the treasury of the imperial state.
Two millennia of coins
Round coins with a square hole became established with the unification of China under Qin Shi Huang in the third century BC, when the banliang became the currency of the empire. Under the Han dynasty, from 118 BC, the wuzhu was introduced and circulated for centuries. In 621, at the start of the Tang dynasty, the kaiyuan tongbao set a pattern that later dynasties would imitate until the last years of the Qing empire, at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The central hole had a practical function: it allowed coins to be threaded on strings, forming rows of hundreds or thousands of pieces used for larger payments. Europeans called these coins cash, a term derived not from Chinese but from languages of South Asia, which reached the West through the Portuguese of the merchants trading in the ports of the Indian Ocean.
Round heaven, square earth
The shape of the coin has often been read in the light of traditional Chinese cosmology, according to which heaven is round and the earth is square. The outer circle and the inner square would thus unite the two principles in a single object, making the coin a small model of the universe. It is not certain that the first minters had this symbolism in mind, but the interpretation has taken root in popular culture and adds to the auspicious value of the coins.
Alongside official coins there were for centuries amulet coins, not meant for trade, decorated with wishes for long life, wealth, many children or success in the imperial examinations, or with zodiac animals, deities and protective figures. They were given on special occasions such as New Year, births and weddings, and today collectors study them as a valuable source on Chinese popular religion.
The red ribbon and feng shui
In contemporary practice, strongly influenced by feng shui, coins are often tied in groups of three or six with a red ribbon, the colour of joy and good fortune in Chinese culture. It is said that coins bearing the names of emperors with long and prosperous reigns, such as Kangxi or Qianlong of the Qing dynasty, are especially favourable. Many of those sold today, however, are modern reproductions rather than period pieces.
Coins also appear in other auspicious objects: swords made of coins tied together, hung in the home as protection, and figurines of animals holding a coin in their mouths, such as the three-legged toad associated with wealth. In all these forms the coin ceases to be a means of payment and becomes a sign, a wish that can be touched and kept.
Chinese lucky coins are a remarkable case in which money itself becomes an amulet. Their appeal arises from the meeting of a very long economic history, a geometry full of meaning and the love of good wishes that pervades Chinese culture. Holding one in the hand means touching, in miniature, a fragment of imperial history and folk wisdom.