An antelope or horse (in the place of Aries)

The Zodiacal Treasures of the King are:

The Elephantequalling Capricorn
The Horseequalling Aries
The Beautiful Jewelequalling Libra
The Wifeequalling Virgo
Holy Guide of the Houseequalling Aquarius
The Generalequalling Sagittarius
The Swastikaequalling Pisces

Mr. Samuel Beal, B.A.R.N., etc., gives the following account of the offering of the Alms Dish in his “Buddhist Records of the Western World”: “The four Deva Sagas coming from the four quarters each brought a golden dish and offered it. The Lord sat silently and accepted not the offerings on the ground that such a costly dish became not the character of a hermit. The four Kings casting away the golden dishes offered silver ones. Afterwards they offered vessels of Po-Chi (crystal), Liu-Li (Lapis Lazuli), Ma-Nao (Carnelian), Ku-Chi (amber), Chin-Chu (ruby), and so on. The Lord of the World would accept none of them. The four Kings then returned to their palaces and brought as an offering stone patras of a deep blue colour and translucent. On their again presenting these the Lord to avoid accepting one and rejecting the others joined them all in one and thus accepted them. Putting them one within the other the Lord made one vessel of the four. Therefore four borders are to be seen on the outside of the rim of the dish.”

Black stones have been repeatedly mentioned in the history of man. We have seen them in the transition of Aglauros, in the Buddhistic devotion, and in the Biblical narratives. These Matsebah have been found engraved with the twelve signs of the Zodiac, sometimes symbolized as the twelve Gods of Assyria. Gramaldi in “Zodiacs and Planispheres” mentions a black stone which exhibited ten out of the twelve zodiacal signs and ten decans out of the thirty-six. It was found near the Tigris in Bagdad, and is perhaps the oldest zodiacal monument extant, its date being set down at 1320 years before the Christian era. But the most famous of all black stones is the HAJER-ALASVAD which is now set into the south-east corner of the KA’BAH. The story of this sacred relic is told very completely by Hadji Khan and Wilfred Sparrey in “With the Pilgrims to Mecca”: Having determined to form man in his own image, the Creator called the angels Gabriel, Michael and Israfil, each at a different time, requesting that they should bring for his purpose seven handfuls of earth from seven earth strata, and seven colours. But the Earth cried out that the anger of God would one day fall on her through the wickedness and folly of man, and so the angel departed without accomplishing the work. God then sent the Angel Azrail who, listening to no appeal, remorselessly carried out his divinely appointed task. God then made Azrail the Angel of Death, who ever after separated the souls of men from their useless bodies. The Earth was then set down between Mecca and Tayef where, having been pressed to a proper degree by the angels, it was shaped as a man by the Creator. The mass was then left for 40 years, being visited only by the Angels. But the angel Edris who, “from being of those that are nearest to God, became the Devil,” grew furious because he knew that man was designed to be his master. So with a vow that he would always oppose him, Edris kicked the image of earth which responded with an empty sound. Then the Creator breathed into the image His own Spirit and Man arose. He was given Paradise to inhabit, and out of his left side Eve was taken. When Man fell and was found no longer worthy of Eden, a peculiar stone fell too and, says the narrative, “this stone became the most cherished possession of the Muhammadan world.” The story continues: "It (the stone) was restored to Paradise at the Deluge, after which it was brought back to earth by Gabriel and given to Abraham who set it in the south-eastern corner of the Ka’bah which he is said to have built. There it remained till the Karmatians overturned the fundamental points of Islam, bearing it away in triumph to their capital. The citizens of Mecca sought to redeem the stone by offering no less than 5000 pieces of gold for it. The ransom was scornfully rejected by the impious sectaries. Some 22 years later, however, they sent back the stone voluntarily, covering their discomfiture by declaring it to be a counterfeit. The dismay of the Meccans was allayed when they discovered that the stone would swim on water, that being the peculiar quality of the stone they had lost; so they were satisfied that the true one had been returned to them. At first the stone was whiter than milk, but it grew to be black by the sins of mankind. All believers, whatever may be the cause to which they attribute the change of colour, agree that the defilement is purely superficial, the inside of the stone being still as white as the driven snow. The silver box wherein it lies is about twenty inches square and is raised a little more than five feet from the ground. A round window having a diameter of some nine inches is kept open to enable the pilgrims to kiss or touch the treasure within, the treasure being known as “the right hand of God on Earth.” In colour it is a shining black; in shape hollow like a saucer, presumably the result of the pressure of devoted lips. If a pilgrim fails to touch the Stone he must make a reverential salaam before it and pass on. Special prayers are also said. The guide accompanying the authors recited the following lines from the Fortuhul Haremeyn before leaving:

“Think not that the KA’BAH was made from the earth: in the body of the world it took the place of the heart. And the stone you call the Black Stone was itself a ball of dazzling light. In ages past the Prophet said it shone like the crescent moon until at last the shadows falling from the sinful hearts of those that gazed on it turned its surface black. Now since the amber gem that came to the earth from Paradise with the Holy Ghost, has received such impressions on itself what should be the impressions which our hearts receive? Verily, whosoever shall touch it being pure of conscience, is like unto him that has shaken hands with God.”

Other accounts state that the stone is about seven inches in diameter, oval and irregular, made up of a number of smaller and variously sized pieces, which inclines one to the opinion that it was at one time shattered by some hard blow and afterwards put together again. The most recent descriptions of the stone of Mecca agree that it is of a dark reddish-brown colour with a brown border seemingly of pitch and small sand stones, the whole being set in a band of silver.

The most wonderful thing regarding the history of this relic of Islam is that one little stone, the Black Stone of Mecca, should have such powerful attraction for over 222,000,000 of the inhabitants of the world.

Included in Guerber’s “Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages” is the following story of Roland and the Jewel: