Essay name: Minerals and Metals in Sanskrit literature
Author:
Sulekha Biswas
Affiliation: Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj University / Department of Sanskrit
This essay studies the presence of Minerals and Metals in Sanskrit literature over three millennia, from the Rigveda to Rasaratna-Samuccaya. It establishes that ancient Indians were knowledgeable about various minerals and metallurgy prior to the Harappan era, with literary references starting in the Rgveda.
Chapter 5 - Minerals and Metals in Kautiliya Arthashastra
26 (of 31)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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V-26
Standard weights were made of iron or metallic stone from
Magadha or Mekala hills which would not be affected by heat or
water (2.19.10). Ten masa-beans were taken as equivalent in
weight to one masaka of gold, which was one-sixteenth of one
suvarna or karsa (2.19.2-3). Eighty-eight white mustard seeds.
make one masaka of silver which is two-fifth of a gold masaka.
Manu (8.134-135) gives the same ratio between the gold and the
silver masakas. A pala is equivalent to four Karsas and ten
dharanes. A dharana of diamond weighs twenty rice-grains (2.19.2-7).
Similarly, length, area and volume or space (desa, were
standardised (2.20.1-2). Time (kala) was standardised in tems of
the solar shadow (of the gnomon), and for the night and a cloudy
day, by the water-clock or nalika (1.7.8; 1.19.6). A nalika was
defined as the time taken for one adhaka of water in a jar to flow
through a hole of diameter equalling that of a four masake weight
gold wire having a length of four angulas (2.20.35).
Concluding Remarks
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It is thus established that Kautiliya Arthas盲stra records
Indians' skill in gem minerals, metallic ores, metals, alloys and
the end-products as well as an aptitude for scientific methodology
during the subcontinent's early Historical Period.
The references to the South Indian gems and red corals from
the West have induced some scholars to suggest that the Arthasastra
