[Twitter, 3/21/23] Medieval Buddhist of the day: Li Yingwu, one of the many donors of the Li family stele (542, E. Wei) in the 河南省博物館. His inscription caught my eye: 天宮主李鸚鵡. Yes, his personal name is “Parrot.” This seemed gratuitously piratical, but apparently in poetic bird metaphors where the emperor is a phoenix, his able ministers may be imagined as parrots. The source for this is a Tang poem, but maybe the idea already existed in the E. Wei. Or, maybe his parents just liked parrots. Memorable either way.
Medieval Buddhist of the Day 
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