shoots, perhaps in the neighbourhood of the Jabalpur district.2 The Kosala with which the commentator identifies Madhyamarāṣṭra must mean southern Kosala, or Mah kosala, as northern Kosala (modern Oudh) has never been regarded as producing diamonds. Mahākosala, with its ancient capitals of Manipura and Ratnapura (both of which names mean "city of gems") lay to the north of Andhra and Kalinga, and probably included the head-waters of the Ib, Sankh and Southern Koel.

The Ratnaparikṣa of Buddhabhaṭṭa 3 names eight diamond localities, viz. (1) Surastra, (2) Haima, (3) Matanga, (4) Paundra, (5) Kalinga, (6) Kosala, (7) Vainya river and (8) Sūrpārā.1 Varabamihira, in the Bṛhatsamhita, mentions the same names. In the Agastimata, Vanga takes the place of Matanga apparently; otherwise the list is similar. The Navaratnaparikṣā substitutes Vairagara for the Vainya or Veņa river, thus clearly pointing to the well-known Wairagarh mine. Other works on gems name six localities, like Kautilya; but the Such records as I have been able to consult are unanimous in regarding the Kalinga and Kosala mines as the oldest (of the kṛta age), and those of Surpara and the Vainya

names vary.

as the newest (kali age).

Ptolemy mentions that the country "below" the Ouxentos mountains was occupied by the Drilophyllitai. Further east, towards, or up to, the Ganges were the Kokkonagai. Towards the Ganges also were the Sabarai, "among whom the diamond is found in great abundance". The Ouxentos represents the

The termination ka is merely an affix. It is to be noted that the country near Jabalpur was called Garh-Katanga by Muhammadan historians (Blochmann Ain-i-Akbari, I, 367, n. 2). This was the country of the old Gond dynasty, who had their capital at Garh Mandla. There are villages called Katanga and Katangi still in this vicinity, a river named Katui, and also, which is perhaps significant, a river called the Hiran. The Tripura of the commentator is possibly the old place called Tripura or Tripuci, now Tewar, in the same vicinity.

Incorporated in the Purva khanda of the Garuḍa Purāṇa,

♦ In the Bṛhatsaṁhitā (lxxx. 6) black diamonds are said to be found at Sürpara. It is possible that this is not the Surpāra represented by the modern Sopara in the Thana district, though Kautilya's Sabharaṣṭra would seem to point in this direction,

eastern extension of the Vindhyas. The name Drilophyllitai has hitherto been a puzzle. Kokkonagai possibly represents Khukranāgāḥ, i.e. the hillmen of Khukra, the old name of the country round about Ranchi (the Kokra or Kokerah of Muhammadan and later times), and still the name of a pargana, and of a village which was evidently once a place of importance, being the seat of the Raja of Chutia Nagpur, and know as Khukrugarh. This identification is the more probable in that Ptolemy names Dosara as their town, and this place has been identified by Lassen with Doisa (Doisanagar on the latest Survey sheets), about 40 miles S-W. of Ranchi and 18 miles S-W. of Khura.

The Sabarai are unquestionably the Sabaraḥ of the Sanskrit texts (placed therein to the south-east of Madhyadeśa), and the Savaras of the present day, who are still found in Vizagapatam, Ganjam, the Orissa States, Singhbhum and Sambalpur, and in the Central Provinces as far west as Damoh and Saugor. It seems probable that in the first centuries of the Christian era they occupied the inland hill and jungle country to the south and south-east of what is now the Ranchi district, watered by the Brahmani and its tributaries and by the Ib and other tributaries of the Mahanadi.

Chapter I) names between Godavari

Ptolemy, in his Geography (Book VII. four rivers as falling into the Bay of Bengal Point and the delta of the Ganges, viz. Manadas (or Manada), Tyndis, Dosaran and Adamas; and these are marked on his map in the same order. The Manadas, it is generally agreed, represents the Mahanadi. The Tyndis and Dosaron have not yet been satisfactorily identified. The Adamas ("diamond" river) has been identified by Lassen with the Suvarṇarekhā and by Sir H. Yule with the Vaitarani. The former is more probably correct, for reasons that need not be detailed here. However this may be, the name Adamas is clearly not the transcription in Greek of an Indian name, but is simply the Greek word for diamond, either because diamonds were traditionally found in its bed or because it flowed through the

country of the Sabaras, where diamonds were found in abundance. Now the headwaters of the Suvarṇarekha rise to the west and north-west of Ranchi. Some of its tributaries issue from the hills of Mayurbhanj; others come from the gold-bearing tracts of western Singhbhum, from within a few miles of streams that flow, on the other side of the watershed, into the Southern Koel, and where names like Sonapet, Sonāwā, etc. express the occurrence of gold. As we shall see later, there is no record of diamonds having ever been found in the beds of the Suvarnarekha and its tributaries, but this river issued from the lands of the raja of Khukra (afterwards called Chutia Nagpur) which we know to have been diamond-bearing from the accounts of the Muhammadan historians, from Jahangir's own memoirs, and from numerous other records.

Many travellers, e.g. Marco Polo, Nicolo de' Conti, Cesare di Federici and William Methold, write of the occurrence of diamonds in India, but they refer to the so-called Golconda mines, i.e. the mines on either side of the Kistna river between Bellary and Ellore. We are not concerned with these mines in the present article, in which attention will be confined to localities falling within the existing province of Bihar and Orissa. These may be roughly divided into two areas, viz. (1) the Mahanadi, Mand and Ib valleys and (2) the basins of the Sankh and Southern Koel, tributaries of the Brahmani." As to the first area we have abundant evidence of the finding of diamonds, at all events between the mouths of the Ib and the Mand, which has been set forth in some detail by V. Ball in his Economic Geology (pp. 30-37). Ball does not, however, include l'Escot among the visitors to this locality, though, as we shall see hereafter, it must have been to Sambalpur that he went in 1657. Besides his account, we have the records of T. Motte (1766), Dr. Voysey (1823), Surgeon P. Breton (1825), M. Kittoe (1838), J. R. Ouseley (1840), Dr. Short (1855) and the notices contained in Gazetteers, etc. Ball was

'I omit reference to the finding of minute diamonds in the Kalahandi State (v. Memoirs Geol, Sur. India, Vol. 83, Pt. 3, p. 21).

inclined to regard the Mahanadi as Ptolemy's Adamas river; but this is improbable, though Gibbon, when referring to diamonds as among the objects of Oriental traffic brought to Rome (Chap. II), adds a note: "As well as we can compare ancient with modern geography, Rome was supplied with diamonds from the mine of Sumelpur, in Bengal."

In the Sommario di Regni, written by an unnamed Portuguese traveller probably about 1535, and published by Ramusio in his famous Navigationi e Viaggi (1550-59), it is stated that good diamonds are found in the territory of the king of Orissa. Buno, in one of his notes to P. Cluverius' Introductio in universam Geographiam (the first edition of which appeared in 1629) states that Ramana, then regarded as the capital of Orissa, was a famous emporium for ebony and gems, the trade in diamonds being specially celebrated.

As to the second area, the evidence is far less specific. Nearly all the Sanskrit texts dealing with gems name Kosala as one of the localities where diamonds were found. This can only mean Mahākosala, or Dakşina Kosala, the ancient capital of which was Ratnapura (modera Ratnapur), some 14 miles north of Bilaspur. We know that Sambalpur was at one time included within Daksina Kosala; but if the diamonds of the Sambalpur area were reckoned as coming from Dakṣina Kosala, a question arises as to what was considered to be the diamondbearing tract in Kalinga, which is differentiated from that of Kosala." Dakṣina Kosala would also include the basins of the Mand and Ib, and perhaps also those of the Sankh and Southern Koel, all of which have been reputed to be diamondiferous. Under this area perhaps attention may be invited to the A still older name appears to have been Manipur. Both these names mean "city of gems".

Where the Kosala and Kalinga mines are differentiated, I would understand Kosala as comprising the Sambalpur ce Chutia Nagpur area, and Kalinga as referring to the so-called Golconda mines, i.e. to the mines in the neighbour. hood of Bezwada, Kandapalli and Ellore, between the estuaries of the Godavari and Kistnā, an area which was no doubt at one time included within ancient Kalifigs in its wider application.

8

following passage in the Ain-i- Akbari (Vol. II, Jarrett's translation, p. 125):-"In the Sarkar of Madaran is a place called Harpah in which there is a diamond mine producing chiefly very small stones." I have not yet been able to identify this site; but Madaran was the most south-westerly of the sarkārs of Suba Bangala, stretching according to Beames, from what is now the southern corner of the Santal Parganas to the junction of the Rūpnārāyaṇ and Hūglī, and including the country watered by lower courses of the Damodar and Dhalkisor and extending westwards to the neighbourhood of Garhbeta. But, the western boundary marching with Jharkhand was doubtless a very elastic one, and may have even extended as far as Khukra. In fact the knowledge of this mine may have been derived from the expedition under Shahbaz Khan against the raja of " Kokrah", Madhu Singh, in 1585.

We find no specific mention of diamonds being found in Chutia Nagpur till the time of Jahangir. That emperor relates in his own memoirs that towards the end of 1615 or beginning of 1616 news was brought him of the "conquest of the province of Khokhara and the acquisition of the diamond mines" by Ibrahim Khan (the emperor's brother-in-law and Subadar of Bihar). The account given, being of special interest, is quoted below.

"This province is one of the dependencies of the Subah of Behar and Patna. There is a river there from which they procure diamonds. At the season when there is little water, there are pools and water-holes, and it has become known by experience to those who are employed in this work that above every water-hole in which there are diamonds, there are crowds. of flying animals of the nature of gnats, and which in the language of India they call jhingā (?). Keeping the bed of the stream in sight as far as it is accessible, they make a collection

of stones (sangchin) round the water-holes. After this they empty the water-holes with spades and shovels to the extent of a yard or 14 yards and dig up the area. They find among the

J.R.A.S., 1896, p. 88 (map).