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Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c43.s3.t3: Gem Minerals Containing Beryllium

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c43.s3.t3

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Gem Minerals Containing Beryllium

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We would now discuss the family of gem minerals containing beryllium, variously coloured, specially green and blue, and having similar hardness. In terms of chemical composition, a sharp distinction has to be made between chrysoberyl (hardness 8-1/2) BeAl₂O₄, a mixed oxide, and beryl (hardness 7-3/4) Be₃Al₂Si₆O₁₈ a cyclo-silicate. The difference in their hardness could be easily tested using another gem, topaz having an intermediate hardness of eight. In absolutely pure form, both chrysoberyl and beryl are colourless. Their colours in the gem form arise on account of lattice substitutions by other elements as specified in Table 7.2. Due to chromium and iron, chrysoberyl samples assume green and yellow colour respectively, the more usual green colour often merging into golden yellow.

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Milky white or greenish white cloudy chrysoberyl samples (not the clear and transparent ones) exhibt chatoyancy. Extending across the curved surface of such stones is a silvery line or streak of light, when viewed in a strong light. These samples are called chrysoberyl or oriental cat’s eye. The phenomenon of chatoyancy is due to the existence in immense numbers of microscopically small cavities arranged in a particular direction or a bundle of microscopic channels running parallel to a single direction. When viewed at right angles to this direction, a band of light is visible running across this bundle. The stone is usually cut along this direction so that maximum number of light-reflecting cavities are close to or on the surface producing maximum chatoyancy.

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Quartz cat’s eye samples (hardness 7) show similar chatoyancy or a wave of milky light reflected from the surface, the effect in this case arising due to the presence of large number of fibres of asbestos aligned in a specific direction.

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Beryl, *vaidūrya* in Sanskrit, has a hardness (7-3/4) different from those of chrysoberyl (8-1/2) and quartz (7), and the modern literature does not indicate that chatoyancy is observed in any beryl sample. However, green chrysoberyl sometimes looks like green beryl, and since the former gem exhibits chatoyancy effect occasionally, the Indian word *vaidūrya* has in some instances been used (unfortunately) to indicate cat's eye gem also. We would like to elaborate this point with some details.

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Pāṇini referred to *vaidūrya* coming from Vidura. Later Patañjali, the commentator of *Aṣṭādhyāyī*, explained that the gem actually came from the Vālavāya mountains, and was only processed in the town of Vidura (which must have been located somewhere in South India). Centuries later, Buddhabhatta wrote about Koṅgavālikasīmanta near the Vidura mountain as the source of beryl or *vaidūrya* (RP, 199):

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अविदूरे विदुरस्य गिरेः उत्तुंगरोधसः।
कोंगबालिकसीमन्ते मणेः तस्याकरः अभवत्।।
*avidūre vidūrasya gireḥ uttuṅgarodhasaḥ |*
*koṅgabālikasīmante maṇeḥ tasyākaraḥ abhavat ||*

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Sarma (1984: 68) opined that the etymological link between Vidura and *vaidūrya* was ‘a fiction invented by the grammarians’, but we do not agree with him, since Patañjali’s explanation has been clear enough. Patañjali’s *vālavāya* (mountain) is similar to Buddhabhatta’s *vālika*.

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It is well-known that Koṅga kingdom once governed the beryl mine of Coimbatore of the Salem district from which beryl gems were supplied to the Romans. Alfred Master has suggested (‘Indo-Aryan and Dravidian’, In *Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies*, Vol. XI, 1943-46, pp. 297-307) that the *veluriya*, the Pāli word was actually a Dravidian word preceding Pāṇini’s *vaidūrya*, and both were the adjectival forms of *Velur* (or modern Belur), which is in the heart of the beryl mines of Coimbatore. The AD 500 inscription of the Gaṅga king Durvinita mentions both Vēḷur as well as the Punnāṭa kingdom described by Ptolemy as ‘Punnāṭa in which is the beryl’. Vēḷur might have been known to Pāṇini as Vidur (‘the far away city’) where the beryl gem from the nearby mountains were processed.

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Thus, the identity of *vaidūrya* with beryl is well-established. It was known to be quite different from cat’s eye. Kauṭilya listed beryl *vaidūrya* and cat’s eye *mārjāraksaka* as distinctly separate gem (AS, 2.11.30 and 39). Kauṭilya never mentioned *marakata* (emerald, the darker green variety of *vaidūrya* or beryl) which used to be imported to India from Egypt probably after his era. In the post-Christian era, we find *vaidūrya* and *marakata* being mentioned together to mean the same family of green gem.

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Probably Buddhabhatta’s writing had created for the first time the confusion vis-a-vis beryl and cat’s eye. He wrote (RP, 200) :

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वैदूर्यरत्नमयो विविध अवभासा:
तस्मात् स्फुलिंगानि वहा इव सम्भवन्ति
vaidūryaratnamayo vividh avabhāsāḥ
tasmāt sphuliṅgāni vahā iva sambhavanti

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According to this text, vaidūrya is many-hued and one variety appears to have specks of fire on the surface. Finot translated this as “comme un jaillissement d’étincelles” indicating chatoyancy, and equated vaidūrya with cat’s eye. Buddhabhaṭṭa’s description indeed reminds one of chrysoberyl cat’s eye. Possibly, he made the mistake of using the term vaidūrya in a wide sense. This is obvious when he refers to a wide range of colour for vaidūrya: the conventional green (RP, 203), blue as well as golden red (RP, 202 and 208). Finot was certainly wrong (1898 : xlv-xlvii, and 43-45; also Agastimata Appendix 9 quoted by Finot in p. 135) in equating vaidūrya with cat’s eye. At any rate, this confusion had started with Buddhabhaṭṭa, and as Sarma (1984: 68) pointed out, Māgha made a similar mistake in using the word vaidūrya to indicate bidālakṣaṇa or chatoyancy of cat’s eye (Śiśupālavadha, 3.45). RRS, 4.57 description of vaidūrya is actually that of cat’s eye. As we have indicated earlier, the confusion arose probably due to greenish chrysoberyl cat’s eye and beryl occurring at times in the same matrix.

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The confusion was however not perpetuated. Kālidāsa gave the right description of vaidūrya by referring to its long columnal (ratnaśalākā) grass-green crystals (Kumārasambhava, 1.24). Chrysoberyl was rightly recognised as a separate mineral karketana, by Buddhabhaṭṭa himself rudhira hemamadhuprakāśam (RP, 222; also 221-30). This gem was known to be ‘uniformly coloured, light-red like copper or yellow like honey’ (MM, 426). Garuda Purāṇa describes it as possessing ‘burning fiery brilliance of honey, shedding brilliant rays as if heated in fire’ (GP, 1.75.2 and 4) which reminds us of Buddhabhaṭṭa’s Sphuliṅga bahā (RP, 200), a description wrongly assigned to beryl (it could represent golden beryl, a gem softer than chrysoberyl but occurring with beryl). Pāribhadra, ‘a transparent water-green gem’ was equated by Tagore (Manimālā, part 2, p. 509) to aquamarine, a variety of beryl; it could be chrysoberyl also.

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We have earlier described the modern scientific observations on milky white chrysoberyl cat’s eye and quartz cat’s eye. These were known to Kauṭilya as mārjāraksaka (AS, 2.11.39) and in Navaratnaparīkṣā as laśuna or garlic-like appearing as dugdhaliptasma or smeared with milk:

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दुग्धलिप्तस्मम् यत् तु लशुनपदम् उच्यते

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dugdhaliptasmam yat tu laśunapadam ucyate (NRP, 115 in Finot, p. 160)

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Pheru described the chatoyancy of this gem accurately by comparing it with a human body that has horripilation pulaka or has the hair erect and aligned:

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लशुनक: बिडालाक्ष: सपुलकम्। laśunakah biḍālākṣaḥ sapulakam । (RYP, 93)

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The one which is cat’s eye with horripilations.

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Thus we cannot agree with Finot that vaidūrya is cat’s eye and lahśuniyā or laśunaka its synonym. As a matter of fact, Alfred Master (quoted by Sarma, 1984: 67) has proved on the basis of a number of Pāli, Prākrt and Sanskrit passages that vaidūrya has the clear sense of beryl (‘Indo-Aryan and Dravidian’ by Master, In Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. XI, 1943-46, pp. 297-307). Occasional identifications of vaidūrya with cat’s eye (such as in Maṇimālā, 226, 228) have been erroneous and unfortunate.

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