Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

The Mystery of Koh-i-Noor: Gift or Deceit?

Rani Sircar

"I undertook the charge of it in a funk, and never was so happy in all my life as when I got into the Treasury at Bombay. It was sewn and double-sewn into a belt secured round my waist, and through the belt fastened to a chain round my neck... My stars, what a relief it was to get rid of it..."

"It" was the Kohinoor diamond, and the quotation is from a personal letter written by the Marquis of Dalhousie, Governor General of India who annexed the Kingdom of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The Kohinoor and Darya-i-noor diamonds and Timur’s Ruby had been in the toshakhana, or private treasury of the Maharaja of Punjab, since the time of Maharajah Ranjit Singh (1780-1839). He had wrested both the Kohinoor and Timur’s Ruby from his prisoner Shah Shuja, the vanquished ruler of Afghanistan, and acquired the Darya-i-noor from an ancient family in Hyderabad. All three gems passed into British hands, when, at the end of the second Anglo-Sikh War in March 1849, Punjab was annexed by the East India Company. Dalhousie confiscated all the property of the "State of Lahore" to the "use the Hon’ble East India Company except for the Kohinoor which is appropriated for Queen victoria." However, this gem was, ostensibly, gifted to her by the 12-year old. Maharaja Dalip Singh, surviving minor son of Sher-e-Punjab.

From Dalhousie’s private letters we learn that the court of Directors were "ruffled" that they were thus prevented from presenting the gem to the Queen themselves, and he complains that at the same time "the Daily News and my Lord Ellenborough are indignant because I did not confiscate everything to H.M and censure me for leaving even a Roman Pearl to the court". Poor Dalhousie! His act of homage to his Queen not only made him feel like "a bundle to hay between two asses", but also laid him open to the accusation that by sending the Kohinoor to Queen Victoria, he had sent here something "which always brings misfortune to its possessor".

Dalhousie scoffed at this superstition and countered that all the emperors and kings who had owned the gem were prosperous and mighty, and maintained that when Ranjit Singh asked Shah Shuja, the erstwhile Afghan ruler, the value of the Kohinoor, Shah Shuja had replied, "its value is Good Fortune for whoever possesses: it has been superior to all his enemies." But Dalhousie must also have known the other, more publicised, version of Shah Shuja’s reply, "its price is lathi (heavy stick/blows). My forefathers obtained it by this means; you have obtained it from me with many blows; after you a stronger power will appear and deprive you of it using similar means".

The Kohinoor, the Darya-i-noor and Timur’s Ruby were all shown at the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851. Timur’s Ruby was subsequently presented with other jewels of Queen Victoria by the East India Company. Set in a necklace with three other rubies, it still forms part of the Crown jewels of England. Ranjit Singh had worn the Kohinoor first in an armlet for four or five year, then as a sirpesh, or turban ornament, for about a year; then again in an armlet. Queen Victoria wore it in a brooch, then in a bracelet and, later, in a small circlet specially made for it. Succeeding kings of England had it set in the crowns of their consorts. Re-cut to half its original size, the Kohinoor is at present set in the English Queen Mother’s crown, and both India and Pakistan from time to time assert their claims to it.

As for the Darya-i-noor, it was sold after the Exhibition by public auction in 1852 for the late Nawab Sir Abdul Gunny of Dacca, for, it is believed, Rs. 75,000 by the Government of India auctioneers: Messrs Hamilton and Co., of Calcutta. The gem was again for sale with Hamilton’s in 1912 as the then Nawab Sir Salimullah Khan, G.C.I.E. was in financial difficulties. Hamilton’s describe their Darya-i-noor as "encircled by 10 large magnificent table diamonds of the first water and of the utmost brilliancy, free from all impurities, in a rich gold-enameled setting, in the form of an armlet, and also suited for a head ornament, with 10 pearls." According to them, the Darya-i-noor, had been for ages in the possession of the Mahratta Princes, and afterwards passed, at a cost of 130,000 rupees to the ancestor of Nawab Serajool Moolk, the then Minister of Hyderabad; subsequently, it reached Punjab and was in the possession of the Maharajas Ranjit Singh, Naunihal Singh and Sher Singh".

There seems, however, to have been another Darya-i-noor, for, in a letter to Sir J. R. Dunlop-Smith who was Political Aide-De-Camp to the Secretary of State, J.B. Wood, the Additional Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department, wrote on January 6, 1912: "I may mention in case there may be any misapprehension on the subject that the Darya-i-noor which is with Hamilton’s is quite different from the Darya-i-noor which is the subject of a law-suit between His Majesty and Amir (of Afghanistan), and the family of Amin-ud-Daulah. The latter, it appears, has been in the possession of Amin-ud-Daulah’s family since 1839 when it was taken from Shah Shuja of Afghanistan..."

Queen Victoria, officials of the East India Company, and later, Queen Mary, were all curious about the early history of the three jewels, and interesting stories were unearthed and recorded about them between 1852 and 1912. According to the Iranians both the diamonds were worn by their legendary king, Afrasiab. But that the Kohinoor was in Iran prior to its being taken there from Delhi as part of his loot by Nadir Shah in 1739, is improbable. However the early history of the Kohinoor is shrouded in uncertainties and legends.

It was found in a mine on the banks of the river Godavari during the lifetime of Krishna, and belonged to Karna, king of Anga, one of the heroes of the Mahabharata, says one account. Another attributes the yield to the mines of Golconda. Quarried in the Kollur mines on the banks of the river Krishna, in antiquity, it was misplaced and forgotten for centuries, says a third account. Most accounts agree that the rajas of Malwa owned the Kohinoor for many generations, until Allaudin Khilji appropriated it on becoming emperor at Delhi in 1304, and also that the Ghori, Tughlaq, Syed and Lodi rulers at Delhi all possessed the gem in turn, until Timur took it away from Delhi to Samarkand in 1399. More than three centuries later, Timur’s descendent Babar, the first Moghul emperor in India brought it back to Delhi in the 16th century.

However, a strong tradition identified the Kohinoor with the diamond given to Humayun by Bikramjit, Raja of Gwalior in 1526 after the Battle of Panipat. In his memoirs, Babar writes: "of their own free will they (Bikramjit’s people) presented to Humayun a peshkesh (tribute) of... precious stones. Among these was one famous diamond, which had been acquired by sultan Allaudin. It is so valuable, that a judge of diamonds valued it at half of the daily expense of the whole world... on my arrival Humayun presented to me a peshkesh, and I gave it back to him as a present".

On the other hand, Mir Jumla, a diamond merchant, with concessions to mine, the Kollur mine is supposed to have re-discovered the gem and presented it to Shah Jehan in 1636 or 1637.

It is more or less certain that the Kohinoor was part of the loot that Nadir Shah took away from Delhi to Iran in 1739, and that his son gave it to Ahmed Shah Durrani of Afghanistan as nuzzur (a present to a superior). And it remained in Afghanistan till Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab took it from his prisoner Shah Shuja, king of Afghanistan, in Lahore in 1813.

While all these accounts have certain strands in common, they do not establish that the Kohinoor was known as the Kohinoor before the 18the century, and many questions remain unanswered. Did the French jeweller Jean Baptiste Tavernier see the Kohinoor in 1665 when Aurangzeb showed him the state jewels? And was it the Kohinoor to which Tavernier referred in his writings as "The Great Moghul’s Diamond"? Is the Kohinoor identical with the diamond which Humayun gave to Babar and is often called "Babar’s Diamond"? Are the Kohinoor, "The Great Moghul’s Diamond and "Babar’s Diamond" one and the same stone? Some authorities maintain that both the Great Moghul’s and Babar’s diamonds were taken to Iran in 1739 by Nadir Shah, and that it was Nadir Shah who on first seeing the former called it the Kohinoor, or Mountain of Light, and Babar’s Diamond subsequently came to be known as the Darya-i-noor, or Ocean of Light. It is possible that "Babar’s Diamond" was Shah Shuja’s Darya-i-noor which was seized from him by Amin-ud-Daulah’s grandfather. What is certain is that the gemstone we call the Kohinoor was extracted from Shah Shuja by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1813.

About Timur’s Ruby nothing is known before it fell into Timur’s hands when he plundered Delhi in 1398-1399 but it is possible to trace the story of this engraved ruby with some breaks for the next 500 years. The largest inscription is in Persian, but in Arabic script, and reads, in translation: "This is the ruby from among the twenty five thousand genuine jewels of the King of Kings the Sultan Sahib Qiran (Timur) which in the year 1153 (A.D.1740) from the collection of jewels of Hindustan reached this place" (Isfahan). This inscription was evidently cut into the stone by the order of Nadir Shah.

Much involved in research into the history of the three gems, J.R. Dunlop-Smith found that, after Timur took it with him to Samarkand, the ruby remained with his successors for about a century and a half. Did Babar perhaps take this ruby as well as the Kohinoor with him to Delhi? Anyhow, much later, Shah Abbas I, the greatest of the Safavi Kings of Iran presented it to Jehangir who promptly had his own and his father’s names engraved on it: "Shajahan", "Alamgir Shah" (Aurangzeb) and "Farukhsiyar" were later also engraved on it in Persian.

Both Hamid (1650) and Inayat Khan (1658) state in their memoirs, that when the ruby was presented to Jehangir (1605-1627), it had the names Mir Shah Rukh, Mirza Ulugh Beg and Abdul Latif (Timur’s successors) engraved on it. These names are no longer on the ruby which shows sings of having been abrased. Jehangir, or one of his successors, probably had them removed, since the oldest inscription goes back only to 1612.

The ruby was taken again to Iran by Nadir Shah after the sack of Delhi in 1739. Ahmad Shah Abdali, also known as Ahmad Shah Durrani, who had an important command in Nadir Shah’s army, seized the ruby in the confusion following Nadir Shah’s assassination in 1747. Later Ahmad Shah founded a kingdom in Afghanistan, with his capital at Kabul, and his name is the last engraved on the ruby. On Ahmad Shah’s death in 1772, the gem passed to his son, Timur Shah, and eventually to Timur Shah’s youngest son, Shah Shuja, from whom Maharaja Ranjit Singh took it. It is one of the largest rubies in existence, and also one of the most famous.

[Courtesy: The Statesman]

v