Feb., 1912. Jade. 153 



each of the four sides, the pa-kua, the eight mystical trigrams for 

 divination, are brought out on panels sunk into the surface. It is 

 conceivable that the ancient "teeth" could be supplanted by the more 

 popular figures of the trigrams. But the original character is also here 

 preserved in the rim on which the bottom stands. This one is want- 

 ing in the fourth piece on Plate XX, Fig. 2 (17 cm X 11.5 cm), which 

 has a plain square bottom and its four sides decorated with a continual 

 svastika pattern in relief; for the rest, its shape is related to the pre- 

 ceding pieces. 



It is not known for which purpose jars of this type were employed. 

 There is, however, in the Fang-shih mo p'u (Ch. 3, p. 4 b; published by 

 Fang YC-lu in 1588) the figure of a vase supposed to be of jade and 

 belonging to the same type as described. On the surface of it, the 

 three characters shift (Giles No. 9958) ts'ao p'ing, "Vase for the 

 plant shift" are inscribed. This is a species of Achillea, the stalks 

 of which were used in ancient times for the purpose of divination, 

 mentioned in the Shi king, Chou li and Li ki (Bretschneider, Botan- 

 icon Sinicum, Part II, p. 244). No explanation of this piece is given. 

 Wu Ta-ch'eng figures a small quadrangular jade vase of this type 

 built up in four sections which he calls fang li, or by a popular name 

 (su ming) shih ts'ao li. 1 It therefore seems that a popular belief appears 

 to exist which connects these jars with the practice of divination; it 

 is perhaps presumed that the stalks of the plant were preserved in 

 them. As far as I know, there is no record to this effect in the ancient 

 texts. At all events, this point of view deserves attention, in case the 

 material will increase in the future. The possible employment for 

 divination might account also for the application of the pa kua on the 

 above mentioned jar. Wu has unfortunately not examined his speci- 

 men and devotes no comment to it ; I do not feel authorized to say how 

 old it may be, but can say only that it is old, as Wu would not have 

 included it in his collection otherwise. It thus presents the missing 

 link between the Chou jade images of Earth and the Han and Sung 

 pottery pieces, in that it is a jade vessel of the "Earth" type. The 

 legend on our Han jar, "grain vessel," is of principal importance, 

 for it is a contemporaneous interpretation and proves the typological 

 unity of this whole series. 



^his word is written with a character (not in Giles) composed of the classifier 

 yii and li "strength." It is explained in K'ang-hi after the Shuo win as "a stone 

 ranking next to jade." 



