Feb., 1912. Jade. 109 



"When, following an imperial edict, I, Ta-Ch'eng, proceeded to the 

 province of Kirin, 1 and passed through Kuang-ning Men in Kin chou in 

 Feng t'ien, I obtained a piece of jade produced in the I-wu-lii moun- 

 tains. 2 It was cut and polished into the shape of a girdle pendant, in 

 size not exceeding an inch. I confess I have not yet seen such big 

 ones. The common name is 'stone of Kin chou? It is not very 

 expensive or esteemed. The jade substance in the ring under con- 

 sideration is similar to the Kin chou stone. There are especially 

 differences between the old and the modern ones: if it has lain 

 underground for a long time, the color receives a moist gloss and 

 reflects under the light. Truly it is an unusual kind of jade. 



"Others assert the identity of this specimen with the ancient pi- 

 liu-li. The dictionary Shuo wen says : 'Those of the ya-shih (ya stones) 

 possessed with a lustre are called pi ya; they are produced in the country 

 of the Western Turks (Si Hu).' 3 The Commentary of Tuan remarks: 

 'Pi-ya is identical with pi-liu-li. 1 The Ti li chi says: 'The bright 

 beads for sale at the sea-ports are pi-liu-li. ,4 The Account of the 

 Western Regions (Si yii chuan in the Ts'ien Han shu) says: 'The coun- 

 try of Ki-pin (Cashmir at the time of the Han) produces pi-liu-li.' On 

 the stone bas-reliefs of the ancestral hall of Wu-liang of the Han dynasty, 

 the motive of the pi-liu-li appears, with the inscription: "When the 

 sovereign does not commit secret faults, it will arrive." 



Then follows the well-known passage from the Wei lio regarding 

 the liu-li of ten different colors of Ta TsHn. The author continues: 

 "Tuan (the commentator of the Shuo wen, who lived 1735-1815) says: 

 'The three characters composing the word pi-liu-li form the name 

 which is derived from the (or a) language of the Hu, in the same way 

 as the word sun-yu-k'i comes from the language of the / tribes. 5 The 

 people of the present time have, in their provincial speech, altered the 



1 Probably in 1884, when he was sent to Corea as commissioner. See Introduction, 

 p. 12. 



*A range of mountains stretching west of Mukden (see D. Posdneyev, Descrip- 

 tion of Manchuria, Vol. I, pp. 132-133, St. Pet., 1897, in Russian; and Chavannes, 

 Voyageurs chinois, Journal asiatique, 1898, p. 408, Note). 



3 Pi-ya-se (Giles No. 9009, a kind of cornelian) is rendered in the "Dictionary 

 of Four Languages" by the Emperor K'ien-lung (Ch. 22, p. 66) into Manchu 

 langca, Tibetan nal, and Mongol nal ardani. Abel-Remusat (Histoire de la ville 

 de Khotan, p. 168) translates this word "rubis balais" (balas ruby) and derives the 

 Chinese name from balash or badakhsh, to be traced to the name of the country of 

 Badakshan. It is apparently a Turkish word. Nal and langca go back to Persian 

 lal, the balas ruby. The stone pi-ya-se is used on the sable caps of all ordinary 

 imperial concubines, while those from the first to the fourth rank are privileged to 

 wear a Japanese pearl (tung chu), as is recorded in the "Institutes of the Present 

 Dynasty" (Ta Ts'ing hui lien Vu, Ch. 43, p. 5). 



*I. e. the stone vaidurya (and not precious rings of glass, nor glass, as has been 

 translated; see farther below). 



5 Probably a Tungusian language. 



