About Koh-I-Noor

There are many stones or precious stones in this world. There are many strange myths regarding those stone. People also say there is a curse associated with a stone. People have some accreditations towards a precious stone.
But while talking about precious stones, one name that comes to our mind is Koh-I-Noor. It used to be one of the largest diamonds in the world. It still would have been the largest if a worker hadn't shown ignorance towards this diamond during Mughal period.
There are many stories that revolve around Koh-I-Noor about its price, it's quality and the curse it is having. One of the popular myth or curses associated with Koh-I-Noor is that this diamonds suits women but if any men keep this diamond with himself, then he becomes one of the powerful people this world but along with this that person's bad time also start.
One astonishing thing about this diamond is that we call it the world's most precious diamond but its actual value is unknown. It was never sold or bought. It was just gifted to some or passed on from generation to generation.

Story of its estimated value

Because of the reason that it was never bought or never sold its value has always been estimated in history.

1. When Mughal emperor Babur was having this diamond (according to Baburnama), there was no name given to this diamond. It was just seen as a very precious and one of its kind diamonds. When someone asked Babur about the value of this diamond (Koh-I-Noor) then his reply was - The amount of money we will get after selling this diamond, we can provide 2 meals a day to the entire population.
2. When Nadir Shah (Emperor of Iran) looted India and attacked the Mughal dynasty, he also took away the Koh-I-Noor. Nadir Shah was the one who named this diamond as Koh-I-Noor. When the value of Koh-I-Noor was asked from Nadir Shah's wife, she said if we call Iran's 5 most powerful people and ask 4 of them to throw a stone in all 4 directions as far as they can and the other one to throw a stone as high as he can. The area that will be covered by the stone thrown in all 5 directions, if we fill that huge area with gold and other precious items, Koh-I-Noor will be more costly than those items. This is how Nadir Shah's wife described the value of Koh-I-Noor.
3. In 2010, a diamond named Graff Pink Diamond in Geneva was auctioned. That diamond was of 24.78 caret and it was sold for $46 million. Currently, Koh-I-Noor is of 105 caret and if we compare its value with this Graff Pink diamond then its value will be around 1.5K Crore INR.

But there's no exact cost of this diamond because it was never sold to anyone and never bought by anyone. 

Koh-i-Noor's History

• People also connect this diamond's root to Mahabharat. In Mahabharat, there's a mention of diamond called Syamantaka. People believe that Koh-I-Noor is that same Syamantaka diamond. It is also said that this Koh-I-Noor originated from a river bed.
• One of the first evidence of this diamond is of 1300 E.C. It is believed that Koh-I-Noor originated in the Golconda Mines of Andhra Pradesh, India. At that time Golconda was the biggest diamond mining site in the world. There was no other mining site in comparison to this site. But now, the biggest diamond mining site is Aikhal located in Russia. All the stories before this period have got no evidence.
• Baburnama (The memoirs of Mughal emperor Babur) also mentions this diamond. According to this book, this diamond was with the royal family of Gwalior in 1924. Koh-I-Noor was not being given any special status by them. It was just seen as a biggest diamond. Around 1306, stories started to originate regarding this Koh-I-Noor. One of them is that if any men keep this diamond with himself then he becomes one of the powerful people this world but along with this that person's bad time also start. But no one believed this story at first.
• People started believing this theory when this diamond's first official owner was known. Kakatiya Dynasty was having this diamond. But with this diamond, there decline also started. Around 1306 or 07 was the time when Koh-I-Noor came to Kakatiya dynasty. In 1323 Tughlaq Shah I attacked Kakatiya dynasty and defeated them. Then the ownership of this diamond was transferred to Tughlaq.
• After Tughlaq Koh-I-Noor came to another people and after some years it came into the hands of Mughals. When Babur was having this diamond, the diamond came to be known as Babur Heera (Babur's Diamond) because it was very unique and Babur always used to keep it with him.
• After Babur it came to Akbar. People say that Akbar was able to rule for a very long period of time because he never kept Koh-I-Noor with him. It was just kept along with the treasury and Akbar was not affected by the curse of this diamond. Akbar never wore this diamond in anyway and never made it a part of his throne.
• After this, diamond came to Shah Jahan and he liked the diamond a lot. He loved the diamond so much that he implanted this diamond in his throne. That throne came to be known as Takht-e-Taus (Peacock Throne).  But after that his bad time started. His son Aurangzeb made him a prisoner. It is believed that this all happened because of the curse the diamond was having.
• Aurangzeb also liked the diamond. He brought a worker from abroad and asked him to polish this diamond. At this stage, Koh-I-Noor was of 793 carets. But that worker made a very clumsy attempt and the diamond broke into pieces and because of this, the diamond's weight got reduced to 186 carets. Approximately he wasted 600 carets of Koh-I-Noor. Aurangzeb also didn't liked this fact and asked that worker to pay a heavy fine. Now Aurangzeb's bad time also started.
• Nadir Shah attacked the Mughals and also took away this diamond with him. After seeing this diamond 'Kuh Noor' were the words that came out of Nadir's mouth. Kuh means mountain and Noor means light or glow. Hence it acquired the name Koh-I-Noor. But the diamond also started showing its effect. Nadir Shah's own people betrayed and killed him. After this Nadir Shah's grandson Shahrokh Shah was placed on the throne but he was too young to rule. Ahmed Shah Abdali, helped Shahrokh and also protected him from many attacks. Impressed by his act, Shahrokh gifted Koh-I-Noor to Ahmed Abdali.
• Ahmed Abdali took this diamond to Afghanistan to his native place and he also died soon. After Durrani (or Abdali), Shah Shujah ascended the throne of Afghanistan but Md. Shah betrayed Shah Shujah and annexed the throne. In 1803, Shah Shujah somehow saved his life and ran away with Koh-I-Noor to Lahore (present day - Pakistan). He was in search of a helping hand so that he can get his thrown back.
• He asked for help from Punjab's Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Maharaja helped him and got the diamond for this favor. It is said that Maharaja Ranjit Singh was invincible at that time but after Koh-I-Noor came to his life, he started to remain sick. On the other hand, the Britishers also attacked him and some of his own people betrayed him. Maharaja lost the fight and the diamond's ownership transferred to the Britishers or the East India Company. It is said that when Maharaja Ranjit Singh was about to lose the battle, he had requested the Britishers to place this diamond in a temple in Odisha (Indian State) but the Britishers refused because they knew the value of this precious diamond.
• One story about this diamond is that Ranjit Singh's 13-year-old son was sent to England to gift the Koh-I-Noor to the Queen of England. There in England, a Dutch worker worked on Koh-I-Noor for around 40 days because the Queen didn't liked the shape of the diamond and wanted some changes. Koh-I-Noor indeed became more shining and beautiful but now its weight was around 105.6 caret (initially it was 793 caret).
• The queen had heard about the curse of Koh-I-Noor. So, she implanted this in her crown with other gems and a rule was made that no men or king will wear this crown, only the queen will.
• But now India became independent and claimed the right over Koh-I-Noor. Also, Pakistan's former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto also made a claim on Koh-I-Noor because it was passed through Lahore. Even Iran also once claimed the ownership because Nadir Shah belonged to Iran. But no one got the diamond and is still present in Queen's crown.
• The last time Koh-I-Noor's curse was seen was the time around 1936 - 1940 when Britishers were having control over many countries but slowly those countries started gaining independence. 

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Image Source : Wikimedia Commons
Image Attribute : Wojciech Kocot, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons