July, 1913. Notes on Turquois. ii 



and amber rank next. The blue, green, and blue-green; the red, rose, 

 and pink; the yellow and brown of these three substances are indeed 

 those tinges which most frequently occur among the flora of the Tibetan 

 plateaus. During the summer, large patches of blue, red and yellow 

 flowers abound on the fine pasture lands, and at this sight I could never 

 suppress the thought that the enthusiasm of the Tibetans for turquois, 

 coral and amber must have been suggested and strengthened by these 

 beautiful shades of their flowers which their women as readily use for 

 ornament as stones; indeed, it seems to me, as if owing to its permanency, 

 the stone were only a substitute for the perishable material of the 

 vegetable kingdom. 



Turquoises, usually in connection with gold, belong to the most 

 ancient propitiatory offerings to the gods and demons ;^ in the enumera- 

 tion, gold always precedes turquois as the more valuable gift. They 

 also figure among the presents bestowed on saints and Lamas by kings 

 and wealthy laymen. The thrones on which kings and Lamas take their 

 place are usually described as adorned with gold and turquoises, and 

 they wear cloaks ornamented with these stones. It may be inferred 

 from traditions and epic stories that in ancient times arrowheads were 

 made not only of common flint, but also occasionally of turquois to 

 which a high value was attached. A powerful saint, by touching the 

 bow and arrow of a blacksmith, transforms the bow into gold, and the 

 arrowhead into turquois.^ The hero Gesar owns thirty arrows with 

 notches of turquois.^ 



In the popular medicine of the present time turquois is, as far as I 

 know, not employed; but it is officially registered as a medicament in 

 several medical standard works derived from or modeled after Sanskrit 

 books. There we meet the typical series of ten substances: gold, 

 silver, copper, iron; turquois, pearl, mother-o '-pearl, conch, coral, 

 lapis lazuli.'' Turquois is credited, as we saw. above, with removing 

 poison, and heat in the liver. It seems almost certain that this notion 

 is taken from Indian lore; we remember the words of Narahari that 

 every poison is rapidly neutralized by it, and that it relieves pain caused 

 by demons. Also in the list of 365 drugs published in Tibetan and Chi- 



1 Laufer, Ein Suhngedicht der Bonpo {Denkschriften der Wiener Akademie, 1900, 

 No. 7, p. 35); ScHLAGiNTWEiT, Die Konige von Tibet, p. 837; A. H. Francke, 

 Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, N. S., Vol. VI, 1910, p. 408. 



- Laufer, Roman einer tibetischen Konigin, p. 153 (Leipzig, 191 1). 



' L J. Schmidt, Die Taten Bogda Cesser Chan's, p. 283 (St. Petersburg, 1839). 



* This series occurs also in the Compendium of Tibetan Medicine translated from 

 the Mongol into Russian by A. Pozdnejev, Vol. I, p. 247 (St. Petersburg, 1908). 



