About the Koh-I-Noor Diamond

Strange have been the vicissitudes attending the KOH-I-NOOR, with this peculiarity--that its history can be well authenticated at every step. The mystic character of the diamond has never been lost sight of, from the days when Ala-ud-deen took it from the Rajahs of Malwa, five centuries and a half ago, to the day when it became a crown jewel of England. Tradition carries back its existence in the memory of India to the year 57 B.C.; and a still wilder legend would fain recognize in it a diamond first discovered near Masulipatam, in the bed of the Godavery, five thousand years ago.

The Koh-i-noor is reported by Baber, the founder of the Mogul empire, to have come into the Delhi treasury from the conquest of Malwa in 1304. The Hindoos trace the curses and the ultimate ruin inevitably brought upon its successive possessors by the genius of this fateful jewel ever since it was first wrested from the line of Vikramaditya. If we glance over its history since 1304, its malevolent influence far excels that of the necklace for which Eriphyle betrayed her husband, or the Eguus Scianus of Greek and Roman tradition. First falls the vigorous Patan, then the mighty Mogul empire, and, with vastly accelerated ruin, the power of Nadir, of the Dooranee dynasty, and of the Sikh. The Koh-i-noor came into the possession of Nadir Shah by a very clever trick. He did not take the diamond by force, as he had the other treasures, but when going through the ceremony of re-establishing the Tartar monarch on the throne of Delhi, he remembered the ancient oriental custom of exchanging turbans in token of amity. The fallen monarch could not refuse this pledge of friendship, though, to his own chagrin and the dismay of the court, the famous Mountain of Light passed with it to the conqueror.

At length in the possession of Runjeet Singh, it was, of course, the distinguishing decoration of the jewel-loving "Lion of Lahore," who wore it on his arm. He was so convinced of the truth of the mystic powers of the diamond that, being satisfied with the enjoyment of it during his own lifetime, he sought to break through the ordinance of fate, and the consequent destruction of his family, by bequeathing the stone to the shrine of Juggernaut for the good of his soul and the welfare of his dynasty. His successors would not give up the baleful treasure, and the last Maharajah is now a private gentleman in England. In 1850, in the name of the East India Company (since, in its turn, defunct), Lord Dalhousie presented the Koh-i-noor to Queen Victoria.