Kohinoor, More Symbolic than Beautiful

A diamond that is free of impurities is valued highly. So is one that glitters and reflects light. The Kohinoor, even after it was cut (more on why it was cut later), is not the best on either count. It barely makes it to the 100 Biggest Diamonds list today (in case you were wondering, it’s 89th). And yet, as William Dalrymple and Anita Anand write in their book:

“It retains a fame and celebrity unmatched by any of its larger or more perfect rivals.”

 

Nobody knows for sure where the diamond was originally found, but it certainly pre-dates the Mughals. In pre-Mughal India:

“Diamonds were not just valued for their usefulness and beauty, they were believed to be supremely auspicious objects, able to channel planetary influences, and so were given an almost semi-divine status.”

When the Mughals came to India, they (0bviously) bought their own Persian values, one that did not place diamonds on a pedestal!

“(In Persia) it was not diamonds but ‘red stones of light’ that were given pre-eminence.”

Emeralds and rubies were far more valuable to the Mughals.

 

Also, the Mughals preferred to “keep and celebrate the natural weight and shape of a stone rather than drilling away to produce a the smaller but more symmetrically cut gems favoured in Europe”. And thus the Kohinoor was just one among many jewels owned by the Mughals. It then changed hands to invaders like Nader Shah and his Durrani successors, before Ranjit Singh took it from them as their empire faded.

“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 of the fallen dynasty.”

It was as much symbolic as it was beautiful.

 

Symbolism was also the reason why the British took the Kohinoor from Ranjit Singh’s successor, his weak and still-a-boy son whom they had defeated. Queen Victoria decided to show it to her public at “The Great Exhibition”:

“To have it displayed in London in a cage was the perfect symbol of British dominance.”

And yet, the response to that public exhibition was underwhelming. As one newspaper reported:

“A diamond is generally colorless, and the finest exhibits are quite free from any spec or flaw of any kind… The Kohinoor is not cut in the best form for exhibiting its purity and lustre, and will therefore disappoint many.”

It was, as the book says, a reflection of the “difference in the aesthetic cultures of the West and India”. And so the British cut the diamond, hoping to exhibit it the way they liked their diamonds. While the cut may have improved the appearance to Western tastes, it had also reduced the diamond to half its size…

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