July, 1913. Notes on Turquois. 5 



extent in connection with pearl, ruby, diamond, sapphire, topaz and 

 emerald, set in silver or gold.^ 



II. Turquois in Tibet 



As jade is the recognized jewel of the Chinese, so turquois is the 

 standard gem of the Tibetans. In the eyes of the Chinese jade is not 

 a stone, but forms a distinct class sui generis, as is shown by such 

 constant phrases uttered from the lips of stone dealers: shi yii pu shi 

 shi-Vou, "it is jade, it is not a stone." ^ To call a turquois a stone 

 means an offense to the Tibetan, and he will exclaim indignantly, di yu 

 re, dd ma re, "this is a turquois, and not a stone." The Tibetan word 

 for turquois, gyu (pronounced yu, without sounding the prefix g, which, 

 however, appears in the Mongol loan word ughiu) ^ is indigenous 

 property, being derived neither from Sanskrit nor Chinese; it shows 

 that turquois must have been known to the Tibetans since remote 

 times. There are, doubtless, also many ancient turquoises still in 

 their possession as they are inherited from mother to daughter for 

 generations, and thus kept as heirlooms in the same family for centuries ; 

 being constantly exposed to the open air, they readily change color 

 and often assume a pale green shade, more or less tainted with black 

 spots. 



Two special sorts of turquoises are called drug-dkar and drug-dmar, 

 that is, white drug and red drug] the word drug designates the number 6, 

 and the two terms are explained to designate very fine kinds of tur- 

 quoises supposed to be one-sixth part white or red in tint, respectively. 

 Desgodins, in the Tibetan Dictionary published by the French mission- 

 aries, translates the two by white and red sapphire, but also reminds 



1 G. C. M. BiRDWOOD, The Industrial Arts of India, Vol. II, p. 25. In the Higin- 

 botham collection of jewelry in the Field Museum there are several fine specimens 

 of Indian jewelry in which turquois is emploj'^ed, collected in India by Mr. Lucknow 

 de Forrest of New York. G. Watt {I. c.) remarks that the turquois is largely used 

 by the natives of India in jewelry but that imitations are perhaps more generally 

 employed than the true stone. While I do not deny that such imitations may occur, 

 I do not believe that they are very generally in use. — Aside from the mineralogical 

 treatises quoted above, as far as I know, the word for turquois has not yet been point- 

 ed out in any other work of Sanskrit literature. The Sanskrit romance Vasavadatta 

 by Subandhu of the seventh century (translated by L. H. Gray, pp. 85, 109, Col. 

 Un. Indo-Iranian Series, Vol. VIII, New York, 1913) mentions a necklace of pearls 

 and sapphires, further emeralds and rubies, diamonds and other stones, but not 

 turquois, which, as shown also by such passages, was a late intruder in such combi- 

 nations as stated above, and alien to the artistic taste of India. 



^ The agate (ma-nao) is, in the eyes of the Chinese, "neither a stone nor a jade," 

 but a thing for itself. 



' In more ancient texts the word is written also rgyu, thus showing that in the 

 ancient pronunciation also the g was sounded. A singular word for turquois is the 

 Mongol kiris which has thus far been pointed out but once in literature (Laufer, 

 T'oung Pao, 1908, p. 431), and which presumably represents the ancient Mongol 

 word for the turquois in times before the introduction of the Tibetan loan word. 



