CHAPTER 48. The Great Diamond of Kohinûr.

The Great Diamond of Kohinûr.

The foregoing historical episode occupies too large a space in what might otherwise be termed a personal narrative; but still I am tempted to append to it a sketch of the fortunes of that famous diamond, called with Oriental extravagance the Mountain of Light, which, by exciting the cupidity of Shâh Jahân, played so important a part in the drama.

After slumbering for the greater part of a century in the imperial treasury, it was afterwards taken by Nâdir Shâh, the king of Persia, who invaded India under the reign of Muhammad Shâh, in the year 1738. Nadir Shâh, in one of his mad fits, had put out the eyes of his son, Razâ Kulî Mirzâ, and, when he was assassinated, the conspirators gave the throne and the diamond to this son's son, Shâhrukh Mirza, who fixed his residence at Meshed. Ahmad Shâh, the Abdâlî, commanded the Afghân cavalry in the service of Nâdir Shâh, and had the charge of the military chest at the time he was put to death. With this chest, he and his cavalry left the camp during the disorders that followed the murder of the king, and returned with all haste to Kandahâr, where they met Tarîkî Khân, on his way to Nâdir Shâh's camp with the tribute of the five provinces which he had retained of his Indian conquests, Kandahâr, Kâbul, Tatta, Bakkar, Multân, and Peshâwar. They gave him the first news of the death of the king, seized upon his treasure, and, with the aid of this and the military chest, Ahmad Shâh took possession of these five provinces, and formed them into the little independent kingdom of Afghânistan, over which he long reigned, and from which he occasionally invaded India and Khurâsân.

Shâhrukh Mirzâ had his eyes put out some time after by a faction. Ahmad Shâh marched to his relief, put the rebels to death, and united his eldest son, Taimûr Shâh, in marriage to the daughter of the unfortunate prince, from whom he took the diamond, since it could be of no use to a man who could no longer see its beauties. He established Taimûr as his viceroy at Herât, and his youngest son at Kandahâr; and fixed his own residence at Kâbul, where he died. He was succeeded by Taimûr Shâh, who was succeeded by his eldest son, Zamân Shâh, who, after a reign of a few years, was driven from his throne by his younger brother, Mahmûd. He sought an asylum with his friend Ashîk, who commanded a distant fortress, and who betrayed him to the usurper, and put him into confinement. He concealed the great diamond in a crevice in the wall of the room in which he was confined; and the rest of his jewels in a hole made in the ground with his dagger. As soon as Mahmûd received intimation of the arrest from Ashîk, he sent for his brother, had his eyes put out, and demanded the jewels, but Zamân Shâh pretended that he had thrown them into the river as he passed over. Two years after this, the third brother, the Sultân Shujâ, deposed Mahmûd, ascended the throne by the consent of his elder brother, and, as a fair specimen of his notions of retributive justice, he blew away from the mouths of cannon, not only Ashîk himself, but his wife and all his innocent and unoffending children.

He intended to put out the eyes of his deposed brother, Mahmûd, but was dissuaded from it by his mother and Zamân Shâh, who now pointed out to him the place where he had concealed the great diamond. Mahmûd made his escape from prison, raised a party, drove out his brothers, and once more ascended the throne. The two brothers sought an asylum in the Honourable Company's territories; and have from that time resided at an out frontier station of Lûdiâna, upon the banks of the Hyphasis, upon a liberal pension assigned for their maintenance by our Government. On their way through the territories of the Sikh chief, Ranjit Singh, Shujâ was discovered to have this great diamond, the Mountain of Light, about his person; and he was, by a little torture skilfully applied to the mind and body, made to surrender it to his generous host. Mahmûd was succeeded in the government of the fortress and province of Herât by his son Kâmrân; but the throne of Kâbul was seized by the mayor of the palace, who bequeathed it to his son Dost Muhammad, a man, in all the qualities requisite in a sovereign, immeasurably superior to any member of the house of Ahmad Shâh Abdâlî. Ranjit Singh had wrested from him the province of Peshâwar in times of difficulty, and, as we would not assist him in recovering it from our old ally, he thought himself justified in seeking the aid of those who would, the Russians and Persians, who were eager to avail themselves of so fair an occasion to establish a footing in India. Such a footing would have been manifestly incompatible with the peace and security of our dominions in India, and we were obliged, in self-defence, to give to Shujâ the aid which he had so often before in vain solicited, to enable him to recover the throne of his very limited number of legal ancestors.

Notes:

1. Nâdir Shâh was crowned king of Persia in 1736, entered the Panjâb, at the close of 1738, and occupied Delhi in March 1739. Having perpetrated an awful massacre of the inhabitants, he retired after a stay of fifty-eight days, He was assassinated in May 1747.

2. Meshed, properly Mashhad ('the place of martyrdom'), is the chief city of Khurâsân. Nâdir Shâh was killed while encamped there.

3. Ahmad Shâh defeated the Marâthâs in the third great battle of Pânîpat, A.D. 1761. He had conquered the Panjâb in 1748. He invaded India five times.

4. In 1773.

5. Lûdiâna (misspelt 'Ludhiâna' in I.G., 1908) is named from the Lodî Afghâns, who founded it in 1481. The town is now the headquarters of the district of the same name under the Panjâb Government. Part of the district lapsed to the British Government in 1836, other parts lapsed during the years 1846 and 1847, and the rest came from territory already British by rearrangement of jurisdiction. Hyphasis is the Greek name for the Biâs river.

6. The above history of the Kohinûr may, I believe, be relied upon. I received a narrative of it from Shâh Zamân, the blind old king himself, through General Smith, who commanded the troops at Lûdiâna; forming a detail of the several revolutions too long and too full of new names for insertion here. [W. H. S.] The above note is, in the original edition, misplaced, and appended to two paragraphs of the text, which have no connexion with the story of the diamond, and really belong to Chapter 47, to which they have been removed in this edition.

The author assumes the identity of the Kohinûr with the great diamond found in one of the Golconda mines, and presented by Amîr Jumla to Shâh Jahân. The much-disputed history of the Kohinûr has been exhaustively discussed by Valentine Ball (Tavernier's Travels in India: Appendix I (1), 'The Great Mogul's Diamond and the true History of the Koh-i-nur; and (2) 'Summary History of the Koh-i- nur'). He has proved that the Kohinûr is almost certainly the diamond given by Amîr (Mîr) Jumla to Shâh Jahân, though now much reduced in weight by mutilation and repeated cutting. Assuming the identity of the Kohinûr with Amîr Jumla's gift, the leading incidents in the history of this famous jewel are as follows;--

Event. Approximate Date. Found at mine of Kollûr on the Kistna (Krishna) river . . . . . . . . .Not known Presented to Shâh Jahân by Mîr Jumla, being uncut, and weighing about 756 English carats 1656 or 1657 Ground by Hortensio Borgio, and greatly reduced in weight . . . . . . . about 1657 Seen and weighed by Tavernier in Aurangzêb's treasury, its weight being 268 19/50 English carats . . . . . . . . . 1665 Taken by Nadir Shâh of Persia from Muhammad Shâh of Delhi, and named Kohinûr . . . 1739 Inherited by Shâh Rukh, grandson of Nadir Shâh. . 1747 Given up by Shâh Rukh to Ahmad Shâh Abdâlî . . 1751 Inherited by Tîmûr, son of Ahmad Shâh . . . 1772 Inherited by Shâh Zamân, son of Tîmûr . . . 1793 Taken by Shâh Shujâ, brother of Shâh Zamân . . 1795 Taken by Ranjit Singh, of Lahore, from Shâh Shujâ . 1813 Inherited by Dilîp (Dhuleep) Singh, reputed son of Ranjit Singh. . . . . 1839 Annexed, with the Panjâb, and passed, through John Lawrence's waistcoat pocket (see his Life), into the possession of H.M. the Queen, its weight then being 186 1/16 English carats . . . . . 1849 Exhibited at Great Exhibition in London . . . 1851 Recut under supervision of Messrs. Garrards, and reduced in weight to 106 1/16 English carats . 1852

The difference in weight between 268 19/50 carats in 1665 and 186 1/16 carats in 1849 seems to be due to mutilation of the stone during its stay in Persia and Afghanistan.

7. The policy of the first Afghan War has been, it is hardly necessary to observe, much disputed, and the author's confident defence of Lord Auckland's action cannot be accepted.