These three words appear on the same tag more or less at random. To the people who make the pieces they mean quite different things, and the difference is often several times the price.

Polki is a stone

Polki is uncut natural diamond — the rough crystal, cleaved and polished on its natural faces rather than faceted to a modern brilliant cut. It glows rather than sparkles, because it is returning light from irregular surfaces. It is real diamond, and it is priced as such.

Kundan is a method

Kundan is the technique of setting stones with highly refined, almost pure gold foil pressed around them at room temperature. The gold is soft enough to be worked cold, which is what allows a stone to be held without heat near it. A kundan setting can hold polki — or glass.

Jadau is the whole tradition

Jadau is the broader Mughal-era craft of embedding stones into gold this way, usually with enamel — meenakari — on the reverse. A jadau piece is typically made by four specialists: the ghaat maker who forms the frame, the meenakar who enamels, the jadiya who sets, and the patua who strings.

“Kundan tells you how it was set. Polki tells you what was set. Only one of those is a diamond.”