520 SlNO-lRANICA 



Yun-nan Province. 1 In this text, the term pi t'ien-tse it *0| -f- is em- 

 ployed. T'an Ts'ui 2 says that turquoises (pi t'ien) are produced in the 

 Mori-van t'u-se : ^ 3 of Yun-nan. In the Hin-nan fu ci R ^ 

 fl\f S, 3 the gazetteer of the prefecture of Hiii-iian in southern Sen-si, 

 it is said that pi Vien (written Hi) 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. & fit kin tsih (" 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-fri S3 Jfc. 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 U 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 Ian-Pi 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 Idjvard (Arabic lazvard). Another Arabic word is Unej, 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 t'un ci, Ch. 86, p. 8. 



2 Tien hai yil hen ci, 1799, Ch. I, p. 6 b (ed. of Wen yin lou yii ti ts'un $u). See 

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

 Chinese authority. 



3 Ch. ii, p. ii 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'Ecole fran$ aise, Vol. VIII, p. 372), where the question 

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

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



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, Traite* des simples, Vol. Ill, p. 254. 



