344 SUMMARY HISTORY OF THE KOH-I-NUR
sacked Delhi and carried away to Persia, it is said, £70,000,000 or £80,000,000 worth of treasure.1
On first beholding it he is reported to have conferred upon it the
title Koh-i-Nur or Mountain of Light, a most suitable name for the
stone described by Tavernier.
On
the murder of Nadir Shah at Kelat, in 1747, it passed with the throne
to his grandson Shah Rukh, who resided at Meshed, where he was made a
prisoner and cruelly tortured by Agha Muhammad (Mir Alam Khan), who in
vain sought to obtain the Koh-i-Nur from him.2 In the year
1751 Shah Rukh gave it, as a reward for his assistance, to Ahmad Shah,
the founder of the Durrani dynasty at Kabul, and by him it was
bequeathed to his son Taimur, who went to reside at Kabul. From him, in
1793, it passed by descent to his eldest son Shah Zaman, who, when
deposed by his brother Muhammad, and deprived of his eyes, still
contrived to keep possession of the diamond in his prison, and two
years afterwards it passed into the hands of his third brother Sultan
Shuja'. According to Elphinstone,3 it was found secreted,
together with some other jewels, in the walls of the cell which Shah
Zaman had occupied. After Shuja"s accession to the throne of Kabul, on
the dethronement and imprisonment of Muhammad, he was visited at
Peshawar by Elphinstone in 1809, who describes how he saw the diamond
in a bracelet worn by Shuja', and he refers to it in a foot-note as the
diamond figured by Tavernier. Shuja' was subsequently dethroned by his
eldest brother Muhammad, who had escaped from the prison where he had
been confined.
In
1812 the families of Zaman and Shuja' went to Lahore, and Ranjit Singh,
the ruler of the Punjab, promised the wife of the latter that he would
release her husband and confer upon him the kingdom of Kashmir, for
which service he expected to receive the Koh-i-Nur.4
When
Shah Shuja' reached Lahore, soon afterwards, he was detained there by
Ranjit, who wished to secure both his person and the diamond ; but the
Shah for a time evaded compliance with his demand for the stone, and
refused offers of moderate sums of money for it. At length ' the
Maharaja visited the Shah in person, mutual friendship was declared, an
1 According to the Imperial Gazetteer 1st ed. (vi. 314) only £30,000,000. In the edition of 1907 (ii. 409) the words used are ' a huge ransom' : Smith (Oxford Hist, of India, 459) ' incalculable riches ' : Keene {Fall of the Moghul Empire, 25) says the plunder ' has been estimated at eighty millions sterling'.
2 Sir J. Malcolm, Hist, of Persia, 2nd ed. ii. 195 f.
3 Account of the Kingdom of Cambul, ed. 1907, ii. 325 n.
* Cunningham, History of the Sikhs, Oxford, 1918, p. 153.
