32 The Diamond 



Dioscorides of the first century a.d. distinguishes four kinds of 

 diamonds, the third of which is called "ferruginous" because it re- 

 sembles iron, but iron is heavier; it is found in Yemen. According to 

 him, the adamantine fragments are stuck into iron handles, being thus 

 ready to perforate stones, rubies, and pearls. 1 The concept of a mysteri- 

 ous association of the diamond with iron survived till our middle ages. 

 Konrad von Megenberg, in his Book of Nature, written in 1349-50, 2 

 observes that, according to the treatises on stones, the virtue of the 

 diamond is much greater if its foundation be made of iron, in case it is 

 to be set in a ring; but the ring should be of gold to be in keeping with the 

 dignity of the stone. 



If we now glance back at the text of Lie-tse, from which we started, 

 we shall easily recognize that the kun-wu sword mentioned in it is in 

 fact only a mask for the diamond-point; for Lie-tse, with reference to 

 this sword, avails himself of exactly the same definition as the Shi chou 

 ki } expressed in the identical words, — "cutting hard stone (jade) as 

 though it were merely clayish earth," — and the jade-cutting knife (tao) 

 is unequivocally identified with the diamond in the Huan chung ki. 

 The passage in Lie-tse, therefore, rests on a misunderstanding or a too 

 liberal interpretation of the word tao 7) , which means a cutting-instru- 

 ment in the widest sense, used for carving, chopping, trimming, paring, 

 scraping, etc. It may certainly mean a dagger or sword with a single 

 edge; and Lie-tse, or whoever fabricated the book inscribed with his 

 name, exaggerated it into the double-edged sword kien. 3 Then he was 

 certainly obliged to permit himself the further change of making this 

 sword of tempered steel; 4 and by prefixing the classifier kin ('metal') to 

 the words kun and wu, the masquerade was complete for eluding the 

 most perspicacious sinologues. 6 Lie-tse's kun-wu sword is a romantic 



ex facili cavantes (xxxvn, 15, § 60). It is not necessary, as proposed by F. de Mely 

 (Lapidaires chinois, p. 257), to make a distinction between kin kang shi ("diamond") 

 and kin kang ts'uan ("emery"). It plainly follows from the Chinese texts that the 

 latter is the diamond-point (see below, p. 34). 



1 Compare L. Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. Ill, p. 272. 



2 Ed. of F. Pfeiffer, p. 433. 



3 The conception of the diamond as a sword had perhaps been conveyed to 

 China from an outside quarter. In the language of the Kirgiz, the word almas, 

 designating the "diamond" (from Arabic almas), has also the significance "steel" 

 (in the same manner as the Greek adamas, from which the Arabic word is derived), 

 and ak almas ("white diamond") is a poetical term for a "sword" (W. Radloff, 

 W6rterbuch der Turk-Dialecte, Vol. I, col. 438). 



4 This metamorphosis was possibly somehow connected with the original 

 meaning "steel" inherent in the Greek word adamas. 



6 The missing link is found in another passage of the Shi chou ki, where the same 

 event is described as in Lie-tse. It runs as follows: "At the time of King Mu of the 



