Koh-i-Noor

by William Dalrymple

  Later that night, the Shinwaris murdered Shah Zaman’s bodyguard, locked Shah Zaman in a dungeon and then blinded him with a hot needle: ‘The point’, wrote Mirza ‘Ata, ‘quickly spilled the wine of his sight from the cup of his eyes.’16

  Before being blinded, however, Shah Zaman had succeeded in hiding his most precious gems. Some he dug deep into the prison floor with the point of his dagger. The Fakhraj ruby he had already hidden under a rock in a stream below the Shinwari fort; now he slipped the Koh-i-Noor into a crack in the wall of his cell.

  The bookish Prince Shuja was only fourteen years old when his elder brother was captured, blinded and deposed. Shuja had been Shah Zaman’s ‘constant companion at all times’ and in the coup d’état that followed troops were sent out to arrest him. But he eluded the search parties and with a few companions wandered through the snows of the high passes, sleeping rough and biding his time. He was an intelligent and literate teenager, who abhorred the violence around him, and in adversity sought solace in poetry. ‘Lose no hope when faced with hardships,’ he wrote at this time, while moving from village to village, protected by kinsmen. ‘Black clouds soon give way to clear rain.’17

  His moment came three years later, in 1803, when sectarian rioting broke out in Kabul. He was able to swoop down and seize power. Shuja forgave all who had rebelled against Shah Zaman, with the single exception of ‘Ashiq Shinwari, the chieftain responsible for blinding his elder brother: ‘Shuja’s officers arrested the culprit, and his supporters, and razed his fort to the ground. They looted every possible thing, and dragged the man to Shuja’s court. Then for his sins filled his mouth with gunpowder, and blew him up. They threw his men in prison, and brutally tortured them into a vegetative state until they became an example for those who claimed they were so fearless they were capable of resisting the exquisite pain of the torturer.’18 Finally, they strapped the offender’s wife and children to Shuja’s artillery and blew them from the mouths of the cannon.19

  After ‘restoring the family honour’, as the Afghans saw it, Shuja’s first act was to search for his family’s two most precious possessions. A court historian later recorded, ‘Shah Shuja immediately dispatched a few of his most trustworthy men to find these two gems and advised them that they should leave no stone unturned in their efforts. They found the Koh-i-Noor with a mullah who in his ignorance was using it as a paperweight for his papers. As for the Fakhraj ruby, they found it with a Talib, a student, who had uncovered it when he went to a stream to bathe and wash his clothes. They impounded both gems and brought them back in the king’s service.’20

  The following year, an embassy arrived from the East India Company, and Shah Shuja received them in full durbar in his magnificent palace in Peshawar. He was wearing his two newly recovered gems on each arm, as his father had done before him: ‘The King of Kabul was a handsome man,’ wrote the Company’s ambassador, the Scottish scholar-diplomat Mountstuart Elphinstone. He was, Elphinstone continued,

  of an olive complexion, with a thick black beard. The expression of his countenance was dignified and pleasing, his voice clear, his address princely. We thought at first that he had on an armour of jewels; but, on close inspection, we found this to be a mistake, and his real dress to consist of a green tunic, with large flowers in gold and precious stones, over which were a large breastplate of diamonds, shaped like two flattened fleur de lis, an ornament of the same kind on each thigh, large emerald bracelets on the arms and many other jewels in different places. In one of the bracelets was the Koh-i-Noor …21

  A junior member of Elphinstone’s staff, William Fraser, a young Persian scholar from Inverness, also wrote home to his parents about the impact Shuja had made on him. ‘I was particularly struck with the dignity of his appearance,’ he wrote, ‘and the romantic Oriental awe which his situation, person and Majesty impressed on me.’ He described the shah sitting in what appears to be a wooden replica of the now dismembered Peacock Throne:

  On each side of the throne stood several eunuchs. The king sat under the domed pavilion on an elevated polygonal throne of gilt wood, but the distance we were at, and the great height he was elevated above us, prevented our being able to distinguish his features, dress or attendants, but he appeared to be magnificently clothed in the richest attire, covered with an armour of jewels.

  His dress was superb, the crown very peculiar and ornamented with jewels. I believe it was hexagonal, and at each corner or angle a rich plume of black heron’s feather about 8 or 10 inches long. The frame of the crown must have been of black velvet, but the feathers and gold so completely covered the ground that I could not accurately discover every precious stone that had a place, but it struck me that emeralds, rubies and pearls were most prevalent.

  Next to the diadem, the collars were most rich, and he had, I think, some of the largest pearls I ever beheld. These were intermixed with the emeralds and rubies of extraordinary size and beauty. On each arm were bazoobunds [armlets] and amulets all richly set with the jewels. The stones which most prevailed were rubies and emeralds.22

  The Company embassy did not yet realise it, but they were in fact witnessing the last days of the Durrani monarchy. Shortly after their departure, Shuja was defeated in battle and fell from power. At the end of June 1809, Elphinstone’s embassy was encamped on the left bank of the Indus, under the sheltering walls of Akbar’s great fort at Attock, when they saw a bedraggled royal caravan arrive on the north bank and hastily prepare to make the crossing. It was the blind Shah Zaman and Shuja’s wife Wa’fa Begum, leading the family harem to safety: ‘To describe to you the effect of such a meeting upon the minds of all our party would be as difficult as melancholy,’ wrote William Fraser. ‘Many with difficulty restrained their tears. The blinded monarch was seated on a low cot … His eyes at a moderate distance would not be perceived to be defective, merely as if there was a speck on each, with a little irregularity of the surface. After we were seated, he welcomed us in the usual manner and said only that he regretted Shuja’s present misfortunes, and trusted it would please God to favour him again.’23

  Both deposed monarchs now experienced a prolonged period of humiliation and exile. But Shah Shuja’s wanderings were made all the more perilous by the fact that at his most vulnerable he was carrying on his person some of the most valuable jewels in the world.

  Ranjit Singh was one among many leaders determined to get his hands on the great diamond, and did all he could to lure Shah Shuja to his court, sending friendly messages that he and his family were always welcome as his guests in Lahore. Shah Shuja met Ranjit briefly in 1810: the maharaja presented the appropriate gifts and, in return, Shuja gave him several precious gemstones from his store. But Shuja was suspicious of Ranjit Singh’s offers, and moved north without taking up his offer. He did, however, leave his wife, Wa’fa Begum, in Ranjit Singh’s hands, and secretly entrusted the Koh-i-Noor to her while he tried to find troops to regain his throne.

  For several months Shuja visited the durbars of his allies, asking their help to mount a campaign against the usurper, Shah Mahmoud. One night, a former courtier of his invited him to stay at the great fortress of Attock, and there, according to Mirza ‘Ata:

  They invited Shah Shuja to a private party where they served sweet water melons and started playfully throwing the melon skins at each other. But the jest bit by bit turned to scorn and effrontery, and Shah Shuja soon found himself arrested, held first in Attock then sent under close surveillance to Kashmir where he was kept prisoner in a fort … The lancet was frequently held over his eyes; and his keeper once took him into the Indus, with his arms bound, threatening him with instant death if he didn’t hand over the celebrated diamond.24

  Shuja was handed over to ‘Ata Muhammad Khan, who incarcerated him in a fortress located high on the Kuh-i-Maran mountains of Kashmir, then still a part of the fast-fracturing Durrani empire. According to Shuja’s own Memoirs, ‘ ‘Ata Muhammad Khan, governor of Kashmir, occasionally came to visit me, apologising t
hat he had not been true to his salt, that this disloyalty would disfigure him till the Day of Resurrection, but also insinuating that he could also one day be of service to us. So he begged of us the Koh-i-Noor.’25 But the governor of Kashmir was not the only man after the great diamond.

  When Shuja was captured, his wife, Wa’fa Begum, was still in Lahore, and she soon found that Ranjit Singh would go to almost any lengths to get his hands on the diamond. A British traveller who passed through the city shortly afterwards and who met both Wa’fa Begum and Ranjit Singh wrote with the greatest admiration of the way in which the defenceless queen protected herself while managing to secure both her own safety and her husband’s interests. Wa’fa Begum, he wrote, was:

  a woman of most bold and determined character; and her counsel had often proved valuable to her husband, both in the days of his power and disaster.

  At Lahore, while at the mercy of the Sikhs, and absent from her husband, she preserved her own and his honour in a heroic manner. Runjeet Singh pressed her urgently to surrender the Koh-i-Noor which was in her possession; and evinced intentions of forcing it from her. He also sought to transfer the daughters of the unfortunate king to his own harem. The queen seized on the person who conveyed the message, and had him soundly chastised. She also intimated to the Maharaja that if he continued his dishonourable demands, she would pound the diamond in a mortar, and first administer it to her daughters, and those under her protection, and then swallow it herself; adding, ‘May the blood of all of us be on your head!’26

  Eventually, Wa’fa Begum managed to cut a deal with her host. If the Sikh maharaja would rescue her husband from his Kashmiri prison, she promised that the Koh-i-Noor would be his.

  In the spring of 1813, Ranjit Singh duly sent an expedition to Kashmir, which defeated ‘Ata Mohammad Khan and released Shuja from his dungeon, then brought the deposed shah to Lahore. Shuja was certainly grateful for his rescue but was determined if possible to hang on to his most valuable remaining possession. It took considerable pressure to pry the stone from his hands.

  Upon arrival in Lahore, Shuja was separated from his harem, put under house arrest and told to fulfil the bargain made by his wife by handing over the diamond. ‘The ladies of our harem were accommodated in another mansion, to which we had, most vexatiously, no access,’ wrote Shuja in his Memoirs. ‘Food was arbitrarily cut off, our servants sometimes allowed to go and sometimes forbidden from going about their business in the city.’ Shuja regarded this as an ill-mannered breach of the laws of hospitality and, with all the hauteur he could muster, wrote, ‘It was a display of oafish bad manners,’ dismissing Ranjit Singh as ‘both vulgar and tyrannical, as well as ugly and low-natured’.27

  Slowly, Ranjit increased the pressure. At the lowest ebb of his fortunes, Shuja was put in a cage and, according to one account, his eldest son was tortured in front of him until he agreed to part with his most valuable possession. Mirza ‘Ata wrote:

  Ranjit Singh coveted the Koh-i-Noor diamond beyond anything else in this world, and broke all the laws of hospitality in order to get possession of it. The King was imprisoned for a long time, and his guards left him out in the burning sun, but to no effect as he would not confess where the jewel was hidden. At length they took his young son, Prince Muhammad Timur, and made him run up and down ladders on the bare roof of the palace in the burning sun, with no shoes or head-covering: the child had been gently brought up and had a delicate physique which could not stand this burning torture, so he cried out aloud and seemed about to pass away. The King could not bear to see his beloved child suffer so.28

  But even then Shuja sent word to Ranjit Singh that he would hand over the diamond only in return for a formal treaty of friendship, several lakh rupees and Ranjit Singh’s aid in getting back his throne. As Shuja put it:

  The following morning, Ram Singh [Ranjit Singh’s minister] came into our presence to request the Koh-i-Noor diamond. We answered that it was not presently in our hands, but that whenever a firm treaty of friendship had been made between ourselves and Ranjit Singh, we would have no objection to bestowing it as a gift.

  The same request and the same answer were repeated day after day: for nearly a month this continued. When the Sikhs realised that bad behaviour was not achieving the result they desired, Ranjit Singh sent several of his notables to ask what sum of money we might require, so that it could be got ready and handed over: we replied, again, that, on condition of a firm treaty of friendship and unity being signed, we would have no objection. So some 40–50,000 rupees were sent over in instalments to our lodgings – but still we gave the same answer.

  Two days later, Ranjit Singh himself appeared at Shuja’s residence:

  Uttering words of friendship and unity, bringing a written document much to the same effect, dipping his hand into saffron water to print a paw-mark on the treaty, swearing by his sacred book, the Granth, and by his guru Baba Nanak, with his hand on the blade of his sword, that any troops deemed necessary by His Majesty for the reconquest of the province of Kabul and the punishment of the scoundrel rebels will be provided by the Sikh government. Then turbans were exchanged as a sign of perfect amity, and Ranjit Singh exclaimed: ‘Now we have performed all the ceremonies of undying friendship, can I please have the diamond?’29

  According to Sir David Ochterlony, the British representative at the Company frontier town of Ludhiana, keenly watching events from just over the Sutlej river, which formed the border with the territories of the East India Company, Shah Shuja’s conditions were improved slightly while the negotiations continued. ‘The restrictions on Shah Shuja are a little diminished,’ he wrote, ‘on his having agreed to place some jewels in Runjeet’s hands, as a pledge of a delivery of the Koh-i-Noor, within two months for which he is to receive two lakhs in ready money and a jageer [estate] of fifty thousand rupees.’30

  Finally, on 1 June 1813, Ranjit Singh arrived again at Mubarak Haveli in the heart of the walled city of Lahore and waited upon the shah with a few attendants. He was received by Shuja:

  with much dignity, and both being seated, a pause and solemn silence ensued, which continued for nearly an hour. Ranjit then, getting impatient, whispered to one of his attendants to remind the Shah of the object of his coming. No answer was returned, but the Shah with his eyes made a signal to a eunuch, who retired, and brought in a small roll, which he set down on the carpet at an equal distance between the chiefs. Ranjit desired his eunuch to unfold the roll, and when the diamond was exhibited and recognized, the Sikh immediately retired, with his prize in his hand.31

  For the next thirty-six years the Koh-i-Noor would be in the possession of the Sikhs; indeed it would become in many ways a symbol of their sovereignty.

  5

  Ranjit Singh: The Koh-i-Noor in Lahore

  Of all the owners of the Koh-i-Noor, none made more of the diamond than Ranjit Singh.

  The great maharaja of the Sikhs was, in general, a man of unassuming tastes. A diminutive figure with a pockmarked face, he reminded one British observer who saw him in old age of ‘an old mouse, with grey whiskers and one eye’.1 He dressed in simple white robes and rarely took pains with his appearance. He did, however, love the Koh-i-Noor with a rare passion and wore it on all public occasions.

  It was during his reign that the Koh-i-Noor first began to achieve real fame and gained the singular status it has retained ever since: up to this point, as a possession of Nader Shah and his Durrani successors, it had always been worn as part of a pair along with the gem known to the Mughals as the great ruby of Timur, to Nader Shah as the Eye of the Houri and to the Durranis as the Fakhraj. Now the Koh-i-Noor was worn alone, quickly becoming a symbol of all Ranjit Singh had strived for and the independence he had fought so hard to achieve.

  It was not just that Ranjit Singh liked diamonds, and respected the stone’s vast monetary value; the gem seems to have held a far greater symbolism for him. Since he had come to the throne he had won back from the Afghan Durrani dynasty almost all the I
ndian lands they had seized since the time of Ahmad Shah. Having conquered all the Durrani territories as far as the Khyber Pass, Ranjit Singh seems to have regarded his seizure of the Durrani’s dynastic diamond as his crowning achievement, the seal on his status as the successor to the fallen dynasty. It may have been this, as much as the beauty of the stone, that led him to wear it on his arm on all state occasions.

  When Ranjit Singh first took the great diamond in 1813, he suspected that Shah Shuja might have tried to trick him. So he immediately assembled the jewellers of Lahore to test the stone. There was much relief, and even a little surprise, when they pronounced it genuine, and priceless. As an old courtier later recalled: ‘The Maharaja held a Durbar on his return to the Palace, and the Koh-i-Noor Diamond was exhibited to the Chiefs and people assembled there, and repeated congratulations were offered his Highness on the attainment of this valuable jewel.’2

  Then:

  Having fully satisfied himself that the diamond which he had obtained from the Shah was the genuine Koh-i-Noor, he sent Shuja a lakh and twenty five thousand Rupees as a donation.

  The Maharaja then went to Amritsar and immediately sent for the principal jewellers of that City too to ascertain from them their opinion of the value of the Koh-i-Noor. Having carefully examined it, they replied that the value of a diamond of such great size and beauty was far beyond all computation. The Maharaja desired them to set the diamond in a handsome and suitable manner, and this work was executed in his Highness’s presence, for he would not allow them to take the precious jewel out of his sight.