Daily Times

You must have heard of the diamond Kohinoor but did you ever dig into its history? The Kohinoor which means mount of light in Persian language is a large, colorless diamond that was found near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, India, possibly in the 13th century. The time period is referred in many historic reference.

It is believed that the first mention of the diamond was more than 5000 years ago in a Sanskrit script, where it was called the Syamantaka. Up until 1304 the diamond was in possession of the Rajas of Malwa. In 1304 the possession of the diamond was with Allaudin Khilji, the Emperor of Delhi. The stone changed hands several times between various factions in South Asia over the next few hundred years, before being possessed by Queen Victoria after the British conquest of the Punjab in 1849.

Indian government demanded Kohinoor’s return after independence and also in 1953, the year of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. The British rejected the claim, saying “ownership was non-negotiable.” Then, Pakistan government made a claim of its own in 1976

In 1306 a curse was placed on any men who would adorn the diamond: “He who owns this diamond will own the world, but will also know all its misfortunes. Only God, or a woman, can wear it with impunity.”

In 1339, the diamond was taken back to the city of Samarkand, where it stayed for almost 300 years. In 1526 Mughal ruler Babur mentioned the diamond in his writings, Baburmama. The diamond was gifted to him by the Sultan Ibrahim Lodi. He was the one who described the diamond’s value equal to half-day production costs of the world. Both Babur and his son Humayun, mentioned the origins of this diamond in their memoirs –thought by many historians to be the earliest reliable reference to the Kohinoor.

Then came the rule of the fifth Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan had the stone set in his ornate Peacock Throne. In 1658, his son and successor, Aurangzeb got hold of the diamond. Aurangzeb protected the diamond diligently and passed it on to his heirs. Mahamad, the grandson of Aurangzeb, however, was not a fear-inspiring and great ruler like his grandfather. The Persian General Nadir Shah went to India in 1739 as he wanted to triumph over the throne, which had been destabilised during the reign of Sultan Mahamad, the grandson of Aurangzeb. The Sultan lost the decisive battle and had to surrender to Nadir Shah.  When Nadir Shah got the possession of the diamond he named it Kohinoor.

Nadir Shah did not live long and the diamond came in the possession of his general, Ahmad Shah Durrani. A descendant of Ahmad Shah, Shah Shuja Durrani brought the Kohinoor back to India in 1813 and gave it to Ranjit Singh (the founder of the Sikh Empire). The Kohinoor diamond was given to Maharaja Ranjit Singh in one of the havelis of the Walled City of Lahore –the Mubarik haveli located inside Bhatti Gate. In exchange Ranjit Singh helped Shah Shuja get back the throne of Afghanistan.

Today the same diamond is set in the crown of the Queen of England but how did it reach there?

Ranjit Singh willed the diamond to the Hindu temple of Jagannath in Puri, in modern-day Odisha, India. However, after his death in 1839, British administrators did not carry out his will and finally in 1849, after the conquest of Punjab by the British forces, the properties of the Sikh Empire were confiscated.

That was the time when Kohinoor was also lost from this part of land. The famous cherished diamond, Kohinoor was transported to the treasury of the British East India Company in Lahore and a line of the Treaty of Lahore was dedicated to its fate. On 1 February 1850, the diamond was sealed in a small iron safe inside a red dispatch box, both sealed with red tape and a wax seal and kept in a chest at Bombay Treasury awaiting a steamer ship from China. It was then sent to England for presentation to Queen Victoria in the care of Captain J Ramsay and Brevet Lt. Col F Mackeson under tight security arrangements, one of which was the placement of the dispatch box in a larger iron safe.

Members of the public were given a chance to see the Kohinoor when the great exhibition was staged at Hyde Park, London, in 1851.

After the diamond was handed to Queen Victoria, it was exhibited at the Crystal Palace a year later but Kohinoor was not shiny as the other cut gemstones of that era and there was a general disappointment regarding it among the public. Thus in the year 1852 the Queen decided to reshape the diamond and it was taken to a Dutch jeweler, Cantor who cut it to 108.93 carats, the cutting took 38 days.

The sad fact, as reported by the historians, is that when Queen Victoria showed the re-cut diamond to the young Maharaja Duleep Singh, the Kohinoor’s last non-British owner, he was apparently unable to speak for several minutes afterwards.

Historic records state that the much lighter but more dazzling stone was mounted in a brooch worn by the queen. At that time, it belonged to her personally, and was not yet part of the Crown Jewels. Although Victoria wore it often, she became uneasy about the way in which the diamond had been acquired.  She left in her will that the Kohinoor should only be worn by a female queen. If the head of state was a man, his wife would have to carry the diamond. After Queen Victoria’s death, the Kohinoor became part of the Crown Jewels. The diamond was later transferred to every queen who took the throne.  The myth still goes on that men cannot wear it, as a curse, and therefore only the females of the Royal Family get to wear it. Today, the diamond is set in the front of the Queen’s Crown, part of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, and is seen by millions of visitors to the Tower of London each year. A glass model of the Kohinoor shows visitors how it looked when it was brought over to the United Kingdom in 1850. Replicas of the diamond in this and its re-cut forms can also be seen in the ‘Vault’ exhibit at the Natural History Museum in London

The Government of India demanded the return of the Kohinoor right after independence in 1947 and a second request followed in 1953, the year of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The British government rejected the claims, saying that ownership was non-negotiable. Then, Pakistan government made a claim of its own in 1976. In 2000, several members of the Indian Parliament signed a letter calling for the diamond to be given back to India, claiming it was taken illegally. British officials said that a variety of claims meant it was impossible to establish the gem’s original owner. In July 2010, while visiting India, David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said of returning the diamond, “If you say yes to one you suddenly find the British Museum would be empty. I am afraid to say, it is going to have to stay put”. On a subsequent visit in February 2013, he said, “They’re not having that back”. In April 2016, the Indian Culture Ministry again stated that it would make all possible efforts to arrange the return of the Kohinoor to India.

Published in Daily Times, November 5^th 2018.