Saga of a stone
G.V. RAMANA RAO
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The Kohinoor diamond has a brilliant story behind it.
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PHOTO: AP
PART OF THE ENGLISH CROWN JEWELS: The Kohinoor
The Kohinoor diamond was once the largest known diamond in the world. It originated in India, belonged to various Indian and Persian rulers who fought bitterly over it at various points in history, and seized as a spoil of war, it became part of the Crown Jewels of England when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.
It is certain that the stone was mined in India, as until the 19th century India was the only place in the world where diamonds were known. Most historians say that the diamond comes from the diamond mines of Golconda, but are unable to say the exact location of the mine. Some say that the huge diamond was found in a mine on the banks of River Krishna.
Gordon Mackenzie who worked as a Collector of Krishna District towards the end of the 19th century, recorded in his "Manual of the Kistna District in the Presidency of Madras" that the Kohinoor diamond was found in Gani-Kolluru Mine on the banks of River Krishna. He says that the region was then under the Golconda rulers. After the downfall of the Bahmani kings the Qutb Shahi Dynasty became the rulers of the Golconda. Mackenzie records that Golconda was a common enough name in Telugu country, being simply Galikonda, given to several peaks on which the storm clouds gather.
But the Golconda that gave a title to the Qutb Shahi dynasty is a hill fortress near Hyderabad. There were no diamonds in that locality. Mackenzie says in the manual that poets who described the splendour of the Golconda gems were not aware that it was only the residence of the king and that the precious stones displayed there were collected from the different regions of the kingdom.
Venetian traveller of the 13th century Marco Polo and Nicolo Conti of the 15th century described a diamond producing mountain called Albenigaras. Mackenzie quotes a geologist V. Ball as saying that `al' is the Arabic article and that `Benigaras' is probably Bellam Konda. There is a similar account from Marco Polo referring to a location on the banks of Krishna River which he referred to as Gani- Kollur.
Another mine
The earliest trustworthy account of these diamond mines, according to Mackenzie, was by French jeweller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier (1605-1689), who made six journeys to India to purchase precious stones.
He recorded that he travelled for a week eastward from Golconda, crossed the Krishna River, and found himself in the mines of "Gani-Coulour" which was evidently Gani-Kollur of Kollur, south of Pulichintala and west of Bellam Konda.
Tavernier said that a farmer, who found a 25-carat diamond while sowing millet, found the mine. A great many stones weighing 10 to 40 carats and even bigger were found in the mine. The largest diamond to be found at the mine weighed 900 carats. Sixty thousand people were working in the mine when he visited it.
According to Mackenzie, many historians of his time thought that the 900-carat diamond found in Kollur mine was the Kohinoor. Tavernier recorded that he saw this gem when Emperor Aurangzeb granted him audience on November 2, 1665. The French jeweller described it as having been reduced by unskilful cutting to 319.5 ratis equivalent to 218 carats. Mackenzie says that the weight mentioned by Tavernier does not agree with the present weight of the Kohinoor, but Tavernier's carat may have been less than the carat that is being used by the diamond merchants.
It is a well-known fact that the size of the diamond was reduced again later. In 1852, under the personal supervision of Victoria's consort, Prince Albert, the diamond was cut from 186.06 carats (37.21 g) to its current 105.602 carats (21.61 g), to increase its brilliance.
Albert consulted widely, took enormous pains, and spent some £8,000 on the operation, which reduced the weight of the stone by a huge 42 per cent, but nevertheless Albert was still dissatisfied with the result.
The stone was mounted in a tiara with more than two thousand other diamonds.
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