As the hardest substance on earth, diamond has come to embody resilience and toughness. The name diamond derives from “adámas,” the ancient Greek word to mean unbreakable. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote that “the hardness of adámas is indescribable, and so too that property whereby it conquers fire and never becomes heated. Hence it derives its name, because, according to the meaning of the term in Greek, it is the unconquerable force.” As early as 4000 BC, ancient Chinese employed diamonds as knives to cut jade and to polish ceremonial stone axes. It was said the Buddha named the book of the Diamond Sutra thus because “its teaching will cut like a diamond blade through worldly illusion to illuminate what is real and everlasting.”
Unlike other crystals, which grow like a salt in stable rock over time, diamonds form on the move. When the earth’s tectonic plates slide beneath one another, carbon-bearing rocks are carried deep into the mantle, where extreme pressure and heat turn them into carbon-rich fluids to be crystallized into diamond. It is speculated there are billions of carats of diamonds underneath, but the only ones reaching the surface arrive by chance. It is through explosive volcanic eruptions of a type of magma known as kimberlite, which originates deep in the mantle and rises through vertical conduits called kimberlite pipes. Like sapphires and rubies, diamonds settle into alluvial deposits, long after the pipes that brought them have worn away by erosion. It is estimated 6 billion diamond carats have been mined since antiquity, making it the least rare among the four precious gemstones, the others being sapphires, rubies, and emeralds.
The One Thousand and One Arabian Nights tales told of Sinbad the Sailor, who was carried by a giant bird to the Valley of Diamonds, which was infested with serpents writhing in between rock boulders. In order to retrieve the precious stones, merchants pitched slabs of raw mutton meat into the ravine. The diamonds became embedded in the meat, and then the giant bird, while hunting for food, would fly down and carry the meat out of the ravine. Diamonds are in fact hydrophobic and lipophilic, meaning they repel water and attract fat, unlike other gemstones. Thus a piece of meat would pick up diamonds while leaving others behind.
Raw diamonds are dull and greasy looking. It is through cutting and polishing processes and techniques that bring out their beauty as gemstones. Because light creates scintillation dynamically while passing through its transparent body, cutting diamond is likened to a three dimensional strategy game, where every cutting decision affects everything else down the line, no matter how far away it may be. A diamond’s beauty is judged by its brilliance and fire. Fire is the diamond’s ability to split white light into rainbow colors: the greater the separation between colors, the greater the fire. Brilliance is the light fractions that the diamond reflects back to our eyes: the more light returned, the higher the brilliance. Buddhist literature depicts the hell realm to exist between two great diamond mountain ranges. For their brilliance reflects the sun and moon light so completely, between these two mountain ranges lies darkness.
In 1477, the first diamond wedding ring was given to Mary of Burgundy upon her marriage to Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Today, using diamonds to express love can pass beyond life itself, as cutting-edge technologies can convert human remains, which contain plenty of carbon, into lab diamonds. Yet, beside our wish upon foreverness, in this brilliant rock we have also placed our other hopes, fears, and superstitions. In the 14th century it was believed diamond could drive away night spirits because of its ability to light up the darkness. In India, diamond’s mystical properties were classified following the caste system, believed to bring power, friends, success, and good fortunes. And when diplomacy no longer avails, it can even be used to poison the enemy. It was among Queen Catherine de’ Medici’s favorite assassination methods, because it would cause fatal internal damage, yet was difficult to detect. The jewel, as the flower, is beautiful in and of itself. What we see in it is ultimately a reflection of who we are.
hardlyplaying.blog 