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 7 - A millennium of Ratnashastra (gemmology) literature in India
49 (of 85)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
Download the PDF file of the original publication
VII-46
or moss-stone.
It has been principally obtained from several
places in India such as the Deccan traps, Rajkot, Kathiawar
peninsula, the beds of Godavari, Narmada, and Jamuna etc. Tagore
(1879: 512-513) has quoted a Sanskrit text which says that 'a gem
coloured like moss or onion, and freckled like the branched fibrous
root of a tree, is called a ganja or mocha-stone:
啶多啶掂ぞ啶� 啶溹啶︵啶班お啷嵿ぐ啶苦く (啶げ啶距ぃ啷嵿ぁ啷�) 啶む啶侧啶ぐ啷傕お啶 啶椸啶溹ぎ啷� 啶多た啶ぞ啶掂い啷� 啶氞た啶班啶苦え啶啶曕啶�
[艣aiv膩la judrapriya (pal膩峁囜笉u) tulyar奴pam ga峁僯am 艣iph膩vat ciracinayukta
] Plasma is dark leek-green or apple-green chalcedony, the
colour arising due to intimate and uniform inclusions of green-
-earth, a chloriticor micaceous substance in the matrix of
hydrated silica. Heliotrope (Greek equivalent of sun-turning) or
blood-stone is plasma streaked with fine blood-red spots, A famous
sculpture executed in heliotrope, preserved in the National Library
at Paris, represents the scourging of Christ, the red marks of
the heliotrope representing drops of blood on the raiment.
matter of fact, there is a post-Christian tradition that Christ's
blood fell on dark-green plasma, and thus arose heliotrope.
Plasma and heliotrope were mined extensively
As a
from the Indian sources. Plasma occur in the volcanic rocks of
the Deccan, specially south of the Bhima river, as pebbles around
the rivers of Krishna, Godavari etc. Heliotrope has been
available in the district north of Rajkot, west of Cambay, around
Pune and the Rajmahal hills on the Ganges, along with agate,
carnelian and plasma all these materials having been used in
rings, pins, brooches, and similar ornaments.
