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Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c24.s1.t2: Corundum-Related Minerals

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c24.s1.t2

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Corundum-Related Minerals

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The hard corundums (hardness 9) of colourless variety (Al₂O₃: Sanskrit kuruvinda, Tamil kurrandam), also known as emery powder, was available in Rewa state, South India, Karnataka etc. and specifically mentioned as an abrasive in Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra. The Romans imported this material from India for marble-sawing, polishing and stone-working.

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The coloured varieties of corundum known as sapphire, ruby etc. were used as gemstones. Warmington refers to sapphire as Pliny’s hyacinthos, Arabic jacut. But there is some confusion. (Ball points out that in the nineteenth century, jacut meant in India ruby or inferior spinel, called lāl; hyacinthos has been variously translated as jacinth, ruby and amethyst). Schoff suggests, and many scholars concur, that Pliny’s hyacinthos was perhaps a violet or dark blue sapphire from the crystalline rocks of the Southern Sri Lanka. Its natural market was the Malabar coast at the time of the Periplus. Schoff further suggests that ruby was also available from the same place as the sapphire in Sri Lanka, and was probably classified by Pliny (37.25) under the category named carbunculus. Rubies and sapphires of Burma were not tapped at that time. Ceylonese mines yielded more sapphires (indranīla) than rubies.

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India also sent to Rome pale, honey-coloured and orange-coloured sapphires and ‘nilion’, dark blue sapphire (Sanskrit nīlamaṇi and nīlaratna). The Indian ‘chrysolithi’ was probably yellowish sapphire, which are still sold in Sri Lanka as (false) topazes. The Roman chroniclers were often unable to trace the origin of these minerals, because the Sri Lankan and Indian products were sometimes sold to them through intermediaries like the Axumites.

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There is considerable confusion as to whether Pliny’s ‘lychnis’ and ‘anthrax’ (latin carbunculus) mean garnet or ruby. Hydapses are probably the ruby, part of which might have come from the gem gravels of Sri Lanka and the rest from Burma. The balas ruby came from the Badakshan. Sri Lanka also produced and supplied corundum cat’s eye and chrysoberyl.

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Another oxide mineral, magnetite, was the constituent of loadstone rock of India. This was known to Ptolemy and attracted the attention of the early writers.

Cites (2)