1 6 The Diamond 



what they can, and in that fact we probably have the remainder of the 

 foundation of the story. It is probable also that the story by Pliny 

 and other early writers, of the diamond being softened by the blood of 

 a he-goat, had its origin in such sacrifices." 1 This subjective explana- 



1 This tradition, which, as will be seen below, has a curious parallel in China, is 

 entirely independent of the Diamond- Valley story, and bears no relation to it. It is 

 regrettable that Ball does not betray who the "other early writers" are. Pliny, in 

 fact, is the earliest and only ancient writer to have it on record; Augustinus (fifth 

 century), Isidorus (who died in 636) and Marbod (1035-1123) have merely reiterated 

 it after Pliny, and Pliny's story certainly is not borrowed from India. W. Crooke 

 (Things Indian, p. 135) is inclined to think that if Ball's explanation be correct, the 

 early diamond-diggers must have been non-Aryans, who did not regard the cow as 

 sacred. The "early diamond-diggers " are a bit of exaggeration: in no Indian record 

 of very early date does any mention of the diamond occur. Crooke's information 

 on this point lacks somewhat the necessary precision. According to him, "diamonds 

 were from very early times valued in India. The Puranas speak of them as divided 

 into castes, and Marco Polo describes them as found in the kingdom of MutfiH." 

 The Purana were at the best composed in the first centuries A.D., and more probably 

 much later. The knowledge of the diamond, certainly, does not go back in India 

 into that unfathomable antiquity, as pretended by some mineralogical and other 

 authors (for instance, G. Watt, Dictionary of Economic Products of India, Vol. Ill, 

 p. 93). It was wholly unknown in the Vedic period, from which no specific names of 

 precious stones are handed down at all. The word mani, which has sometimes been 

 taken to mean the diamond (Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index of Names and Sub- 

 jects, Vol. II, p. 119), simply denotes a bead used for personal ornamentation and as 

 an amulet, and the arbitrary notion that it might refer to the diamond is disproved 

 by the fact that it could be strung on a thread. The word vajra, which at a subse- 

 quent period became an attribute of the diamond, originally served for the designation 

 of a club-shaped weapon and of Indra's thunderbolt in particular (Macdonell, 

 Vedic Mythology, p. 55). Philological considerations show us that the diamond 

 had no place in times of Indian antiquity, for no plain and specific word has been 

 appropriated for it in any ancient Indian language. Either, as in the case of vajra, 

 a word long familiar with another meaning was transferred to it, or epithets briefly 

 indicating some characteristic feature of the stone were created. S. K. Aiyangar 

 (Note upon Diamonds in South India, Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society, 

 Vol. Ill, p. 129, Madras, 1914) calls attention to the fact that the first systematic 

 reference to diamonds is made in the ArthacSstra of Kaufrlya (see V. A. Smith, 

 Early History of India, 3d ed., pp. 1 51-153). He mentions six kinds of diamonds 

 classified according to their mines, and described as differing in lustre and degree of 

 hardness. He points out those of regular crystalline form and those of irregular 

 shape. The best diamond should be large, heavy, capable of bearing blows, regular 

 in shape, able to scratch the surface of metal vessels, refractive and brilliant. Aiyan- 

 gar dates the work in question "probably at the commencement of the third century 

 B.C." This date, however, is a mooted point (compare L. Finot, Bull, de I'Ecolefran- 

 caise, Vol. XII, 1912, pp. 1-4), which it would be out of place to discuss here. More 

 probably, it is in the early Pali scriptures of Buddhism that we can trace the first 

 unmistakable references to the diamond. In the Questions of King Milinda (Milin- 

 dapaHha, translation of Rhys Davids, p. 128) we read that the diamond ought to 

 have three qualities: it should be pure throughout; it cannot be alloyed with another 

 substance; and it is mounted together with the most costly gems. The first alludes 

 metaphorically to the monk's purity in his means of livelihood; the second, to his 

 keeping aloof from the company of the wicked; the third, to his association with men 

 of highest excellence, with men who have entered the first or second or third stage of 



