Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/98

 carpeted floor. In the Mahabharata, at the gambling match at Hastinapura, Yudhisthira is described as losing first u a very beautiful pearl ; next a bag containing a thousand pieces of gold ; next a piece of gold so pure that it was soft as wax ; next a chariot set with jewels, and hung all round with golden bells ; next 1,000 war elephants with golden howdahs set with diamonds; next 100,000 slaves addressed in good garments; next 100,000 beautiful slave girls, adorned from head to foot with golden ornaments ; next all the remainder of his goods ; next all his cattle ; and then his whole kingdom, excepting only the lands he had granted to the Brahmans. ,, Sudraka, the royal author of the Hindu drama of “ The Toy Cart,” and who lived in the first century b.c. or a.d., describes the jeweller’s ateliei * attached to the house of a courtesan : — “ Where skilful artists were examining pearls, topazes, emeralds, sapphires, lapis-lazuli, coral and other jewels. Some set rubies in gold, some string gold beads in colored thread” [exactly as is done nowj, “some string pearls, some grind lapis lazuli, some cut shells, and some turn and pierce coral.”

The old vocabulary of Amara Sinha, one of the “ nine gems ” of the Court of Vicramaditya, b.c. 56 — a.d., quoted by Rajendralala Mitra, gives a long list of names for crowns, crests, and tiaras for the head ; of rings, flowers, and bosses for the ears ; of necklaces of from one to one hundred rows of gems ; of all shapes and patterns of armlets and bracelets ; of zones and girdles for the waists of men and women ; of anklets, and other ornaments for the legs; and of rings for the fingers, and bells for the toes ; and all the names it gives are still the current names of Hindu jewelry in India. The sculptures of Sanchi and Bharhut, and Amravati, and the Ajanta cave paintings, and the sculptures of Orissa [Bhuvaneswar] prove that in its forms also Hindu jewelry has remained unaltered during at least the last two thousand years. The ornaments of Sanchi and Bharhut are of the same archaic character as those still made in Central India and the