'Fire Pearls,' Tektites and Optics in eastern Asia

In the postings on Qingtong, the Eastern Lad, the visit of an envoy from Fusang was mentioned in which a special jewel was offered as an official gift. Joseph Needham describes the visit:

About +520 envoys of Fu-sang are said to have arrived in China, bringing with them a precious stone suitable for observation of the sun (kuan jih yu) 'of the size of a mirror, measuring over a foot in circumference, and as transparent as glass (liu-li); looking through it in bright sunlight, the palace buildings could be very clearly distinguished'.

In the centuries that followed, we hear of "fire pearls" (huo chu 'fire orb, pearl') repeatedly offered as gifts by various countries to the Chinese court. The Chinese texts identify prime sources of fire pearls as the countries of Lo-ch'a, Tan-tan and Po-li. While the exact location of these countries is open to debate, the texts clearly place them in Southeast Asia. The Tang Shu says this about the fire pearls from Lo-ch'a and Tan-tan.

Their country produces fire-pearls in great number, the biggest attaining the size of a hen's egg. They are round and white (transparent), and emit light to a distance of several feet. When held against the rays of the sun, mugwort and rush (tinder) will be ignited at once by fire springing from the pearl. The material looks like rock-crystal.

The small size of the fire pearls and the fact that they are like but not rock crystal (clear quartz) suggest they could be tektites, the natural glass gems probably formed by the collision of some extraterrestrial body on the Earth's surface. Tektites are often globular in form and they can range from opaque to nearly as transparent as silica glass. Such transparent, orb-shaped tektites would have a natural magnifying ability.

As the fire pearls were natural, small, round and transparent, and apparently not found in China but common in regions to the South, it is highly probable that tektites were meant.

Tektites were used to make flaked tools in the Neolithic period of Southeast Asia and polished tektites were apparently used as charmstones starting around the metal age. Some early Indochinese Hindu-Buddhist deity statues have polished tektites placed in the eye sockets.

During T'ang times, we see a close association between the huo chu and the dragon. A T'ang bracelet at the Shosoin in Japan has two facing dragons holding a fire pearl. This motif and a related one with a huo chu between the mouths of two facing dragons has continued until present times. Often the fire pearl in this depiction is decorated with a spiral or is surrounded by a wreath of flames. Pearls are said to be found in the mouths of dragons something possibly alluded to earlier by Zhuangzhi. It was common during this period to classify the whale (King 'male whale', I 'female whale') as a type of sea dragon. Probably in connection with this concept, the naturally phosphorescent eyes of the whale, particularly the female whale of the South Seas, were known as "moonlight pearls" having the "brilliancy of the night." There may be some connection here also with the use of polished tektites as "eyes" in Indochinese sculpture.

In latter times, one of the Dragon Kings of the sea is located along with his palace on the blessed island of Penglai, apparently a conflation with the King Father of the East. In Japanese lore, the land of Tokoyonokuni, linked in the Nihonshoki with Mount Horaisan (Penglai), is also the home of the Dragon King of the Sea. The Dragon King's palace is said to be made of rock-crystal (shui ching).

While the fire pearl was linked more with the sea, there is also a hint of heavenly origin as found in Southeast Asia with reference to tektites, where the latter are known by names such as star dung, sun stones, moon stones, thunder dung, etc. The term "huo chu" was used in pre-T'ang literature to refer to fiery meteors, and we know that the Chinese dragon flies through the sky and is associated with storms, thunder and lightning. G. Elliot Smith, following Koh Hung, thought the spiral design on fire pearl iconography represented the rolling sound of thunder.

(Left) Three Australian button tektites and (right) three glass models ablated by aerodynamic heating; actual size ranges from 16 to 25 mm (Encyclopædia Britannica)

The Gaozhang empress Wu Zhao had the great Mingtang ('Hall of Light') built to worship Heaven in 688 CE. A giant iron phoenix on the roof of the 85 meter wide, three-story octagonal structure was blown down by wind, and replaced with a fire pearl. The name was changed to Tongtianwu ('Hall that Connects with Heaven'). After Wu Zhao usurped the T'ang house to form the Zhou Dynasty in 690 CE, Wu Sansu, her nephew, along with some "tribal chiefs" set out to construct a massive pillar in honor of Wu Zhao.

Completed in 695, the Tianshu ("Heavenly Pillar") was 30 meters high and 5 meters wide and stood atop a mountain of iron decorated with a bronze dragon and unicorn. On top of the pillar, four "dragon men" sculptures held up a fire pearl.


Optics in Ancient and Medieval China

Mirrors in China appear in the oldest strata of literature, and references to the concave bronze mirrors, the yang-sui, that collects the Sun's rays; and the fang-zhu, that gathers the dew from the Moon, date back to at least the Zhou Dynasty.

The yang-sui is mentioned during Zhou times as a burning mirror capable of igniting kindling placed at its center under the light of the Sun.

Interest in burning lenses, rather than mirrors, perks up in the T'ang Dynasty with the importing of the fire pearls from Southeast Asia and elsewhere. However, it was during the Sung Dynasty that we see a real upswing in optics research in China. In the 10th century, the Daoist teacher Tan Qiao (Than Chhiao), wrote about lenses and mirrors. He describes four types and properties of lenses:

I have always by me four lenses. The first is called kuei (the 'sceptre', a diverging bi-concave lens). The second is called chu (the 'pearl', biconvex). the third is called chih ( the 'whetstone,' plano-concave). The fourth is called yu (the 'bowl,' plano-convex).

With kuei the object is larger (than the image).
With chu the object is smaller (than the image).
With chih the image appears upright.
With yu the image appears inverted.

When one looks at shapes or human forms through such instruments, one realises that there is no such thing as (absolute) largeness or smallness, beauty or ugliness..."

Tan Qiao's work Hua Shu is dated to about 940 CE, so he predates the noted Arab physicist Ibn al-Haitham by several decades. In the 11th century, Shen Gua (Shen Kua) wrote of similar properties with reference to concave, convex and flat mirrors.

The ancients made mirrors according to the following methods. If the mirror was large, the surface was made flat (or concave) ; if the mirror was if the mirror was small, the surface was made convex. If the mirror is concave (wa) it reflects a person's face larger, if the mirror is convex (tieh) it reflects the face smaller. The whole of a person's face could not be seen in a small mirror, so that was why they made the surface convex. They increased or reduced the degree of convexity or concavity according to the size of the mirror, and could thus always make the mirror correspond to the face.

That a concave mirror could be used to view objects at a great distance was known to the Chinese. In 1225, Chau Ju-Kua (Zhao Rugua) wrote about the great lighthouse in Pharos.

The country of O-Ken-Tho (Alexandria) belongs to Egypt (Wu-Ssu-Li). According to tradition, in olden times a stranger (i jen), Chhu-Ko-Ni by name, built on the shore of the sea a great pagoda, underneath which the earth was excavated to make two rooms, well connected and thoroughly hidden. In one vault was stored grain, and in the other arms. The tower was 200 ft. high [Note: chang = 10 feet, chhih = 1 foot]. Four horses abreast could ascend (by a winding ramp) to two-thirds of its height. Below the tower, in the middle, there was a well of great size connected by a tunnel with the great river. To protect this pagoda from foreign soldiers, the whole country guarded it against all enemies. In the upper and lower parts of it twenty thousand men could readily be stationed as a guard or to make sorties. At the summit there was an immense mirror. There was an old story said that if warships of other countries tried to make an attack, the mirror detected them beforehand, and the troops were ready to repel it. But in recent years there came (to Alexandria) a foreigner, who asked to be given work in the guardhouse below the tower, and he was employed to sprinkle and to sweep. For years no one entertained any suspicion of him, but suddenly one day he found an opportunity to steal the mirror and throw it into the sea, after which he made off.

Chau Ju-Kua was relaying a story told in Arabic works of a great mirror on the Pharos lighthouse that allowed the ruler to see events throughout the kingdom and according to some versions to detect fleets more than 100 leagues away.

According to Abu-l'fida (1331), this mirror was made of "Chinese iron" or "kharsini," indicating that the mirror was installed by Muslim rulers. Chinese mirrors are mentioned by al-Razi as being sold in 990 CE for up to several times their weight in silver in Baghdad. Al-Dimashqi in 1325, refers to "distorting mirrors" made of kharsini.

Concave mirrors up to three feet in diameter are described in the 4th century CE work Shi-I-Ki, and other sources tell of fabulous mirrors capable of casting light at distances up to 200 li.

We have noted earlier, that both the King of Shambhala and Prester John were said to have mirrors or lenses that allowed them to observe things throughout their kingdom or beyond. In the Letter of Prester John, this mirror is located in the tower of the king's palace. Edwin Bernbaum writes about the King of Shambhala: "According to descriptions of the King's palace in Kalapa, special skylights made of lenses act like high-powered telescopes to reveal life on other planets or solar systems. The King also possesses a glass mirror in which he can see scenes of whatever is happening for miles around."

Whether such a mirror existed is possibly not so important as the esoteric ideas involved. In this connection, we may also consider the crystal palace of the Dragon King of Penglai, and the relationship between whale (dragon) eye pearls, and possibly the eyes of deity statutes, with fire pearl lenses.

There is an interesting linguistic reconstruction with reference to the burning and observation lenses brought from Southeast Asia to China starting in the T'ang era. There exists the suggested prototype *sjaLemin for Tagalog salamin 'mirror, spectacles, glass, crystal," Toba Batak sormin; Malay chermin "mirror," Ngaju Dayak saramin "mirror, glass, Bisaya salamin "crystal, mirror," Kapampangan salamin "mirror, spectacles," etc.

Some have challenged this reconstruction suggesting instead that the words mentioned above are borrowed from Sanskrit carmin "made of leather,' via a rather convoluted argument. I would have to say the reconstruction has a better chance of being true.

Pigafetta speaking about the kingdom of Brunei in 1521 states:

The merchandise which is most esteemed here is bronze, quicksilver, cinnabar, glass, woollen stuffs, linens ; but above all they esteem iron and spectacles.

The quote above may be the first mention of eyeglasses as a trade item. Up until Pigafetta's time, glasses were apparently quite rare anywhere in the world.

Chinese texts, in fact, state that the first spectacles (ai-dai) in China were brought from Malacca (Man-la-chia) as a present from that kingdom's ruler. These were quite different than early spectacles from the West as they were made from rock crystal and were monoculars that could be attached together. The earliest use of rock crystal (shui jing) in China for such purposes was prior to 1117 by Sung Dynasty judges who used rock crystal magnifying glasses to decipher poorly-written or preserved documents. The ai-dai also came to have a 'tea lens' (smoky quartz) variation to protect the eyes from sunlight.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Beyer, HO . The Relation of Tektites to Archaeology, National Research Council of the Philippines, University of the Philippines, 1954.

Cheung, Frederick Hok-ming, and Ming-chiu Lai, eds. Politics and Religion in Ancient and Medieval Europe and China, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1999.

Needham, Joseph, Wang Ling, Ling Wang, Kenneth Girdwood. Science and Civilisation in China vol. IV, Cambridge University Press, 1962, 87, 114-120.

Needham, Joseph and Ling Wang. Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge University Press, 1954, 430.

Rosenthal, J. William. Spectacles and Other Vision Aids: a history and guide to collecting, Norman Publishing: San Francisco, 1996.

Wood, Frances. The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia, London: British Library, 2003.

The Whale and the Millenarian Cycle

In my book, Sailing the Black Current, I discuss the motif of the whale or other giant sea creature and its connection with the "navel of the sea," and natural disasters including the millennial Great Flood and the coming millennium.

In the 1987 film Whale Rider. Witi Ihimaera tells the story of a Whangara Maori prophecy in which a recurrent golden age is ushered in by the coming of a leader riding on a whale.

From Southeast Asia throughout much of the Pacific, tales of whale riders and otherwise helpful whales are commonly found. In coastal central and south Vietnam, whales are seen as protectors of fisherman and sailors who rescue those at sea by allowing them to ride on their backs. A dead whale is seen as a sign of coming prosperity, a type of golden age if you will.

These Vietnamese beliefs appear to originate in the Cham whale cult of Po Rayak. Whale temples house the bones of dead whales who are given royal funerals by coastal peoples. The person who finds the dead whale takes on the role of the cetacean's first-born child and performs formal mourning. After the whale carcass has been interred for three years, the bones are recovered for placement in a temple. During the Nguyen Dynasty, the dead whales were granted titles by the emperor usually with rank of a "general" or "admiral" of the highest order.

Whales were considered incarnations of Thanh Nam Hai "God of the South Seas," and were sometimes called Nam Hai Dai Vuong "Great King of the South Seas." Revolutionary heroes like Ngyuen Trung Truc and Marshall Nguyen Huynh Duc are often seen as incarnations themselves of the whale god Ka Ong.


Whales and the Ebisu Cult of Japan

The Japanese patron deity of fishing, Ebisu, is often viewed as a whale in coastal regions of Japan in a cult that Sakurada Katsunori believes originates in southern Kyushu.

Ebisu is a form of the "divine visitor" also known as Miroku and as Marebito in the Ryukyus. When Ebisu visits, an age of prosperity ensues. This may be viewed naturally, outside of other considerations, in two ways, either the whale chases fish toward the shore or beaches itself providing the bounty of a whale carcass.

Whaling is seen as a sacred venture, and as in Vietnam, whale monuments dot the Japanese coast. About 25 matsuri festivals are held yearly as memorial festivals for whales many with the purpose of helping the whale spirit reach enlightenment to become a Buddha in Paradise. Traditional whalers are known to say the Namu Amida Butsu prayer at the death of a whale in hopes that the whale will become a Buddha.

The whale is also sometimes seen as the great fish Namazu-e (literally 'catfish'), who causes earthquakes and brings about world destruction and renewal.


Whales and the Navel of the Sea in the Philippines and Indonesia

Among the Maranao of the South Philippines, there is giant fish called Lumbang, probably a whale, that dwells at the "navel of the sea" that causes earthquakes when it moves around. The Maguidanao know this huge fish as Limbo. In some languages of the Philippines, lumba-lumba means "dolphin" or "tuna."

The Batak of Palawan tell of a great dragon known as Tandayag who causes floods by closing up the navel of the sea, which they call burungan. The word tandayag means "whale" or "giant fish" in various other Philippine languages like Waray and Maguindanao. Marcos de Lisbon, writing in 1754, defines tandayag in the Bicol language as 'a very great snake, that they say went to the sea, and returned there as a whale' ("una culebra muy grande, que dicen se iba a la mar, y se volven alla ballena").

In other Philippine mythologies, the creature associated with the navel of the sea and the linked Earth pillars is a dragon, giant serpent, giant crab, giant eel, etc. The great animal or fish causes earthquakes or floods often because of the wrath of the Supreme Deity at the sins of humanity. The Great Deluge of yore in Philippine mythology is usually associated with this creature stopping up the navel of the sea, and thus renewing the age.

Usually the same creature, attracted by the Moon is said to cause the ebb and flow of the tide by moving in and out of the navel of the sea, and also the eclipse of the lunar and solar orbs. It is sometimes thought to be female in gender and is known as the lord of the sea or waters, the king of fishes or even as the Supreme God itself.

In some cases, if God's anger is not propitiated, the destruction of the world ensues. This is known at times by the Malay Muslim word Harikiamat "Day of Judgement" (alikiamat, Tiruray; harikiama, Maranao; harikiamat, Maguindanao).

However, among the indigenous peoples, Harikiamat is not associated with the Islamic prophecies of the al-Mahdi, the descent of Isa (Jesus) and the final war with the Antichrist. Instead, we find the native beliefs in the destruction of the world by flood or earthquake associated with the navel of the sea and the great whale, dragon, serpent, etc.


Leviathan

Speaking of whales and the end of the world, the great biblical sea creature Leviathan, often also thought of as female, is identified as a whale by many commentators. In Jewish lore, Leviathan's massive carcass provides the fare for the great messianic feast at the end of the age.

Leviathan is also often associated with the "beast" that John of the Book of Revelation sees rising out of the sea as he stands on the shore. This beast is not a carcass but has a deadly wound that is healed by a "dragon" before the great apocalypse.

Of course, one also needs to think of the story of Jonah when thinking about whales. Jonah is swallowed by a 'great fish' and spat up on a beach to warn Nineveh of impending doom. Back in 1837, FC Baur studied the similarity of the Jonah motif with that of Babylonian Oannes, the fish-man who also comes from the sea to the shore at the start of a new age. Oannes is one of the abgal, messengers who come regularly from the sea to Mesopotamia at the start of a new kingdom.

Thus, Oannes like Jonah, the doomsday prophet, has millenarian aspects. Some have even suggested that the etymologies of the two names are linked.

Herman Melville, in his 1851 American classic Moby Dick, identifies Leviathan with the whale and specifically the great albino sperm whale of his story. He further makes a connection with the Hindu Matsya Avatara, the first cyclic iincarnation of the god Visnu. The Matsya Avatara is described as a great fish (matsya) that rescues the Hindu Adam, known as Manu, from the Great Flood that ushers in the new age (Satyayuga).

Interestingly, Melville describes among the crew of the whaler Ahab the "Manila men" with "tiger yellow" skin who when rowing Ahab's boat seemed "all steel and whalebone; like five trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength."

The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with noiseless celerity, were casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white toothe evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff.
But strangely crowning this eboness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas; -- a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid
spies and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.

Ahab's ship passed the Philippines while searching for Moby Dick along the Kuroshio Current and the final encounter with the whale occurred near the equator somewhere southeast of Japan.

The writing style of Moby Dick certainly invites the search for hidden meanings and it has been described as following the apocalyptic archetype with Ahab even identified as St. John the Divine, author of the Book of Revelation. The whale itself seems to alternately symbolize good and evil, God and Satan (or the beast of Revelation). Melville writes:

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

Moby Dick is seen by some as symbolizing the human and specifically American obsession with destroying evil.

Although an early supporter of the new doctrine of Manifest Destiny to some extent, Melville strongly rebelled against the treatment of Polynesians and other Pacific Islanders. He considered the Pacific as the new frontier that was being destroyed by the coming of "snivelization." He chided Americans for their ruthless colonialism:

The Anglo-Saxons -- lacking grace
To win the love of any race;
Hated by myriads dispossessed
Of rights -- the Indians East and West.
These pirates of the sphere! grave looters--
Grave, canting, Mammonite freebotters,
Who in the name of Christ and Trade
(Oh, bucklered forehead of the brass!)
Deflower the world's last sylvan glade.

Clarel 4.9.117-25

Journey to the Navel of the Sea

Although most descriptions of Philippine and Indonesian myths of the navel of the sea are rather cursory, Dario Novellino has conducted a significant study of this theme among the Batak of Palawan.

The Batak believe that once this navel known as burungan is open, if the Tandayag dragon is not appeased the universe will eventually dissolve following the great floods.

To help prevent this occurrence, the Batak shaman (babailan) undertakes a spirit journey to the burungan to "renew the world."

To then ‘renew the world’, the most important phase of the ritual is the trance performed by the shaman. The shaman holds coconut oil in one hand, while dancing. During the trance the kiaruwa’ of the shaman will move in search of selected spirit guides, and will require their help to reach the burungan. These spirit guides are associated with animal species, and they represent their ‘spiritualised’ version. They are the kiaruwa’ of animals ‘of the water’ and ‘of the higher up’, and include the swallow, the otter, the monitor lizard, and the river turtle. The kiaruwa’ of the river turtle is considered the most enduring and capable of confronting the fury of the water at the burungan. It will also play a shamanic role by dancing the same dance as the shaman, thus fostering the closing of the two boulders over the burungan. While the turtle’s kiaruwa’ dances, the shaman smears the two boulders with coconut oil, facilitating the coming together of the two stones above the burungan opening, thus stopping the water outflow. According to the informants, a particular malevolent panya’en appears at the burungan site in the form of an attractive woman, and she will try to call on her the shaman’s attention. It is said that if the shamans looks back at the malevolent panya’en, he may be hit by the water outflow, and fall inside the burungan hole. Finally, with the assistance of the spirit guides, the shaman will try to place the rooster claw back on the metal bar. In so doing the rooster will stop flapping its wings and, the storm will end.

When the burungan is closed, offerings of chickens, ceramics and human blood (but not sacrifice) are made to the Tandayag, the guardian of the burungan.

The millenarian idea of "healing" or "renewing" the world is quite interesting. Possibly related to this is the old practice of the Igorots of Kagubatan who regularly fed the sacred eels of the Kagubatan lake. If these eels are not fed, it is believed a drought would ensue and crops would fail. The eels are so accustomed to the feeding that they rise to the surface like goldfish when the Igorots sang specific songs meant to summon them. The eels here could have been seen forms of their supreme god Lumauig's python that controls the waters at the navel of the sea.

In studying the importance of the whale or some similar large sea creature in millenarian myth, we can note that the whale or sea serpent is often conflated with the sea boat in totemic cultures. The cargo cult mentality places much emphasis on the "treasure boat," and thus the boat-whale symbolism would take on special importance. Indeed, the whale itself brings abundant cargo when it lands on a beach. In addition to acting as a tutelary god, the whale is sometimes seen as an ancestor. For example, the Maori Paikea, ancestor of the Ngāti Porou, is sometimes described as riding a whale, but at other times as a whale himself.

I explore the connection of the whale-dragon and the navel of the sea with natural disasters and apocalyptic beliefs in Sailing the Black Current focusing on the area of the Philippine Trench near the beginning of the Kuroshio Current (Black Tide).

Regards,
Paul Kekai Mananasala
Sacramento

References

McLeod, Mark W. Culture and Customs of Vietnam, Greenwood Press, 2001.

Melville, H., Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1851.

Naumann, Nelly. "Whale and Fish Cult in Japan: A Basic Feature of Ebisu Worship," Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1974), 1-15.

Novellino, D. Contrasting Landscapes, Conflicting ontologies. Assessing environmental conservation on Palawan Island (The Philippines), University of Kent, n.d., (http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/class_text_082.pdf)

Ouwehand, C. Namazu-e and Their Themes, An Interpretive A4pproach to Some Aspects of Iapanese Folk Religion, E.J. Brill, Leiden, I964.

Taylor, Philipp. Goddess on the Rise: Pilgrimage and Popular Religion in Vietnam, University of Hawaii Press, 2004.