The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.236

v1.c10.236

**Pearls and precious stones** : It is scarcely necessary to observe that, with exception of the collets noticed above, there is nothing in the sculptures to show what the ornaments were made of ; but seeing that pearls have been fished along the Coromandel Coast from long before the time of Alexander's invasion ; that pearls, precious stones, and gold, as elements of ornament, have been known in the country from times immemorial; and that Manu ordains a find for “piercing fine gems, as diamonds or rubies, and for boring pearls or inferior gems improperly”, there need be little doubt as to what their materials were. Of course it is possible that what I take for pearls may have been only beads of metal, or stone, or baked clay, and the bangles may have been of bell-metal ; but it is not very probable that the princes, under whose orders the temples were designed and built, always satisfied their passion for ornaments with nothing more precious. In the *Brāhmaṇa* of the old recension of the *Yajureda*, which dates from at least eight centuries before the Christian era, jewellery is recommended to be strung in gold.¹⁰⁸ The word used for jewellery is *Kāca*, which may mean glass, or glass-beads ; but it would be unreasonable to suppose that those who set glass on gold, did not follow the same procedure with diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones, for which they had names, and which they knew and prized. In the first century before the Christian era, Śudraka in his play of the *Toy Cart*, did not think it inconsistent to describe in the courtyard of a common courtezan's house, jewellers' shops, “where skilful artists were examining pearls, topazes, sapphires, emeralds, rubies, *lapis lazuli*, coral and other jewels ; some set rubies in gold ; some work gold ornaments on coloured thread, some string pearls, some grind the *lapis lazuli*, some pierce shells, and some cut coral”.¹⁰⁹ Nor were the people satisfied with such originals ; the requirements of society rendered the fabrication of false jewellery a commonly practised art. This is evident from a passage in the same play, in which a question is raised about the identity of certain ornaments produced in a court of justice, whereupon the Judge asks :