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Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c24.s1.t8: On Diamond

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c24.s1.t8

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English

On Diamond

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Now we come to discuss the last item and the most precious mineral, diamond, which has been known in India for more than twenty-five centuries. The Sanskrit word vajra for diamond (also stands for thunderbolt) shows that the Indians were aware if its hardness and strength. The Greeks also appreciated its properties and coined the word *adamas* (a ‘privative’, and *damaō* ‘to subdue’) meaning that which cannot be sudued. Pliny explained it further: “Its hardness is beyond all expression, while at the same time it quite sets fire at defiance” (indicating high melting point). Pliny also mentioned (37.15) its hexangular and hexahedral forms (actually it is octahedral), and described it ‘as the most precious of all possessions, known for a long time only to very few kings’.

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India was for long the only source of diamonds known to the European nations. Pliny described the use of diamond splinters by gem-engravers. Manilius commented that the point of the diamond was more precious than gold; even sapphire the hardest stone could be cut by diamond. Shortly we would discuss the use of diamond by the ancient Indian technicians in drilling rock-crystal gems. Indian diamonds set in the Roman rings and gold seals are open for display in the British Museum.

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Neither Pliny nor the author of the *Periplus* were aware of the exact locations of the diamond in India. Warmington has discussed (1928, 1974: 109-10, 117) how Ptolemy (AD 90-168) was the first to add detailed descriptions of the Indian regions, not contained in the accounts of the previous geographers. His specific references to the sources of pepper, beryl, diamond, to the contemporary Śakas and Kuṣāṇas and to Mathurā, ‘Modura of the Gods’ etc. are indeed noteworthy.

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In the first century, diamonds were bought at Muziris and Nelcynda, but the sources were unknown to the Romans. During the second century AD, some of the sources were known to the foreigners. Ptolemy reported that the Indian diamonds were coming to the ports from Sabarae (near Sambhalpur), the river Adamas, the Sank branch of the Brahmani river, and Kosa (near Betul) in the East Malwa region.

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Pannā, one of the famous sources of Indian diamonds (Pannā in Sanskrit means beryl — was the place also a source of beryl in the ancient times?) is situated in or near Eastern Malwa. B.N. Mukherjee (1970: 22-36) suggested that this area was indeed known as Ākara, the area of mines (of diamond), during the era of Sātavāhanas. The Nasik inscription of the mother of Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi describes him as the lord of Ākara. Kaniṣka I, whose reign began in AD 78 probably annexed Ākara with the diamond mines from one of the Sātavāhana kings, Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi or his son Vāsiṣṭhīputra Puḷumāvi. The Junagadh inscription of Rudradaman I of about the year AD 149-50 describes him as the lord of Ākarāvanti (Ākara and Avanti) and states that his treasury was overflowed with precious stones including *vajra* or diamond obtained through tribute, tolls and shares.

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Ptolemy’s Kosa, a diamond mining area, was stated to be situated near the Vindhya range and along the bank of the Narmadā. It was certainly near Eastern Malwa of Ākara. Ptolemy had collected ‘recent’ data about the diamond mines in India from the traders. Thus it seems that by the latest possible date for Ptolemy’s information on India viz., AD 150, diamond of Central India had become an important article of Indo-Roman commerce.

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