Pearls

Pearls are good for those born under the sign of cancer. It is also recommended for those engaged in the educational fields, men of letters, research scholars & scientists, particularly those dealing in atomic energy, politics, engineering, navigation, shipping, sports, law and judiciary, banking, insurance and irrigation departments etc. It can be used for improving one’s memory and retentive power as well as the power of psyche. It is must for those suffering from sleeplessness or for those having ailments of the heart, stomach ulcers, eye problems, hysteria, giddiness, pleurisy, epilepsy, fevers, diabetes and T.B. Those who are lucky to buy good pearls and use them will be blessed by the Almighty with good health and happiness and ability to quickly solve intricate and difficult problems, and to conquer obstacles, coming their way and acquire a greater self confidence.

Pearls inside mollusks

Besides bestowing tools with which to face problems boldly, its use can also be restored to in warding off all evil influences on one’s life, bestowing general prosperity, name and fame and fulfillment of one’s set aims and targets. It can therefore, be worn by one and all without fear or favor. It is recommended for those wishing to have better financial luck and for those Hindu ladies, who find it difficult to find a suitable match. But it should be used in silver or white metal, well polished and be worn on the little finger on Mondays. It is also and ideal stone for those in whose case moon is well placed in their natal charts.

Pearls can be used with advantage for childless couples wishing to have children and ladies suffering for menstrual / uterine disorders.

Pearls use shuns evil influence and protection from difficult environments and blesses the wearer with qualities of perseverance, patience, faith in the maker, purity of mind and reduces sensitiveness. The wearer also develops hatred for anger and violence and the willingness to do public good goes up. It is good for those dealing with affairs of the State, particularly those in the diplomatic services at a senior level. It is also good for those engaged in humanitarian causes, such as those working for hospitals, Red Cross etc. It bestows name and fame, general happiness, success and beauty. It protects from financial losses and ensures gains and success within the range of human possibility. It is an ideal possession for those whose horoscopes have weak Jupiter. Ladies having pimples and wishing to enhance love and beauty, can also us pearl.

The Pearl of Allah/Lao Tzu Pearl

From one of the humblest of life forms, the mollusk comes the pearl -- a gem of unsurpassed beauty and elegance.  Ancient civilizations had many stories to explain the origin of June's birthstone, such as the Greek belief that pearls were the hardened tears of joy that the goddess of love shook from her eyes as she was born from the sea.  According to Arab legend, pearls were formed when oysters were lured from the depths of the ocean by the beautiful moon and then swallowed moonlit dewdrops.  And the Ancient Chinese thought that these gems originated from the brains of dragons. 

The scientific explanation for natural pearls is almost as mystifying as folklore.  When an irritant, such as a small parasite or a fish lodges in the flesh of an oyster, mussel, or clam, a protective substance called "nacre" is produced.  Over years, layer upon layer of shimmering nacre coats the intruder, creating a lustrous pearl.  Natural pearls are relatively rare, so a process evolved in which a piece of shell or bead was placed inside a mollusk to stimulate the production of nacre.  This results in a cultured pearl, which accounts for about 90 per cent of the pearl industry. 

Divers find natural pearls in The Persian Gulf as well as in the waters off Japan, the South Pacific Islands off northern Australia, and the coasts of Panama, Venezuela, and California.  Most of the cultured pearl industry is in Japanese and Australian coastal waters.  These gems come in a variety of colors, from pure white to pink, yellow, gray and black.  They also come in different shapes and sizes. 

Pearls have been a passion and even an obsession of people throughout the ages.  They have been ground up and used in cosmetics and as a medicine to treat heart and stomach conditions.  Some cultures swear by pearls as an aphrodisiac.   These gems have adorned crowns, clothing, and temples, and were said to be a favorite of Cleopatra.   

Only those with royal status once wore pearl jewelry, but eventually these gems were seen among all classes of people.  They continue to be viewed as a mark of taste and refinement as well as a symbol of purity, and they are often given to celebrate a marriage or the birth of a child.  Pearls are nature's perfect gift, suitable for all ages and elegantly worn with everything from jeans to an evening gown.

Almost any shelled mollusk can, by natural processes, produce some kind of "pearl" when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped within the mollusk's mantle folds, but the great majority of these "pearls" are not valued as gemstones. Nacreous pearls, the best-known and most commercially-significant pearls, are primarily produced by two groups of mollus can bivalves or clams. A nacreous pearl is made from layers of nacre, by the same living process as is used in the secretion of the mother of pearl which lines the shell.

A "natural pearl" or "wild pearl" is one that forms without any human intervention at all, in the wild, and is very rare. Many hundreds of pearl oysters or pearl mussels have to be gathered and opened, and thus killed, in order to find even one wild pearl, and for many centuries that was the only way pearls were obtained. This was the main reason why pearls fetched such extraordinary prices in the past. A cultured pearl is formed in a pearl farm, using human intervention as well as natural processes.

South Sea Black Pearl

One family of nacreous pearl bivalves – the pearl oyster – lives in the sea, while the other – a very different group of bivalves – lives in freshwater; these are the river mussels such as the freshwater pearl mussel. Saltwater pearls can grow in several species of marine pearl oysters in the family Pteriidae. Freshwater pearls grow within certain (but by no means all) species of freshwater mussels in the order Unionida, the families Unionidae and Margaritiferidae.

Since the development of pearl culture technology, the black pearl oyster found in Tahiti and many other Pacific Island areas has been extensively used for producing cultured pearls. The rarity of the black cultured pearl is now a "comparative" issue. The black cultured pearl is rare when compared to Chinese freshwater cultured pearls, and Japanese and Chinese akoya cultured pearls, and is more valuable than these pearls. However, it is more abundant than the South Sea pearl, which is more valuable than the black cultured pearl. This is simply because the black pearl oyster Pinctada margaritifera is far more abundant than the elusive, rare, and larger south sea pearl oyster Pinctada maxima, which cannot be found in lagoons, but which must be dived for in a rare number of deep ocean habitats or grown in hatcheries. In fact Black pearls are very rarely black: they are usually shades of green, purple, aubergine, blue, grey, silver or peacock (a mix of several shades, like a peacock's feather) Black cultured pearls from the black pearl oyster – Pinctada margaritifera – are not South Sea pearls, although they are often mistakenly described as black South Sea pearls. In the absence of an official definition for the pearl from the black oyster, these pearls are usually referred to as "black Tahitian pearls".

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The correct definition of a South Sea pearl – as described by CIBJO and GIA – is a pearl produced by the Pinctada maxima pearl oyster. South Sea pearls are the color of their host Pinctada maxima oyster – and can be white, silver, pink, gold, cream, and any combination of these basic colors, including overtones of the various colors of the rainbow displayed in the pearl nacre of the oyster shell itself.

South Sea Pearls are produced in various parts of the world. White ones tend to come from the Broome area of Australia while golden ones are from the Philippines Pearls are also produced in the Cook Islands and one farm in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, from Concha Nácar , the rainbow lipped oyster. These pearls fluoresce red under UV light.

Pearls come in eight basic shapes: round, semi-round, button, drop, pear, oval, baroque, and circled. Perfectly round pearls are the rarest and most valuable shape. Semi-rounds are also used in necklaces or in pieces where the shape of the pearl can be disguised to look like it is a perfectly round pearl. Button pearls are like a slightly flattened round pearl and can also make a necklace, but are more often used in single pendants or earrings where the back half of the pearl is covered, making it look like a larger, and rounder pearl.

Miscellaneous Pearl Shapes

In general, cultured pearls are less valuable than natural pearls, whereas imitation pearls almost have no value. One way that jewelers can determine whether a pearl is cultured or natural is to have a gem lab perform an x-ray of the pearl. If the x-ray reveals a nucleus, the pearl is likely a bead-nucleated saltwater pearl. If no nucleus is present, but irregular and small dark inner spots indicating a cavity are visible, combined with concentric rings of organic substance, the pearl is likely a cultured freshwater. Cultured freshwater pearls can often be confused for natural pearls which present as homogeneous pictures which continuously darken toward the surface of the pearl. Natural pearls will often show larger cavities where organic matter has dried out and decomposed.  Drop and pear shaped pearls are sometimes referred to as teardrop pearls and are most often seen in earrings, pendants, or as a center pearl in a necklace. Baroque pearls have a different appeal; they are often highly irregular with unique and interesting shapes. They are also commonly seen in necklaces. Circled pearls are characterized by concentric ridges, or rings, around the body of the pearl.

Some imitation pearls are simply made of mother-of-pearl, coral or conch shell, while others are made from glass and are coated with a solution containing fish scales called essence d'Orient. Although imitation pearls look the part, they do not have the same weight or smoothness as real pearls, and their luster will also dim greatly.

It is said that in order to keep the pearls in good condition, you need to wear them. Natural skin oils help to keep them live and lustrous. If pearls are not worn for a long periods of time, its natural sheen can dull and sometimes turns dark red. Although natural skin oils are good for pearls, but perspiration is not as it is acidic.

Don't store pearls in an airtight container or plastic bag, as pearls need to breath and respond to natural humidity changes. Pearls are also vulnerable to scratches and keep pearls away from vinegar, hair spray, cosmetics, perfume and acidic substances that could cause spots or blotches (for all jewelry, not just pearls).

Hindu scriptures

"cloud pearl"

The Hindu tradition describes the sacred Nine Pearls which were first documented in the Garuda Purana, one of the books of the Hindu mythology. Ayurveda contains references to pearl powder as a stimulant of digestion and to treat mental ailments. According to Marco Polo, the kings of Malabar wore a necklace of 108 rubies and 108 precious pearls which was given from one generation of kings to the next. The reason was that every king had to say 108 prayers every morning and every evening.^[11] At least until the beginning of the 20th century it was a Hindu custom to present a completely new, undrilled pearl and pierce it during the ceremony.

Lord Vishnu

The Pearl or Mukta in Sanskrit is also associated with many Hindu deities. The most famous being the Koustubha which Lord Vishnu wears on his chest. Apart from religious connotations, stories and folklore abound of pearls occurring in snakes, the Naaga Mani, and elephants, the Gaja Mukta.

Hebrew Scriptures

According to Rebbenu Bachya, the word Yahalom in the verse Exodus 28:18 means "pearl" and was the stone on the Hoshen representing the tribe of Zebulun. This is generally disputed among scholars, particularly since the word in question in most manuscripts is actually Yasepheh - the word from which jasper derives; scholars think that refers to green jasper (the rarest and most prized form in early times) rather than red jasper (the most common form). Yahalom is usually translated by the Septuagint as an "onyx", but sometimes as "beryl" or as "jasper"; onyx only started being mined after the Septuagint was written, so the Septuagint's term "onyx" probably does not mean onyx – onyx is originally an Assyrian word meaning ring, and so could refer to anything used for making rings. Yahalom is similar to a Hebrew word meaning hit hard, so some people think that it means diamond. The variation in possibilities of meaning for this sixth stone in the Hoshen is reflected in different translations of the Bible – the Version translates the sixth stone as diamond, the New International Version translates it as emerald, and the Vulgate translates it as jaspis – meaning jasper. There is a wide range of views among traditional sources about which tribe the stone refers to.

New Testament scriptures

In a Christian New Testament parable, Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to a "pearl of great price" in Matthew 13: 45-46. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly (fine) pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."

The language of symbolism was in common use around the time of Jesus Christ; most people were familiar with the symbolic meanings. The circle is a symbol of God because it has no beginning and no end. The circle or pearl was considered to represent Love, Knowledge (the combination of equal amounts of Love and Knowledge is a symbol of Wisdom, the 2 circles intertwined (owl eyes) is symbolic of Wisdom. Some other pearls are Truth, and Faith.

The twelve gates of the New Jerusalem are reportedly each made of a single pearl in Revelation 21:21, that is, the Pearly Gates. "And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every gate was of one pearl: and the streets of the city were pure gold, as if transparent glass."

Holy things are compared to pearls in Matthew 7:6. "Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you."

Pearls are also found in numerous references showing the wickedness and pride of a people, as in Revelation 18:16. "And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!"

Islamic scriptures

The Qur'an often mentions that dwellers of paradise will be adorned with pearls:

22:23 God will admit those who believe and work righteous deeds, to Gardens beneath which rivers flow: they shall be adorned therein with bracelets of gold and pearls; and their garments there will be of silk.

35:33 Gardens of Eternity will they enter: therein will they be adorned with bracelets of gold and pearls; and their garments there will be of silk.

The handsome young boys in paradise are similarly depicted:

52:24 Round about them will serve, [devoted] to them, youths [handsome] as pearls well-guarded.

Other scriptures

The metaphor of a pearl appears in the longer Hymn of the Pearl, a poem respected for its high literary quality, and use of layered theological metaphor, found within one of the texts of Gnosticism.

The Pearl of Great Price is a book of scripture in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.