520 Sino-Iranica 



Yun-nan Province. 1 In this text, the term pi t'ien-tse §1 *% -?" is em- 

 ployed. T'an Ts'ui 2 says that turquoises {pi Vien) are produced in the 

 Moh-yah t'u-se jIl ^ i. ^ of Yun-nan. In the Kin-nan fu U % 5: 

 $f J^, 3 the gazetteer of the prefecture of Hin-nan in southern Sen-si, 

 it is said that pi Vien (written $l|) were formerly a product of this lo- 

 cality, and mined under the T'ang and Sung, the mines being closed in 

 the beginning of the Ming. This notice is suspicious, as we hear of 

 pi-tien or tien-tse neither under the T'ang nor the Sung; the term comes 

 into existence under the Yuan. 4 



88. 4£ >fit kin tsin ("essence of gold") appears to have been the term 

 for lapis lazuli during the T'ang period. The stone came from the 

 famous mines of Badaxsan. 5 



At the time of the Yuan or Mongol dynasty a new word for lapis 

 lazuli springs up in the form lan-ZH SB ^>. The Chinese traveller C'an 

 Te, who was despatched in 1259 as envoy by the Mongol Emperor 

 Mangu to his brother Hulagu, King of Persia, and whose diary, the 

 Si H ki, was edited by Liu Yu in 1263, reports that a stone of that name 

 is found on the rocks of the mountains in the south-western countries 

 of Persia. The word lan-l % i is written with two characters meaning 

 "orchid" and "red," which yields no sense; and Bretschneider 6 is 

 therefore right in concluding that the two elements represent the tran- 

 scription of a foreign name. He is inclined to think that "it is the same 

 as landshiwer, the Arabic name for lapis lazuli." In New Persian it is 

 la&vard or lajvard (Arabic lazvard). Another Arabic word is linej, by 

 which the cyanos of Dioscorides is translated. 7 An Arabic form lanjiver 

 is not known to me. 



"There is also in the same country [Badashan] another mountain, 

 in which azure is found; 'tis the finest in the world, and is got in a vein 

 like silver. There are also other mountains which contain a great 

 amount of silver ore, so that the country is a very rich one." Thus runs 



1 Ta Min i Vun li, Ch. 86, p. 8. 



2 Tien hai yu hen ci, 1799, Ch. 1, p. 6 b (ed. of Wen yin lou yu ti ts'un Su). See 

 above, p. 228. T'u-se are districts under a native chieftain, who himself is subject to 

 Chinese authority. 



3 Ch. n, p. 11 b (ed. of 1788). 



4 The turquois has not been recognized in a text of the Wei si wen kien ki of 

 1769 by G. Souli£ (Bull, de I'Ecolefrangaise, Vol. VIII, p. 372), where the question 

 is of coral and turquois used by the Ku-tsuh (a Tibetan tribe) women as ornaments; 

 instead of yuan-song, as there transcribed, read lii sun Si ^ %k ^. 



6 Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-kiue, p. 159; and T'oung Pao, 1904, 

 p. 66. 



6 Chinese Recorder, Vol. VI, p. 16; or Mediaeval Researches, Vol. I, p. 151. 



7 Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. Ill, p. 254. 



