Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c43.s3.t8.4

v2.c43.s3.t8.4

Tagore (1879: 510-11) has quoted a Sanskrit text describing gandhaśasya which is ‘red dashed with white, white dashed with red or perfectly red’ and could be agate-carnelian in different stages of ripening. Piṇḍa is reddish, pale-red or green, and is remarkably hard. Tagore added in the foot-note (p. 511) that ‘the rich of India make pestles and mortars out of this stone, for pulverising medicinal pills’. The material was most likely agate, which was named during the Muslim period of the Indian history as akik.