Stories About Famous Precious Stones

IX. THE GREAT MOGUL.

If the Sanci be the Sphinx of diamonds the Great Mogul may not inaptly be called the Meteor among them. Like those brilliant visitants in the skies, it flashes suddenly upon us in all its splendor and as suddenly disappears in total darkness leaving not a trace behind. So utterly has it vanished from our ken that some writers deny its independent existence. And this they do in the face of the minute description of the greatest diamond-merchant and expert of his century, who actually held the stone in his hand! The hard-headed practical Tavernier was not likely to have dreamed that he saw the Great Mogul, nor is it likely that a diamond-merchant of his experience could have made any gross mistake as to its weight or its character—for some go so far as to suggest that the Great Mogul was a white topaz! The fact that we now cannot find the diamond is no sufficient reason for denying its former existence.

In the account of Queen Victoria's diamond, the Koh-i-nÛr, we made acquaintance with the court of Delhi; to its complicated records we must return for the Great Mogul. It is scarcely needful to state this name is a fanciful one bestowed on the lost gem by European writers; Tavernier gives it no distinct name in his description.

Shah Jehan (Lord of the World) who reigned in the middle of the seventeenth century was, as we have already seen, the husband of the beautiful NÛr Jehan (Light of the World) who bore him four sons and two daughters.

As the King grew older his sons grew stronger, and fearing that they would not be able to dwell together in amity at Delhi the old monarch gave distant governments to three of his sons, in order to keep the young men apart from one another, and at a safe distance from himself. In this way he vainly hoped to escape the destiny of Indian emperors—jealousies and mutinies during his life and fratricides after his death. But his plan failed. Shah Jehan saw one son put a brother to death and he himself lived for seven years as the captive of the murderer.

A contemporary of Shah Jehan was Emir Jemla, or Mirgimola, as Tavernier calls him. He was a man of great ability and singular fortunes, being, so to speak, the Cardinal Wolsey of his king Abdullah Kutb Shah, lord of Golconda. Proud, ambitious, skillful and rich, he at length aroused the suspicions of his sovereign, as was the case with regard to Wolsey. Emir Jemla was not, however, a priest, but a soldier, and commanded the King's armies. A Persian by birth and of mean origin, he had raised himself to be general-in-chief by means of his military talents and his vast wealth. Emir Jemla sent ships into many countries, says Tavernier, and worked diamond-mines under an assumed name, so that people discoursed of nothing but of the riches of Emir Jemla. His diamonds, moreover, he counted by the sackful.

In the year 1656, being sent by the King to bring certain rebellious rajahs to reason, he left as hostages in his master's hands his wife and children, according to the usual practice among the suspicious and not over-faithful Asiatics. While he was absent upon this expedition the King's mind was poisoned against the powerful favorite by the courtiers jealous of his success. Having only daughters, the King was made to believe that Emir Jemla intended to raise his own son to the throne, and the unruly, ill-mannered behavior of this son lent color to the tale. The King took fright at the idea and laid hands upon the hostages using them sharply. The son sent word to his father, Emir Jemla, and the latter enraged at the indignity resolved to avenge himself. He invoked the aid of the imperial suzerain, Shah Jehan. Uncertain of his success at headquarters, he applied in the meantime to two of the Emperor's sons who were nearer at hand than far-off Delhi, for they were then at the head of their respective governments to the north and west of Golconda. One of them refused Emir Jemla's offer of adding his master's dominions to the empire of Shah Jehan in return for the loan of an army, but the other accepted the proposition. The name of him who accepted was Aurungzeb, third son of Shah Jehan, and the most perfidious prince within the four corners of India.

The allied chiefs did not waste time, but arrived before Golconda so unexpectedly that Abdullah had barely time to save himself by retiring to his not far-distant hill-fortress. Indeed the King himself threw open his gates to the enemy, for Aurungzeb gave out that he came as ambassador from the emperor Shah Jehan, and the King was within a hair-breadth of falling into the hands of the treacherous ambassador when he received timely warning and saved himself by flight. With a courtesy which Tavernier finds passing graceful the fugitive King sent back to his rebel vassal the wife and children whom he had held as hostages. Notwithstanding their war there remained a good deal of kindly feeling between Emir Jemla and the King, his master. For example: one day his Majesty being straitly besieged in his fortress was informed by his Dutch cannonier that Emir Jemla was riding within range. "Shall I take off his head for your Highness?" asked the Dutchman. The King, very wroth, replied: "No; learn that not so lightly is esteemed the life of a prince." The cannonier, not to be balked of his artillery practice, cut in twain the body of a general who was riding not far from Emir Jemla.

On his side also Emir Jemla was anxious not to reduce the King to extremities and refused to prosecute the siege to the uttermost, which much disgusted his ally Aurungzeb. Rather he would treat with his ancient master, who gladly accepted the chance of deliverance, appealing to Shah Jehan himself against his son. The emperor was easy on his former ally, and eventually a family alliance was arranged between a daughter of King Abdullah and a son of Aurungzeb. Emir Jemla set off to Delhi to confer with Shah Jehan upon the subject.

It is an axiom of Asiatic etiquette that no one ever comes before a king without laying a gift at his feet. Emir Jemla, anxious to obtain the favor of Shah Jehan, took care not to stand before him empty-handed, but presented him with "that celebrated diamond which has been generally deemed unparalleled in size and beauty." So says Franzois Bernier, a Frenchman, physician to Aurungzeb, who lived many years in Delhi and whose familiarity with the court enabled him to speak accurately of recent occurrences.

After Emir Jemla had presented his matchless diamond to Shah Jehan, who was a man of taste in gems, he gave the Emperor to understand that the diamonds of Golconda were quite other things from "those rocks of Kandahar," which he had seen hitherto. This was a rather contemptuous phrase to use to an emperor who already possessed the Koh-i-nÛr. However, the stone which Emir Jemla gave to Shah Jehan so far exceeded everything that had been hitherto dreamed of in the way of diamonds that he might be excused if he exaggerated somewhat.

It will be well here to quote Tavernier's account of the Great Mogul diamond, even though something out of the chronological order. The occasion is Tavernier's departure from Delhi on his sixth and last return from India to Europe.

"The first of November, 1665, I was at the Palace to take leave of the King (Aurungzeb) but he said I must not go without seeing his jewels since I had seen the magnificence of his fÊte. Next morning very early five or six officers came from the king and others from the Nabob Jafer Khan, to say the king was waiting for me. As soon as I arrived the two courtiers who had charge of the jewels accompanied me to his Majesty, and after the customary salutations they took me into a small chamber situated at the end of the hall where the king was sitting on his throne, and whence he could see us. I found in this chamber Akel Khan, the chief keeper of the jewels, who as soon as he saw me commanded the four eunuchs of the king to go and fetch the jewels which were brought on two wooden trays lacquered with gold-leaf, and covered with cloths made on purpose, one of red velvet and one of green velvet embroidered. After they were uncovered and had been counted, each piece two or three times, a list was drawn up by the three scribes present. Indians do all things with much care and deliberation, and when they see any one acting with precipitation or getting angry they look upon it as a thing to laugh at.

"The first piece which Akel Khan put into my hands was the great diamond which is a round rose, cut very high on one side. On the lower edge there is a slight crack and a little flaw in it. Its water is beautiful and it weighs 319 1-2 ratis which make 280 of our carats, the ratis being 7-8 of our carat. When Mergimola (i.e. Emir Jemla) who betrayed the king of Golconda, his master, made present of this stone to Shah Jehan to whose court he retired, it was rough, and weighed then 900 ratis which make 787 1-2 carats, and there were several flaws in it. If this stone had been in Europe it would have been differently treated, for several good slices would have been taken off, and it would have remained heavier instead of which it has been entirely ground down. It was Hortenzio Borgis, a Venetian, who cut it, for which he was sufficiently badly recompensed, for when it was seen, he was reproached with having ruined the stone, which should have remained heavier, and instead of paying him for his work, the king fined him ten thousand rupees and would have taken more if he had possessed it. If Sieur Hortenzio had understood his business well he would have been able to get several good pieces from this stone without doing any wrong to the King, and without having the trouble of grinding it down, but he was an unskillful diamond-cutter."

Tavernier held this great stone in his hand for some time and contemplated it at his leisure. It must have been a great day for him, the connoisseur, to see and examine the finest diamond in existence. It is well he looked long and keenly at it, for it was never again to be seen by European eyes. On this second of November, 1665, the Great Mogul was seen for the first, last and only time by one able to tell us anything about it. This was its meteor-flash into history and fame. It was seen by the man best able to appreciate it and then never seen again. The accompanying illustration is taken from Tavernier's drawing of the Great Mogul.

Incidentally we learn something more of the monster diamond from the pen of the same writer. Speaking of the Coulour or Gani diamond-mine, Tavernier says:

"There are still found there large stones, larger than elsewhere, from ten to forty carats and sometimes larger, among them the great diamond which weighed nine hundred carats (an evident slip for ratis) before being cut, which Mirgimola presented to Aurungzeb (another slip for Shah Jehan) as I have said before."

THE GREAT MOGUL. THE GREAT MOGUL.

To explain these slips of Tavernier's pen it will be well to state that the great Frenchman, though speaking all European and many Asiatic languages, was yet unable to write in any, not even in his own. He therefore borrowed the pen of two different persons to write his delightful travels which give us such a living picture of Indian life two centuries ago. The Coulour mine, here spoken of, was discovered about a century before Tavernier's time, in a very singular manner. A peasant when preparing the ground to sow millet, unearthed a sparkling pebble which excited his attention. Golconda was near enough for him to have heard of diamonds, so he brought his prize to a merchant at the latter place. The merchant was amazed to see in the peasant's pebble a very large diamond. The fame of Coulour quickly spread, and it soon became a great mining center, employing thousands of workmen. Tavernier objects that the mine yielded stones of impure water. The gems, he declares, seemed to partake of the nature of the soil and tended to a greenish, a reddish, or a yellowish hue as the case might be.

This defect was not apparent in the Great Mogul which was, he distinctly says, perfect, of good water and of good form, having but one little flaw on the lowest edge. Taking this flaw into consideration, the value of the diamond, according to Tavernier's scale of estimation, was 11,723,278 livres which being reduced to present coinage yields the goodly sum of $2,344,655. Being permitted to weigh it, he found the exact weight to be 279 9-16 carats.

Then after looking at the diamond as long as he wanted, for Akel Khan did in no wise hurry him, Tavernier was shown a multitude of other gems of lesser note, and among them a pearl perfectly round, weighing thirty-six and one half ratis of beautiful luster, white, and perfect in every way.

"This is the only jewel which Aurungzeb who reigns now has bought on account of its beauty, for all the others came to him in part from Dara, his eldest brother, to whose belongings he succeeded after having cut off his head, and in part from presents from his nobles."

This slight remark opens to our view one of the saddest chapters of the gloomy family history of Shah Jehan's sons. And as Dara was once the possessor of the Great Mogul, we may be allowed to give his pitiful story in a few words.

Prince Dara (David) the eldest son of Shah Jehan and the Light of the World, was destined by his father to succeed him on the throne of Delhi. Having, as we have already seen, disposed of his other three sons in the furthest corners of India, the old king thought he was safe. But one of those sons, Aurungzeb, was a man of restless ambition. Not content with his appointed province of the Deccan, Aurungzeb pretended to the imperial crown itself. In 1657 Shah Jehan fell sick, and Aurungzeb, attended by a large army, which included a contingent under Emir Jemla's command, hastened toward Delhi. The aged emperor, dreading the filial solicitude which arrayed itself in so formidable a manner, sent orders to his son to return to his province. Aurungzeb not only did not return, but persuaded another brother to come up from his province, likewise attended by an army, and together they marched upon their father's capital. The course of Asiatic intrigue is too complicated and subtle for any but the merest antiquary to track it. Suffice it to say that after much lying and many protestations of obedience, matters came to a crisis, and Dara was sent by Shah Jehan to oppose Aurungzeb by force.

Dara was overthrown and returned humiliated to his father's palace. Recollecting that his own path to the throne lay through the blood of his nearest relatives, Shah Jehan, no longer able to defend his eldest son against the undutiful Aurungzeb, gave him two elephant-loads of gold and jewels, and bade him escape. The Great Mogul diamond was apparently among the jewels thus despairingly bestowed upon his son by the enfeebled old king. At all events Dara escaped and fled from friend to friend for the space of one year, and it was during this time that he was seen by Bernier, the famous French surgeon, who was afterwards attached to the service of Aurungzeb.

Meantime that successful traitor dethroned and then imprisoned his father, whose grandiloquent title of Shah Jehan (Lord of the World) became a bitter mockery when designating the prisoner of Agra, and then he awaited the treachery of some of Dara's so-called friends. In the course of a twelvemonth, his patience was rewarded. The chief of Jun, who had reason to be grateful for many favors from Dara, gained an infamous notoriety by delivering the fugitive prince over to his usurping brother.

Aurungzeb caused Prince Dara to be publicly paraded through the streets of Delhi with his little seven-year-old grandson by his side, while the executioner stood ominously behind him. This pitiful spectacle was witnessed by all Delhi, and many tears were shed over the fall of Dara, but "no one raised a hand to aid him," remarks Bernier, who was one of the spectators. After a mock trial the unhappy prince was sentenced to death, and a slave with several satellites was sent to the prison of Gevalior to dispatch him. Dara was engaged in cooking some lentils for himself and his little grandson, for this was the only food he would touch, lest they should be secretly poisoned. The moment the slaves entered, he cried out, "Behold, my son, those who are come to slay us!" and snatching up a small knife he tried to defend himself and the child. It was an unequal fight which could but end in one way. The boy was quickly made an end of, and Dara being thrown down was held by the legs while one of the slaves cut off his head. The head was then immediately brought to Aurungzeb, as a certificate that his orders had been duly executed. The king desired the face to be washed and wiped in his presence and then, when he saw that it was the veritable head of Dara, his brother, he fell a-weeping and cried aloud: "O, Dara! O, unhappy man! Take it away! Bury it in the tomb of Humaiyun."

Such was the fate of Dara, the second owner of the Great Mogul.

In conclusion Tavernier says of the treasures belonging to Aurungzeb:

"These then are the jewels of the Grand Mogul which he showed to me by a particular grace granted to no other foreigner, and I held them all in my hand and considered them with so much attention and leisure that I can assure the reader that the description which I have given is very exact and faithful, as also of the stones which I had time enough to contemplate."

Here absolutely ends the history of this magnificent gem. What became of it no one knows. Whether it was lost in the sack of Delhi, or carried off by Nadir Shah along with the Koh-i-nÛr, it is impossible to say, or even to conjecture with any degree of plausibility. No account of this grand diamond, however, would be complete without some reference to the extraordinary myths which have gathered around it. There is scarcely another large diamond of no matter what size, or what color, or what shape, that has not sometime, or by somebody, been declared to be the Great Mogul. Its subsequent history seems to be the happy hunting-ground of the foolish theories of writers on precious stones. Men who write carefully enough about other diamonds, launch out into the wildest conjectures about the Great Mogul. They apparently cannot bear the thought of losing so precious a gem and therefore they find it somewhere, no matter to what inconsistency and absurdity they may be reduced in the process of identification.

Take a few examples.

It has been maintained that the Great Mogul is the Orloff; that it is the Koh-i-nÛr; that it is both together; that it is the Orloff, the Koh-i-nÛr and a third beside, now lost, which Hortenzio Borgis obtained by cleavage—the precise thing which Tavernier distinctly says he did not do, preferring to grind it down; that it was not a diamond at all, but a white topaz—as if Tavernier, the greatest expert of his times, would not have detected that fact. Even Mr. Streeter, in general a most reliable authority on diamonds, is dazzled into inconsistency when he comes to treat of the Great Mogul. In his work, Precious Stones and Gems, published in 1877, he says under the head of celebrated diamonds: "The diamond known as the Great Mogul has received an amount of attention beyond any other. Under the name of the Koh-i-nÛr (Mountain of Light) it played an important part in the Exhibition of 1851," etc., etc. Now harken to Mr. Streeter writing in 1882: "If this description (Tavernier's) be compared with the models both of the Koh-i-nÛr and of the Great Mogul itself in our possession, all doubts will be at once removed as to the essentially different character of the two crystals." Again: "The two differ absolutely in their origin, history, size and form!" The Mr. Streeter of 1882 is wisely ignorant of the lucubrations of the Mr. Streeter of 1877.

Unable to offer the slightest hint as to the fate of the Great Mogul we can only hope that some future day may reveal it, and until then we must put up with our ignorance as best we may. It came and went in a flash of glory, the Meteor of Diamonds.

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