The ancient motifs found on Chinese carpets are decorative in only a small way, since by nature they are fundamentally symbolic. In China, the artistic language is composed primarily of symbols common to all the artistic genres and techniques. Their meaning has remained unchanged over the centuries, but interpreting them successfully is not at all easy, in part because they are a great many of them. Some have been drawn from the natural world, other from ancient local myths, and yet others from the Buddhist and Taoist religions: a small number are composed of more or less complicated abstract designs.