Feb., 1912. Jade. in 



with the common jade rings called pi, and engraved with dotted squares 

 (lo win "net-pattern")- Wu Ta-ch'&ng's disquisition, however, is apt 

 to solve another problem. We see that he takes this word as a unit 

 derived from a foreign language, and as denoting a precious stone, but 

 not as meaning glass, as believed heretofore by foreign writers. The 

 translation of pi-liu-li "the precious ring liu-li" (the latter taken in 

 the sense of "glass") x which, for the rest, would be rendered in Chinese 

 as liu-li pi, cannot, therefore, be accepted; the word as a whole is 

 apparently a derivation from and phonetic transcription of Sanskrit 

 vaidurya "beryl" or "lapis lazuli" (Eitel, Handbook of Chinese 

 Buddhism, p. 191; Julien, Methode, No. 1374; F. Porter Smith, 

 Contributions towards the Materia Medica of China, p. 129). The 

 Buddhist transcription as given by Eitel and Julien goes to show that 

 the writing of the syllable pi was arbitrary and originally conveyed no 

 meaning; if the word pi "jade ring" was substituted for it, this was a 

 process of adaptation of which there are many other examples. 



1 Given by Chavannes, La sculpture sur pierre en Chine, p. 34. It seems to 

 me that it is impossible to assume that the first objects in glass known to the Chinese 

 were shaped like rings; for these rings, as represented on the bas-relief and handed 

 down to us in specimens of jade, are things essentially Chinese, of an ancient indig- 

 enous form, which does not occur in the west. If the first objects of glass were 

 imported into China from the west, how should it have happened that they were 

 shaped into a Chinese form? This militates against the opinion that the pi-liu-li 

 on the Han bas-relief is supposed to be of glass; it is a ring either of a highly prized 

 kind of jade or of beryl. It is gratifying to see that Chavannes in his study Les 

 pays d'occident d'apres le Heou Han Chou (T'oung Pao, 1907, p. 182) has now adopted 

 also the view that the word pi-liu-li is to be regarded as a unit and to be traced back 

 to Sanskrit vaidurya; but I do not believe that the latter designated the stone cat's 

 eye, at least not in this early period. This opinion goes back to the small treatise 

 of Narahari (edited by R. Garbe, Die indischen Mineralien, p. 85); there, the 

 word vaidurya appears as one of the many designations or attributes of the cat's-eye, 

 but not as the one exclusive name of it. Further, this work is by no means authori- 

 tative, but contains a good many errors, and above all, it represents a recent pro- 

 duction, not written earlier than the beginning of the fifteenth century, as Prof. 

 Garbe has been good enough to write me on May 22, 191 1; his former calculation 

 dating this work between 1235 and 1250, remarks Prof. Garbe, was due to an error. 

 Hence, the book of Narahari cannot be quoted as an authority holding good for 

 matters relative to the first centuries of our era. The cat's eye is always called in 

 Chinese mao-tsing 'cat's essence' (see Ko chih king yuan, Ch. 33, p. 3), and there 

 was no reason to adopt the word pi-liu-li with this meaning. It would lead us too 

 far to demonstrate here that it is in many cases just the Chinese and Tibetan terms 

 of precious stones and other minerals which are apt to shed light on the definitions 

 of the corresponding Sanskrit words. How could the Tibetan authors distinguish 

 blue, green, white and yellow vaidurya, if the word should denote the cat's-eye? — 

 The mystery why this word has been referred also to the cat's-eye is easily solved by 

 consulting the mineralogists on this subject. Cloudy and opaque specimens of 

 chrysoberyl often exhibit in certain directions a peculiar chatoyant or opalescent 

 sheen similar to that of cat's-eye (quartz-cat's-eye) , only usually much finer. This 

 variety of chrysoberyl is known to mineralogists as cymophane, and to jewelers as 

 chrysoberyl-cat's-eye, oriental cat's-eye, Ceylonese cat's-eye, more briefly as opa- 

 lescent or chatoyant chrysoberyl, or simply as cat's-eye (Max Bauer, Precious 

 Stones, p. 302). And on p. 304: As these stones are frequently referred to in de- 

 scriptions of the precious stones of Ceylon simply as cat's-eye, it is often impossible 

 to decide whether chrysoberyl or the variety of quartz, also known as cat's-eye, 

 is meant. See also E. W. Streeter, Precious Stones and Gems, Part II, p. 40. 



