14 HOLLAND: MICA DEPOSITS OF INDIA. 



mtghalala [from megha cloud, and Id 'a, red (sparks)], are derived 

 from a similar idea. 1 



In Tibetan a similar name for mica is used — nam-do, sky-stone. a 

 As in the case of gems, 8 ancient Hindu writers distinguished four 

 qualities of mica under the names of their four great divisions of 

 caste : — The Brahman was white and colourless ; the Kshatriya, red- 

 tinted ; the Vaisya, yellow, and the Sudra, black. Four varieties 

 were also distinguished by special names and were supposed 

 to be possessed of wonderful medicinal properties — the Pindka 

 variety when thrown into fire splits into laminae, and if swallowed 

 accidentally produces leprosy ; the Dadura when thrown into fire 

 emits a noise like a croaking frog, and its internal use produces 

 death ; the Ndga variety hisses like a snake when heated, and would 

 give rise to fistula if swallowed ; whilst the Vajra is not affected by 

 fire, and is the best of all, removing the infirmities of age and prevent- 

 ing untimely death. Apparently the main use of mica in ancient times 

 in India was for medicinal purposes, and the legend of its origin served 

 as a good base on which to build accounts of its magical properties — 

 properties which produced the most calamitous results when the mineral 

 was used unrefined, and healing properties for the most deadly diseases 

 when prepared by the long and tedious processes detailed by the phy- 

 sician, whose chief idea seems to have been to mystify the uninitiated 

 by processes too complicated and long for imitation by the amateur, 

 a relic of which we have in the language and characters of the modern 

 prescription. 4 



1 The writer is indebted to Raja Sir Sourindro Mohan Tagore, Kt., CLE., 

 Lala Kishen Singh of the Geological Survey and Babu Brajendra Lai Mitra, 

 M.A., a former pupil in the Presidency College, Calcutta, for numerous extracts 

 from the Sanskrit classics with reference to mica. Here and in the pages which 

 follow many of these references are made use of without special acknowledgment, 

 as most of them have been obtained by all three friends, showing a fairly complete 

 research, for which the writer is much indebted. 



2 Waddell, " Among the Himalayas," 1899,408. 



3 See Geol. Surv. Ind. Manual on Corundum (1898), p. 58. 



4 A detailed account of the laborious methods said to be necessary in pre- 

 paring mica for medicinal purposes is eiven in Sir Sourindro Mohan Tagore's 

 "Abhra" (Calcutta, 1899) and in Dr. U. C. Dutt's "Materia Medica." The 

 former work contains a list of 224. medicines in which mica is used, with the 

 diseases in which the medicines are emploved. 



( 4 ) 



