Healing and Hypnotherapy Volume - 4, issue 12, 1 June 2020 | Page 37

the carob seed. Carob seeds have a small horn-like protrusion. All carob
seeds are more or less of the same weight and hence could be used as a
light weight measure for measuring small and light items such as gemstones.
This concept of using carob seeds to measure gemstones is also traceable to
India or the traditional Indian measure for diamonds was ratti where ratti is
also a seed.
The ratti seed is generally red with a black dot. They are also called gunja in
Sanskrit and gurivinta in some of the South Indian languages. They are
closely associated with Krishna temples in the Kerala tradition.
Using ratti seed or in some cases, the real diamond itself, as the eye of idols,
has been a practice of the land.
One of the earliest evidence of the importance given to diamonds and their
mining in India can be gathered from the Arthashastra, a treatise on
governance, administration, law, politics, strategy, and defence. The
Arthashastra was authored by one of India’s renowned statesmen of the 4th
century BCE, popularly known as Kautilya and Chanakya.
Diamonds find a specific mention among this list as a precious commodity for
trade, treasury, savings, and adornment in the 4th century BCE itself.
The Arthashastra was produced around 336 BCE, the same time when
Alexander, the Macedonian had invaded and retreated from the North
Western parts of India. This work is at the same time so detailed as within
India as well as outside.
So much for the writings of the colonial historians, that India became civilised
due to the visit of the Greeks. For, such a profound framework for governance
of a land, especially based on indigenous Indian ethos as well as knowledge
of the geography of entire India and overseas, could not have come about,
without it having been practiced by generations of governments before
Kautilya.
Pliny & Ptolemy knew it right
Most of the legendary diamonds of today were mined in India and owned by
different kings and temples of India till the 1700s.
Marco Polo, the Italian adventurer who visited India in 1295 CE, documenting
what he saw and learned during his visit to India. He writes, “The bigger