Legend of the Diamond Valley

	Imagine the usual disclaimers. All this comes from the unparalleled research skills of Berthold Laufer, who apparently knew every language ever spoken, and read every document ever written. Most of the quotes (and the argument) are taken from his monograph The Diamond, published by the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. They have been used lovingly, without hope of renumeration. THE LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND VALLEY Herodotus 3.111 (of the cinnamon of Arabia): "Their method of collecting cinnamon is even more remarkable. Where it grows and what sort of land produces it they cannot say, except that they declare, with a show of reason, that it grows in the places where Dionysus was reared. They say that great birds carry these dry sticks, which we have learned from the Phoenicians to call cinnamon, and that the birds carry the sticks to their nests, which are plastered with mud and are placed on sheer crags where no man can climb up. The Arabians have found the following trick to deal with this. They cut out the limbs of dead oxen and asses, taking as much of the limbs as possible, and carry them to the part of the country where the nests are, and there they put them near the nests and themselves withdraw to a distance. The birds swoop down and carry off the limbs of the beasts to their nests, and the nests, being unable to bear the weight, break and fall down, and the Arabians approach and collect what they want. Thus is cinnamon gathered in these parts, and so from there it comes to other countries." This legend from the Father of History, of course, never mentions the word 'diamond'. The story itself, though, should be familiar to anyone who knows the Arabian nights; this is the adventure of Sindbad and the Roc, and the precious stones that Sindbad steals from the Roc's valley are, in Herodotus' version, precious cinnamon. Here is another version, from the writings of Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus circa 315-403 AD; while discoursing on the nature of the twelve precious jewels which decorate the breastplate of the High Priest of Jerusalem, he relates the following tale of the hyacinth: The hyacinth stone, most precious, is found in a deep valley in a desert of great Scythia, entirely ringed by rugged mountains which rise straight on every side--steep as the walls of a fortress--and the valley floor cannot even be glimpsed clearly from their summits--indeed, all that can be seen of it is a sullen mist like chaos. On the valley floor, the hyacinth stones lie strewn. Those who search for it, sent by the kings of neighbouring domains, slay sheep and flay them, and fling the bloody meat into the abyss. The stones stick to the flesh of the carcasses. The eagles that loiter on the cliffs above take note, take flight, and pounce upon this meal; they carry the sheep off to devour them, to the very tops of the mountains. Then convicts condemned to this lonely labor, climb to the eyries of the eagles and collect the hyacinth stones lying like litter amidst broken bones. All these stones, whatever the diversity of their color, are precious and valuable, but remember this: they have this unique quality, these eagle-stones: when placed over a charcoal fire, be the flames never so violent, the hyacinths are never damaged but the coals are immediately extinguished. Also, these stones are reputed to be useful to women in aiding parturition, and to all in dispensing pesty phantoms. Here, the legend is obviously confused with the ancient belief in the lapis aetites or "eagle-stone", found in the nests of eagles, invaluable to women in labor. Philostratus (Life of Apollonius from Tyana) says that eagles never build their nests without first placing there an eagle-stone. Pliny (x.3 and 12, and xxxvi.21 and 151) distinguishes four kinds of eagle-stone; he says the aetites is a pregnant stone, for when shaken, another stone is heard to rattle within (like an infant enclosed in a womb) and thus, no female aetites is found without a male stone being nearby, and without them, eagles are unable to propagate . . . the proof being seen, in that eaglets in their nest are never more than two in number. Pliny also relates the legend of a stone called callaina (xxxvii.33) which, some said, was found in Arabia in the nests of the birds called 'black-heads'; the birds build their nests on inaccessible cliffs where no man can venture, but the crafty hunter arms himself with a sling to bring home the treasure. This is obviously akin to the Diamond Valley legend. But back to the aetites, or parturition-stones; according to Pliny's description, they are obviously geodes. In the modern age, quartz-crystal geodes are still being picked up by Bedouin at the Wadi Saal near Sinai, and sold to fools as rough diamonds (ref Burton Bernstein, Sinai: the Great and Terrible Wilderness). And according to Physiologus xix, this pregnant stone is found in India, and female vultures fly there to obtain it. The whole idea of parturition-stones may itself hail from India. According to the Muslim physician Razi (who died in 923 or 932 AD) in the books of India, it can be read that a woman is easily delivered when such a stone is laid upon her stomach. Similar notions obtain in China, where it was widely believed that gems come in male and female form. And Sir John Mandeville wrote of the diamond: "They grow together, male and female, and are nourished by the dew of heaven; and they engender commonly, and bring forth small children that multiply and grow all the year. I have oftentimes tried the experiment that if a man keep them with a little of the rock, and water them with May dew often, they shall grow every year and the small will grow great." The Diamond Valley legend crops up next in the form of an Alexander myth. It can be found in an Arabic work on mineralogy, composed before 850 AD but attributed (quite wrongly) to Aristotle. Here, under the heading 'the diamond', this pseudo-Aristotle has written: "Nobody but my disciple Alexander reached the valley in which diamonds are found. It lies in the east along the extreme frontier of Khorasan, and its bottom cannot be penetrated by human eyes. Alexander, after having advanced thus far, was prevented from proceeding by a host of snakes. In this valley are found snakes which by gazing at a man cause his death. He therefore caused mirrors to be made for them; and when they thus beheld themselves, they perished, while Alexander's men could look at them. Thereupon Alexander contrived another ruse: he had sheep slaughtered, skinned, and flung on the bottom of the valley. The diamonds adhered to the flesh. The birds of prey seized them and brought part of them up. The soldiers pursued the birds and took whatever of their spoils they dropped." The story is repeated in the Iskander-nameh of the Persian poet Nizami (1141-1203 AD). The Arab historian Qazwini (1203-83) has not one but two versions, one set in the Valley of the Moon in the mountains of Ceylon. The geographer Edrisi places it in the land of the Kirkhir (or, probably, the Kirghiz) in upper Asia; ie, firmly back in southern Russian, the kingdom of Scythia. And the Arab mineralogist Ahmed Tifashi (d. 1253) gives two versions of his own: one refers to the corundum or hyacinth of Ceylon, and one to the diamonds of India. In his tale of the diamonds of India, the snakes reappear and this time they are so large that they pursue men, catch them and swallow them whole. In the tale of Ceylon, Tifashi remarks that the finest corundum gems came washed down the streams that flowed from Adam's Peak on that isle; in time of drought, though, the supply failed and the gem-seekers had recourse to the old trick with eagles and carcasses. In the Arabic "Book of the Wonders of India" written about 960 AD, the legend is retold by a traveler and the setting is now Kashmir; here, a further peril comes from a fire burning in the valley floor, surrounded by serpents and ablaze day and night, summer and winter alike. Men come as before and fling the carcasses of sheep from the cliff, and eagles swoop down to carry up the diamond-studded meat . . . but the carcasses may be devoured by the fire, or the eagles by the voracious serpents, and then the diamond-miners must go away empty-handed, cursing, cheated of their spoil. The next versions of the Legend of the Diamond Valley comes from China. They are found in Liang se kung ki or Memoirs of the Four Worthies of the Liang Dynasty, written by Chang Yue, 667-730 AD. Again there are two separate stories, and here is the first: "In the period T'ien-kien (502-520) of the Liang dynasty, Prince Kie of Shu (Sze-ch'uan) paid a visit to the Emperor Wu, and in the course of conversations which he held with the Emperor's scholars on distant lands, told this story: 'In the west, arriving at the Mediterranean, there is in the sea an island of two hundred square miles (li). On this island is a large forest abundant in trees with precious stones, and inhabited by over ten thousand families. These men show great ability in cleverly working gems, which are named for the country Fu-lin. In a northwesterly direction from the island is a ravine hollowed out like a bowl, more than a thousand feet deep. They throw flesh into this valley. Birds take it up in their beaks, whereupon they drop the precious stones. The biggest of these have a weight of five catties.'" Here is the second version from Liang se kung ki: "A large junk of Fu-nan (Cambodja) which had come from western India arrived (in China) and offered for sale a mirror of a peculiar variety of rock-crystal, one foot and four inches across its surface, and forty catties in weight. On the surface and in the interior it was pure white and transparent, and displayed many colored objects on its obverse. When held against the light and examined, its substance was not discernible. On inquiry for the price, it was given at a million strings of copper coins. The Emperor ordered the officials to raise this sum, but the treasury did not hold enough. Those traders said, 'This mirror is due to the action of the Devaraja of the Rupadhatu . On felicitous and joyful occasions he causes the trees of the gods to pour down a shower of precious stones, and the mountains receive them. The mountains conceal and seize the stones, so that they are difficult to obtain. The flesh of big animals is cast into the mountains; and when the flesh in these hiding-places becomes so putrefied that it phosphoresces, it resembles a precious stone. Birds carry it off in their beaks, and this is the jewel from which this mirror is made.' Nobody in the empire understood this and dared pay that price." Ch'ang Te, the Chinese envoy sent in 1259 to the Mongol Hulagu, king of Persia, also mentions the story in his diary. He links it to the diamond, whose origin he correctly places in the mines of Persia, but then goes on: "The people take flesh and throw it into the great valley. Then birds come and eat this flesh, after which diamonds are found in their excrement." This has an exact parallel in Marco Polo (vol II p 361): "The people go to the nests of those white eagles, of which there are many, and in their droppings they find plenty of diamonds which the birds have swallowed in devouring the meat that was cast into the valleys." From Elysaeus' fantasy of India and Prester John, circa the twelfth century AD (edited by F. Zarncke, Der Priester Johannes II, Pp. 120-127): " Quomodo autem carbunculi reperiantur audiamus. Ibi est valhs quaedam, in qua carbunculi reperiuntur. NuRus autem hominum accedere potest prae pavore griffonum et profunditate vallis. Et cum habere volunt lapides, occidunt pecora et accipiunt cadavera, et in nocte accedunt ad summitatem vallis et deiciunt ea in varem, et sic inprimuntur lapides in cadavera, et acuti sunt. Veniunt autem grifones et assumunt cadavera et educunt ea. Eductis ergo cadaveribus perduntur carbunculi, et sic inveniuntur in campis." From Ts'ao Chao, Ming China, 1387: " Diamond-sand comes from Tibet (Si-fan). On the high summits of mountains with deep valleys, unapproachable to men, they make perches for the eagles, on which they set out food. The birds eat the flesh on the mountains and drop their ordure into desert places. This is gathered, and the stones are found in it." And finally, from Von Haxtbausen's Transcaucasia (London, 1854; p. 360), an Armenian popular story: "In Hindostan there is a deep and rocky valley, in which all kinds of precious stones, of incalculable value, lie scattered upon the ground; when the sun shines upon them, they glisten like a sea of glowing, many-colored fire. The people see this from the summits of the surrounding hills, but no one can enter the valley, partly because there is no path to it and they could only be let down the steep rocks, and partly because the heat is so great that no one could endure it for a minute. Merchants come hither from foreign countries; they take an ox and hew it in pieces, which they fix upon long poles, and cast into the valley of gems. Then huge birds of prey hover around, descend into the valley, and carry off the pieces of flesh. But the merchants observe closely the direction in which the birds fly, and the places where they alight to feed, and there they frequently find the most valuable gems." The Diamond in Antiquity Diamonds in antiquity were mined in India and perhaps in China. There may of course been other sources, now exhausted, but history does not record them. The gem may have been mentioned in Vedic texts under the name of mani; the Sinologist/linguist Berthold Laufer says not, because the mani is pierced and strung like a bead. Or it have been known to the Avestan people of prehistory under the name of vispa.bama, the stone 'containing all light' which shone forth from Mithra's chariot-wheels and also Mithra's divine nimbus; the archeologist/linguist Ernst Herzfeld says perhaps not, because the vispa-bama may have been an emerald rather than a diamond. And Herzfeld translates the word mani or menu as crystal, mentioning the mountain Menu.xam 'Crystal-source'. Ancient Assyrian texts mention several words for gemstones, among which was "the precious stone elmeshu, perfect in celestial beauty" and, elsewhere, "Like an elmeshu ring may I be precious in thine eyes." Again, this might have been a word for the diamond. The India word vajra, 'thunderbolt' - that is, the god Indra's weapon, the lightning itself - came eventually to be synonymous with the diamond. However, this was not its original meaning. The first incontrovertible mention of the diamond (according to Berthold Laufer) hails from the early Pali scripture of Buddhism. There, in the Questions of King Milinda, one may read about the three desirable qualities of the diamond: it should be pure throughout, it should never be alloyed with lesser substances, it should always be mounted with the most precious of gems. These are metaphors, as transparent as the Christian metaphors of Physiologus, and meant to guide Buddhist monks . . . who should be pure throughout, who should never alloy their virtue by association with wicked men, who should always seek company of the most excellent kind. A similar train of thought can be found in the tales of diamonds being melted by the heat of goat's blood. This is metaphor, not science - a parable, not a piece of observation. A Hindu gem-treatise names diamonds of many colors, each meant to be worn by a different caste: white as shell for Brahmins, for Kshatriya as brown as the eye of the hare, for Vaisya, colored like the petal of a kadali flower, and for the Sudra, with the sheen of a polished blade; while kings might wear diamonds red as coral and diamonds yellow as saffron. In the Arthacastra of Kautilya - another piece of Indian literature, and dated to perhaps the third century BC - a more prosaic description of the diamond is found. Six kinds of diamonds are described, classified according to the mines where they are found. These differ in lustre and degree of hardness, some being of regular crystalline form and others of irregular shape. The best of all, though, should be large, heavy, capable of bearing blows, regular in shape, able to scratch a metal surface, refractive and brilliant. The Taoist adept Ko Hung (fourth century A.D.) has the following notice on the diamond: "The kingdom of Fu-nan (Cambodja) produces diamonds which are capable of cutting jade. In their appearance they resemble fluor-spar. They grow on stones like stalactites on the bottom of the sea to the depth of a thousand feet. Men dive in search for the stones, and ascend at the close of a day. The diamond when struck by an iron hammer is not damaged; the latter, on the contrary, will be spoiled. If, however, a blow is dealt at the diamond by means of a ram's horn, it will at once be dissolved, and break like ice." This motif, diamonds being fished from the ocean, is an old Indian fable. It turns up again in the Supparaka-jataka, which is also in the Pali collection of Buddha's birth-stories. Laufer recounts it: "According to this legend, the diamonds are to be found in the Khuramala Sea. The Bodhisatva was aboard a 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 then 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." Hindu mineralogists entertained the notion that the diamond floated on the water; and there is a fabulous account of a diamond of marine origin in the Tsa pao tsang king, translated from Sanskrit into Chinese in AD 472: a merchant from southern India, an expert on pearls, traversed several kingdoms and everywhere he went, he showed a pearl of great price. No one could recognize the specific qualities of this jewel . . . till at last the merchant 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, a 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 one's wish. He who obtains this gem cannot be hurt by poison, or be burnt by fire." (Text, again, by Berthold Laufer.) Dioscorides of the first century A.D. observed on the diamond, "It is one of the properties of the diamond to break the stones against which it is brought into contact and pressed. It acts alike on all bodies of the nature of stone, with the exception of lead. Lead attacks and subdues it. While it resists fire and iron, it allows itself to be broken by lead, and this is the expedient employed to pulverize it." Pliny says that the diamond is tested on the anvil, and is found true when struck with a hammer; the hammer rebounds, the anvil splits, the diamond is unmarred. This of course is pure parable. Hit a diamond with a hammer, and you have diamond splinters - something which used to be done regularly in the diamond-mines of India, and was observed by Tavernier. Pseudo-Aristotle's lapidarium reports that the diamond cannot be overpowered by any other stone save lead, but lead pulverizes it. This is a direct quote of Dioscorides. In a Syriac/Arabic treatise on alchemy (translated by R Duval, and dated around the tenth century AD), it is also written that lead makes the diamond suffer. Now, lead is not harder than diamond, nor did anyone ever think it was. The meaning becomes clear when other references are assembled. Muhammed Ibn Mansur, who wrote a treatise on mineralogy in Persian during the thirteenth century, said regarding this point, "On the anvil, the diamond is not broken under the hammer, but rather penetrates into the anvil. In order to break the diamond, it is placed between lead, the latter being struck with a mallet, whereupon the stone is broken. Others, instead of using lead, envelop the diamond in resin or wax." An Armenian lapidarium of the seventeenth century is also explicit on the matter: "The diamond is bruised by means of lead in the following manner: lead is hammered out into a foil, on which the diamond is put; and when completely wrapped up with it, it is placed on an iron anvil, the lead being struck with an iron hammer. The diamond crumbles into pieces from these blows, but remains in the leaden foil, and is not dispersed into various directions, as it is prevented from so doing by the ductility of the lead. Released from the latter, the broken diamond is fit for work. In want of lead, the diamond is covered with wax and wrapped up in twelve layers of paper, whereupon it is smashed by hammer-blows. In order to secure it in pure condition and without loss, the whole mass is flung into boiling water, causing the wax to melt, the paper to float on the surface of the water, and the diamond-splinters to sink to the bottom of the vessel. Then it is pounded in a steel mortar and is at once ready for industrial purposes. With this pounded diamond (diamond-dust) the jewellers polish good and coarse diamonds." The pounded diamonds were being used as tools, not jewels. They got their value from their hardness, not their beauty. They were industrial material. The same viewpoint is illustrated by the following (Mines and Minerals, vol. XXIII, p. 552; this is an anonymous commentator on Chinese diamond-digging, circa 1903): "The Chinese procure the diamonds by the following method: After the summer rains which, according to them, produce diamonds on the surface of the soil, whence the uselessness of digging to find them, they walk back and forth over the sand of the torrents. The fragments of diamonds, on account of their sharp points and edges, penetrate the rye straw of their sabots to the exclusion of other gravel. When they think there is a sufficient quantity they make a pile of the sabots and burn them. The ashes are afterwards passed through a sieve to separate the diamonds. Those which we saw were small, varying from the size of a grain of millet to that of a hemp seed. They are generally of a light-yellow color like those of the Cape, though there are some perfectly white. When they find them of sufficient size they break them, as they told us, in order to make drill points, for, not knowing how to cut them, the Chinese in general do not consider them as precious stones. They prefer the jade, the amethyst, the carnelian, and the agate. Only the rich Chinese of the ports and of Peking have bought cut diamonds, imported from India or Europe, to ornament their hats or their rings, since the Dutch first brought them into China in the sixteenth century. The Shan-tung collectors sell them throughout China, and their trade is of considerable importance." The practical object in the use of lead is here clearly indicated; but what appears in this work of recent date as a merely technical process was in its origin a superstitious act, as is explained by Tifashi, who wrote toward the middle of the thirteenth century. According to this author (and to Pliny before him) the diamond is a golden stone; and in the same manner as gold is affected by lead, lead is able to pulverize the diamond. Thus also, psuedo-Aristotle has the diamond " boring " all kinds of stones and pearls, and Qazwini styles it a "borer"; one Chinese commentator names the stone tsuan, "awl". And this takes us straight back to the Arabic stories of Sindbad the Sailor, from the ninth century AD. Sindbad tells, "Walking along the valley I found that its soil was of diamond, the stone wherewith they pierce jewels and precious stones and porcelain and onyx, for that it is a hard dense stone, whereon neither iron nor steel has effect, neither can we cut off aught therefrom nor break it, save by means of the load-stone." The kun-wu blade Laufer writes: "In the book going under the name of the alleged philosopher Lie-tse, which in the text now before us is hardly earlier than the Han period, we read the following story: "When King Mu of the Chou Dynasty (1OO1-945 B.C.) was on an expedition against the Western Jung, the latter presented him with a sword of kun-wu and with fire-proof cloth (asbestos). The sword was one foot and eight inches in length, was forged from steel, and had a red blade; when handled, it would cut hard stone (jade) as though it were merely clayish earth." The object of these notes is to discuss the nature of the substance kun-wu. Asbestine stuffs were received by the Chinese from the Roman Orient, and likewise the curious tales connected with them. If asbestos came from that direction, our first impression in the matter is that also the substance kun-wu appears to have been derived from the same quarter; and this supposition will be proved correct by a study of Chinese traditions." ... he goes on to deduce that the red blade which cuts jade is no weapon, but a tool. It is a gem-cutting edge of diamond bits enclosed in soft reddish copper. "The kun-wu sword of Lie-tse has repeatedly tried the ingenuity of sinologues. HIRTH, who accepted the text at its surface value, regarded this sword as the oldest example in Chinese records of a weapon made from iron or steel; and while the passage could not be regarded as testimony for the antiquity of the sword-industry in China, it seems to him to reflect the legendary views of that epoch and to hint at the fact that the forging of swords in the iron-producing regions of the north-west of China was originally invested in the hands of the Huns. Thus Hirth finally arrived at the conclusion that the kun-wu sword may actually mean "sword of the Huns." FABER, the first translator of Lie-tse, regarded it as a Damascus blade; and FORKE accepted this view. F. PORTER SMITH was the first to speak of a kun-wu stone, intimating that "extraordinary stories are told of a stone called kun-wu, large enough to be made into a knife, very brilliant, and able to cut gems with ease." He also grouped this stone correctly with the diamond, but did not cope with the problem involved. "The Shi chou ki ("Records of Ten Insular Realms"), a fantastic description of foreign lands, attributed to the Taoist adept Tung-fang So, who was born in 168 B.C., has the following story: " On the Floating Island (Liu chou) which is situated in the Western Ocean is gathered a quantity of stones called kun-wu. When fused, this stone turns into iron, from which are made cutting-instruments brilliant and reflecting light like crystal, capable of cutting through objects of hard stone (jade) as though they were merely clayish earth." "Li Shi-chen, in his Pen ts'ao kang mu, quotes the same story in his notice of the diamond, and winds up with the explanation that the kun-wu stone is the largest of diamonds. The text of the Shi chou ki, as quoted by him, offers an important variant. According to his reading, kun-wu stones occur in the Floating Sand (Liu-sha) of the Western Ocean. The latter term, as already shown, in the Chinese were familiar with the diamond. To Chao ju-kua of the Sung period, India was known as a diamond-producing country, though what he relates about the stone is copied from the text of Pao-p'u-tse, quoted above."" Laufer also writes: "It is somewhat surprising that the Chinese were not acquainted with the diamonds of Borneo; at least in none of their documents touching their relations with the island is any mention made of the diamonds found there. <No> sources, however, bear on the question as to when these mines were opened, or when the first diamonds were discovered, and whether this was done by natives or Europeans. As nearly as I can make out, Borneo diamonds were known in the European market in the latter part of the seventeenth century. In a small anonymous book entitled The History of Jewels, and of the Principal Riches of the East and West, taken from a Relation of Divers of the most Famous Travellers of Our Age (London, 1671, printed by T. N. for Hobart Kemp, at the Sign of the Ship in the Upper Walk of the New Exchange) I find the following: " Let me therefore tell you, that none has been yet able in all the world to discover more than five places, from whence the diamond is brought, viz., two rivers and three mines. The first of the two rivers is in the Isle Borneo, under the equator, on the east of the Chersonesus of Gold, and is calls Succadan. The stones fetched from thence are usually clear and of a good water, and almost all bright and brisk, whereof no other reason can be given, but that they are found at the bottom of a river amongst sand which is pure, and has no mixture, or tincture of other earth, as in other places. These stones are not discovered till after the waters which fall like huge torrents from the mountains, are all passed, and men have much to do to attain them, since few persons go to traffic in this isle; and forasmuch as the inhabitants do fall upon strangers who come ashore, unless it be by a particular favor. Besides that, the Queen does rarely permit any to transport them; and so soon as ever any one hath found one of them they are obliged to bring it to her. Yet for all that they pass up and down, and now and then the Hollanders buy them in Batavia. Some few are found there, but the largest do not exceed five carats, although in the year 1648, there was one to be sold in Batavia of 22 carats. I have made mention of the Queen of Borneo, and not of the King, because that the isle is always commanded by a woman, for that people, who will have no prince but what is legitimate, would not be otherwise assured of the birth of males, but can not doubt of those of the females, who are necessarily of the blood royal on their mother's side, she never marrying, yet having always the command." Sources: Herzfeld, Ernst, The World of Zoroaster Kunz, George Frederick, The Curious Lore of Precious Stones Laufer, Berthold, The Diamond Return to Myths and Legends Return to the Asia page Last Updated on June 4, 2001 by Lisa and Sylvia.

Imagine the usual disclaimers. All this comes from the unparalleled research skills of Berthold Laufer, who apparently knew every language ever spoken, and read every document ever written. Most of the quotes (and the argument) are taken from his monograph The Diamond, published by the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. They have been used lovingly, without hope of renumeration.

THE LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND VALLEY

Herodotus 3.111 (of the cinnamon of Arabia): "Their method of collecting cinnamon is even more remarkable. Where it grows and what sort of land produces it they cannot say, except that they declare, with a show of reason, that it grows in the places where Dionysus was reared. They say that great birds carry these dry sticks, which we have learned from the Phoenicians to call cinnamon, and that the birds carry the sticks to their nests, which are plastered with mud and are placed on sheer crags where no man can climb up. The Arabians have found the following trick to deal with this. They cut out the limbs of dead oxen and asses, taking as much of the limbs as possible, and carry them to the part of the country where the nests are, and there they put them near the nests and themselves withdraw to a distance. The birds swoop down and carry off the limbs of the beasts to their nests, and the nests, being unable to bear the weight, break and fall down, and the Arabians approach and collect what they want. Thus is cinnamon gathered in these parts, and so from there it comes to other countries."
This legend from the Father of History, of course, never mentions the word 'diamond'. The story itself, though, should be familiar to anyone who knows the Arabian nights; this is the adventure of Sindbad and the Roc, and the precious stones that Sindbad steals from the Roc's valley are, in Herodotus' version, precious cinnamon. Here is another version, from the writings of Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus circa 315-403 AD; while discoursing on the nature of the twelve precious jewels which decorate the breastplate of the High Priest of Jerusalem, he relates the following tale of the hyacinth:
The hyacinth stone, most precious, is found in a deep valley in a desert of great Scythia, entirely ringed by rugged mountains which rise straight on every side--steep as the walls of a fortress--and the valley floor cannot even be glimpsed clearly from their summits--indeed, all that can be seen of it is a sullen mist like chaos. On the valley floor, the hyacinth stones lie strewn. Those who search for it, sent by the kings of neighbouring domains, slay sheep and flay them, and fling the bloody meat into the abyss. The stones stick to the flesh of the carcasses. The eagles that loiter on the cliffs above take note, take flight, and pounce upon this meal; they carry the sheep off to devour them, to the very tops of the mountains. Then convicts condemned to this lonely labor, climb to the eyries of the eagles and collect the hyacinth stones lying like litter amidst broken bones. All these stones, whatever the diversity of their color, are precious and valuable, but remember this: they have this unique quality, these eagle-stones: when placed over a charcoal fire, be the flames never so violent, the hyacinths are never damaged but the coals are immediately extinguished. Also, these stones are reputed to be useful to women in aiding parturition, and to all in dispensing pesty phantoms.
Here, the legend is obviously confused with the ancient belief in the lapis aetites or "eagle-stone", found in the nests of eagles, invaluable to women in labor. Philostratus (Life of Apollonius from Tyana) says that eagles never build their nests without first placing there an eagle-stone. Pliny (x.3 and 12, and xxxvi.21 and 151) distinguishes four kinds of eagle-stone; he says the aetites is a pregnant stone, for when shaken, another stone is heard to rattle within (like an infant enclosed in a womb) and thus, no female aetites is found without a male stone being nearby, and without them, eagles are unable to propagate . . . the proof being seen, in that eaglets in their nest are never more than two in number.
Pliny also relates the legend of a stone called callaina (xxxvii.33) which, some said, was found in Arabia in the nests of the birds called 'black-heads'; the birds build their nests on inaccessible cliffs where no man can venture, but the crafty hunter arms himself with a sling to bring home the treasure. This is obviously akin to the Diamond Valley legend.
But back to the aetites, or parturition-stones; according to Pliny's description, they are obviously geodes. In the modern age, quartz-crystal geodes are still being picked up by Bedouin at the Wadi Saal near Sinai, and sold to fools as rough diamonds (ref Burton Bernstein, Sinai: the Great and Terrible Wilderness). And according to Physiologus xix, this pregnant stone is found in India, and female vultures fly there to obtain it. The whole idea of parturition-stones may itself hail from India. According to the Muslim physician Razi (who died in 923 or 932 AD) in the books of India, it can be read that a woman is easily delivered when such a stone is laid upon her stomach. Similar notions obtain in China, where it was widely believed that gems come in male and female form. And Sir John Mandeville wrote of the diamond: "They grow together, male and female, and are nourished by the dew of heaven; and they engender commonly, and bring forth small children that multiply and grow all the year. I have oftentimes tried the experiment that if a man keep them with a little of the rock, and water them with May dew often, they shall grow every year and the small will grow great."
The Diamond Valley legend crops up next in the form of an Alexander myth. It can be found in an Arabic work on mineralogy, composed before 850 AD but attributed (quite wrongly) to Aristotle. Here, under the heading 'the diamond', this pseudo-Aristotle has written: "Nobody but my disciple Alexander reached the valley in which diamonds are found. It lies in the east along the extreme frontier of Khorasan, and its bottom cannot be penetrated by human eyes. Alexander, after having advanced thus far, was prevented from proceeding by a host of snakes. In this valley are found snakes which by gazing at a man cause his death. He therefore caused mirrors to be made for them; and when they thus beheld themselves, they perished, while Alexander's men could look at them. Thereupon Alexander contrived another ruse: he had sheep slaughtered, skinned, and flung on the bottom of the valley. The diamonds adhered to the flesh. The birds of prey seized them and brought part of them up. The soldiers pursued the birds and took whatever of their spoils they dropped."
The story is repeated in the Iskander-nameh of the Persian poet Nizami (1141-1203 AD). The Arab historian Qazwini (1203-83) has not one but two versions, one set in the Valley of the Moon in the mountains of Ceylon. The geographer Edrisi places it in the land of the Kirkhir (or, probably, the Kirghiz) in upper Asia; ie, firmly back in southern Russian, the kingdom of Scythia. And the Arab mineralogist Ahmed Tifashi (d. 1253) gives two versions of his own: one refers to the corundum or hyacinth of Ceylon, and one to the diamonds of India. In his tale of the diamonds of India, the snakes reappear and this time they are so large that they pursue men, catch them and swallow them whole. In the tale of Ceylon, Tifashi remarks that the finest corundum gems came washed down the streams that flowed from Adam's Peak on that isle; in time of drought, though, the supply failed and the gem-seekers had recourse to the old trick with eagles and carcasses.
In the Arabic "Book of the Wonders of India" written about 960 AD, the legend is retold by a traveler and the setting is now Kashmir; here, a further peril comes from a fire burning in the valley floor, surrounded by serpents and ablaze day and night, summer and winter alike. Men come as before and fling the carcasses of sheep from the cliff, and eagles swoop down to carry up the diamond-studded meat . . . but the carcasses may be devoured by the fire, or the eagles by the voracious serpents, and then the diamond-miners must go away empty-handed, cursing, cheated of their spoil.
The next versions of the Legend of the Diamond Valley comes from China. They are found in Liang se kung ki or Memoirs of the Four Worthies of the Liang Dynasty, written by Chang Yue, 667-730 AD. Again there are two separate stories, and here is the first: "In the period T'ien-kien (502-520) of the Liang dynasty, Prince Kie of Shu (Sze-ch'uan) paid a visit to the Emperor Wu, and in the course of conversations which he held with the Emperor's scholars on distant lands, told this story: 'In the west, arriving at the Mediterranean, there is in the sea an island of two hundred square miles (li). On this island is a large forest abundant in trees with precious stones, and inhabited by over ten thousand families. These men show great ability in cleverly working gems, which are named for the country Fu-lin. In a northwesterly direction from the island is a ravine hollowed out like a bowl, more than a thousand feet deep. They throw flesh into this valley. Birds take it up in their beaks, whereupon they drop the precious stones. The biggest of these have a weight of five catties.'"
Here is the second version from Liang se kung ki: "A large junk of Fu-nan (Cambodja) which had come from western India arrived (in China) and offered for sale a mirror of a peculiar variety of rock-crystal, one foot and four inches across its surface, and forty catties in weight. On the surface and in the interior it was pure white and transparent, and displayed many colored objects on its obverse. When held against the light and examined, its substance was not discernible. On inquiry for the price, it was given at a million strings of copper coins. The Emperor ordered the officials to raise this sum, but the treasury did not hold enough. Those traders said, 'This mirror is due to the action of the Devaraja of the Rupadhatu . On felicitous and joyful occasions he causes the trees of the gods to pour down a shower of precious stones, and the mountains receive them. The mountains conceal and seize the stones, so that they are difficult to obtain. The flesh of big animals is cast into the mountains; and when the flesh in these hiding-places becomes so putrefied that it phosphoresces, it resembles a precious stone. Birds carry it off in their beaks, and this is the jewel from which this mirror is made.' Nobody in the empire understood this and dared pay that price."
Ch'ang Te, the Chinese envoy sent in 1259 to the Mongol Hulagu, king of Persia, also mentions the story in his diary. He links it to the diamond, whose origin he correctly places in the mines of Persia, but then goes on: "The people take flesh and throw it into the great valley. Then birds come and eat this flesh, after which diamonds are found in their excrement." This has an exact parallel in Marco Polo (vol II p 361): "The people go to the nests of those white eagles, of which there are many, and in their droppings they find plenty of diamonds which the birds have swallowed in devouring the meat that was cast into the valleys."
From Elysaeus' fantasy of India and Prester John, circa the twelfth century AD (edited by F. Zarncke, Der Priester Johannes II, Pp. 120-127): " Quomodo autem carbunculi reperiantur audiamus. Ibi est valhs quaedam, in qua carbunculi reperiuntur. NuRus autem hominum accedere potest prae pavore griffonum et profunditate vallis. Et cum habere volunt lapides, occidunt pecora et accipiunt cadavera, et in nocte accedunt ad summitatem vallis et deiciunt ea in varem, et sic inprimuntur lapides in cadavera, et acuti sunt. Veniunt autem grifones et assumunt cadavera et educunt ea. Eductis ergo cadaveribus perduntur carbunculi, et sic inveniuntur in campis."
From Ts'ao Chao, Ming China, 1387: " Diamond-sand comes from Tibet (Si-fan). On the high summits of mountains with deep valleys, unapproachable to men, they make perches for the eagles, on which they set out food. The birds eat the flesh on the mountains and drop their ordure into desert places. This is gathered, and the stones are found in it."
And finally, from Von Haxtbausen's Transcaucasia (London, 1854; p. 360), an Armenian popular story: "In Hindostan there is a deep and rocky valley, in which all kinds of precious stones, of incalculable value, lie scattered upon the ground; when the sun shines upon them, they glisten like a sea of glowing, many-colored fire. The people see this from the summits of the surrounding hills, but no one can enter the valley, partly because there is no path to it and they could only be let down the steep rocks, and partly because the heat is so great that no one could endure it for a minute. Merchants come hither from foreign countries; they take an ox and hew it in pieces, which they fix upon long poles, and cast into the valley of gems. Then huge birds of prey hover around, descend into the valley, and carry off the pieces of flesh. But the merchants observe closely the direction in which the birds fly, and the places where they alight to feed, and there they frequently find the most valuable gems."

The Diamond in Antiquity

Diamonds in antiquity were mined in India and perhaps in China. There may of course been other sources, now exhausted, but history does not record them. The gem may have been mentioned in Vedic texts under the name of mani; the Sinologist/linguist Berthold Laufer says not, because the mani is pierced and strung like a bead. Or it have been known to the Avestan people of prehistory under the name of vispa.bama, the stone 'containing all light' which shone forth from Mithra's chariot-wheels and also Mithra's divine nimbus; the archeologist/linguist Ernst Herzfeld says perhaps not, because the vispa-bama may have been an emerald rather than a diamond. And Herzfeld translates the word mani or menu as crystal, mentioning the mountain Menu.xam 'Crystal-source'.

Ancient Assyrian texts mention several words for gemstones, among which was "the precious stone elmeshu, perfect in celestial beauty" and, elsewhere, "Like an elmeshu ring may I be precious in thine eyes." Again, this might have been a word for the diamond.

The India word vajra, 'thunderbolt' - that is, the god Indra's weapon, the lightning itself - came eventually to be synonymous with the diamond. However, this was not its original meaning. The first incontrovertible mention of the diamond (according to Berthold Laufer) hails from the early Pali scripture of Buddhism. There, in the Questions of King Milinda, one may read about the three desirable qualities of the diamond: it should be pure throughout, it should never be alloyed with lesser substances, it should always be mounted with the most precious of gems. These are metaphors, as transparent as the Christian metaphors of Physiologus, and meant to guide Buddhist monks . . . who should be pure throughout, who should never alloy their virtue by association with wicked men, who should always seek company of the most excellent kind.

A similar train of thought can be found in the tales of diamonds being melted by the heat of goat's blood. This is metaphor, not science - a parable, not a piece of observation.

A Hindu gem-treatise names diamonds of many colors, each meant to be worn by a different caste: white as shell for Brahmins, for Kshatriya as brown as the eye of the hare, for Vaisya, colored like the petal of a kadali flower, and for the Sudra, with the sheen of a polished blade; while kings might wear diamonds red as coral and diamonds yellow as saffron. In the Arthacastra of Kautilya - another piece of Indian literature, and dated to perhaps the third century BC - a more prosaic description of the diamond is found. Six kinds of diamonds are described, classified according to the mines where they are found. These differ in lustre and degree of hardness, some being of regular crystalline form and others of irregular shape. The best of all, though, should be large, heavy, capable of bearing blows, regular in shape, able to scratch a metal surface, refractive and brilliant.

The Taoist adept Ko Hung (fourth century A.D.) has the following notice on the diamond: "The kingdom of Fu-nan (Cambodja) produces diamonds which are capable of cutting jade. In their appearance they resemble fluor-spar. They grow on stones like stalactites on the bottom of the sea to the depth of a thousand feet. Men dive in search for the stones, and ascend at the close of a day. The diamond when struck by an iron hammer is not damaged; the latter, on the contrary, will be spoiled. If, however, a blow is dealt at the diamond by means of a ram's horn, it will at once be dissolved, and break like ice."

This motif, diamonds being fished from the ocean, is an old Indian fable. It turns up again in the Supparaka-jataka, which is also in the Pali collection of Buddha's birth-stories. Laufer recounts it: "According to this legend, the diamonds are to be found in the Khuramala Sea. The Bodhisatva was aboard a 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 then 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."

Hindu mineralogists entertained the notion that the diamond floated on the water; and there is a fabulous account of a diamond of marine origin in the Tsa pao tsang king, translated from Sanskrit into Chinese in AD 472: a merchant from southern India, an expert on pearls, traversed several kingdoms and everywhere he went, he showed a pearl of great price. No one could recognize the specific qualities of this jewel . . . till at last the merchant 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, a 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 one's wish. He who obtains this gem cannot be hurt by poison, or be burnt by fire." (Text, again, by Berthold Laufer.)

Dioscorides of the first century A.D. observed on the diamond, "It is one of the properties of the diamond to break the stones against which it is brought into contact and pressed. It acts alike on all bodies of the nature of stone, with the exception of lead. Lead attacks and subdues it. While it resists fire and iron, it allows itself to be broken by lead, and this is the expedient employed to pulverize it."

Pliny says that the diamond is tested on the anvil, and is found true when struck with a hammer; the hammer rebounds, the anvil splits, the diamond is unmarred. This of course is pure parable. Hit a diamond with a hammer, and you have diamond splinters - something which used to be done regularly in the diamond-mines of India, and was observed by Tavernier. Pseudo-Aristotle's lapidarium reports that the diamond cannot be overpowered by any other stone save lead, but lead pulverizes it. This is a direct quote of Dioscorides. In a Syriac/Arabic treatise on alchemy (translated by R Duval, and dated around the tenth century AD), it is also written that lead makes the diamond suffer.

Now, lead is not harder than diamond, nor did anyone ever think it was. The meaning becomes clear when other references are assembled.

Muhammed Ibn Mansur, who wrote a treatise on mineralogy in Persian during the thirteenth century, said regarding this point, "On the anvil, the diamond is not broken under the hammer, but rather penetrates into the anvil. In order to break the diamond, it is placed between lead, the latter being struck with a mallet, whereupon the stone is broken. Others, instead of using lead, envelop the diamond in resin or wax."

An Armenian lapidarium of the seventeenth century is also explicit on the matter: "The diamond is bruised by means of lead in the following manner: lead is hammered out into a foil, on which the diamond is put; and when completely wrapped up with it, it is placed on an iron anvil, the lead being struck with an iron hammer. The diamond crumbles into pieces from these blows, but remains in the leaden foil, and is not dispersed into various directions, as it is prevented from so doing by the ductility of the lead. Released from the latter, the broken diamond is fit for work. In want of lead, the diamond is covered with wax and wrapped up in twelve layers of paper, whereupon it is smashed by hammer-blows. In order to secure it in pure condition and without loss, the whole mass is flung into boiling water, causing the wax to melt, the paper to float on the surface of the water, and the diamond-splinters to sink to the bottom of the vessel. Then it is pounded in a steel mortar and is at once ready for industrial purposes. With this pounded diamond (diamond-dust) the jewellers polish good and coarse diamonds."

The pounded diamonds were being used as tools, not jewels. They got their value from their hardness, not their beauty. They were industrial material.

The same viewpoint is illustrated by the following (Mines and Minerals, vol. XXIII, p. 552; this is an anonymous commentator on Chinese diamond-digging, circa 1903): "The Chinese procure the diamonds by the following method: After the summer rains which, according to them, produce diamonds on the surface of the soil, whence the uselessness of digging to find them, they walk back and forth over the sand of the torrents. The fragments of diamonds, on account of their sharp points and edges, penetrate the rye straw of their sabots to the exclusion of other gravel. When they think there is a sufficient quantity they make a pile of the sabots and burn them. The ashes are afterwards passed through a sieve to separate the diamonds. Those which we saw were small, varying from the size of a grain of millet to that of a hemp seed. They are generally of a light-yellow color like those of the Cape, though there are some perfectly white. When they find them of sufficient size they break them, as they told us, in order to make drill points, for, not knowing how to cut them, the Chinese in general do not consider them as precious stones. They prefer the jade, the amethyst, the carnelian, and the agate. Only the rich Chinese of the ports and of Peking have bought cut diamonds, imported from India or Europe, to ornament their hats or their rings, since the Dutch first brought them into China in the sixteenth century. The Shan-tung collectors sell them throughout China, and their trade is of considerable importance."

The practical object in the use of lead is here clearly indicated; but what appears in this work of recent date as a merely technical process was in its origin a superstitious act, as is explained by Tifashi, who wrote toward the middle of the thirteenth century. According to this author (and to Pliny before him) the diamond is a golden stone; and in the same manner as gold is affected by lead, lead is able to pulverize the diamond.

Thus also, psuedo-Aristotle has the diamond " boring " all kinds of stones and pearls, and Qazwini styles it a "borer"; one Chinese commentator names the stone tsuan, "awl". And this takes us straight back to the Arabic stories of Sindbad the Sailor, from the ninth century AD. Sindbad tells, "Walking along the valley I found that its soil was of diamond, the stone wherewith they pierce jewels and precious stones and porcelain and onyx, for that it is a hard dense stone, whereon neither iron nor steel has effect, neither can we cut off aught therefrom nor break it, save by means of the load-stone."

The kun-wu blade

Laufer writes: "In the book going under the name of the alleged philosopher Lie-tse, which in the text now before us is hardly earlier than the Han period, we read the following story: "When King Mu of the Chou Dynasty (1OO1-945 B.C.) was on an expedition against the Western Jung, the latter presented him with a sword of kun-wu and with fire-proof cloth (asbestos). The sword was one foot and eight inches in length, was forged from steel, and had a red blade; when handled, it would cut hard stone (jade) as though it were merely clayish earth." The object of these notes is to discuss the nature of the substance kun-wu. Asbestine stuffs were received by the Chinese from the Roman Orient, and likewise the curious tales connected with them. If asbestos came from that direction, our first impression in the matter is that also the substance kun-wu appears to have been derived from the same quarter; and this supposition will be proved correct by a study of Chinese traditions." ... he goes on to deduce that the red blade which cuts jade is no weapon, but a tool. It is a gem-cutting edge of diamond bits enclosed in soft reddish copper.

"The kun-wu sword of Lie-tse has repeatedly tried the ingenuity of sinologues. HIRTH, who accepted the text at its surface value, regarded this sword as the oldest example in Chinese records of a weapon made from iron or steel; and while the passage could not be regarded as testimony for the antiquity of the sword-industry in China, it seems to him to reflect the legendary views of that epoch and to hint at the fact that the forging of swords in the iron-producing regions of the north-west of China was originally invested in the hands of the Huns. Thus Hirth finally arrived at the conclusion that the kun-wu sword may actually mean "sword of the Huns." FABER, the first translator of Lie-tse, regarded it as a Damascus blade; and FORKE accepted this view. F. PORTER SMITH was the first to speak of a kun-wu stone, intimating that "extraordinary stories are told of a stone called kun-wu, large enough to be made into a knife, very brilliant, and able to cut gems with ease." He also grouped this stone correctly with the diamond, but did not cope with the problem involved.

"The Shi chou ki ("Records of Ten Insular Realms"), a fantastic description of foreign lands, attributed to the Taoist adept Tung-fang So, who was born in 168 B.C., has the following story: " On the Floating Island (Liu chou) which is situated in the Western Ocean is gathered a quantity of stones called kun-wu. When fused, this stone turns into iron, from which are made cutting-instruments brilliant and reflecting light like crystal, capable of cutting through objects of hard stone (jade) as though they were merely clayish earth."

"Li Shi-chen, in his Pen ts'ao kang mu, quotes the same story in his notice of the diamond, and winds up with the explanation that the kun-wu stone is the largest of diamonds. The text of the Shi chou ki, as quoted by him, offers an important variant. According to his reading, kun-wu stones occur in the Floating Sand (Liu-sha) of the Western Ocean. The latter term, as already shown, in the Chinese were familiar with the diamond. To Chao ju-kua of the Sung period, India was known as a diamond-producing country, though what he relates about the stone is copied from the text of Pao-p'u-tse, quoted above.""

Laufer also writes: "It is somewhat surprising that the Chinese were not acquainted with the diamonds of Borneo; at least in none of their documents touching their relations with the island is any mention made of the diamonds found there. <No> sources, however, bear on the question as to when these mines were opened, or when the first diamonds were discovered, and whether this was done by natives or Europeans. As nearly as I can make out, Borneo diamonds were known in the European market in the latter part of the seventeenth century. In a small anonymous book entitled The History of Jewels, and of the Principal Riches of the East and West, taken from a Relation of Divers of the most Famous Travellers of Our Age (London, 1671, printed by T. N. for Hobart Kemp, at the Sign of the Ship in the Upper Walk of the New Exchange) I find the following: " Let me therefore tell you, that none has been yet able in all the world to discover more than five places, from whence the diamond is brought, viz., two rivers and three mines. The first of the two rivers is in the Isle Borneo, under the equator, on the east of the Chersonesus of Gold, and is calls Succadan. The stones fetched from thence are usually clear and of a good water, and almost all bright and brisk, whereof no other reason can be given, but that they are found at the bottom of a river amongst sand which is pure, and has no mixture, or tincture of other earth, as in other places. These stones are not discovered till after the waters which fall like huge torrents from the mountains, are all passed, and men have much to do to attain them, since few persons go to traffic in this isle; and forasmuch as the inhabitants do fall upon strangers who come ashore, unless it be by a particular favor. Besides that, the Queen does rarely permit any to transport them; and so soon as ever any one hath found one of them they are obliged to bring it to her. Yet for all that they pass up and down, and now and then the Hollanders buy them in Batavia. Some few are found there, but the largest do not exceed five carats, although in the year 1648, there was one to be sold in Batavia of 22 carats. I have made mention of the Queen of Borneo, and not of the King, because that the isle is always commanded by a woman, for that people, who will have no prince but what is legitimate, would not be otherwise assured of the birth of males, but can not doubt of those of the females, who are necessarily of the blood royal on their mother's side, she never marrying, yet having always the command."

Sources:
Herzfeld, Ernst, The World of Zoroaster
Kunz, George Frederick, The Curious Lore of Precious Stones
Laufer, Berthold, The Diamond
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Last Updated on June 4, 2001 by Lisa and Sylvia.