Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c25.s6.15

v1.c25.s6.15

Pliny (AD 77) had referred to diamond as adamas (Historia Naturalis, B.37. 15), the hardest mineral in India with hexangular and hexahedral form. The Adamas river of Ptolomey or Ptolemy (AD 90-168) has been variously identified as Mahanadi or Brahmani river by various scholars. (Ball, 1880: 237 and 263) Ptolemy’s Kosa was probably South Kośala or Eastern Mālwā around the present Pānnā mines. We have quoted B.N. Mukherjee’s view in the previous chapter that this area was known during Ptolemy’s period as Ākarāvanti (Avanti having ākara of vajra or mine of diamond), when Kaniṣka I annexed the area from the Sātavāhanas.