Luminous gems are common theme in
comparative mythology. Ball
cross-culturally analyzed stories about luminous stones and pearls and found about one hundred variants in ancient, medieval, and modern sources. The wide-ranging locations of the tales comprise all Asia (except Siberia), all Europe (except Norway and Russia), Borneo, New Guinea, the United States, Canada, certain South American countries and Abyssinia, French Congo, and Angola in Africa. The later African and American myths were likely introduced by Europeans. Ball divides legends about luminous gems into three principal themes:
light sources, gem mining, and animals.
Light source legends The first theme is using legendary luminous gems to illuminate buildings, for
navigation lights on ships, or sometimes as guiding lights for lost persons. In the biography of the Han court minister Zou Yang (鄒陽, fl. 150 BCE), he figuratively uses the terms
mingyue zhi zhu (明月之珠, "luminous moon pearl") and
yeguang zhi bi (夜光之壁, "night shining
jade-disk") to illustrate how talented people are lost for lack of recommendations, "If I were to throw a luminous moon pearl or a night shining jade-disk on a dark road in front of someone, who would not grasp their sword and look startled?" The German sinologist
August Conrady suggested that the Chinese names
mingyuezhizhu and
yeguangzhu may have an Indian origin, with analogs in the
chandra-kânta ("moon-beloved") gem that contains condensed moonlight and the
harinmaṇi ("moon-jewel") name for emerald. plate with two dragons and a flaming pearl.
Li Shizhen's 1578
Bencao Gangmu pharmacopeia describes
leizhu (雷珠, "thunder pearls/beads") that the divine dragon
shenlong "held in its mouth and dropped. They light the entire house at night" (tr. Laufer 1912: 64).
Chinese dragons are frequently depicted with a
flaming pearl or gem under their chin or in their claws. According to the German anthropologist
Wolfram Eberhard, the
long dragon is a symbol of clouds and rainstorms, and when it plays with a ball or pearl, this signifies the swallowing of the moon by the clouds or thunder in the clouds. The moon frequently appears as a pearl, and thus the dragon with the pearl is equal to the clouds with the moon. The pearl-moon relationship is expressed in the Chinese belief that at full moon pearls are solid balls and at new moon they are hollow (1968: 239, 382).
Rabbinic Judaism includes a number of references to luminous gems. For example, the first century Rabbi, Rav Huna, says he was fleeing from Roman soldiers and hid in a cave illuminated by a light that was brighter in the night and darker in the day. The best documented of the illumination tales is that of the
King of Ceylon's luminous carbuncle or ruby, first mentioned by the Greek traveler
Cosmas Indicopleustes in the 6th century and thereafter described by many travelers, the latest of the 17th century. According to Indicopleustes, it was "as large as a great pine-cone, fiery red, and when seen flashing from a distance, especially if the sun's rays are playing around it, being a matchless sight". Others state that it "serves instead of a lamp at night", has "the appearance of a glowing fire", or of that "of a great flame of fire." Due to its luminescence,
Marco Polo called it "The Red Palace Illuminator". The English alchemist John Norton wrote a 1470 poem entitled "Ordinal, or a manual of the chemical art", in which he proposed erecting a gold bridge over the
River Thames and illuminating it with carbuncles set on golden pinnacles, "A glorious thing for men to beholde". (
Ashmole 1652: 27). Boats lit by luminous gems are a variant of the illumination idea. Rabbinic Judaism had a tradition that "
Noah had a luminous stone in the
Ark that "shone more brightly by night than by day, thus serving to distinguish day and night when the sun and moon were shrouded by dense cloud." The
Genesis Rabbah describes the
Tzoar that illuminates Noah's Ark (Genesis 6:16) as a luminous gemstone (the
King James Version translates as 'window'). The Mormon
Book of Ether describes "sixteen small stones; and they were white and clear, even as transparent glass", being touched by God's hand so that they might "shine forth in darkness." The
Jaredites placed a stone fore and aft on each ship and had "light continually" during their 344-day voyage to America. The theme of luminous gems guiding mariners and others originated in Europe in the Middle Ages. The earliest is probably the
Scandinavian saga of the
Visby garnets. In the
Hanseatic city Visby, on the island of
Gotland, the Church of St. Nicholas had two
rose windows with huge garnets in the center, overlooking the
Baltic Sea. Sagas say the two gems shone at night as brightly as did the sun at noon and guided mariners safely to port. In 1361 King
Valdemar IV of Denmark conquered Gotland, but his rich booty, including the marvelous garnets, sank in the ocean when the king's ship was wrecked on the
Kong Karls Land islands. The Dutch scholar
Alardus of Amsterdam (1491–1544) relates the history of a luminous "chrysolampis" (χρυσόλαμπις, "gold-gleaming") gem set on a golden tablet with other valuable gemstones. Around 975, Hildegard, wife of
Dirk II, Count of Holland, dedicated the tablet to Saint
Adalbert of Egmond and presented it to
Egmond Abbey, where the saint's body reposed. Alardus tells us that the "chrysolampis" "shone so brightly that when the monks were called to the chapel in the nighttime, they could read the
Hours without any other light"; however, this brilliant gem was stolen by one of the monks and thrown into the sea. The French chemist
Marcellin Berthelot (1888) discovered an early Greek alchemical text "from the sanctuary of the temple" that says the Egyptians produced "the carbuncle that shines in the night" from certain phosphorescent parts ("the bile") of marine animals, and when properly prepared these precious gems would glow so brightly at night "that anyone owning such a stone could read or write by its light as well as he could by daylight".
Gem mining legends from
Zabargad Island under
ultraviolet light under ultraviolet light Second, there are stories about miners finding luminous gems at night and extracting them by day. In the 1st century BCE, the Greek historians
Diodorus Siculus (c. 90–30) and
Strabo (c. 63–24) both record the
peridot (gem-quality
olivine) mine of Egyptian king
Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 285–246 BCE) on the barren, forbidden island of Ophiodes (, "Snakey") or Topazios (, "Topaz"), modern
Zabargad Island, off the ancient
Red Sea port
Berenice Troglodytica. Diodorus says Philadelphus exterminated the "divers sorts of dreadful Serpents" that formerly infested on the island on account of the "Topaz, a resplendent Stone, of a delightful Aspect, like to Glass, of a Golden colour, and of admirable brightness; and therefore all were forbidden to set footing upon that Place; and if any landed there, he was presently put to death by the Keepers of the Island." The Egyptian mining technique relied upon luminosity. "This Stone grows in the Rocks, darken'd by the brightness of the Sun; it's not seen in the Day, but shines bright and glorious in the darkest Night, and discovers itself at a great distance. The Keepers of the Island disperse themselves into several Places to search for this stone, and wherever it appears, they mark the Place, with a great Vessel of largeness sufficient to cover the sparkling Stone; and then in the Day time, go to the Place, and cut out the Stone, and deliver it to those that are Artists in polishing of 'em" (tr. Oldfather et al. 1814 3: 36). According to Strabo, "The topaz is a transparent stone sparkling with a golden lustre, which, however, is not easy to be distinguished in the day-time, on account of the brightness of the surrounding light, but at night the stones are visible to those who collect them. The collectors place a vessel over the spot [where the topazes are seen] as a mark, and dig them up in the day" (tr. Hamilton and Falconer 1889 3:103). Ball notes that the legendary "topaz" of Topazios island is olivine, which is not luminescent while true topaz is, and suggests, "This tale may well have been told to travelers by astute Egyptian gem merchants anxious to enhance the value of their wares by exaggerating the dangers inherent to procuring the olivines". The Anglo-Indian diplomat
Thomas Douglas Forsyth says that in 632, the ancient Iranian
Saka Buddhist
Kingdom of Khotan sent a "splendid jade stone" as tribute to
Emperor Taizong of Tang. Khotan's rivers were famous for their jade, "which was discovered by its shining in the water at night", and divers would procure it in shallow waters after the snowmelt floods had subsided. The
Bohemian rabbi
Petachiah of Regensburg (d. c. 1225) adapted Strabo's story for the gold he saw in the land of Ishmael, east of
Nineveh, where "the gold grows like herbs. In the night its brightness is seen when a mark is made with dust or lime. They then come in the morning and gather the herbs upon which the gold is found". A modern parallel to ancient miners seeking luminous gems at nighttime is mineworkers using portable
shortwave ultraviolet lamps to locate ores that respond with color-specific fluorescence. For instance, under short-wave UV light,
scheelite, a
tungsten ore, fluoresces a bright sky-blue, and
willemite, a minor ore of
zinc, fluoresces green. The Hindu polymath
Varāhamihira's 6th century
Brhat Samhit encyclopedic work describes the bright star
Canopus, named Agastya (
अगस्त्य) in Sanskrit, also the name of the
rishi Agastya, "Its huge white waves looked like clouds; its gems looked like stars; its crystals looked like the Moon; and its long bright serpents bearing gems in their hoods looked like comets and thus the whole sea looked like the sky." Another context says black glossy pearls are also produced in the heads of serpents related to the
nāgarāja (
नागराज, "dragon kings")
Takshaka and
Vasuki. The "Snake Jewel" story in Somadeva's 11th-century
Kathasaritsagara ("Ocean of the Streams of Stories") refers to a
maṇi (
मणि, "gem; jewel; pearl") on a snake's head. When the Hindu mythological king
Nala is fleeing from a jungle wildfire, he hears a voice asking for help and turns back to see a snake "having his head encircled with the rays of the jewels of his crest", who, after being rescued reveals himself to be the nāgarāja
Karkotaka. The 3rd-century CE
Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the Greek
sophist Philostratus's biography of
Apollonius of Tyana (c. 3 BCE – 97 CE), says that in India, people will kill a mountain dragon and cut off its head, in which, "are stones of rich lustre, emitting every-coloured rays and of occult virtue." It also mentions a myth that cranes will not build their nests until they have affixed a "light-stone" (Ancient Greek
lychnidis, "shining") to help the eggs hatch and to drive away snakes. In the
Bengali tale of "
The Rose of Bakáwalí", the heroic prince Jamila Khatun encounters a monstrous dragon that carried in its mouth "a serpent which emitted a gem so brilliant that it lighted up the jungle for many miles". His plan to obtain it was to throw a heavy lump of clay on the luminous gem, plunging the jungle into darkness, "so that the dragon and the serpent knocked their heads against the stones and died." According to
Armenian "The Queen of the Serpents" legend, the serpents of
Mount Ararat select a queen who destroys invading armies of foreign serpents, and carries in her mouth a "wonderful stone, the Hul, or stone of light, which upon certain nights she tosses in the air, when it shines as the sun. Happy the man who shall catch the stone ere it falls."
Henry Timberlake, the British emissary to the
Overhill Cherokee during the 1761–1762
Timberlake Expedition, records a story about
medicine men ("conjurers") using gemstones, which is a variant of the
Horned Serpent legend in
Iroquois mythology. One luminous gem "remarkable for its brilliancy and beauty" supposedly "grew on the head of a monʃtrous ʃerpent" that was guarded by many snakes. The medicine man hid this luminous gemstone, and no one else had seen it. Timberlake supposed he had "hatched the account of its difcovery" (1765: 48–49). Ball doubts the myth and suggests "European influence". After his third visit to Persia in 1686, the French jeweler and traveler
John Chardin wrote that the Egyptian carbuncle was "very probably only an Oriental Ruby of higher Colour than usual." The Persians call it
Icheb Chirac, the Flambeau ["burning torch"] of the Night because of the property and Quality it has of enlightening all things round it", and "They tell you that the Carbuncle was bred within the Head of a Dragon, a Griffin, or a Royal Eagle, which was found upon the Mountain of Caf". Like Chardin's griffin or eagle, some stories about luminous gems involve animals other than snakes and dragons. An early example is the 3rd-century CE Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes
Romance of Alexander that says
Alexander the Great once speared a fish, "in whose bowels was found a white stone so brilliant that everyone believed it was a lamp. Alexander set it in gold, and used it as a lamp at night". Sydney H. Ball recounts the widespread variation of the animal-gratitude snake story involving a wild animal (often called
carbuncle, Spanish
carbunclo, or Latin
carbunculo) with a luminous gem on its head, and which Europeans apparently introduced into Africa and America. The English merchant
William Finch reported around 1608 a
Sierra Leone story about a wolf-like creature with a luminous gem. "The Negros told us of a strange beast (which the interpreter called a Carbuncle) oft seene yet only by night, having a stone in his forehead, incredibly shining and giving him light to feed, attentive to the least noyse, which he no sooner heareth, but he presently covereth the same with a filme or skinne given him as a naturall covering that his splendour betray him not". In 1666, another version of the theme is a huge snake recorded from
Island Caribs on the island of
Dominica,
West Indies. "On its head was a very sparkling stone, like a Carbuncle, of inestimable price: That it commonly veil'd that rich Jewel with a thin moving skin, like that of a man's eye-lid: but that when it went to drink or sported himself in the midst of that deep bottom, he fully discover'd it, and that the rocks and all about receiv'd a wonderful lustre from the fire issuing out of that precious crown". According to the Swiss explorer
Johann Jakob von Tschudi, in the highlands of
Peru and
Bolivia, the native peoples tell stories of a fabulous beast with a luminous gem. "The carbunculo is represented to be of the size of a fox, with long black hair, and is only visible at night, when it slinks slowly through the thickets. If followed, he opens a flap or valve in the forehead, from under which an extraordinary, brilliant, and dazzling light issues. The natives believe that this light proceeds from a brilliant precious stone, and that any fool hardy person who may venture to grasp at it rashly is blinded; then the flap is let down, and the animal disappears in the darkness". The American archeologist
Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier cites von Tschudi and describes the carbunculo as a cat with a blood-red jewel, which is supposed to dwell on
Nevado Sajama mountain, near
Oruro,
Bolivia. Bandelier believes his Bolivian informants that the carbunculo has existed from the earliest times, and "certainly before the conquest, so that its introduction cannot be attributed to the Spaniards". Nevertheless, based upon how closely the above American versions of the myth follow the pattern of the European form, Ball concludes that the Spaniards introduced the carbuncle myth. and Ball believes these tales probably originated independently.
Sui (隨, cf. 隋
Sui dynasty), located in present-day
Suizhou,
Hubei, was a lesser feudal state during the
Zhou dynasty (c. 1046 BCE – 256 BCE) and a
vassal state of
Chu. Several
Warring States period (c. 475–221 BCE) texts mention Marquis Sui's pearl as a metaphor for something important or valuable, but without explaining the grateful snake tale, which implies that it was common knowledge among contemporary readers. The
Marquis of Sui's pearl is mentioned in the
Zhanguo ci ("Strategies of the Warring States") compendium of political and military anecdotes dating from 490 to 221 BCE.
King Wuling of Zhao (r. 325–299 BCE) summoned Zheng Tong (鄭同) for an audience and asked how to avoid warfare with neighboring feudal states. Zheng Tong replied, 'Well, let us suppose there is a man who carries with him the pearl of Sui-hou and the Ch'ih-ch'iu armband [持丘之環, uncertain] as well as goods valued at ten thousand in gold. Now he stops the night in an uninhabited place." Since he has neither weapons nor protectors, "It is clear he will not spend more than a night abroad before someone harms him. At the moment there are powerful and greedy states on your majesty's borders and they covet your land. ... If you lack weapons your neighbours, of course, will be quite satisfied". The c. 3rd–1st centuries BCE Daoist
Zhuangzi alludes to the marquis's pearl. "Whenever the sage makes a movement, he is certain to examine what his purpose is and what he is doing. If now, however, we suppose that there were a man who shot at a sparrow a thousand yards away with the pearl of the Marquis of Sui, the world would certainly laugh at him. Why is this? It is because what he uses is important and what he wants is insignificant. And is not life much more important than the pearl of the Marquis of Sui?". Several
Chinese classics pair the legendary
Suihouzhu ("the Marquis of Sui's pearl") with another priceless gem, the
Heshibi (和氏璧, "
Mr. He's jade"). The
bi is a type of circular
Chinese jade artifact, and "Mr. He" was Bian He (卞和), who found a marvelous piece of raw jade that went cruelly unrecognized by successive Chu monarchs until it was finally acknowledged as a priceless jewel. The c. 3rd–1st century BCE
Chuci ("Songs of
Chu") mentions the paired gems, "Shards and stones are prized as jewels / Sui and He rejected". This poetic anthology also says, "It grieves me that shining pearls [明珠] should be cast out in the mire / While worthless fish-eye stones are treasured in a strong-box", and describes a flying chariot, "Fringed with the dusky Moon Bright pearls [明月之玄珠]". King
Liu An's c. 139 BCE
Huainanzi ("Philosophers of Huainan") uses the story to describe one who has attained the Way of Heaven (
天道), "It is like the pearl of Marquis Sui or the jade disk of Mr. He. Those who achieved it became rich; those who lost it became poor". The c. 222 CE
De Natura Animalium ("On the Characteristics of Animals"), compiled by Roman author
Claudius Aelianus, told the story of Heraclea or Herakleis, a virtuous widow of
Tarentum, who after seeing a fledgling stork fall and break its leg, nursed it back to health, and set it free. One year later, as Heraclea sat at the door of her cottage, the young stork returned and dropped a precious stone into her lap, and she put it indoors. Awakening that night, she saw that the gem "diffused a brightness and a gleam, and the house was lit up as though a torch had been brought in, so strong a radiance came from, and was engendered by, the lump of stone". Laufer cites three c. 4th-century Chinese grateful-animal stories that parallel Heraclea's stork. The
Shiyi ji ("Researches into Lost Records"), compiled by the Daoist scholar
Wang Jia (d. 390 CE) from early apocryphal versions of Chinese history, recounts an anecdote about King Zhao of
Yan (燕昭王, r. 311–279 BCE) and grateful birds with
dongguangzhu (洞光珠, "cave shining pearls"). When Prince Chao of Yen was once seated on a terrace, black birds with white heads flocked there together, holding in their beaks perfectly resplendent pearls, measuring one foot all round. These pearls were black as lacquer, and emitted light in the interior of a house to such a degree that even the spirits could not obscure their supernatural essence." The imperial historian
Gan Bao's c. 350 CE
Soushen Ji ("In Search of the Supernatural") has two grateful-animal stories involving luminous pearls/gems. The first involves a black crane; according to legend, when a crane has lived a thousand years it turns blue; after another thousand it becomes black and is called a
xuanhe (玄鶴. "dark crane"). Kuai Shen [噲參] was the most filial son to his mother. Once a black crane was injured by a bow hunter and in its extremity, went to Kuai. The latter took it in, doctored its wound, and when it was cured set it free. Soon afterwards the crane showed up again outside Kuai's door. The latter shone a torch to see out and discovered its mate there too. Each of them held a single night-glowing pearl [明珠] in its beak to repay Kuai. The second story is oldest detailed explanation of Marquis of Sui's pearl. Once upon a time, when the ruler of the old Sui kingdom was journeying, he came upon a great wounded serpent whose back was broken. The ruler believed the creature to be a spirit manifestation and ordered his physician to treat it with drugs to close up its wound. Thereafter the serpent was able to move again, and the place was called Mound of the Wounded Serpent. One year later the serpent brought a bright pearl [明珠] in its mouth to give the ruler of Sui to show its gratitude. The pearl was greater than an inch in diameter, of the purest white and emitted light like moonglow. In the dark it could illuminate an entire room. For these reasons it was known as "Duke Sui's Pearl" [隋侯珠] or the "Spirit Snake's Pearl" [靈蛇珠], or, again, the "Moonlight Pearl" [明月珠]. A later elaboration of animal-gratitude stories involves grateful animals and ungrateful people, who are typically rescued from a
pitfall trap. Two versions mention marvelous gems. The English historian
Matthew Paris's c. 1195
Chronicles says that
Richard I of England (1157–1199) used to tell a parable about ungrateful people. A Venetian, Vitalis, was rescued from a horrible death by a ladder being let down into a pit into which he had fallen. A lion and a serpent trapped in the same pit used his ladder to escape, and the lion in gratitude brought to Vitalis a goat he had killed and the snake a luminous jewel that he carried in his mouth. As Richard reportedly told the story after his return from the
Crusades he may have heard it in the East, as similar stories, but without the stone being luminous, occur in two Indian collections, the c. 300 BCE
Kalila wa Dimnah and the 11th-century
Kathasaritsagara. Some scholars were skeptical about luminous gem stories. In the West, the earliest nonbeliever was the Portuguese traveler to India and gem expert,
Garcia de Orta (1563), who, having been told by a jeweler of a luminous carbuncle, doubted its existence. In the East, the first recorded skeptic was the Chinese encyclopedist
Song Yingxing, who in 1628 wrote "it is not true that there are pearls emitting light at the hour of the dusk or night". ==See also==