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- The Chinese Love of Jade
Jade is no ordinary stone to the Chinese. It has been worked and revered in China for use as sacred objects, for treasure, and for decoration and ornament since Neo�lithic times. Chinese emperors valued jade even more than Western kings did gold and silver. For the rulers of China, it became not only a reflection of beauty but also a symbol of wealth and authority�truly a stone for the emperors. However, it should be pointed out that jade was cherished by all Chinese, high and low, rich and poor alike. Women desired it as ornaments in their hair, and scholars loved to adorn their desks with jade brushrests, containers, fumble pieces, etc. But be�cause of its rarity, jade was largely destined for the use of the aristocracy.
Perhaps Confucius best epitomizes the Chinese love of jade by comparing the qualities of jade to the virtues of a gentleman: �superior men found the likeness of all excellent qualities of jade. Soft and smooth and glossy it appeared to them like benevolence; fine, compact and strong�like intelligence; angular but not sharp cutting�like righteousness; hanging down (in beads) as if it would fall to the ground�like (the humility of) propriety; when struck yielding a note, clear and pro�longed, yet terminating abruptly�like music; its flaws not concealing its beauty, nor its beauty concealing its flaws�like loyalty; with an internal radiance issuing from it on every side�like good faith; bright as a brilliant rainbow�like heaven; exquisite and in the hills and streams�like the earth; standing out conspicuous as a symbol of rank�like virtue; esteemed by all under the sun�like the path of truth and duty... that is why the superior man esteems it so highly.�1 The ancient Han scholar, Xu Shen, in his great dictionary, the Shuowen Jiezi, praises jade as follows: �Jade is the fairest of stones. It is endowed with five vir�tues. Charity is typified by its lustre, bright yet warm; rectitude by its translucency, revealing the colour and markings within; wisdom by the purity and penetrating quality of its note when the stone is struck; courage, in that it may be broken but cannot be bent; equity, in that it has sharp angles, which yet injure none.�2 Since ancient times the Chinese have been fond of wearing a small toggle or pendant of jade next to their body, hung on a cord from their waist. This was for good luck and to protect themselves from illness and bodily harm. A medicinal cult arose around jade, in which the ancient Chinese mixed powdered jade with water as a panacea, supposedly to strengthen the body and prolong life. Taken just before death, powdered jade was credited with delaying decomposition.
It was because of the veneration for jade as a material, that its Chinese charac�ter 3� (yu) was employed as a radical to make up a number of characters such as zhen�precious; yen�brilliant; rui� lucky; gui� extraordinary; and qiong� excellent; to name a few.
The Material
The word �jade� may have derived from the Spanish ijado. Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru called the stone piedra de ijado, literally �stone of the loin,� be�cause it was believed to be a cure for renal colic. The Chinese refer to jade as yu, the original meaning being a �beautiful stone.�
From a mineralogical point of view, jade is not one stone but two. Although there are several semi-precious stones which have been called jade, only two, nephrite and jadeite can claim that title. Today, nephrite is found in a large number of places throughout the world, including Chinese Turkestan (in the region of Khotan and
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