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Chasing the Mountain of Light: Across India on the Trail of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond
The Koh-i-Noor diamond known as the Mountain of Light, the world's largest diamond, was found in India, traveled from Golconda to the Mughal palaces in the north. Fought over, cursed at and occasionally lost, it finally reached the Sikhs in the Punjab, only to be seized by British agents eager to please young Queen Victoria. It now lies in the Tower of London where some say its curse controls the fate of the Windsor family. In Chasing the Mountain of Light, Kevin Rushby pursues the dramatic career of the Koh-i-Noor on a journey to the heart of Indian culture meeting dealers, smugglers, and petty crooks along the way. It's another adventure from Rushby whom the Washington Post recently compared to William S. Burroughs and Arthur Rimbaud.
272 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1999
2 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Rushby
10 books10 followersAfter I finished University (Newcastle) in 1982 I bought a one-way ticket to Cairo and set off travelling. Never having been abroad before I was understandably shocked on arrival in Cairo. Walking out the airport at 2 a.m. looking for a bus (no money for a taxi) I saw a line of people sleeping under their white sheets and joined them. Having built up a bit more courage later I ended up travelling through Egypt, Sudan, Central African Republic, Uganda and Kenya. Several months later I was back in Sudan as an English teacher, first in Darfur, later in the south. The latter was a particularly intense experience. Yambio, the small town in Western Equatoria, was cut off by the civil war for much of the time and I was alone, the only foreigner most of the time. I did vast bicycle rides, journeying deep into Zaire, visiting only remote areas as I had no paperwork or visa. There was no electricity, no running water, no post, no telephone. When I came to write Paradise (published May 2006) I often thought of that time - it seemed like an experiment in living even then. To jump out of one's own world into another, one that offered the most extreme version of the rural retreat ever.
Eventually the isolation was too much. I went to Kenya, then back to England to study education for a year (and in Madrid for some months), then to Yemen and Malaysia. It was in Kuala Lumpur that I started writing professionally, working for newspapers and magazines all across the Far East and South East Asia. Eventually, I went back to Yemen but the country fell apart in the Civil War of 1994 and I was back living in England for the first time in 12 years. Since then I've written books and articles, done some television, rather more radio. (Articles for the Guardian can be found on their website.) I'm now working on some book ideas to follow up Paradise.
- http://www.kevinrushby.com/biography.php
Eventually the isolation was too much. I went to Kenya, then back to England to study education for a year (and in Madrid for some months), then to Yemen and Malaysia. It was in Kuala Lumpur that I started writing professionally, working for newspapers and magazines all across the Far East and South East Asia. Eventually, I went back to Yemen but the country fell apart in the Civil War of 1994 and I was back living in England for the first time in 12 years. Since then I've written books and articles, done some television, rather more radio. (Articles for the Guardian can be found on their website.) I'm now working on some book ideas to follow up Paradise.
- http://www.kevinrushby.com/biography.php
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 10, 2025
This is both a fine look at the tangled history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond but also at the history of diamonds in India - most people don't realise that until the discovery of diamond deposits in parts of what is now South Africa in the 19th century almost all diamonds came from India and were alluvial deposits (from river beds). India still produces diamonds and this is a wonderful trawl through history, legend and current events involving diamonds. The book touches on so many fascinating things that I can't begin to enumerate them without spoiling the pleasure of reading this book. Mr. Rushby is fine writer and amusing story teller.
Also for those who call upon the UK to 'return' the Koh-i-Noor the book provides you with enough history to wonder exactly who the diamond should be returned to because its last owner, previous to the UK crown, acquired it by deceit from an exiled Afghan king whose ancestors had plundered it from the Mogul emperor whose ancestor stole it from Persia. I am not in anyway suggesting that the British acquired in an honest or moral fashion, only that restitution is never clear cut or simple.
Also for those who call upon the UK to 'return' the Koh-i-Noor the book provides you with enough history to wonder exactly who the diamond should be returned to because its last owner, previous to the UK crown, acquired it by deceit from an exiled Afghan king whose ancestors had plundered it from the Mogul emperor whose ancestor stole it from Persia. I am not in anyway suggesting that the British acquired in an honest or moral fashion, only that restitution is never clear cut or simple.
October 29, 2016
_Chasing the Mountain of Light_ by Kevin Rushby is an interesting and sometimes humorous travelogue about India, ostensibly about the author's efforts to track the origins and history of the Koh-i-Noor or Mountain of Light, one of the most famous diamonds in the world, from its origins in the mines of Golconda in southern India to centuries later and its presumably final resting place in the Tower of London. Though the diamond's history and lore was indeed chronicled, the book was really the story of one traveler's adventures and encounters throughout India. Journeying from Madras on the Coromandel Coast in southern India all the way north to Amritsar in the Punjab, near the Pakistani border, Rushby undertook an epic quest to find the origins of this stone and to relate its bloody history. He had to contend with reluctant, unfriendly, tight-lipped officials, shady sellers of black market diamonds in dangerous back alleys, eccentric but knowledgeable experts on diamond lore and Indian history, and thieves, alerted to Rushby's inquires about diamonds, thinking him not a writer but a man who actually possessed large quantities of these gems on his person.
The diamond known as Koh-i-Noor was believed by many devout Hindus to actually be mythic in origin, to be a stone that was once called the Syamantaka, a gem which the Hindu sun god Surya gave as reward to a worshipper. Later the god Krishna was accused by the people of stealing the gem and fought terrible battles to return the diamond back to humanity. The stone was owned by the Mughals for generations, beginning with the first Mughal emperor Babur in the 1520s, though many scholars dispute the notion that the Syamantaka and a magnificent stone known simply as "Babur's diamond" are the one and the same. The Persian invader Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739, leaving the Mughals as vassals but along with many other treasures took the great diamond with him, giving it the name Koh-i-Noor (which means Mountain of Light). After Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1747 the Koh-i-Noor was taken by Ahmad Khan Abdali to Afghanistan. The last member of the Durrani dynasty (which was founded by Ahmad Khan Abdali), a ruler by the name of Shah Shuja, went into exile, the gem then taken by Ranjit Singh in 1813 (a man who founded a Sikh kingdom in the Punjab in 1799). During one of the Anglo-Sikh wars the Koh-i-Noor was captured by the British, who took the diamond to Queen Victoria, who in turn had the 186 carat diamond re-cut to improve its brilliance, bringing the stone down to a 108 carats (though strangely enough improving the diamond's allure, as the number 108 is a very auspicious number in India).
Many in India believe the stone is cursed and that the stone can only be given freely to another person by its owner or be won rightfully in battle; horrible things will result when the stone is bought, sold, or stolen. Further, they also believe that the stone will produce good fortune for good people but very bad things for the wicked.
Like many other great Indian diamonds, the Koh-i-Noor was always searching for a new master, "leaving behind the failed and the dead." Claimed by India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, the Sikhs in particular are keen to retrieve it as a symbol of Sikh nationalism (though they insist that like their famed Golden Temple, it would be the property of all Indians). Given its history and the immense prestige that would be gained by any in the subcontinent or the region who came into possession of the stone, Rushby wondered if the diamond was not best left in the Tower of London.
As fascinating as the Koh-i-Noor was, its history fills a fairly modest part of the book. More interesting perhaps was the numerous encounters Rushby had. He toured Fort St. George in Madras, the largest building left in the world constructed by the East India Company; never a favored post by Englishman, many sent there never returned, often committing suicide or drinking themselves to death. Also in Madras the author visited an Armenian church and met a Mr. Gregory, the last remaining Armenian, sole representative of a once thriving Armenian trading community. Rushby met with astrogemologists, men who believed that they could control fate by the proper manipulation of gemstones. Religious encounters as one might imagine definitely occurred, as Rushby met with Zoroastrians who had fled from Aden, Yemen after the British left, observed a Sikh worship ceremony in the Golden Temple, and met a number of Jainists, going on a Jain pilgrimage and encountering members of both sects of the religion, both the Digambaras or "sky-clads," who believe that it is most holy to be without clothing, and the Svetambaras or "white-clads," who believe that nudity is not possible in an imperfect world. Rushby visited Alaung, the world's largest ship breaking yard, where tens of thousands of unskilled laborers work on an oil-soaked beach to destroy 50,000 tonne tankers with practically their bare hands. One of my favorite parts was his visit to Bilkha, once a tiny state that was only 7 miles wide and 10 miles long. Rushby met with the last descendents of its raja, a man with memories of a garage of Rolls-Royces, a stable of fine race horses and elephants, and lion-hunting expeditions, now a friendly and affable man sought by the locals for kindly advice, with only a single servant that he treats like a son, a man who took pleasure in personally fixing his own jeep and in participating in studies of the lions of the Gir Forest, no longer seeking them as trophies but working hard to conserve them for the future.
A good book, at the back of the book there was a helpful chronology of the diamond and a bibliography. Though there were two maps some of the places he visited were not noted on them.
The diamond known as Koh-i-Noor was believed by many devout Hindus to actually be mythic in origin, to be a stone that was once called the Syamantaka, a gem which the Hindu sun god Surya gave as reward to a worshipper. Later the god Krishna was accused by the people of stealing the gem and fought terrible battles to return the diamond back to humanity. The stone was owned by the Mughals for generations, beginning with the first Mughal emperor Babur in the 1520s, though many scholars dispute the notion that the Syamantaka and a magnificent stone known simply as "Babur's diamond" are the one and the same. The Persian invader Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739, leaving the Mughals as vassals but along with many other treasures took the great diamond with him, giving it the name Koh-i-Noor (which means Mountain of Light). After Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1747 the Koh-i-Noor was taken by Ahmad Khan Abdali to Afghanistan. The last member of the Durrani dynasty (which was founded by Ahmad Khan Abdali), a ruler by the name of Shah Shuja, went into exile, the gem then taken by Ranjit Singh in 1813 (a man who founded a Sikh kingdom in the Punjab in 1799). During one of the Anglo-Sikh wars the Koh-i-Noor was captured by the British, who took the diamond to Queen Victoria, who in turn had the 186 carat diamond re-cut to improve its brilliance, bringing the stone down to a 108 carats (though strangely enough improving the diamond's allure, as the number 108 is a very auspicious number in India).
Many in India believe the stone is cursed and that the stone can only be given freely to another person by its owner or be won rightfully in battle; horrible things will result when the stone is bought, sold, or stolen. Further, they also believe that the stone will produce good fortune for good people but very bad things for the wicked.
Like many other great Indian diamonds, the Koh-i-Noor was always searching for a new master, "leaving behind the failed and the dead." Claimed by India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, the Sikhs in particular are keen to retrieve it as a symbol of Sikh nationalism (though they insist that like their famed Golden Temple, it would be the property of all Indians). Given its history and the immense prestige that would be gained by any in the subcontinent or the region who came into possession of the stone, Rushby wondered if the diamond was not best left in the Tower of London.
As fascinating as the Koh-i-Noor was, its history fills a fairly modest part of the book. More interesting perhaps was the numerous encounters Rushby had. He toured Fort St. George in Madras, the largest building left in the world constructed by the East India Company; never a favored post by Englishman, many sent there never returned, often committing suicide or drinking themselves to death. Also in Madras the author visited an Armenian church and met a Mr. Gregory, the last remaining Armenian, sole representative of a once thriving Armenian trading community. Rushby met with astrogemologists, men who believed that they could control fate by the proper manipulation of gemstones. Religious encounters as one might imagine definitely occurred, as Rushby met with Zoroastrians who had fled from Aden, Yemen after the British left, observed a Sikh worship ceremony in the Golden Temple, and met a number of Jainists, going on a Jain pilgrimage and encountering members of both sects of the religion, both the Digambaras or "sky-clads," who believe that it is most holy to be without clothing, and the Svetambaras or "white-clads," who believe that nudity is not possible in an imperfect world. Rushby visited Alaung, the world's largest ship breaking yard, where tens of thousands of unskilled laborers work on an oil-soaked beach to destroy 50,000 tonne tankers with practically their bare hands. One of my favorite parts was his visit to Bilkha, once a tiny state that was only 7 miles wide and 10 miles long. Rushby met with the last descendents of its raja, a man with memories of a garage of Rolls-Royces, a stable of fine race horses and elephants, and lion-hunting expeditions, now a friendly and affable man sought by the locals for kindly advice, with only a single servant that he treats like a son, a man who took pleasure in personally fixing his own jeep and in participating in studies of the lions of the Gir Forest, no longer seeking them as trophies but working hard to conserve them for the future.
A good book, at the back of the book there was a helpful chronology of the diamond and a bibliography. Though there were two maps some of the places he visited were not noted on them.
July 2, 2017
An enjoyable romp of a tale with good descriptions of locations and characters. Even if some of the plot appears far fetched having traveled to India numerous times myself, I can well believe the author encountered many of the situations.
The historical aspects of diamond mining in India is interesting and the way Kevin Rushby laces the search for the mine fields of Golconda with the reality of the rural environment is stimulating.
His use of various locations and the ensuing encounters is clever and well presented.
This book encouraged me to read most of his titles.
The historical aspects of diamond mining in India is interesting and the way Kevin Rushby laces the search for the mine fields of Golconda with the reality of the rural environment is stimulating.
His use of various locations and the ensuing encounters is clever and well presented.
This book encouraged me to read most of his titles.
August 12, 2011
A true adventure story by a real writer. Rushby's attempt to follow the diamond trail from when romance and not horror followed diamonds is readable and innovative. Along the way he meets all manner of people, gets robbed, almost dies and finds no diamonds. Fun, light read, particularly if you are interested in early colonial India. As a bizarre side note, the eponymous diamond was first grabbed by a European named Pitt, a formerly penniless stevedoer who made a fortune. His famous and later 'noble' descendants would include one William Pitt, the namesake of my hometown. Nietzsche would nod smugly.
September 26, 2011
A pretty good travelogue of a journey through India. Not so good on tracking the history of the Koh-i-Noor, which turned out to be a fairly minor subplot. A decent book but not exactly what it was cracked up to be.
April 14, 2014
Kevin Rushby has a gift for description which carries the reader along like a magic carpet. There isn't much on the history or myth of the Kohinoor diamond which hasn't been covered elsewhere, but anyone interested in the look and feel of India- past and present- will delight.
June 20, 2013
An interesting travelogue. A good light-read to pass your time.
More about this book @
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More about this book @
http://bookwormsrecos.blogspot.in/201...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews