This optical material has particles containing rare earth phosphate. &ngr;d is 30 to 100 and &Dgr;&thetas;g,F as defined by formula (1) is -0.10 to -0.01, where &ngr;d is the Abbe number of the particles and &thetas;g,F to be the partial dispersion ratio. The rare earth phosphate preferably has a monoclinic crystal structure. The rare earth phosphate is preferably a phosphate of at least one rare earth element selected from La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Pm, Sm, Eu and Gd. &Dgr;&thetas;g,F=&thetas;g,F-(-1.665×10-7&ngr;d 3+5.213×10-5&ngr;d 2-5.656×10-3&ngr;d+0.7278)... (1)