RUBY
“He that has once the flower of the Sunne
The perfect ruby which we call elixir.”
Ben Johnson.
The ruby derives its name from the Latin RUBER, red, and some of its forms at various periods are given by Dr. Murray as rubye, rubie, rubey, roby, rooby, rube, rubu, rybe, rybee, rybwe, ribe, riby. The stone is of the corundum family which includes the sapphire, oriental amethyst, oriental topaz, oriental chrysoberyl, oriental emerald, oriental cats-eye, oriental moonstone, adamantine spar of hair-brown colour and the well-known emery. The term “oriental” is also applied to the ruby and serves to distinguish it from the spinel, ruby garnet and a number of other red stones. The definition “oriental” is applied only to the corundum family and was, according to Dr. G. F. H. Smith, attached to these hard coloured stones which in early days reached Europe by way of the East. The name CORUNDUM is derived from a Sanscrit word of doubtful meaning, and the minerals included in it come next in hardness to the diamond. The ruby therefore is a red sapphire, and the sapphire a blue ruby, and it is no infrequent thing to find the two stones combined in one specimen. Mr. Emanuel has drawn attention to the fact that rubies and sapphires are always found in gold-bearing country. It has been stated that whilst sapphires have been found in Australia the red sapphire or ruby has not. This is incorrect. At the Anakie sapphire fields in Central Queensland rubies are also found, and some specimens exhibit blended colours. It is true, however, that rubies have not up to the present been found in Australia in great quantities. The most celebrated ruby mines in the world are the Mogok mines in Upper Burma. Here the stones are found in Calcite deposits occurring in granular limestone on the hill sides and in the clayey alluvial deposits of the river beds. These workings are of very[very] great age and until 1885 were the monopoly of the Burmese Crown, the King being known as Lord of the Rubies. In this country the ruby fields are called “Byon,” and the miners “Twin-tsas” (mine eaters). These Twin-tsas were forced to surrender to the monarch all big stones found by them, which stones were carefully guarded in the Royal Treasure House. One of the mine eaters found a large and beautiful gem which, in order to escape the selfish conditions imposed, he divided into two parts; one of these he handed over to the officers of the King, the other he endeavoured to conceal. The plot it seems failed, with what result to the unfortunate “Eater” is not told. The weight of these two sections after the cutter had exerted his skill on them was 98 and 74 carats. A fine Burma ruby called “Gnaga Boh,” or the Dragon Lord (the folklore of the East connects rubies and dragons)—weighed when found over 40 carats, losing about half in the cutting. The uncut part of the Great Burmese Ruby (a stone that weighed 400 carats and was split into three parts, two of which were cut) was sold in Calcutta for 7 lakhs of rupees (at the exchange rate of two shillings English for the rupee a lakh would equal £10,000). Marco Polo writes of the great ruby possessed by the King of the Island of Seilan (Ceylon), “The finest and biggest in the world”: “It is about a palm in length and as thick as a man’s arm: to look at, it is the most resplendent object upon earth: it is quite free from flaw and is as red as fire. Its value is so great that a price for it in money could not be named. The great Kaan sent an embassy and begged the King as a favour to sell this to him offering to give for it the ransom of a city or, in fact, what the King would. But the King replied that on no account whatever would he sell it for it had come to him from his ancestors.”
The great merchant-traveller Cosmas Indicopleustes, of Alexandria, writes in his “Voyages” (1666) of this stone, which “they say is of great size and brilliant ruddy hue, as large as a giant pine cone. When seen flashing from afar—especially if the Sun’s rays flood upon it—it is a sight both marvellous and unequalled.” Hayton, his contemporary, also writes of this wonderful stone: “At the King of the Island of Ceylon’s coronation he places this ruby in his left hand and rides thus with it throughout his city, after which all know him as their King and obey him as such.” The Chinese writer Hyuen Tsang also writes of this great stone, as does Odoric. Friar Jordamus discourses not only of this but of the great and wonderful rubies in the possession of the Island King. Andrea Corsali (1515) also writes of the King of Sylen’s (Ceylon) two great rubies—“so shining and sparkling as to seem like flames of fire.” In the Ceylon river beds fine rubies are discovered, and old writers say that many are washed down from the mountain “which they call Adam’s Peak.” There was superstitious belief in the beautiful Island of Ceylon that rubies are the consolidated tears of Buddha. One of the great mediaeval Tamul chiefs, Arya Chakravarti, had, it is said, a ruby bowl the size of the palm of a man’s hand, which was remarkable for its brilliant colour. Colonel Alexander Gardner, Colonel of Artillery in the service of Maharaja Ranyit Singh, describes a visit he made with the Bai or Baron of the Kirghiz to a venerable aged fakir whose worldly possessions seemed to consist of earthen pots of grain placed in a hole in the middle of his hut. The old philosopher was the reputed possessor of a rare and beautiful ruby. For this the Bai entreated the silent and unmoved fakir, declaring that with it alone could he induce the robber chief he was travelling to see to spare “the lives, property and honour of all the innocent families around.” At last the fakir quietly arose, and after a little fumbling produced the gem which, with a dignified gesture, he placed softly in the Bai’s hands, giving him his blessing and expressing the hope that the offering might have the desired result, after which he relapsed into silent reverie. He declined money for the gem, asking only that some grain might be sent him so “that he might be able to relieve way-worn and destitute travellers.” The Colonel examined the gem and found cut in high relief on the centre of the oblong face of the stone a small Zoroastrian altar. Round this altar were double cordons of letters similar to those appearing on the Scytho Bactrian coins. The Colonel describes the gem as pure and lustrous, of great value, and from 150 to 200 carats in weight. This rare gem was discovered at the time of Timur by an ancestor of the fakir in a cave near the famous shrine of the city of Esh or Oosh on the Bolor Ranges.
A fine ruby of 50 carats which belonged to the King of Vishapoor is mentioned by Tavernier. In China the ruby has always been esteemed and its primary importance as a distinguishing emblem in the cap of the Chief Mandarin had already been noted. A specimen was also placed under the foundations of a building of importance “to give it a good destiny.” In the Chinese work CHO KENG LU which relates to various affairs up to the Mongol dynasty, deep red rubies are termed “Si-la-ni”; scholars translate this word as “from Ceylon.” They are also known as “Hung Pao Shi” (precious red stone) and “Chin Chu.” It has a sacred meaning and talismanic virtue and is attached to the dress set in rare jade and employed as a precious ornament. Pliny calls rubies “Acausti” and says that they are not injured by fire. He relates a practice of the merchants of Ethiopia of placing a ruby in a vinegar solution for two weeks to improve its lustre. The effect was, it is said, good for a short period of time but ultimately the stones became soft and fragile. The ANTHRAX or “glowing coals” of Theophrastus is identified as the ruby as we know it today. He gives us an idea of the money value of this stone by stating that a very small specimen would sell for forty golden staters (a gold stater is worth about a 5-dollar gold piece of the United States). Amongst the gems collected in the 18th century by William, third Duke of Devonshire, there is a ruby of about three carats weight, described by Mr. King as of “the most delicious cerise colour” on which are cut deeply the figures of Venus and Cupid. The work is of the middle Roman Period and Mr. King deplores the fact that the great value of the gem was in his opinion injured by the inferiority of the workmanship. A Faun’s Head on an inferior ruby in the same collection is superior from an art point of view and of greater age. Mr. King mentions a beautiful rose-coloured ruby of irregular form on which is a magnificent head of Thetis wearing a crab’s shell helmet of most exquisite Greek work. Rabbi Ragiel (“Book of Wings”) writes that the figure of a dragon cut on a ruby increases the worldly possessions of the wearer, giving happiness and ease. Old legends say that the ruby mines as well as the emerald mines were guarded by dragons and the symbolic connection between the dragon and the ruby has the virtue of far-reaching antiquity. M. Rochefort in his “Natural History of the Antilles,” says that the Caribbees of Dominica speak of a dragon which lives in a declivity of the rocks and in whose head is a giant ruby so brilliant that the surrounding country is illuminated by it. These people believed that the Son of God came out of the heavens to slay the dragon. St. Margaret is said to have subdued a dragon and to have taken a wonderful ruby from its head. The Arabian writer Sheikh El Mohdy has amongst his stories one telling of a terrible dragon which inhabited the island of Ceylon and carried in his head a large ruby which shone for many miles amidst the darkness of night. The Indian philosopher Barthoveri said that “the serpent is malefic although it carries a ruby in its head.” Dieudonné of Goyon is said to have killed a terrible dragon at Rhodes and to have drawn from its head a wonderful iridescent stone the size of an olive. Some few writers substitute the diamond for the ruby, but whether we take the many-coloured stone of Dieudonné (which it has been said was a diamond) or the stones of the Sun, the ruby and the diamond, the import of the legends are similar. The dragon as the symbol of the lower forces whether as the poisonous emanations of stagnant waters or as the Serpent of Eden—the planet Mars and one of his heavenly Houses, Scorpio, or the planet Saturn and his heavenly House, Capricorn—is continually exposed to the benefic rays of the Sun. These rays are personified by the contests between the Sun-Angel Michael and the Dragon and our well-known St. George.
The three skulls, said to be the skulls of the “Three Kings” in the jewelled “Shrine of the Magi” in Cologne Cathedral, have their names Melchior, Gaspar and Balthazar worked on them in rubies, perhaps because the Sun, planet of the ruby, was the accredited planet of Christianity as noted by Albertus Magnus and the Cardinal Dailly. The names of the Magi have also been given as Megalath, Galgalath and Sarasin—Apellius, Amerus and Damascus—Ator, Sator and Peratoras. In their allegories the Rosicrucians follow very nearly the names on the skulls in the 12th century Shrine at Cologne, viz.:
Jasper or Gaspar, the white lord with a diamond
Melchior, the bright lord with a diamond