160 BURIED TREASURE book III
if
he has no money buried in the earth. I remember one day buying in
India, for 600 rupees, an agate cup 6 inches high and of the size of
one of our silver plates.1 The seller assured me that more
than forty years had elapsed since it was buried in the earth, and that
he preserved it to serve his need after death, as it was a matter of
indifference to him whether he buried the cup or the money. On my last
voyage I bought from one of these idolaters sixty-two diamonds weighing
about 6 grains apiece, and on expressing my astonishment at seeing so
fine a parcel, he replied that I need not be surprised seeing that it
took nearly fifty years to accumulate them for his wants after death ;
but his affairs having changed, and having need of money, he had been
obliged to dispose of them. These buried treasures were once of great
service to the Raja, Sivaji, who took up arms against the Great Mogul
and the King of Bijapur. This Raja having taken Callian Bondi,2
a small town of the Kingdom of Bijapur, by the advice of the Brahmans,
who assured him that he would find a considerable amount of buried
treasure, he ordered
on here. See Imperial Gazetteer, iii.
269. Not many years ago about £5,000,000 of hoarded treasure, including
precious stones, was taken from pits and wells sunk in the palace
zenana at Gwalior.
1
This was probably of the kind known to the Romans as the Murrhine cups.
The custom of roasting the agates to develop the colours doubtless gave
rise to the idea that the material was some form of porcelain; while
the suggestion that they were made of fluor-spar may be rejected, as
that mineral is not known in India, and there is no trace of its ever
having been imported or worked by the lapidaries of Western India. But
the true Murrhine cups were probably made of fluor-spar (Ency. Brit., x. 578). The writer of the article Murrhina, Murrea Vasa (Smith, Diet. Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd
ed. ii. 181 f.) discusses the various substances from which they have
been supposed to have been made, and regards the problem as unsolved.
Also see Sir J. Frazer, Pausanias, iv. 255. On the modes of working the so-called Cambay stones, agate and carnelian, see Watt, Commercial Products, 561 f.
2 Kalyan in Thana District, 33 miles north-east of Bombay. Grant Duff {Hist, of the Mahrattas, Oxford,
1921, i. 110) states that it formerly belonged to Ahmadnagar and was
ceded to Bijapur under the treaty of 1636. The northern part extended
from Bhiundl, the ' Bondi' of Tavernier, to Nagothana in Kolaba
District. The other Kalyana, or Kalyani is situated in the Kulbarga
District, Nizam's Dominions. See Bilgrami & Willmott, Hist. Sketch of the Nizam's Dominions, ii. 616 ff. ; Manucci, iv. 425 ; Bernier, 24, 28,
