Burning Lenses in Ancient India

 Burning Lenses in Ancient India

Burning Lenses are crystals or glasses that are shaped in a way to concentrate light from a source to a fingle point such that what ever you are shining the light upon catches fire or burns. Think about those experiments where you use  a magnifying glass to concentrate sunlight on a paper to burn it.

The source for a lot of the information I am about to present in this article comes from a scholar named Berthold Laufer, who wrote a paper on burning crystals in China and India, appropriately titled: "Optical Lenses: I. Burning-Lenses in China and India".  

Archemedes is said to have used a mirror to focus sunlight on enemy ships to set them on fire.  An old example of burning crystal (not glass) is mentioned by Airstophenes (450-385 B.C.), but according to Laufer, the burning crystal was a rare and miraculous comodoty during his time. It was during the late period of classical antiquity (just before 1st Century BC) that burning crystals became well known. However, Laufer does conclude that pharmacists would keep these crystals for cuatserization purposes;something alluded to by Pliny[1].

Laufer alludes to Roman poet Helvius Cinna and Strabo, who mentions the occurence of the crystals (in general) in India, but mentions that Theophrastus (372-287 B.C.) alluded to them before [1]. In any case, we are certain that Indians had such crystals before the the Anno Domini era. The question remains as to whether India got the knowledge of burning crystals from Greece. 

Now Laufer mentions how the use concave mirrors, even for cuaterization, was known extensively in China. However, Laufer mentions that burning lenses (crystal or glass) were not known in China until the 7th Century AD, citing India as the potential source, via the Indonesian islands [1]. 

Burning crystals in Sanskrit was agnimani or "fire jewel" and is of the stone called suryakanti or "beloved of the sun". Such is mentioned in the Navaratnapariksha [1].


Kesharaswamin, an 8th century commentor of the Amarakosha, mention the suryakanta as agnimani [2]:

sūryakāntastvagnimaṇirvaiḍūryaṃ bālabāyajam

But the Suryakanta is the fire-gem (agnimani) and the Beryll is bālabāyaja.  


Narahari of Kashmir wrote in the begining of the 15th Century that to test a precious stone, one should check to see if it induces fire, and then goes on to mention its use medciclaly. Here is a quote that Laufer cites [1]: 

"If it is smooth, pure, without fissures and flaws in the in-
terior, if polished so tllat it displays the clearness of the sky, and if
from contact with solar rays fire sprinigs from it, it is praised as
genuine" 


Now Laufer says that India must have borrowed the knowledge of burning crystals from somewhere else because there is no older history of burning lenses in ancient India, and he cites the fire kindling practices in the Vedic texts to show that Vedic Indians were not acquainted with burning lenses. He does rule out a Mesopotamian borrowing, citing how they weren't found throught the ancient Persian Empire. He also rules out Alexander's campaign as the source of burning crystals because they find appearence in the Middle Ages. Laufer already ruled out the Arabs. Laufer then concludes that India got burning crystals from the Hellenized eastern part of the Roman empire during the Gupta era [1]    

Contrary to Laufer's belief that burning crystals were not known in Vedic India, we do have evidence of the use of crystals to start a fire during the Vedic age. It comes from a small passage in the Nirukta of of Yaska [3], which dates a century or two before the Buddha.

Refer to Yaksha Nirukta 7.23:


Atha adityAt | udIci prathamasamAVrtta Aditye kamsam vA maNim vA parimRjya pratikhare yatra shuSkagomayam asaMsparshyan dhArayati tatpradIpyate| saH ayam eva sampadyate.


             "Now from the sun| Having washed copper or a jewel he holds it towards heaven in the sun which had revolved here northward, at where dry cow-dung is there without touching it. It lights . He obtains that."



Therefore, the use of burning crystals to light a fire was known to India since the Vedic period, and doesn't owe its knowledge to Mespotamia, Greece, nor Rome. We are to marvel at the amusing wit that Indians had, whcih allowed them, at least in their mind, to bring the fire os the Sun to the earth.   


Citations:

1) https://www.jstor.org/stable/4526448 ("Optical Lenses: I. Burning-Lenses in China and India")
2) https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/essay/amarakoshodghatana-of-kshirasvamin-study/d/doc1151577.html
3) https://archive.org/details/nighantuniruktao00yaskuoft (pg 188)

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