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Religious Uses: Pagan, Hebrew, and Christian: Questions

It is not only in the works of the Fathers of the Christian Church that we find precious stones used as similes of religious virtue, in Buddhist writings also we have examples of this. In the "Questions of King Milinda," composed perhaps as early as the third century of our era, occur the following passages: ("The Questions of King Milinda," tr. from the Pali by T. W. Rhys Davids, vol. ii, Oxford, 1894.) Just, O King, as the diamond is pure throughout; just so, O King, should the strenuous Bhikshu, earnest in effort, be perfectly pure in his means of livelihood. This, O King, is the first quality of the diamond he ought to have.