22 The Diamond 



spoiled. If, however, a blow is dealt at the diamond by means of a 

 ram's horn, 1 it will at once be dissolved, and break like ice." 2 



The motive, diamonds being fished from the ocean, is an old Indian 

 fable. We meet it in the Suppdraka-jdtaka, No. 463 in the famous 

 Pali collection of Buddha's birth-stories. According to this legend, 

 the diamonds are to be found in the Khuramala Sea. The Bodhisatva 

 was on board ship, acting as skipper for a party of merchants. He 

 reflected that if he told them this was a diamond sea, they would sink 

 the ship in their greed by collecting the diamonds. So he told them 

 nothing; but having brought the ship to, he got a rope, and lowered a 

 net as if to catch fish. With this he brought in a haul of diamonds, and 

 stored them in the ship; then he caused the wares of little value to be 

 cast overboard. 3 Of course, the Indian mineralogists knew better than 

 that, and even enumerate eight sites where the diamond was found. 4 



1 According to another reading, "antelope, or chamois horn" (ling yang kio). 

 The latter is said to be solid and to occur only in the High-Rock Mountains (Kao shi 

 shan) of Annam (Wu li siao shi, Ch. 8, p. 21b; and T'u shu tsi ch'ing, Pien i lien, 

 Annam, hui k'ao 6, p. 8 b). 



8 Pin ts'ao kang mu, Ch. 10, p. 12. Compare P. Pelliot, Le Fou-nan (Bull, 

 de VEcole franqaise, Vol. Ill, 1903, p. 281). The same notice has been embodied in 

 the account of the country of Fu-nan contained in the New Annals of the T'ang 

 Dynasty (T'ang shu, Ch. 222 b, p. 2; and Pelliot, /. c, p. 274). Fu-nan, of course, 

 did not produce diamonds, as said by the T'ang Annals in this passage, but imported 

 them from India, as attested by a statement in the same Annals (T'ang shu, Ch. 

 221 A, p. 10 b) to the effect that India trades diamonds with Ta Ts'in (the Roman 

 Orient), Fu-nan, and Kiao-chi. As both Indian diamonds and legends concerning 

 them were encountered by the Chinese in Fu-nan, it was pardonable for them to 

 believe that diamonds were a product of that country. Chao Ju-kua (translation of 

 Hirth and Rockhill, p. m) says that the diamond of India will not melt, though 

 exposed to the fire a hundred times. 



3 E. B. Cowell, The Jataka, Vol. IV, p. 88. Compare also the Tibetan Dsang- 

 lun, Ch. 30 (I. J. Schmidt, Der Weise und der Thor, pp. 227 et seq.) ; and Schiefner, 

 Taranatha, p. 43. The Hindu mineralogists entertain also the notion that the 

 diamond floats on the water (L. Finot, Lapidaires indiens, p. xlviii) ; and there is 

 a fabulous account of a diamond of marine origin in the Tsa pao tsang king (Bunyiu 

 Nanjio, Catalogue, No. 1329; Chavannes, Cinq cents contes et apologues, Vol. Ill, 

 p. 1), translated from Sanskrit into Chinese in a.d. 472. A merchant from southern 

 India who had an expert knowledge of pearls traversed several kingdoms, showing 

 everywhere a pearl, the specific qualities of which nobody could recognize till he met 

 Buddha, who said, "This wishing-jewel (cintamani) originates from the huge fish 

 makara, whose body is two hundred and eighty thousand li (Chinese leagues) long. 

 The name of this gem is 'hard like the diamond' (kin-kang kien, Chinese rendering 

 of Sanskrit vajrasara, an attribute of the diamond). It has the property of producing 

 at once precious objects, clothing, and food, and securing everything according to 

 one's wish. He who obtains this gem cannot be hurt by poison, or be burnt by 

 fire." My translation is based on the text, as quoted in Yuan kien lei han (Ch. 364, 

 p. 15b), the wording of which to some extent dissents from that translated by 

 M. Chavannes (/. c, p. 77). 



4 L. Finot, Lapidaires indiens, p. xxv. 



