156 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



minister, am in charge of assisting his plan. If we shall succeed, you, 

 sublime Spirit, will be honored by our success. I, Yen, shall not cross 

 your river again. Deign, venerable Spirit, to decide our fate!" With 

 these words, he dropped the jades into the water and traversed the 

 river (Tschepe, Histoire du royaume de Tsin, p. 258). The God of 

 the Yellow River was invoked also in making a solemn oath (Tschepe, 

 Histoire du royaume de Ts'in, pp. 42, 68). Jade pieces were joined also 

 to offerings rendered to the gods. In the year b. c. 109, the emperor 

 visited the spot where the Yellow River had caused a breach in the bank 

 and caused a white horse with a jade ring to be thrown into the river 

 to appease the God of the River (Chavannes, Se-ma Ts'ien, Vol. Ill, 



P- 533)- 



Early references to the use of the disk pi in sacrifices are given in the 

 Shu king and Shi king (Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. II, p. 529). 



There are two principal types of the disks pi, plain ones the impres- 

 sion of which mainly lies in their beautiful colors and in their size, and 

 smaller ones with elaborate decorations. 



The former were chiefly used for three purposes; for the worship of 

 Heaven, to be offered to the Son of Heaven by the feudal princes on a 

 visit to the court (Biot, Vol. II, p. 524), and for burial (p. 120), the 

 symbolism being the same in all cases, as this disk was the emblem or 

 image of round Heaven. There was perhaps a diversity in the dimen- 

 sions of the three, the measurement of the imperial disk being given as 

 nine inches; for that used in the cult of Heaven, no measurement is 

 given in the Chou li. In all probability, there was also a difference in 

 the colors, as the actual specimens show us. In the collection of Wu, 

 there are two specimens called by him ta pi "large disks," which he 

 identifies with those presented by the vassal princes; of the one, he does 

 not state the color; the other is of green jade. He further has a ts'ang 

 pi of green {tsHng) jade used in the worship of Heaven, and several other 

 large pi, one of yellow and one of white jade, both mixed with russet 

 spots. 1 These, I suppose, served for interment, being placed under the 

 back of the corpse. 



In our collection, there are three large ancient disks pi of nearly 

 the same size which may be considered as images of the deity Heaven. 

 They are extraordinary in dimensions and workmanship. While the 

 one in Plate XXI was, in all likelihood, actually connected with the 

 worship of Heaven because of its greenish color, the two others may have 

 served only burial purposes. 



The disk shown in Plate XXI has a diameter of 22 cm, the perfora- 



1 There would be no sense in reproducing these figures, as they consist of two 

 concentric circles only. 



