Gemstones

Neelam is the fastest-acting and most feared stone in the navratna, and both halves of that reputation are earned. Shani…

Tilt a real lehsunia under a single light and a blade of white travels across the dome, splitting the stone into halves …

A diamond is pure carbon that spent a billion years under enough pressure to forget it was ever soot. Shukra governs the…

Hold an emerald to the light and you see what the trade calls the jardin — the garden, a tangle of internal fractures th…

Gomed looks like honey with a storm inside it — a warm cinnamon garnet whose interior swirls with a treacly, heat-wave s…

Alone among the navratna, the pearl was never mined — it was grown, slowly, by a living creature around an irritation it…

Red coral is not a mineral. It is the skeleton of a colony of animals that spent decades building a branch in the dark, …

A ruby is a piece of concentrated daylight. Traditionally worn to strengthen Surya — the graha of the self, the father, …

Pukhraj is the most prescribed gemstone in India, and that is the first thing worth knowing about it. Brihaspati — teach…