52 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. XIII. 



this religion is gradually being rediscovered thanks to the scholarship 

 of F. W. K. Muller, Le Coq, Pelliot and Chavannes, there is hope that 

 the future will reveal this fact, and that also the puzzling word se-se 

 will occur in the writings of the Manicheans.^ 



I have no definite opinion as to the indigenous se-se mentioned in the 

 Sung period and in the fanciful stories of the T'ang dynasty. It is 

 evident that neither the spinel nor the turquois is here involved, but 

 that it is the question of some Chinese stone of fine appearance which is 

 beyond the possibility of positive identification, as the accounts are 

 too vague and elastic. It is manifest that se^se was a favorite word 

 in the age of the T'ang, perhaps owing to its pleasing rhythm, that the 

 far-off countries where the jewel was first discovered lent it a nimbus 

 of romance, and that the name could easily be transferred . to other 

 similar stones. If I am allowed to express a personal opinion, I may 

 say that this kind of se-se possibly refers to onyx. We see from Pseudo- 

 Aristotle's Lapidarium ^ that China was known to the Arabs as a place 

 of production for onyx, and it might even be conjectured that the 

 Arabic word for onyx djaza (Persian djiza) which has penetrated into 

 Sanskrit in the form qeska ^ and into Tibetan in the form ze ^ may have 

 been instrumental in the shaping of the Chinese word se-se of this 

 meaning. The existence of onyx in ancient China has not been here- 

 tofore recognized, because the indigenous word for it, on traditional 

 convention, was accepted to have the meaning of jade, nobody knowing 

 what kind of jade was understood. This is the compound pi yii (Giles's 

 Dictionary, No. 9009) usually translated "greenish or bluish jade." 

 A. FoRKE ^ was the first to express his doubts of the correctness of this 

 translation, and to point out that there are Chinese authors who dis- 

 tinguish pi yii from jade. Now we find in the English and Chinese 



1 We could perhaps even go so far as to connect the importation of rubies into 

 China with the Manicheans. According to the Arabic author Qazwini (1203-83) 

 there were several kinds of precious stones Hke rubies and others, and plenty of gold 

 in Sandabil, identical with Kan-chou, the capital of the kingdom of the Tangutans 

 (Chinese Si-hia, 1004-1226), and according to him, Manicheans lived there at the 

 same time and enjoyed there perfect liberty (compare J. Marquart, Osteuropaische 

 und ostasiatische Streifziige, pp. 87-88, Leipzig, 1903). 



^ Julius Ruska, Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles, p. 145, Heidelberg, 1912. Also 

 Ibn al-Baitar, 1 197-1248 (L. Leclerc, Traite des simples. Vol. I, p. 354, Paris, 1877), 

 makes the statement that onyx is found in Yemen and in China. Regarding onyx 

 in Persia compare G. P. Merrill, The Onyx Marbles, pp. 577-9 {Report of U. S. 

 National Museum, 1893). See further E. Wiedemann, Zur Mineralogie im Islam, 

 pp. 245-9 (Erlangen, 1912). 



^ L. FiNOT, Les la^idaires indiens, p. XVII (Paris, 1896). 



^ Mr. RocKHiLL (The Ethnology of Tibet, p. 692) tells us that he has seen in 

 certain portions of Tibet (Miri, near Shobando, for instance) the men wearing neck- 

 laces of coral beads and a substance which he believes is onyx, and which is called by 

 them ze. 



* Mitteilungen des Seminars fur Orientalische Sprachen, Vol. VII, 1904, p. 147. 



