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Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond Hardcover – September 12, 2017
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From the internationally acclaimed and bestselling historians William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, the first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, arguably the most celebrated jewel in the world.
On March 29, 1849, the ten-year-old leader of the Sikh kingdom of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the center of the British fort in Lahore, India. There, in a formal Act of Submission, the frightened but dignified child handed over to the British East India Company swathes of the richest land in India and the single most valuable object in the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond, otherwise known as the Mountain of Light. To celebrate the acquisition, the British East India Company commissioned a history of the diamond woven together from the gossip of the Delhi Bazaars. From that moment forward, the Koh-i-Noor became the most famous and mythological diamond in history, with thousands of people coming to see it at the 1851 Great Exhibition and still more thousands repeating the largely fictitious account of its passage through history.
Using original eyewitness accounts and chronicles never before translated into English, Dalrymple and Anand trace the true history of the diamond and disperse the myths and fantastic tales that have long surrounded this awe-inspiring jewel. The resulting history of south and central Asia tells a true tale of greed, conquest, murder, torture, colonialism, and appropriation that shaped a continent and the Koh-i-Noor itself.
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBloomsbury USA
- Publication dateSeptember 12, 2017
- Dimensions6.09 x 1.19 x 8.29 inches
- ISBN-10163557076X
- ISBN-13978-1635570762
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"The diamond that now sparkles in the queen mother's crown is almost half the size of the original, but, as William Dalrymple and Anita Anand reveal in their lapidary book, its symbolic heft is as potent as ever." - The New York Times
"Though not the biggest diamond in the world--it ranks only 90th--it is certainly the most significant, as William Dalrymple and Anita Anand document in 'Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond.' Stories of bad luck have clung to it, and its arrival in Britain in 1850 caused a rash of novels about cursed jewels, among them Benjamin Disraeli's 'Lothair' and Wilkie Collins's 'The Moonstone.'" - Wall Street Journal
"Riveting. Dalrymple and Anand present as evocative a rendering as the most enthralling bazaar storyteller while providing an astute and empathetic study of the historical landscape through which the diamond has made its troubled way . . . This highly readable and entertaining book . . . finally sets the record straight on the history of the Koh-i-Noor." - The Sunday Times
"Dalrymple tracks its tortuous journey across the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan to its arrival in the Punjabi treasury; Anand tells the subsequent story of British ownership. Their two narratives are neatly spliced and stylistically harmonious." ***** - Mail on Sunday
"In this vivid history of one of the world's most celebrated gemstones, the Indian diamond known as the Koh-i-Noor, Anita Anand and William Dalrymple put an inventive twist on the old maxim. 'Follow the diamond,' they realise, and it can lead into a dynamic, original and supremely readable history of empires." - The Guardian
"A book must be good if it makes me buy tickets to revisit the tower of London, an expensive family day out that I've been putting off for decades. After finishing this history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, however, I needed to set eyes on the great 'mountain of light' . . . Its journey from the soft sand of an Indian riverbed to the Crown Jewels in the Tower is extraordinary. William Dalrymple and Anita Anand have found previously ignored and untranslated Persian and Afghan sources to give us fresh information." - The Times
"William Dalrymple and Anita Anand's well-researched Koh-i-Noor is the latest attempt to shake off the 'bazaar gossip' that surrounded this troublesome stone well before its first confirmed appearance at the court of the 17th-century Mughal emperor Shah Jahan . . . Dalrymple and Anand's tale is a writer's gift: gruesome and ceaselessly dramatic." - Daily Telegraph
"The history of the many who have coveted the diamond is long and involved, full of wonder and awe, treachery and bloodshed." - The Observer
"A lively, well-researched history of lust for wealth and power." - Kirkus Reviews
"[Koh-i-Noor is] an eye-opening, informative, and entertainingly lurid narrative; the authors virtually revel in visceral details while highlighting the colonialism and appropriation so entwined with the diamond's history." - Publishers Weekly
"Koh-i-Noor offers memorable tales of Indian courtly intrigue and violence, and explores the shifting fortunes of South Asian dynasties, the consolidation of British power in the subcontinent, and the British monarchy during and after Queen Victoria’s reign. Dalyrmple and Anand connect us with the series of maharajahs and princes through whose hands and lands this mystique-laden and allegedly cursed gemstone successively passed en route to its current contentious resting place" - Times Literary Supplement
"Meticulously researched and brilliantly written book. In fewer than 300 quick-reading pages, Dalrymple and Anand bust myth after myth. Anita Anand skilfully traces how the British desperately prised it from the hands of its Indian possessors as their administration dominated north-west India. Subtly written with a fine sense of context." - BBC History Magazine
"Dalrymple and Anand bring every stage of the Koh-i-Noor's turbulent past to life. It is an utterly fascinating story, revealing the nature of power through the history of one of its most potent symbols." - Literary Review
"A much needed historical work, and a pleasure to read. Highly recommended." - Historical Novel Society
"A master story-teller, whose special gift lies in the use of indigenous sources, so often neglected by imperial chroniclers." - Max Hastings, Sunday Times on RETURN OF A KING
"Anita Anand’s gripping book is a sad story of dispossession and dislocation . . . The story is fast-paced and thrilling . . . A noble book." - Daily Telegraph on SOPHIA: PRINCESS, SUFFRAGETTE AND REVOLUTIONARY
"Magnificent . . . shames the simplistic efforts of previous writers." - Spectator on THE LAST MUGHAL
About the Author
William Dalrymple wrote the highly acclaimed bestseller In Xanadu when he was just twenty-two. Since then, he has had seven more books published and won numerous awards for his writing, including the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Duff Cooper Memorial Award, the Hemingway Prize and The Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage. He lives with his wife and three children on a farm outside Delhi.
Anita Anand has been a radio and television journalist for over twenty years. On BBC television she has presented, among other shows, The Daily Politics, Heaven and Earth Show and Newsnight. She is currently the presenter of Any Answers on BBC Radio 4. Her first book, Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, received widespread critical acclaim. She lives in London with her husband and two children.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Koh-i-Noor
The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond
By William Dalrymple, Anita AnandBloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 2017 William Dalrymple and Anita AnandAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63557-076-2
Contents
Map, ix,Introduction, 1,
PART I: THE JEWEL IN THE THRONE,
1 The Indian Prehistory of the Koh-i-Noor, 19,
2 The Mughals and the Koh-i-Noor, 35,
3 Nader Shah: The Koh-i-Noor Goes to Iran, 63,
4 The Durranis: The Koh-i-Noor in Afghanistan, 93,
5 Ranjit Singh: The Koh-i-Noor in Lahore, 119,
PART 2: THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN,
6 City of Ash, 139,
7 The Boy King, 163,
8 Passage to England, 195,
9 The Great Exhibition, 219,
10 The First Cut, 229,
11 Queen Victoria's 'Loyal Subject', 243,
12 The Jewel and the Crown, 249,
13 'We Must Take Back the Koh-i-Noor', 269,
Notes, 285,
Bibliography, 303,
Acknowledgements, 319,
Index, 323,
INTRODUCTION
On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old maharaja of Punjab, Duleep Singh, was ushered into the Shish Mahal, the magnificent mirrored throne room at the centre of the great fort of Lahore.
The boy's father, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was long dead, and his mother, Rani Jindan, had been forcibly removed some time earlier and incarcerated in a palace outside the city. Now Duleep Singh found himself surrounded by a group of grave-looking men wearing red coats and plumed hats, who talked among themselves in an unfamiliar language. In the terrors of the minutes that followed – what he later remembered as 'the crimson day' – the frightened but dignified child finally yielded to months of British pressure. In a public ceremony in front of what was left of the nobility of his court, he signed a formal Act of Submission, so accepting the punitive Terms offered to him by the victorious Company. Within minutes, the flag of the Sikh kingdom was lowered and the British colours run up above the gatehouse of the fort.
The document signed by the ten-year-old maharaja handed over to a private corporation, the East India Company, great swathes of the richest land in India – land which until that moment had formed the independent Sikh kingdom of Punjab. At the same time Duleep Singh was induced to hand over to Queen Victoria the single most valuable object not just in Punjab but arguably in the entire subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor, or Mountain of Light.
Article III of the document read simply: 'The gem called the Koh-i-Noor, which was taken from Shah Sooja ool-Moolk by Maharaja Runjeet Singh, shall be surrendered by the Maharaja of Lahore to the Queen of England.' When he heard that Duleep Singh had finally signed the document, the governor general, Lord Dalhousie, was triumphant. 'I had now "caught my hare",' he wrote. He later added: 'The Koh-i-Noor has become in the lapse of ages a sort of historical emblem of conquest in India. It has now found its proper resting place.'
The East India Company, the world's first really global multinational, had grown over the course of little more than a century from an operation employing only thirty-five permanent staff, headquartered in one small office in the City of London, into the most powerful and heavily militarised corporation in history: its army by 1800 was twice the size of that of Britain. It had had its eyes on both Punjab and the diamond for many years.
Its chance finally came in 1839, on the death of Ranjit Singh, when Punjab had quickly descended into anarchy. A violent power struggle, a suspected poisoning, several assassinations, a civil war and two British invasions later, the Company's army finally defeated the Sikhs first at the bloody battle of Chillianwala on 13 January 1849, and then again, conclusively, shortly afterwards, at Gujrat – both now in the Pakistani Punjab – on 21 February. On 12 March, the whole Sikh army laid down its arms. Veterans shed tears as they dropped their ancestral swords and matchlocks on to an enormous pile of weaponry. One grey-bearded old warrior saluted gravely and, folding his hands, exclaimed: 'Aaj Ranjit Singh mar gaya' (Today Ranjit Singh has truly died).
At the end of the same year, on a cold, bleak day in December, Dalhousie arrived in person in Lahore to take formal delivery of his prize from the hands of Duleep Singh's guardian, Dr John Spencer Login. The glittering white diamond remained in the Lahore Toshakhana, or Treasury, set still in the armlet that Maharaja Ranjit Singh had designed for it. To British eyes, used to modern European brilliant cuts of perfect symmetry, the strikingly irregular profile of the diamond made its shape seem distinctly odd: as its name, the Mountain of Light, suggested, it resembled a large hill or perhaps a huge iceberg rising steeply to a high, domed peak. Around the edge of this dome, the stone had been faceted into a simple Mughal rose-cut, leaving short but irregular crystal tails or azimuths sloping off, like saddles or declivities falling from a Himalayan snow-peak, gently on one side, but more steeply and cliff-like on the other. Login had found a way to compensate for this unexpected shape, and make the diamond glitter for his guests, by displaying it through a peephole, illuminated from below against a black velvet cloth, so enhancing its glitter. Dalhousie duly admired the stone, then took it from Login and placed it in a small, soft, kid-l eather bag that had been specially made for the purpose by Lady Dalhousie. The governor general wrote out a receipt, 'I have received this day the Koh-i-Noor diamond,' to which all present then added their personal seals.
Less than a week later, Dalhousie wrote to a junior assistant magistrate in Delhi, asking him to undertake some research on his glittering new acquisition. Theo Metcalfe was not the most diligent or scholarly of East India Company officials. A noisy, convivial figure, he loved dogs and horses and parties, and since his arrival in Delhi had quickly accumulated significant gambling debts. Theo always had a tendency to cut corners and get into what his father described as 'scrapes', but he had a genuine interest in gems. He also had immense charm, and Dalhousie liked the boy. He therefore chose Theo to carry out an important and somewhat delicate task.
The Koh-i-Noor may have been made of the earth's hardest substance, but it had already attracted an airily insubstantial fog of mythology around it, and Dalhousie wanted to establish the solid truth about its history before dispatching it to his queen. Theo was instructed 'to collect and to record as much accurate and interesting information regarding the Koh-i-Noor' as he could from the jewellers and courtiers in Delhi in order to reconstruct as far as possible its history 'while belonging to the Emperors of Delhi, and to transmit it, as soon as he has obtained it, to the Government of India'.
Theo went about his task with characteristically slapdash enthusiasm. But as the gem had been stolen away from Delhi during a Persian invasion a full 110 years earlier, his job was not easy. Even he had to admit that he had gathered little more than bazaar tittle-tattle: 'I cannot but regret that the results are so very meagre and imperfect,' he wrote in the preamble to his report. He nevertheless laid out in full his findings, making up in colour for what he lacked in accurate, substantiated research.
'First,' wrote Theo, 'according to the tradition of the eldest jewellers in the City of Delhee, as handed down from family to family, this diamond was extracted from the mine Koh-i-Noor, four days journey from Masulipatnam to the north west, on the banks of the Godavari, during the lifetime of the [irrestible Hindu cowherd-God] Krishna, who is supposed to have lived 5,000 years since ...'
Theo's report, which still exists in the vaults of the Indian National Archives, continued in this vein, sketching out for the first time what would become the accepted history of the Koh-i-Noor: a centuries-long chain of bloody conquests, and acts of pillage, looting and seizure. Theo's version of events has since been repeated in article after article, book after book, and still sits unchallenged on Wikipedia today.
Discovered in the deepest mists of antiquity, the great diamond was said to have been looted, probably from the eye of an idol in a temple in southern India, by marauding Turks. Soon, Theo's report continues, the 'jewel fell into the hands of the Emperors of the Ghoree dynasty, and from then successively of the [fourteenth-century] Tughluq, Syed and the Lodhi dynasties, and eventually descended to the family of Timur [the Mughals] and remained in their possession until the reign of Mohammud Shah, who wore it in his Turban'. Then, when the Mughal Empire crumbled under the invasion of the Persian warlord Nader Shah, 'the Emperor and he exchanged Turbans, and thus it became the property of the latter'. Theo went on to claim that it was named Koh-i-Noor by Nader Shah, and that it passed at his death to his chief Afghan bodyguard, Ahmad Khan Abdali. From there it spent nearly a hundred years in Afghan hands, before Ranjit Singh extracted it from a fleeing Afghan shah in 1813.
Shortly after Theo had delivered his report, the Koh-i-Noor was dispatched to England where Queen Victoria promptly lent it to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Long queues snaked through the Crystal Palace to see this celebrated imperial trophy locked away in its specially commissioned high-security glass safe, itself contained within a metal cage. Trumpeted by the British press and besieged by the British public, the Koh-i-Noor quickly became not only the most famous diamond in the world, but also the single most famous object of loot from India. It was a symbol of Victorian Britain's imperial domination of the world and its ability, for better or worse, to take from around the globe the most desirable objects and to display them in triumph, much as the Romans once had done with curiosities from their conquests 2,000 years earlier.
As the fame of the diamond grew, and as Theo's enjoyably lively but entirely unsubstantiated version of the stone's history circulated with it, the many other large Mughal diamonds which once rivalled the Koh-i-Noor came to be almost forgotten, and the Mountain of Light achieved a singular status as the greatest gem in the world. Only a few historians remembered that the Koh-i-Noor, which weighed 190.3 metric carats when it arrived in Britain, had had at least two comparable sisters, the Darya-i-Noor, or Sea of Light, now in Tehran (today estimated at 175 to 195 metric carats), and the Great Mughal Diamond, believed by most modern gemmologists to be the Orlov diamond (189.9 metric carats), today part of Catherine the Great's imperial Russian sceptre in the Kremlin.
In reality, it was only really in the early nineteenth century, when the Koh-i-Noor reached Punjab and the hands of Ranjit Singh, that the diamond began to achieve its pre-eminent fame and celebrity – so much so that by the end of Ranjit's reign pious Hindus were beginning to wonder if the Koh-i-Noor was actually the legendary Syamantaka gem mentioned in the Bhagavad Puranas tales of Krishna.
This growing fame was partly the result of Ranjit Singh's preference for diamonds over rubies – a taste Sikhs tended to share with most Hindus, but not with the Mughals or Persians, who preferred large, uncut, brightly coloured stones. Indeed in the Mughal treasury, the Koh-i-Noor seems to have been only one among a number of extraordinary highlights in the greatest gem collection ever assembled, the most prized items of which were not diamonds at all, but the Mughals' beloved red spinels from Badakhshan and, later, rubies from Burma.
The growing status of the Koh-i-Noor was also partly a consequence of the rapidly growing price of diamonds worldwide in the early and mid-nineteenth century. This followed the invention of the symmetrical and multi-faceted 'brilliant cut', which fully released the 'fire' inherent within every diamond, and which led in turn to the emerging fashion in middle-class Europe and America for diamond engagement rings – a taste which was eventually refracted back to India.
The final act in the Koh-i-Noor's rise to worldwide fame took place in the aftermath of the Great Exhibition and the press coverage it had engendered. Before long, huge, often cursed Indian diamonds began to make regular appearances in popular Victorian novels such as Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's Lothair, where the plot follows a bag of uncut diamonds acquired from a maharaja.
So it was that the Koh-i-Noor finally achieved in European exile a singular status it had never achieved before leaving Asia. Today, tourists who see it in the Tower of London are often surprised by its small size, especially when compared to the two much larger Cullinan diamonds kept in the same showcase: at present it is in fact only the ninetieth biggest diamond in the world.
Remarkably, however, the Koh-i-Noor retains its fame and status and is once again at the centre of international dissension, as the Indian government – among others - calls for the gem's return. Even then, Indian officials cannot seem to make up their mind about the Koh-i-Noor's perennially foggy history: in April 2016, the Indian solicitor general, Ranjit Kumar, told the Indian Supreme Court that the Koh-i-Noor had been given freely to the British in the mid-nineteenth century by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and had been 'neither stolen nor forcibly taken by British rulers'. This was by any standards a strikingly unhistorical statement – Ranjit Singh had been ten years dead in 1849, so could only have made this gift by Ouija board or astral projection - and the statement is all the odder given that its surrender to Lord Dalhousie in 1849 is about the one aspect of the diamond's history not in dispute. In the recent past, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and even the Taliban have also all laid claim to the gem and asked for its return.
One hundred and seventy years after it was written, Theo's anecdotal version of the Koh-i-Noor's trajectory, based on Delhi bazaar gossip, has never been fully reassessed or properly challenged. Instead, the exact opposite has happened: as the other great Mughal diamonds have come to be forgotten by all except specialists, all mentions of extraordinary Indian diamonds in sources such as the Memoirs of the Mughal emperor Babur or the Travels of the French jeweller Tavernier have retrospectively come to be assumed to be references to the Koh-i-Noor. At each stage its mythology has grown ever more remarkable, ever more mythic – and ever more shakily fictitious.
Yet anyone who tries to establish the facts of the gem's history will find that unambiguous references to this most celebrated of gems are still, as Theo Metcalfe put it, 'very meagre and imperfect' – indeed they are almost suspiciously thin on the ground. For there is simply no certain reference to the Koh-i-Noor in any Sultanate or Mughal source, despite a huge number of textual references to outsized and immensely valuable diamonds appearing throughout Indian history, particularly towards the climax of Mughal rule. Some of these may well refer to the Koh-i-Noor but, lacking sufficiently detailed descriptions, it is impossible to be certain.
In fact, there are actually no clear and unambiguous mentions of the Koh-i-Noor in any historical document before the Persian historian Muhammad Kazim Marvi makes what seems to be the first extant, solid, named reference to the stone in his history of Nader Shah's invasion of India in 1739. This was written as late as the final years of the 1740s, a decade or so after the gem had been taken away from India. Significantly, Marvi's is the only contemporary chronicle, among a dozen or so detailed accounts left by Persian, Indian, French and Dutch eyewitnesses, specifically to mention the great diamond, and to do so by name, although most give detailed lists and breakdowns of Nader Shah's bejewelled loot.
Moreover, far from being a loose, singular gem that the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah Rangila could secrete within his turban, and which Nader Shah could craftily acquire by a turban swap – one of Theo's unsourced stories that is still repeated – according to Marvi's eyewitness account the emperor could not have hidden the gem because it was at that point a centrepiece of the most magnificent and expensive piece of furniture ever made: the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan's Peacock Throne. The Koh-i-Noor, he writes from personal observation, in the first named reference to the stone - until now untranslated into English - was placed on the roof of this extraordinary throne which cost twice as much as the Taj Mahal to build. Marvi writes:
An octagon, shaped like a European hat, with cir- cular brim, had its sides and canopy gilded and studded with jewels. On top of this was placed a peacock made of emeralds and rubies; on to its head was attached a diamond the size of a hen's egg, known as the Koh-i-Noor – the Mountain of Light, whose price no one but God Himself could know! The wings were studded with jewels; many pearls, each the size of a pigeon's egg, were strung on wire and attached to the pillars supporting the throne. Everything appertaining to this throne was adorned with gold and jewels ... and the ground was covered with a pearl-edged braid ... This throne and its railing were all in pieces, dismantled for transportation, and would be reassembled in order . The present writer saw this throne when the victorious armies had left Delhi and proceeded to the capital Herat, when it was, by royal command, propped up within Nader's royal tent, along with two other rare gifts: a diamond known as the Darya-i-Noor, the Sea of Light, and a ruby known as the 'Ayn al-Hur, the Eye of the Huri.
(Continues...)Excerpted from Koh-i-Noor by William Dalrymple, Anita Anand. Copyright © 2017 William Dalrymple and Anita Anand. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Bloomsbury USA; Illustrated edition (September 12, 2017)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 163557076X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1635570762
- Item Weight : 1.12 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.09 x 1.19 x 8.29 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,713,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,472 in India History
- #9,319 in Great Britain History (Books)
- #47,453 in World History (Books)
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About the author
William Dalrymple FRSL, FRGS, FRAS (born William Hamilton-Dalrymple on 20 March 1965) is a Scottish historian and writer, art historian and curator, as well as a prominent broadcaster and critic.
His books have won numerous awards and prizes, including the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Hemingway, the Kapuściński and the Wolfson Prizes. He has been four times longlisted and once shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.
In 2012 he was appointed a Whitney J. Oates Visiting Fellow in the Humanities by Princeton University. In the Spring of 2015 he was appointed the OP Jindal Distinguished Lecturer at Brown University.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Premkudva (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Customers find the story interesting and poignant. The book provides them with a lot of information and is useful for research. However, some customers feel there are no good images of the stone.
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Customers find the story engaging and interesting. They appreciate the well-researched and passionate writing style. The book covers history of the diamond and country.
"...Iran led colorful and often violent lives, but the most interesting parts of the story to me were the chapters that dealt with the last Sikh ruler,..." Read more
"Poignant and intriguing." Read more
"...Tons of research has gone into writing this - I love it, it's captivating, the book gave me a new perspective about this famous diamond." Read more
"Love everything that the passionate and extremely well researched and knowledgable Willian Dalrymple writes" Read more
Customers find the book informative and useful for research. They say it's well-researched and written by a knowledgeable author.
"Well researched and well written book...." Read more
"Love everything that the passionate and extremely well researched and knowledgable Willian Dalrymple writes" Read more
"What an interesting book! Lots of information but it’s odd that there is no decent picture of the diamond itself. I’ll go online." Read more
"Great book for research. Full of history!!" Read more
Customers find the book's images poor. They mention there are no good images of the stone.
"...Even the images are extremely limited. There are more of the rulers than the stone itself! As I said disappointing." Read more
"...Lots of information but it’s odd that there is no decent picture of the diamond itself. I’ll go online." Read more
"I was very disappointed that there are no good images of the stone." Read more
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2017Visiting the Jewel House in the Tower of London is a truly awe-inspiring experience. Crowns, orbs, sceptres, and other pieces of royal regalia, some of them centuries old, lie before the crowds of viewers, priceless as much for their history as for the intrinsic value of their gold and precious stones. Among the most impressive pieces must be the crown created for the late Queen Mother for her coronation in 1937. It contains many beautiful diamonds and other precious stones, but the paramount feature of the crown must be the very large diamond at the front, the fabled Koh-i-Noor, or Mountain of Light. One of the most famous, yet still mysterious, diamonds in the world, the Koh-i-Noor's history is wrapped in legend and rumor. William Dalrymple and Anita Anand have sifted through the fables and come up with as accurate a history of the Koh-i-Noor as we are ever likely to see. That true history, as readers of this well told tale will find, is as remarkable as any fantasy.
The origins of the stone which eventually came to be part of the British royal regalia are shrouded in the mists of history. India was the ancient source of most of the world's diamonds, and the large, irregularly shaped stone called the Koh-i-Noor was probably extracted from a river bed hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago. There are many tales of mysterious large diamonds in Indian history, but the undisputed record of the Koh-i-Noor begins with the establishment of the Mughal Dynasty in the 1500s. Throughout the vicissitudes of the Mughals, who included some of the most powerful and wealthy rulers in Indian history, the Koh-i-Noor blazed its own trail: adorning the Peacock Throne, taken to Iran, returned to India, taken to Afghanistan, and then coming into the possession of the Sikh rulers of Punjab. In 1849 the British East India Company, which had succeeded in taking over much of the Indian subcontinent, obliged the last Sikh maharajah to hand over the Koh-i-Noor as a present for Queen Victoria. In England the Koh-i-Noor was a star attraction at the Great Exhibition of 1851, then shaped by jewellers into a more sparkling and multi-faceted stone. Queen Victoria wore it , and it adorned the coronation crowns of three queens consort. But Queen Elizabeth II has never worn it, nor have any male British monarchs.
Dalrymple and Anand trace the fascinating tale of the Koh-i-Noor as well as possible, given the ambiguity with which early records speak of it and other large Indian gems. The various owners of the Koh-i-Noor in India, Afghanistan, and Iran led colorful and often violent lives, but the most interesting parts of the story to me were the chapters that dealt with the last Sikh ruler, Duleep Singh. At the age of 10 he was coerced into giving up his nation's sovereignity along with handing over the great diamond. Raised by English caretakers, he converted to Christianity and went to live in England where he became a sort of adopted son of Queen Victoria,. Becoming rebellious and resentful in later years, he led an unhappy life and in many ways symbolizes the complex relationship between Britain and India. I also found the final chapter detailing the efforts of various Indian, Pakistani, and Afghan governments to reclaim the Koh-i-Noor interesting for the light it sheds on the complex relationship between a former mother country and its colonies.
The story of the Koh-i-Noor stretches for centuries and involves great artists and craftsmen as well as venality and violence. William Dalrymple and Anita Anand's history does full justice to their remarkable subject.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2018Great book, I love it. However, I only wished they would mention the Brutality of the Mughal empire to Hindus and the massacre of Hindu men, women and children at the time. The book makes it seems that Mughal empire was gracious and fabulous. However, one Muslim king murdered many Hindus and made a wall of skulls.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2020Poignant and intriguing.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2019Well written book that I was quiet disappointed in. Being a Graduate Gemologist about the go to Amsterdam and take a class on gem cutting from Coster Diamonds, the firm that was hired to recut the K-I-N. I thought it only right to learn a bit more than on my previous visits to the jewel house at the Tower of London. Well I learned a lot about the western version of the possible history of the Punjab region of India. And the POSSIBLE previous Mogul rulers who MIGHT have owned the famous diamond, but I can’t say I learned much about the diamond! Even the images are extremely limited. There are more of the rulers than the stone itself! As I said disappointing.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2017I'm obsessed with this book, couldn't put it down. Tons of research has gone into writing this - I love it, it's captivating, the book gave me a new perspective about this famous diamond.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2018Well researched and well written book. What is amazing is that the Kohinoor has gone through a roller coaster ride throughout its history and yet survived. Hard to see Britain handing it back though.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2017Love everything that the passionate and extremely well researched and knowledgable Willian Dalrymple writes
- Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2017Fantastic and speedy service. A lovely book - as advertised! Will be happy to buy from again.
Top reviews from other countries
- NSReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 31, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating
Such an informative, interesting and illuminating read about the history of this infamous diamond. It seems clear to me the stone does originate from India, and brings darkness & destruction when possessed by those to who it does not belong to. Excellent written work by Dalrymple.
- A Montreal ReaderReviewed in Canada on August 27, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Lesson in Indian/Pakistani History
The story of the gem is intricately weaved into a history lesson of India/Pakistan. It is so well written, that I was able to go through it in one day. I found it fascinating how some of the history, written fairly neutral,, had very different interprétations at our book club - whether you were British or not - the view was very different of who did what damage. It is of course sad to not have this jewel intact (its original size) and returned to its rightful owners. You will learn plenty by reading this book and will want to learn more.
-
peter e.Reviewed in Germany on February 12, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Hoch interessant.
Ein wunderbarer Author schreibt wieder ein wunderbares super recherchiertes Buch
- Yash SharmaReviewed in India on January 18, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Koh-i-noor : Mountain of light
1) This book is divided into the following two parts, the first part was written by william Dalrymple and the second part was written by Anita anand
Part 1 : The jewel in the throne
* The Indian prehistory of the koh-i-noor
* The mughals and the koh-i-noor
* Nader shah : The koh-i-noor goes to Iran
* The durranis : The koh-i-noor in Afghanistan
* Ranjit Singh : The koh-i-noor in lahore
Part 2 : The jewel in the crown
* City of Ash
* The boy King
* Passage to England
* The great exhibition
* The first cut
* Queen Victoria's 'Loyal subject'
* The jewel and the crown
* 'We must take back the koh-i-noor'
2) According to the pious hindus the koh-i-noor was actually the "Syamantaka" gem as the 'Prince of gemstones' which is mentioned in the Bhagavad and vishnu puranas. And according to these ancient text Syamantaka was the brilliant jewel of the sun god Surya who wore it around his neck and from which he derived his dazzling appearance,but later the sun god gave the precious gem to satrajit, the yadava king of Dwarka because of his devotion towards him. But later the yadava king accused vasudeva shri krishna of stealing the gem but the latter proved his innocence and because of this the king gave her daughter and the diamond to him in marriage and because of these tales the Hindus considered Syamantaka as koh-i-noor and connect it with shri krishna.
2) Though majority of the world's diamond came from India until the discovery of diamond mines in Brazil in 1725 and the world's oldest treatise on gems and gemmology were also written in ancient India and collectively these text are known as "Ratnashastras".
3) Though nobody knows how the great mughals got the koh-i-noor but according to various travellers it came from the southern India and precisely from vijaynagar.But one thing Is clear that nobody knows about the origin of koh-i-noor and how it entered into the treasury of the mughals but we know how it left.
4) Babur mentioned about a great diamond in his Autobiography ' Baburnama ' but is this the koh-i-noor no one knows but during the reign of shahjahan when he ordered the magnificent 'Peacock throne' to be built it is the first time koh-i-noor came into light and it is fitted in one of the two peacocks. But during the rule of Muhammad Shah rangila ,the persian speaking warlord Nader Shah (son of a shepherd) invaded India and entered Delhi and ordered the massacre of civilians of Delhi and his army looted the entire city and grabbed the peacock throne and koh-i-noor and crores of rupees and precious gems and stones on his way back to Iran. But nadir shah was brutally killed by his own Men, but the first lady of Nader shah's harem gave the koh-i-noor to his trusted bodyguard Ahmad shah abdali/durrani .
5) Ahmad Shah abdali (the founding father of Afghanistan) who bring the koh-i-noor with himself in Afghanistan and the diamond remained with the durrani family for sometime but during the reign of afghan ruler Shah shuja he was incarcerated in prison by his rivals and his family reached in the court of Maharaja ranjit singh and shuja's wife promised maharaja ranjit that she will give koh-i-noor to Maharaja if he freed and saved the life of his husband Shah shuja and later ranjit singh freed shuja and takes the koh-i-noor from the afgan ruler.
6) Infact it was the lion of punjab maharaja ranjit singh who glorified the Value of koh-i-noor than any other king and he always wore the diamond in his arm as a armband but later when Ranjit Singh on his last stage of life he wanted that koh-i-noor should be donated to jagannath temple in Orissa but somehow his treasurer defied him and the great diamond stayed in punjab. But after the death of ranjit singh and afterwards the two anglo-sikh wars and finally British annexed the kingdom of punjab and lord dalhousie Cleverly forced the juvenile maharaja Duleep singh to gave the diamond to queen victoria which later he did and later koh-i-noor left the shore of hindustan for forever and reached london with great pomp.
7) But the matter does not settle here people from India, pakistan,Iran , afghanistan and Infact taliban Demands the koh-i-noor should be given to there respective countries and each claim the great diamond as its own ,but the sad reality is that koh-i-noor will remain in london forever in her Majesty crown. But the fame of koh-i-noor radiates all over the world Though it is not the world's biggest diamond but still it retains it's fame and that's why it is known as koh-i-noor- "
The mountain of light"
8) This book is awesome and both the authors had done a good amount of research and the language of the book is very easy to read, there are some rare pictures of koh-i-noor, of peacock throne and the various kings who wore the diamond ones very proudly.
9) The reader will also get a chapter on the life of Maharaja Duleep singh and how the latter was converted to Christianity.
10) I will recommend to Readers don't think too much just grab this book and read it thoroughly.
My ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)
I hope you like the review, thanks for reading, Jai Hind.
Yash Sharma
Reviewed in India on January 18, 2018
Part 1 : The jewel in the throne
* The Indian prehistory of the koh-i-noor
* The mughals and the koh-i-noor
* Nader shah : The koh-i-noor goes to Iran
* The durranis : The koh-i-noor in Afghanistan
* Ranjit Singh : The koh-i-noor in lahore
Part 2 : The jewel in the crown
* City of Ash
* The boy King
* Passage to England
* The great exhibition
* The first cut
* Queen Victoria's 'Loyal subject'
* The jewel and the crown
* 'We must take back the koh-i-noor'
2) According to the pious hindus the koh-i-noor was actually the "Syamantaka" gem as the 'Prince of gemstones' which is mentioned in the Bhagavad and vishnu puranas. And according to these ancient text Syamantaka was the brilliant jewel of the sun god Surya who wore it around his neck and from which he derived his dazzling appearance,but later the sun god gave the precious gem to satrajit, the yadava king of Dwarka because of his devotion towards him. But later the yadava king accused vasudeva shri krishna of stealing the gem but the latter proved his innocence and because of this the king gave her daughter and the diamond to him in marriage and because of these tales the Hindus considered Syamantaka as koh-i-noor and connect it with shri krishna.
2) Though majority of the world's diamond came from India until the discovery of diamond mines in Brazil in 1725 and the world's oldest treatise on gems and gemmology were also written in ancient India and collectively these text are known as "Ratnashastras".
3) Though nobody knows how the great mughals got the koh-i-noor but according to various travellers it came from the southern India and precisely from vijaynagar.But one thing Is clear that nobody knows about the origin of koh-i-noor and how it entered into the treasury of the mughals but we know how it left.
4) Babur mentioned about a great diamond in his Autobiography ' Baburnama ' but is this the koh-i-noor no one knows but during the reign of shahjahan when he ordered the magnificent 'Peacock throne' to be built it is the first time koh-i-noor came into light and it is fitted in one of the two peacocks. But during the rule of Muhammad Shah rangila ,the persian speaking warlord Nader Shah (son of a shepherd) invaded India and entered Delhi and ordered the massacre of civilians of Delhi and his army looted the entire city and grabbed the peacock throne and koh-i-noor and crores of rupees and precious gems and stones on his way back to Iran. But nadir shah was brutally killed by his own Men, but the first lady of Nader shah's harem gave the koh-i-noor to his trusted bodyguard Ahmad shah abdali/durrani .
5) Ahmad Shah abdali (the founding father of Afghanistan) who bring the koh-i-noor with himself in Afghanistan and the diamond remained with the durrani family for sometime but during the reign of afghan ruler Shah shuja he was incarcerated in prison by his rivals and his family reached in the court of Maharaja ranjit singh and shuja's wife promised maharaja ranjit that she will give koh-i-noor to Maharaja if he freed and saved the life of his husband Shah shuja and later ranjit singh freed shuja and takes the koh-i-noor from the afgan ruler.
6) Infact it was the lion of punjab maharaja ranjit singh who glorified the Value of koh-i-noor than any other king and he always wore the diamond in his arm as a armband but later when Ranjit Singh on his last stage of life he wanted that koh-i-noor should be donated to jagannath temple in Orissa but somehow his treasurer defied him and the great diamond stayed in punjab. But after the death of ranjit singh and afterwards the two anglo-sikh wars and finally British annexed the kingdom of punjab and lord dalhousie Cleverly forced the juvenile maharaja Duleep singh to gave the diamond to queen victoria which later he did and later koh-i-noor left the shore of hindustan for forever and reached london with great pomp.
7) But the matter does not settle here people from India, pakistan,Iran , afghanistan and Infact taliban Demands the koh-i-noor should be given to there respective countries and each claim the great diamond as its own ,but the sad reality is that koh-i-noor will remain in london forever in her Majesty crown. But the fame of koh-i-noor radiates all over the world Though it is not the world's biggest diamond but still it retains it's fame and that's why it is known as koh-i-noor- "
The mountain of light"
8) This book is awesome and both the authors had done a good amount of research and the language of the book is very easy to read, there are some rare pictures of koh-i-noor, of peacock throne and the various kings who wore the diamond ones very proudly.
9) The reader will also get a chapter on the life of Maharaja Duleep singh and how the latter was converted to Christianity.
10) I will recommend to Readers don't think too much just grab this book and read it thoroughly.
My ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)
I hope you like the review, thanks for reading, Jai Hind.
Images in this review - Amazon CustomerReviewed in Canada on August 14, 2017
4.0 out of 5 stars A fairly detailed historical review of the famous diamond. ...
A fairly detailed historical review of the famous diamond. The book covers many facet of different conquerors of the subcontinent.