Garudapurana 1.71

The venerable Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa: Chapter 71. / Sūta said: / Taking the bile of the lord of the Dānavas, Vāsuki the king of serpents / departed swiftly, as if cleaving the sky in two.

Then, in the ocean of the sky shining with the luster of the crest-jewel on his head, / that great singular [serpent] shone brightly like a silver bridge spanning parts of it.

Then Garuḍa, as if destroying heaven and earth with the strike of his wings, / set out to attack the lord of serpents.

Suddenly the lord of serpents dropped it in the foothills of the excellent Mountain of Rubies, / which were smeared with sweet-scented olibanum trees and fragrant with the rich perfume of flower-buds.

Just immediately after its fall, likewise passing beyond the excellent abode near Ramā, / in the valley of the excellent Mountain of Rubies, in a place of the earth lining the shore of the ocean,

right there, as some of the bile was falling, Garuḍa swooped down and caught it; / then, seized with faintness, he suddenly disgorged it all through the pair of his nostrils.

There, emeralds that have acquired the luster of tender parrots' necks, śirīṣa flowers, fireflies' backs, green pasture grass, moss, / white water-lilies, young grass, snake-skin, and leaves, are auspicious.

Where that bile of the lord of the Ditis, seized by the coils of the serpent king, fell, / that region became a mine exceedingly difficult of access and endowed with virtues.

Whatever is produced in that emerald deposit / is proclaimed to be wholly effective for the pacification of poisons and diseases.

Whatever poison originating from the fangs of great serpents cannot be treated / by all the hosts of mantras and medicines is pacified by it.

Whatever else is produced in that mine free from faults / is declared to be the best among purifying things.

That which is intensely green, soft, dense with rays of diverse light, / and which appears internally filled as if with gold dust;

which is endowed with virtues of shape, of uniform color, not deficient in heaviness, / and which, at the contact of the sun's rays, suffuses the entire hermitage with luster;

and in which, leaving aside the green state, an inner luster resides / that shines like fresh meadow grass struck by the flash of lightning;

and that which, when beheld, brings exceeding serenity to the mind— / that emerald possesses high value: such is the opinion of connoisseurs of gems.

That which, by the great abundance of its color, has within it a veil of clear rays, / dense, smooth, pure, with a luster equal to the soft brilliance of a peacock's plumage and the like;

and which, through its radiance endowed with bright color, appears of solid form— / that too attains the designation of 'virtuous', just as the former.

Variegated, hard, dull, dry, accompanied by stony grit, / smeared with mineral pitch—an emerald of such kind is defective.

A gem that is parched at its joints, other than an emerald, / should never be worn or purchased by those who desire their own welfare.

The bhallātakī and the putrikā, through the association of similar colour,
are to be recognised by experts as false substitutes of the emerald gemstone.

When rubbed with a linen cloth, the putrikā loses its lustre;
and glass can be identified by its lightness alone.

Even if something imitates an emerald with multiple forms, virtues, and colours,
it reveals its colour's disparity from the sound of the bhallātaka.

There are diamonds, pearls, and whatever other species [of gems];
the light of these does not travel upward when they are unmounted.

In some, it arises somehow only because of straightness;
and when viewed transversely, it immediately vanishes.

In bathings, sipping water, recitations, in the performance of protective mantras,
when giving cattle and gold, and when performing spiritual practices;

in rites for the gods, ancestors, and guests, and in worship of the guru,
when afflicted by various troubles born of defects and arising from poison;

and when moving about in battle, an emerald devoid of defects, endowed with virtues,
and set in gold, should be worn by the wise.

Whatever value a ruby attains by weight,
an emerald endowed with virtues obtains more than that.

Just as the value of rubies is diminished by defects,
so the loss in an emerald due to defects is even greater than that.

Thus ends the seventy-first chapter, named 'The Examination of Emeralds', in the Ācārakāṇḍa of the first section called the Pūrvakhaṇḍa of the glorious and great Garuḍa Purāṇa.