Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/101

 much as in their jewelry and jewelled arms, which are not only fabricated of the richest and rarest materials, but wrought likewise with all the elaborateness, delicacy, and splendour of design within the reach of art Megasthenes was struck by the contrast of their love of sumptuous ornament, to the general simplicity of their lives.

The finest gemmed and enamelled jewelry in India is that of Cashmere and the Panjab, the Aryan type of which extends across Rajputana to Delhi and Central India, and in a debased meretricious form throughout Bengal. It consists of tires, aigrettes, and other ornaments for the head, and for hanging over the fore- head ; earrings and ear-chains, and studs of the seventi flower : nose- rings and nose-studs ; necklaces, made up, some [Plate 44] of chains of pearls and gems, falling on the breast almost like a stomacher of gems, and others [Plate 45] of tablets of gold set with precious stones, strung together by short strings of mixed pearls and tur- quoises, with a large pendant hanging from the middle, gemmed in front, and exquisitely enamelled, like all the rest of this necklace, or rather collar, at the back ; and armlets, bracelets, rings, and anklets ; all in never ending variations of form, and of the richest and loveliest effects in pearl, turquoise, enamel, ruby, diamond, sapphire, topaz, and emerald. The bracelets often end in the head of some wild beast, like the bracelets of the Assyrian sculptures; and the plaques are sometimes enamelled at the back with birds or beasts affrontc on either side of the taper “cypress” tree, or else some wide-spreading tree, identical, probably, with the Asher ah or " Horn the symbol of Asshur y connected with the worship of Astoreth or Astarte, and trans- lated in the Bible by the word “ grove, 1 ” or “groves.” The long dangling necklaces worn by the women are called lala 7 iti y i.e. “ danglers,” or “ dalliers,” and mohanmala, i.e . “ garlands or spells of enchantment.”

The jewelry of Cashmere is identical with that of the rest cf the Panjab in form, but what I have seen of it has been in