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The Chapada: Mahratta

Under the Mahratta Power--"Gifts of the gods"--A Present to the East India Company--Reminiscences of a Royal Birthday--Re-cut by Order of the Marquis of Westminster.

THE town of Nassak, variously written Nassac, Nassik, Nasik, Nessuck, &c., lies on the Upper Godavery, 95 miles by rail north-east of Bombay. In the neighbourhood are some famous cave-temples, and in the days of the Mahratta ascendancy, this town was a noted place of pilgrimage, annually resorted to by thousands of devotees. The offerings of these worshippers of Shiva, the presiding genius of the district, caused here, as elsewhere, throughout the peninsula, a gradual accumulation of vast treasures in the local shrines. While the Mahratta power flourished, these treasures were respected, but when they fell upon evil days, the Peishwas, nominal heads of the great confederacy, helped themselves freely to the "gifts of the gods," thereby acquiring the means to carry on their incessant wars against rival chiefs, and finally against the all-absorbing "Company Bahadur." When Bajerow, the last independent Peishwa, surrendered to the British in the last Mahratta war of 1818, his baggage became the "loot" of the conquerors. Amongst the prizes of war seized on that occasion, was this diamond, which the Peishwa had already taken from the temple of Shiva, in Nassak, and which was thence known as the "Nassak" Diamond. It had been concealed by his orders, but was brought to light by Colonel J. Briggs, who forthwith handed it over to the Marquis of Hastings, under whom the combined operations against the Peishwa had been conducted. By him it was presented to the East India Company, but was ultimately given up, and formed part of the booty, being at the time valued at pound 30,000. It was thus brought to the London market, in the year 1818, and soon afterwards sold by the East India Company to Messrs. Rundell and Bridge. Mawe, who had the opportunity of seeing it, describes it as "a diamond of great purity, but of a bad form." He gives its weight as 79 carats and 2 grains, (the 79 being an obvious misprint for 89), and adds that "its form is triangular, and it is cut and polished, so as to retain the greatest possible weight. But it exhibits none of the qualities which it would so proudly display, if it had been well proportioned."