In an illustrated work on ancient jades, in two quarto volumes, published in 1889 by the well-known scholar and statesman, Wu Ta-cheng (b. 1833), this writer conjectures that archer’s rings of _white_ jade were reserved for the emperor’s use. At the present day rings of this type are made in Peking from the antler of a species of elk. The Catholic missionary, Father Zi, states that the rings most highly valued are those made out of jade of the Han period (_Han yü_), of a white gray with red veining and green stripes. Rings found in the graves of students who have passed the military examinations are of reddish hue, and the opinion prevails that they afford protection against malevolent spirits.[528] In the symbolism of the ring, the complete circle is regarded by the Chinese as denoting the combination of all divine principles, as these are supposed to move in an everlasting and unbroken circle, having neither beginning nor end. An evil significance, however, attaches to an incomplete or half-ring, called _küeh_, a sound that means “to cut off, to slay; to pass sentence; to decide, to settle.” An early instance of the use of such a ring to signify banishment is related of the Prince Shên-shêng whose father sent him on a fatal military expedition in 659 B.C., at the instigation of one of his concubines. This ring, which was attached to a girdle, was equivalent to a formal decree that the prince was cast off and should never return. In consequence of the ambiguity of Chinese spoken and written words, a half-ring or at least one not describing a closed circle is said to have been worn at one time by Chinese scholars, because one of the meanings of the sound _küeh_ is “to decide,” as has been noted above.[529] The Chinese writer Pan Ku (d. 92 A.D.) says that those who cultivated moral conduct without end, wore a complete ring suspended from the girdle, while those able to decide questions of aversion and doubt, wore half-rings, this being again a symbolic use of the double meaning of _küeh_. As the Chinese word signifying “a jade-ring” has the same sound (_huan_) as the word meaning “to return, to repay,” and is expressed with the same phonetic symbol, the sending of such a ring by an emperor to an exiled official was a symbolic summons for the official to return. However, a jade-ring could also be a signal for besieging a city, since the syllable _huan_ can mean “an enclosing wall.”[530] As an illustration, the word “ring,” a ring; and “ring,” imperative of “to ring,” might make the sending of a ring to a bell-ringer signify that he should let his bells peal forth.