NAVARATNA- THE KEY TO THE STONES OF HOSHEN

           

           M.L.GLIKMAN, Israel

          A  few  thousand  years have passed since the Exodus of the Jews from  Egypt, but the question of the High Priest's breastplate stones ( HOSHEN) still excites researches  and commentators of the Holy Scriptures. There are 12 names of precious stones in Hebrew  and  dozens of options  for  their  translation into the language of mineralogy.

      In the book of Prophet  Ezekiel, dating  back   to the sixth century BC are mentioned the  nine gems of the Garden of  Eden, protecting (in the  translations " adorned" or "covering ") the King of Tyre (chapter  28, line 13):

  " …in Eden ,the  garden of God,  every precious stone was thy  covering;……" (King James Bible/Cambridge Ed./).

This  is followed by the  names  of the  stones  written in line and grouped into three. Their names are exactly  the  same as  the  names  of  the stones  on Hoshen. 

       אדם  פטדה  ויהלם   תרשיש  שהם  וישפה   ספיר נפך וברקת

   The order of the stones is different  from  Hoshen and three  stones are missing (לשם  שבו   ואחלמה). The Seventy (Septuagint) translation of the book of Prophets into Greek was amended: the number of stones  brought  to 12 and  their order restored according to the Book of Exodus (chapter 28 ,line 17-20).

Regarding  the amount of stones protecting the King of Tyre, G.F.Kunz (1913) wrote that "there is some reason  to attribute a Hindu origin to the nine gems, "the covering " of  the King of Tire, enumerated by Ezekiel" ( p.231).

     A talisman, very popular in India, Burma, Indonesia,  Nepal, Thailand and Sri Lanka, is NAVARATNA. It consists of nine gems- nine conductors of  planetary energy   to a person (each stone is connected to its planet). The ornament can be presented in the form of medallion, ring or bracelet on the arm( see http://www.agt-gems.com/agt-gallery/721.html, etc.).The  rules for manufacturing  this jewelry  item are described in ancient Indian treatises translated and  published in the works of L. Finot(1896),G.F.Kunz (1913), K.A. Nowotny (1969),Harish Johari (1987),R.S.Brown (1995) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navaratna

Ruby is placed  in the  center and the other stones  are placed clockwise (from left  to right) as follows: diamond, pearl , red  coral, hessonite (gomeda),  blue sapphire, cat's eye,  yellow sapphire, emerald. In  addition  to the  basic list of stones it was allowed to use other ,less expensive ones, for  manufacturing  NAVARATNA. They were referred  to in the UPA-RATNA.(http://www.p-g-a.org/9gems-german.html,  etc)

For  subsequent comparative analysis of the talisman we present a list of gems from the  Garden of Eden and  NAVARATNA in the form of table ( see Table1 and 2 ) and then combine them by putting one table over the other ( see Table 3 ).

         Table 1.The gemstones of the  Garden of Eden. King of Tyres  talisman.

יהלם	פטדה	אדם
ישפה	שהם	תרשיש
ברקת	נפך	ספיר

         Table 2. The gemstones of NAVARATNA talisman.

Diamond	Pearl	Coral
Emerald	Ruby	Hessonite
Yellow sapphire	Cat's eye	Sapphire

           Table 3. NARATNA- the key to the nine stones of  Hoshen.

Diamond  יהלם	Pearl  פטדה	Coral אדם
Emerald  ישפה	Ruby שהם	Hessonite תרשיש
Yellow sapphire ברקת	Cat's eye נפך	Sapphire ספיר

            As a result of our graphic calculations ,the lists of the stones on  the two talismans have merged into one, and the  nine gems of the Garden of Eden  obtained  their mineralogical names. Using  the UPA-RATNA  and the methods of historical gemology (gemmochronology) proposed by Бобылев В.В. (2005), we can move on to deciphering the stones of the High Priest's  breastplate in the follow-up study.

           The book  Bamidbar  Rabbah ( www.hebrewbooks.org ) pointed out that each Israeli  tribe had a flag and its colour matched  the stone on the Hoshen ,belonging to this tribe. Let's draw a table (similar to the  Hoshen) and fill in the colours of the   stones on the basis of  "NAVARATNA  key" (see Table 4).

          Table 4. The colours of the  hoshen stones ( according to NAVARATNA key)

ברקת Yellow	פטדה milky-white	אדם red(dark-red)
יהלם White	ספיר blue	נפך sky-blue
אחלמה -------	שבו -------	לשם --------
ישפה Green	שהם red	תרשיש brown-red

     

   The colours of the second row of stones  coincides  with the banners of Judah  (sky-blue -נפך),Issachar (blue- ספיר), Zebulun  (white –יהלם),and, therefore, these  names were placed on  Hoshen in that order. Continuing the reconstruction, we have got the pattern for positioning  of  Israeli tribes' names on the stones of Hoshen (see Table 5).

        Table 5. Placement of the tribes'  names on the Hoshen stones.

Gad	Shimon	Reuben
Zebulun	Issachar	Judah
Benjamin	Menashe	Ephraim
Asher	Naftali	Dan

Reuben has a red flag-אדם, Naftali-the colour of red wine-שהם, Asher- green-ישפה etc.

           Conclusion. When comparing the names of stones on King of Tyre and NAVARATNA talismans, we obtained  the key  to determining  the mineralogical meaning of the Hoshen stones. Using the key ,we created the pattern for positioning the  Israeli tribes'  names on the High Priest breastplate.

            Bibliography.

 1.Бобылев В.В. Камни-самоцветы Библии.Москва,2005

2.Brown R.S. Ancient astrological gemstones talismans.AGT Ltd, 1995

3.Finot Luis. Les lapidaries India.Paris 1896

4.Harish  Johari . Die sanfte  Kraft der edlen Steine .Windpferd Verlagsgeselschaft mbH,1987

5. Kunz G.F. The Curious Lore of Precious Stones. New York, 1913 (1971)

6.Nowotny K.A. Beitrage zur  Geschichte des Weltbildes.1969