Acquaintance of the Chinese with the Diamond 53 



The solidity and exactness of Chinese tradition is vividly illustrated 

 also by another fact. The term kin-kang for the diamond was coined 

 by the Chinese as a free adaptation of the Sanskrit word vajra, and, 

 like the latter, signifies with them both the mythical weapon of Indra 

 and the Indian diamond. We noticed that in the oldest historical 

 account of the diamond relative to the year a.d. 277 this precious stone 

 is stated as coming from India, but that at the same time traditions of 

 classical antiquity are blended with this early narrative. Again, the 

 Chinese fully recognized the stone in the diamond-points furnished to 

 them in the channel of trade with the Hellenistic Orient, and were 

 perfectly aware of the fact that diamonds were utilized in the Roman 

 Empire. 1 In the most diverse parts of the world, wherever commercial, 

 diplomatic, or political enterprise carried them, the Chinese observed 

 the diamond, and in every case applied to it correctly the term kin-kang. 

 Thus, according to their Annals, the diamond was found among the 

 precious stones peculiar to the culture of Persia under the Sassanians. 2 



Among the early mentions of diamonds is that of diamond finger- 

 rings sent in a.d. 430 as tribute from the kingdom Ho-lo-tan on the 

 Island of Java. 3 In all periods of their history, the Chinese, indeed, 



1 The Hiian chung ki of the fifth century expressly states that diamonds come 

 from (or are produced in) India and Ta Ts'in (T'ai p'ing yii Ian, Ch. 813, p. 10). 



i Pei shi, Ch. 97, p. 7b; Wei shu, Ch. 102, p. 5b; and Sui shu, Ch. 83, p. 7b. 

 Dionysius Periegetes, who lived at the time of the Emperor Hadrian (1 17-138), 

 in his poem Orbis descriptio (Verse 318), says that the diamond is found in the 

 proximity of the country of the Agathyrsi residing north of the Istros (Danube); 

 and Ammianus Marcellinus (xxii, 8; ed. Nisard, p. 175) states that the diamond 

 abounds among this people (Agathyrsi, apud quos adamantis est copia lapidis). 

 Blumner (Technologie, Vol. Ill, p. 232 ; and in Pauly's Realenzyklopadie, Vol. IX, 

 col. 323) infers from these data that the diamond-mines recently rediscovered in the 

 Ural seem to have been known to the ancients; but this conclusion is not forcible. 

 The mines in the Ural began to be opened only from 1829 (the question is not of a 

 rediscovery), and there is no evidence that diamonds were found there at any earlier 

 time. Aside from this fact, a respectable distance separated the Ural from the 

 habitat of the Agathyrsi, who occupied the territory of what is now Siebenburgen. 

 Already Herodotus (iv, 104) knew them as men given to luxury and very fond of 

 wearing gold ornaments. The interesting point is that the Agathyrsi, as shown by 

 Justi (Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, Vol. II, p. 442), judging from the remains 

 of their language, belonged to the Scythian stock of peoples, speaking an Iranian 

 language. The notes of Dionysius and Ammianus, therefore, confirm for a Western 

 tribe of this extended family what the Chinese report about Iran proper, and it may 

 be that the diamond was known to all members of the Iranian group in the first 

 centuries of our era. 



* Pelliot (Bull, de I'Ecole franqaise, Vol. IV, p. 271), who has indicated this 

 passage, sees some difficulties in the term kin kang chi huan. While admitting 

 that kin-kang is the diamond, he thinks that this translation does not fit the case, 

 and proposes to understand the term in the sense of "rings of rock-crystal." I see 

 no difficulty in assuming that finger-rings of metal set with a diamond are here in 

 question. This passage, indeed, is not the only one to mention diamond rings. In 



