gems, corundum, History.1, Indian gemology, Indian mineralogy, history of gemology, history of mineralogy, Indian lapidary

This small volume brings together two Sanskrit treatises on the traditional Indian examination of gemstones, one extracted from the Smṛtisāroddhāra and the other attributed to Īśvaradīkṣita, with the Sanskrit text in Devanagari accompanied by a Tamil translation by K. S. Subramanya Sastri. The works belong to the Indian ratna-parīkṣā tradition, in which precious stones are classified and assessed according to their appearance, physical characteristics, desirable qualities, defects, provenance, and suitability for use. Attention is given to the recognition and valuation of gems and to traditional ideas concerning the beneficial or harmful effects associated with stones of particular qualities. The volume is valuable for preserving relatively short Sanskrit sources on practical gem knowledge and for illustrating the close relationship in traditional Indian gemology between observation and commercial evaluation on the one hand and religious, astrological, and cultural concepts on the other. The two texts were originally issued in 1958 in the journal of the Tanjore Maharaja Serfoji’s Sarasvati Mahal Library.