Importance of Jade in Chinese culture

Jade is a metamorphic rock that is naturally colored green, red, yellow, or white. When it polished and treated, the vibrant colors of jade can be extraordinary. The most popular kind of jade in Chinese culture is green jade, which has an emerald hue. 

Here is an introduction to jade and why it is so important to Chinese people. Now when you browse through an antique shop, jewelry store, or museum, you can impress your friends with your knowledge of this important stone.

Jade is classified into soft jade (nephrite) and hard jade (jadeite). Since China only had soft jade until jadeite was imported from Burma during the Qing dynasty (1271–1368 CE), the term “jade” traditionally refers to nephrite, and so soft jade is also called traditional jade. In preColumbian America, only hard jade was available; all Indigenous jades are jadeite.

Burmese jadeite is called feicui in Chinese. Feicui is now more popular and valuable than soft jade in China today.

Jade has been a part of Chinese civilization from the earliest days. Chinese jade was used as a material for practical and ornamental purposes at an early period in history, and it continues to be very popular today.

The earliest Chinese jade is from the early Neolithic period Hemudu culture in Zhejian Province (about 7000–5000 BCE). Jade was an important part of ritual contexts in the middle to late Neolithic periods, such as the Hongshan culture that existed along the Lao River and the Liangzhu culture in the Tai Lake region (both date between 4000–2500 BCE). Carved jade has also been found in sites dated to the Longshan culture (3500–2000 BCE) by the Yellow River; and the Bronze age cultures of Western and Easter Zhou dynasties (11th–3rd centuries BCE).

Archaeological artifacts of jade include sacrificial vessels, tools, ornaments, utensils, and many other items. Ancient music instruments were made out of Chinese jade, such as the yuxiao (a flute made of jade and played vertically), and chimes.

The beautiful color of jade made it a mysterious stone to the Chinese in ancient times, so jade wares were popular as sacrificial vessels and were often buried with the dead.

One example of the ritual importance of jade is the burial of the body of Liu Sheng, a prince of the Zhongshan State (Western Han Dynasty) who died around 113 BCE. He was buried in a jade suit composed of 2,498 pieces of jade stitched together with gold thread.

Chinese people love jade not only because of its aesthetic beauty but also because of what it represents regarding social value. In the Li Ji (Book of Rites), Confucius said that there are 11 De, or virtues, represented in jade: benevolence, justice, propriety, truth, credibility, music, loyalty, heaven, earth, morality, and intelligence.

“The wise have likened jade to virtue. For them, its polish and brilliancy represent the whole of purity; its perfect compactness and extreme hardness represent the sureness of intelligence; its angles, which do not cut, although they seem sharp, represent justice; the pure and prolonged sound, which it gives forth when one strikes it, represents music.

“Its color represents loyalty; its interior flaws, always showing themselves through the transparency, call to mind sincerity; its iridescent brightness represents heaven; its admirable substance, born of mountain and of water, represents the earth. Used alone without ornamentation it represents chastity. The price that the entire world attaches to it represents the truth.” Book of Rites

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