Luminous gemstones
The American geologist Sydney Hobart Ball, who wrote an article on "Luminous Gems, Mythical and Real", outlined the history of discoveries about luminescent and phosphorescent minerals.
Among the gravels of the Irtysh River, near Krasnoyarsk, Russia, the German mineralogist Gustav Rose recorded seeing chlorophane pebbles that shone with brilliancy all night long, merely from exposure to the sun's heat.
Most frequently rubies or carbuncles (often red garnets), which classical and medieval mineralogists did not differentiate, and less commonly other gems, including diamonds, emeralds, jade, and pearls (Ball 1938: 497).
The c. 400 BCE – 300 CE Hindu classic Mahabharata tells the story of the five Pandava brothers and the raja Babruvahana's palace with its precious stones that "shone like lamps so that there was no need for any other light in the assembly."
The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang's 646 Great Tang Records on the Western Regions locates it in the Buddha Tooth Temple near Anuradhapura, "Its magical brilliance illumines the whole heaven.
The Song Scholar Zhao Rukuo's c. 1225 Zhu Fan Zhi ("Records of Foreign People") says, "The king holds in his hand a jewel five inches in diameter, which cannot be burnt by fire, and which shines in (the darkness of) night like a torch.
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).
[citation needed] 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 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.
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.
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 (tr.
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 (tr.
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" (tr.
The Catalan missionary Jordanus's c. 1330 Mirabilia says he heard that the dragons of India Tertia (Eastern African, south of Abyssinia) have on their heads "the lustrous stones which we call carbuncles."
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" (Chardin 2010: 166–167).
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 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" (Dickens 1857: 124).
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 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" (von Tschudi 1854: 320).
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.
Based upon striking coincidences in Chinese and Roman versions of the story, Laufer reasoned that there was an obvious historical connection (1915: 59–60), and Ball believes these tales probably originated independently (1938: 504).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Laufer concludes that the "coincidences in these three Chinese versions and the story of the Greek author, even in unimportant details such as the thankful bird returning after one year to the marquis of Sui, are so striking, that an historical connection between the two is obvious" (1915: 60).
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.
