The Mountain of Light
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Praise for Shadow Princess
“From a few lines in various historic documents, Sundaresan brings to life two little-known though remarkable women who, though they lived in the shadows of great men, proved that still greater women stood behind them.”
—The Oregonian
“Sundaresan marshals extensive knowledge of Indian culture and history to tell the story of Roshanara and Jahangir as well as that of the Taj Mahal. A perfect read for those who wish to delve deeply into the cultural struggles of Indian women and the Taj Mahal’s celebrated architecture.”
—Booklist
“Sundaresan has a scholar’s fascination with the period; she’s at her best describing the opulent court or the construction of the Taj Mahal.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Sundaresan brings sober devotion to the dynastic tale. . . . A mine of fabulous detail on the daily lives of the Mughal emperors.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Heavily researched and expertly written. . . . An exhilarating mixture of character and event, emotion and intrigue, extravagance and architecture.”
—India Currents
“Enthralling. . . . Sundaresan handles very complicated and varied history with a beautiful simplicity. The book never becomes bogged down in details, yet she provides a vivid look at an amazing period in Indian history. . . . I can’t sing her praises highly enough.”
—S. Krishna’s Books
. . . and for Indu Sundaresan’s other remarkable historical novels
The Twentieth Wife
“Sundaresan’s debut is a sweeping, carefully researched tale of desire, sexual mores, and political treachery set against the backdrop of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century India. . . . Sundaresan charts the chronology of the Mughal Empire, describing life in the royal court in convincing detail and employing authentic period terms throughout.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Fascinating. . . . The Twentieth Wife offers a rich and intimate view into palace life during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries—and an incisive look at gender roles of that period.”
—USA Today
“A rousing tale of the rise of the most powerful woman in Mughal Empire India—she who set into motion the forces that would, among other things and not at all incidentally, result in the building of the Taj Mahal.”
—San Diego Union-Tribune
“Rich and realistic. . . . [A] delicious story.”
—The Seattle Times
“Indu Sundaresan has written a fascinating novel about a fascinating time, and has brought it alive with characters that are at once human and legendary, that move with grace and panache across the brilliant stage she has reconstructed for them.”
—Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of One Amazing Thing
“Informative, convincing, and madly entertaining. The reader comes away with an unexpected vision of the power behind the veil.”
—Marilyn Yalom, author of A History of the Wife
The Feast of Roses
“Imaginative storytelling.”
—India West
“The novel’s scope and ambition are impressive.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Pepper[ed] beautifully with her rich and well-informed vision of seventeenth-century Mughal India.”
—Seattle Weekly
“Sundaresan weaves a seamless story, integrating solid research about the political affairs of the Mughal kingdom into the fictionalized account of Mehrunissa’s life as empress so skillfully that she brings a sense of easy familiarity to Mughal court life.”
—The Seattle Times
The Splendor of Silence
“Sundaresan unfolds her bittersweet story in flashbacks that are full of sharply drawn details and adroit dialogue. It’s a riveting read.”
—The Seattle Times
“Indu Sundaresan expertly blends together history, memorable characters, and the sights, colors, and smells of India to create a hugely compelling novel. It is, quite literally, a feast for the senses.”
—David Davidar, author of The Solitude of Emperors
“Indu Sundaresan continues to display her talents as a great novelist of historical fiction. Finely researched and full of evocative details, this sweeping tale of intrigue brings to life a fascinating era with richly drawn characters and a story that is engrossing, deep, and surprising. Sundaresan will certainly please her many enduring fans as well as draw in a wave of new ones.”
—Samina Ali, author of Madras on Rainy Days
For my mother-in-law and father-in-law,
Sarada and Raju
and, always, always
for Sitara
Author’s Note
In April 1850, Lord Dalhousie, the British Governor-General of India, ordered the 186-carat Kohinoor diamond secreted from Bombay to London, to adorn the arm of his sovereign, Queen Victoria. Until the diamond reached England, very few people knew it had even left India.
The reason for this furtiveness was the general discontent in India as Dalhousie annexed the lands of the Punjab Empire to those of British India, and dispossessed the boy king of the Punjab—Maharajah Dalip Singh—of his throne, his kingdom, and the massive wealth of his Toshakhana, the treasury house.
The young Maharajah was also the last Indian owner of the Kohinoor.
Although the Kohinoor has belonged to the monarchs of England for the last hundred and sixty-three years, the diamond has a deep reach into Indian history—according to legend, Lord Krishna gave it to a disciple in response to his meditations, many thousands of years ago.
More contemporarily, the first recorded mention of the Kohinoor occurs in the memoirs of Emperor Babur, who established the Mughal Empire in 1526, and received the diamond from one of the rajas whom he defeated.
The diamond then slips in and out of India—possessed, in its departures, by the kings of Persia and Afghanistan. Nadir Shah, King of Persia, gives it its name, calling it a veritable Koh-i-noor, a “Mountain of Light.”
In 1809, the ruler of Afghanistan, Shah Shuja, is dethroned by his brother. Shuja turns to the ruler of the Punjab, Maharajah Ranjit Singh, for help in regaining Afghanistan, and promises Ranjit the Kohinoor in return.
This is where The Mountain of Light begins. And at this point—at Ranjit Singh’s court—the history of the Kohinoor becomes inextricably linked with the British in India.
The first ship from the English East India Company touched Indian shores in 1608, during Mughal rule, and for the next hundred years or so, the Company fought to gain a trade treaty with the Mughal kings, excluding the already-present Portuguese and Dutch in India.
As the Mughal Empire disintegrated, the Company acquired influence. It lent armies to various independent kings as they seceded from Mughal lands, and claimed harsh compensations—indiscriminate use of the kings’ armies and treasuries—that fell just a little short of actual rule. The Court of Directors of the Company grew massively rich, and corrupt, it was said, controlling vast chunks of India, nominally on behalf of their sovereign in England. In 1773, a regulating act in the British Parliament limited the Company’s powers in India, and established the presence of a Crown-appointed, Court of Directors–approved governor-general.
In The Mountain of Light, when the Afghan ruler Shah Shuja comes to the Punjab in the early 1800s with the Kohinoor diamond,
there is a flurry of interest in him. Maharajah Ranjit Singh wants the Kohinoor; the British want Shuja—to set him up as a puppet king in Afghanistan.
Years after Ranjit Singh gets the Kohinoor from Shuja, in 1838, a British embassy arrives at his court in the form of the British Governor-General of India, Lord Auckland, and his sisters Emily and Fanny Eden. Auckland wants the ailing and aging Punjab Maharajah’s help in invading Afghanistan—which Ranjit Singh does not agree to, and which eventually becomes one of the most disastrous wars the British fight in Asia.
After Ranjit Singh dies, soon after Auckland’s visit, four of his sons are killed in wars of succession, leaving only the six-year-old Prince Dalip Singh as heir to his father’s empire—and the Kohinoor diamond. While the British did not dare to invade the Punjab under the powerful Ranjit Singh’s rule, they now manage to lodge a foot into the door to the Empire, and eventually annex the Punjab to British lands in India.
Although Dalip Singh was called a maharajah until the end of his life, it was an empty title, and his was a flimsy, unsubstantial crown.
During the lengthy process of annexation, Henry Lawrence, a Company employee, comes to the Punjab as the British Resident along with his brother John. The Lawrence brothers are in charge of cataloging the wealth of the Punjab Empire, and facilitating the shift of power from Maharajah Dalip Singh to the East India Company. However dismal their duties, they both, with great diplomacy, manage cordial relations with the Indians they meet during the annexation.
Maharajah Dalip Singh loses his Punjab, and his Kohinoor diamond, which becomes the property of the Queen of England. He follows it to London when he’s sixteen years old and is feted and petted there for a long while, until he realizes that all the compensation granted to him cannot make up for the loss of his lands, and his diamond.
Four years after Maharajah Dalip Singh comes to England, in 1858, the British government dissolves the East India Company, and Victoria becomes Queen-Empress of India. Colonialism begins in India at this date; all of a sudden the British are no longer traders or “Company” men—they are the masters . . . the British Raj has begun.
Here then, in The Mountain of Light, are the final chapters of the Kohinoor’s existence in India, and the last few years before India loses her sovereignty and becomes a British colony.
Cast of Primary Characters
Paolo Avitabile
Italian soldier; governor of Peshawar; general in Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s army
Fakir Azizuddin
Foreign minister to Maharajah Ranjit Singh
Cecilia Bowles
Lady Login’s relative; Maharajah Dalip Singh’s love interest
Dalip Singh
Fifth Maharajah of the Punjab Empire
Emily Eden
Lord Auckland’s sister
Fanny Eden
Lord Auckland’s sister
George, Lord Auckland
Governor-General of India (1836–1842)
Ibrahim Khan
Shah Shuja’s foster brother
Jindan Kaur
Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s wife; Maharajah Dalip Singh’s mother
Henry Lawrence
Resident at Lahore (and Agent of the Governor-General of India) (1846–1856); Maharajah Dalip Singh’s guardian
John Lawrence
Henry Lawrence’s brother; Viceroy of India (1864–1869)
Dr. John Login
Bengal army surgeon; Maharajah Dalip Singh’s guardian
Lena Login
John Login’s wife; Maharajah Dalip Singh’s guardian
Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Mackeson
Political agent to the Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie
Misr Makraj
State treasurer for Maharajah Ranjit Singh
Multan Raj
Lieutenant-Colonel Mackeson’s servant; Misr Makraj’s son
Captain Edward Ramsay
Military secretary to the Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie
Ranjit Singh
First Maharajah of the Punjab Empire (1799–1839)
Roshni
Betrothed to Dalip Singh; sister of Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s adopted son, Sher Singh
Shah Shuja Durrani
Ruler of Afghanistan (1803–1809 and 1839–1842)
Sophia
Bamba Sophia Jindan; Maharajah Dalip Singh’s oldest daughter
Victoria
Queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1837–1901); Empress of India (1876–1901)
Victoria Gouramma
Princess of the Coorg kingdom in India; Queen Victoria’s goddaughter
Wafa Begam
Shah Shuja’s wife
Harry Wingate
Owner and publisher of the Bombay Herald
Cast of Secondary Characters
Jean-François Allard
French soldier; general in Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s army
Lady Anne Elizabeth Beaumont
Passenger aboard the SS Indus
Bhajan Lal
Maharajah Dalip Singh’s tutor
Mary Booth
Passenger aboard the SS Indus
Thomas Booth
Passenger aboard the SS Indus; Mary Booth’s brother
Major Bryne
Quartermaster in the British encampment; head of the Governor-General’s household in Calcutta
Lord Dalhousie
Governor-General of India (1848–1856)
Josiah Harlan
American; Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s ambassador to Afghanistan
Martin Honigberger
Romanian; personal physician to Maharajah Ranjit Singh
William Huthwaite
Passenger aboard the SS Indus
Arabella-Catherine Hyde
Passenger aboard the SS Indus
Jimrud
Emily Eden’s jemadar her personal butler
Honoria Lawrence
Henry Lawrence’s wife
Mir Kheema
Maharajah Dalip Singh’s attendant
Sher Singh
Fourth Maharajah of the Punjab Empire; Ranjit Singh’s adopted son
Mr. Taft
Clerk at the East India Company, in charge of gifts given and received
Jean-Baptiste Ventura
Italian soldier; governor of Lahore; general in Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s army
Captain Richard Watkins
Maharajah Dalip Singh’s friend in London
Martyn Wingate
Harry Wingate’s son; passenger aboard the SS Indus
Fragment of Light
June 1817
The midday sun leaned over to place its fiery kiss upon the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, four and a half miles east of the fort and walled city. The blazing light wavered into a haze around the almond, guava, and mango trees, and except under the trees where it could not penetrate, all shadows leached into the blistering ground.
The Shalimar Gardens—the Abode of Pleasure—was a name taken by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan from the gardens his father had built in the valley of Kashmir. In the late 1630s, the Ravi River in Lahore flooded its banks. Angry waters swamped and carved out new geographical features, shifting vast quantities of mud from one place to another, leaving acclivities and declivities where none had existed before. One such slope in the land was born after this flood. So it was here Emperor Shah Jahan ordered the garden to be built in three terraces that descended from the south to the north.
At high noon on this day of June 1817, two young men tarried in the central platform of the pool in the middle terrace.
They were both bareheaded, their chests bare also. Each wore only a kispet—long, tight shorts of buffalo hide leather, which covered them from their waists down, the ends rucked up over their knees to facilitate ease of movement. The upper halves of their bodies, and their legs and feet, glistened with sesame oil, pungent and aromatic in the sear of the sun. Earlier in the morning—according to the rules of the game—they had smooth
ed the oil on each other. It was the first and last gesture of amity and goodwill.
For their referee, they had corralled an old gardener lounging in the deep shade of the nearby tamarind tree, a hand-rolled beedi wrapped in his fist, smoke coiling out from between his fingers.
“Him?” Ibrahim Khan had asked, thick eyebrows elevated in disbelief.
His sovereign had shrugged, lifting massive, muscled shoulders. “As good as anyone else, Ibrahim. We know the rules ourselves. The only other man around is Zaman, and he’s useless, as you know. Should I have to call upon one of the flowers in my zenana instead?”
Ibrahim grinned. “With respect, your Majesty, the women of your harem will only support you. And they’re likely to squeal or curse in horror when I defeat you. Calling on them is not conducive to an even playing field.”
A small smile flitted across Shah Shuja’s face. And when it did, it lightened his features, brought a sparkle to his gray eyes, erased the embedded lines of worry on his forehead. Made him, so Ibrahim thought, more like the deeply powerful man he had known all of his life.
A tiny spear of ache stabbed Ibrahim’s heart. They were far removed from what they had once been. Shuja had been born of a king—Shah Timur Durrani—whose father had established the Afghan Empire in the name of the Durrani dynasty. Timur had had many sons, of many wives, as was the established custom of the time. There was no law of primogeniture—the eldest son did not automatically inherit the throne. Nor was he gifted with quiescent brothers willing to live out their lives as governors of districts or provinces. At Timur’s death, the throne had changed hands four times, one son or the other claiming it for his own for a brief while, driven from it when another had amassed enough of a threatening army. And so Shuja had lost his kingdom to his half brother Shah Mahmud.