Syamantaka maNi origin

The opening of the syamantaka episode in the oldest surviving harivaMsha manuscripts accepted as “critical” in the Pune edition. Note, that unlike the popular narrative, the maNi was obtained from the ocean & not the sun.+++(5)+++ In this regard it might be seen as something close to the atharvavedic idea of the mother-of-pearl or pearl maNi.

How does one etymologize syamantaka? I conjecture that it is related to syamana/syam[iI]k[aA] whose meanings themselves are bit murky but in reliable context could relate to the sea or a small invertebrate. Thus, we see syamantaka as being a potential name for something of molluscan origin (pearl) though we cannot rule out a coral.

One wonders if the whole sUrya connection simply emerged from a misreading of the original samudrAt or was a later elaboration or was an independent tradition. Some versions of the harivaMsha manuscripts appear to have “sa sUryAt” instead of samudrAt had have a lengthy insertion missing in older manuscripts trying to explain the sUrya connection. This could reflect an attempt to make the harivaMsha align with the other paurAnika traditions.