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
69 (of 85)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
Download the PDF file of the original publication
VII-6
The boar pearl could also be an outgrowth or antidotal
concretion developed in the body of the boar, somewhat akin to the
bezoar stone. Varāhamihira wrote:
दंष्ट्रामूले शशिकान्त सप्रभं बहुगुणंच वाराहम� �
[daṃṣṭrāmūle śaśikānta saprabha� bahuguṇaṃca vārāham |
] 'Very valuable and lustrous like the moon is the pearl born of the
root of the boar's tusks' (BS. 81.23) Manimālā (261 & 265)
described it as generally white like the tusks of that animal, and
resembling a plum in shape. Pheru wrote that the boar-pearl is
round, ghee-coloured and equal in size to salaphala, the fruit of
Shorea robusta (RYP 44).
saying
Manimālā contains extracts from the Sanskrit literature
(MM 272-276) that pearls occurring in sea-fish are singular
round, small, light and in colour like the back of the sheat fish,
Silurus Boalis. The pearls orignating in whales are gunja shaped
and patali coloured (AM. 90-91).
The earlier writers (RP 58, BS.81.23, AM 90, Mānasollāsa
2.4.431) specifically mentioned timija or the pearl from whales.
Sarma (1984:56) has suggested that this is ambara or ambergis which
'consists of the faeces of the Cachelot or Sperm Whale, Physeter
macrocephalus, which inhabits the Indian ocean'
Manimālā compiled the Sanskrit texts on serpent pearls
(MM 277-284) 'which adom the serpent's crest, are finely round
and highly shining and reflect a beautiful blue halo like the
