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344 CURIOUS LORE OP PRECIOUS STONES
light
emitted by this stone. It is not easy to determine the reason that
induced the Hindus to dedicate the diamond to the planet Venus rather
than to the Sun or to the Moon. However, as the most brilliant of the
planets, Venus was not unworthy of the honor, and if we substitute the
Goddess of Love for her planet, it seems quite appropriate that she
should be adorned with the most brilliant of precious stones. Certainly
these sparkling gems are often enough offered at the shrine of Venus in
our own day, and they often serve to win the good graces of the
divinity to whom they are presented.
The Sanskrit name for the sapphire, nila, signifies "blue," so that, as the topaz is the "yellow stone" par excellence, the sapphire is the blue stone (nilaçman). In
both cases the name indicates a variety of corundum, distinguished
merely by the coloring matter. As a talisman the Hindus believed that
the sapphire rendered the planet Saturn favorable to the wearer, an
important consideration from the astrological point of view, for
Saturn's influence was generally supposed to be unfavorable. The
Hindus distinguished four classes of sapphires, corresponding to the
four castes : Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras. The respective
sapphires were light blue, reddish blue, yellowish blue, and dark
blue. The same distinction is made in the case of the diamond, and a
like rule applies to both stones, namely, that only the appropriate
stone should be worn by the members of each caste, in order to profit
by the virtues inherent in the sapphire or diamond.9
One of the Sanskrit appellations of the hyacinth (zircon) is râhuratna,—that is, the jewel dedicated to the mysterious "dragon," that was supposed to be the
" Garbe, " Die indische Mineralien,", Naharari's Kâjanighantu, Varga XIII, Leipzig, 1882, p. 83.
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