Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c43.s3.t11.3

v2.c43.s3.t11.3

In the Harappan period, much of the supply of turquoise came from Persia, near Niśāpur in Khorasan. The turquoise mines over there, existing in rocks consisting of porphyritic trachytes, are of great antiquity. The material was always in demand in India and imported, unless for some reason or other, the trade links were snapped. Finot has quoted (1896:138) Agastimata Appendix 38 and Ratnasaṃgraha, 20 (Finot, p. 197) which provide the same description indicating the blue and yellow colour of piroja/perojā or turquoise. The latter references (RS, 20) mentioned that the gem could be mecaka or dark blue. Pherū wrote in Rayaṇaparikkhā about the gems from Persia imported to India in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries AD: pārasika ratnāni (RYP, 103). These were spinel (lāl), carnelian (akīk) and turquoise (perujjā or perojā). He wrote that blue and clear turquoise occurs in the mines of Niśāpur (Niśāvara) and Al-Moussul (Muvāsīra), and that this is beneficial to the eyes (RYP, 105):