I think this actually started in either Japan or China. The art typically depicts the pearl with a flame, it comes from a really old myth. You can find an account in "Sacred Books of the East" Vol. 15.
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Near the Ho river there was a poor man, who supported his family by weaving rushes. His son, when diving in a deep pool, found a pearl worth a thousand ounces of silver. The father said: "Bring a stone and beat it to pieces. A pearl of this value must have been in a pool nine khung deep and under the chin of a black dragon. That you were able to get it must have been owing to your having found him asleep. Let him awake, and the consequences will not be small.
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