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The Jagersfontein: Jemla

The truth of this notable summary of a very complex page of history is discounted by the fact that the dates and the supposed occurence do not agree. First in reference to Shah Jehan and his family in the year 1658; the desolating wars in the Deccan, which raged from the Nerbudda to the Kistna, were at that period in their fiercest phase. Nominally the diamond merchant Jemla was in command of the invading forces of the Emperor, although Shah Jehan's third son Aurung-zeb was the virtual conductor of the expedition. Emir Jemla, the merchant, was a Persian who had not only become a resident at the Court of the sovereign of Golconda (Kootb), but was advanced by him to offices of high command, and had successfully conducted this monarch's wars for several years in the Carnatic, where he had gathered spoils of immense value. The sovereign and his favourite fell out, as free-booters have often done before in regard to the division of their spoil. Thereupon the diamond merchant Jemla threw himself on Aurung-zeb, then 44 years of age, and in the very prime of life. Jemla persuaded the prince to attack his old master Kootb, and represented the value of the loot the prince would acquire, and the importance of such untold treasure in prosecuting his ambitious projects. Kootb, however, offered Aurung-zeb prodigious wealth in diamonds and specie to leave his kingdom unmolested, and threatened Jemla with the death of his son (whom Kootb had seized and cast into prison), unless the terms were accepted. Aurung-zeb declined the proposal, and entrusted to Mohammed, his eldest son, the conduct of the war. The young warrior, with Jemla, set fire to the city of Golconda and murdered its inhabitants. As the King retreated to the old city he was closely followed by young Mohammed. Kootb was at the mercy of the victorious prince, who would have slain him but for the intercession of his daughter, whom Mohammed wedded even in the midst of the slaughter and desolation of the royal house. Within a few months the dependent king of Beejapoor died, and his throne being filled without reference to the Emperor, Shah Jehan, the Deccan was again subject to the horrors of war. From this period to 1666 (nine years) the internecine strife for supremacy under the nominal sovereignty of their father, Shah Jehan's four sons, Dara, Shooja, Aurung-zeb, and Murad were in perpetual strife. The star of Aurung-zeb soon showed itself in the ascendant. Shah Jehan and his youngest son Murad were now virtually prisoners of Aurungreb. Dara, his elder brother, had been conquered, and was in flight, and Shooja was in arms ready to attack Aurung-zeb, who had seized the power of the throne, though vehemently asserting his utter indifference to its honours or observances, and Shooja marched to Allahabad. Shah Jehan, with Murad, was within the walls of Agra, where he died in 1666, and all of his family having been cut off either by the prowess or duplicity of Aurung-zeb, he became absolute master of the situation.

It might be that a musnud, ornamented with a peacock made of gems, was ordered to be made by Aurung-zeb, but it is far more like the act of his vain-glorious father, Shah Jehan. The story about the two eyes being the "Koh-i-Nur," and the "Koh-i-Tur" is discredited by Murray, who, discussing the MS. quoted by Whittaker says: "It will be perceived that the two diamonds which are referred to, are by no means 'the largest known,' and the 'Koh-i-Tur,' plundered by Nadir Shah, safely reposes among the crown jewels of Russia, weighs 193 carats, and is valued at pound 369,800." This description corresponds exactly with the "Orloff," which Murray thus identifies with a stone called the "Koh-i-Tur," carried off from the Delhi treasury, where it formed a companion to the "Koh-i-Nur." On this it will be sufficient to observe that the "Koh-i-Nur" was unknown to the Mogul emperors by this name, which was conferred on it by Nadir Shah himself when first he set eyes on it. Hence Whittaker's statement regarding a corresponding "Koh-i-Tur," so entitled because, "every Asiatic double name must have a jingle," loses its point, and the title of "Koh-i-Tur," now applied to the "Orloff," does not enable us to identify this gem with one of that name wrongly assumed to have been owned by Aurung-zeb. We must therefore, until the story of the French grenadier is shown to be a pure fabrication, maintain that the "Orloff" glittered in the eye, not of Aurung-zeb's peacock, but of the idol Sri-Ranga, and that it reached Europe, not from Delhi via Persia, but from Mysore, via Madras. Mawe, who had also confused the stories of the "Orloff" and "Moon of Mountains," in the first edition of the Treaty on Diamonds, subsequently discovered his mistake, and at p. 42 of the second edition of that work, (London, 1823), inserted the subjoined paragraph:--"In a former edition I stated that this diamond belonged to Nadir Shah, but this may be doubted, as the Asiatics rarely part with diamonds of a large size; nor do I believe that a single instance of the kind is known to have occurred." The account given by Pallas of the "Orloff" will be noticed when we come to treat of the "Moon of Mountains."