Читать книгу The Book of the Pearl. The history, art, science, and industry of the queen of gems онлайн

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In a personal memorandum, Dr. A. V. Williams Jackson, professor of Indo-Iranian languages in Columbia University, states that it is generally supposed that the Vedas, the oldest sacred books of the Brahmans, contain several allusions to pearl decorations a millennium or more before the Christian era, as the word krisana and its derivatives—which occur a half dozen times in the Rigveda, the oldest of the Vedas—are generally translated as signifying “pearl.” Even if this interpretation of the term be called into question on the ground that the Hindus of the Panjab were not well acquainted with the sea, there can be little or no doubt that the Atharvaveda, at least five hundred years before the Christian era, alludes to an amulet made of pearls and used as a sort of talisman in a hymn^[1] of magic formulas.

Those two great epics of ancient India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, refer to pearls. The Ramayana speaks of a necklace of twenty-seven pearls, and has pearl drillers to accompany a great military expedition.^[2] An old myth recounts the offerings made by the elements as gifts worthy of the deity: the air offered the rainbow, the fire a meteor, the earth a ruby, and the sea a pearl. The rainbow formed a halo about the god, the meteor served as a lamp, the ruby decorated the forehead, and the pearl was worn upon the heart.