Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.292

c5.292

IVORY-WORK. Ivory-work was, as it still is, a very important industry. There used to be special quarters in a city (*Dantakāravīthi*), where the ivory-workers lived and carried on their industry or rather handicraft.¹⁴ They made a number of small articles of "diverse form and shapes, bangles and all manner of trinkets,"¹⁵ and they also prepared costly carvings and ornaments, handles for mirrors and inlayings in royal chariots.¹⁶ Elephants were slain for their tusks, but a living elephant's tusk was considered worth a great deal more than a dead one’s.¹ The ivory-workman prepared things by means of a kind of saw (kharakakaca).²