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The yellow girdles worn by the Chinese emperors of the Manchu dynasty were variously ornamented with precious stones according to the different ceremonial observances at which the emperor presided. For the services in the Temple of Heaven, the very appropriate choice of lapis-lazuli ornaments was made; for the Altar of Earth, yellow jade was favored; for a sacrifice on the Altar of the Sun, the gems were red corals, while white jade was selected for the ceremonies before the Altar of the Moon. Jade of different colors was used for the six precious tablets employed in the worship of heaven and earth and the four cardinal points. For the worship of Heaven there was the dark-green round tablet; for that of Earth, an octagonal tablet of yellow jade. The East was worshipped with a green pointed tablet; the West was worshipped with the white "tiger-tablet"; the North with a black, semi-circular tablet, and the South with a tablet of red jade. (The Bishop Collection: "Investigations and Studies in Jade," New York, 1906, The "Yushuo" of T'ang Jing-tso, trans. by Stephen W. Bushnell.)
Of all the Chinese works on jade the most interesting and remarkable is the Ku yu t'ou pu or "Illustrated Description of Ancient Jade," a catalogue divided into a hundred books and embellished with upward of seven hundred figures. It was published in 1176, and lists the magnificent collection of jade objects belonging to the first emperor of the Southern Sung dynasty. One of the treasures here described was a four-sided plaque of pure white jade over two feet in height and breadth, and it was regarded as of altogether exceptional value, for in it was a design miraculously engraven. This was a figure, seated on a mat, with a flower-vase on its left and an almsbowl on the right, in the midst of rocks enveloped in clouds. The figure was an image of the Buddhist saint, Samantabahadra, and the plaque is said to have been washed out of a sacred cave in the year 1068, by a violent and mysterious current. (The Bishop Collection: "Investigations and Studies in Jade," New York, 1906.) |
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Precious Stones Guide Vol 9
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