The Enigmatic Bi Disc

No-one is sure what Jade Bi-discs were used for in ancient China. Thousands of them have been unearthed from tombs dating back to prehistory. It’s generally acknowledged that they had either some ritualistic or ceremonial significance but they puzzle the experts to this day. They were an enigma for Chinese emperors as well. One of the greatest was Qianlong of the Qing dynasty who reigned for much of the eighteenth century.

He was fascinated with jade and one of its greatest collectors and seemed to have held a special affection for the one pictured, which is from the Shang dynasty and is thought to have been made about 1200BC, nearly three thousand years before he ascended the throne.

A jade Bi that the Qing dynasty emperor, Qianlong, had inscribed with a poem he’d composed

Qianlong was so moved by this piece of ancient jade that he wrote a poem about it and had it inscribed on the Bi itself. He was also convinced he knew what these discs were made for. He thought they were stands for a bowls. He was so sure of this that he commissioned a ceramic bowl to replace the one he believed had long ago been lost. And surprisingly enough the ceramic bowl he commissioned to go with this has recently been discovered in the Palace Museums in Beijing.

Historians don’t believe that Qianlong was right in thinking Bi-discs were bowl stands. They also don’t think much of his verse. The emperor is said to have written forty thousand poems in his lifetime. Many of them still exist – a lot of them are etched on various pieces of jade he either collected or commissioned. I suppose that in his day there wouldn’t have been anybody who would dare tell The Son of Heaven that his poetry was at best pedestrian.