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THE KOH-I-NOOR
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And the river that ran by his home was the river you call today the Godavari, which is in South India and knows of the city
called Delhi. And beside the river, in a great house, Uved the Sultan
Babei, who was the founder of the Mogul Empire. And he owned a great
gem which in time was to be called "Mountain of Light," because it was
a diamond whose center rose to a peak, and out of that peak, and from
its sides, came the glitter of eternity. And this man ruled wisely but
fearlessly. And there was nothing that he could see that was not his.
And he was The Works. , This same Sultan Baber not only once owned the
Koh-I-Noor but Uved to write about it. That is important. Because this
stone, although the oldest known diamond in the world, is one of the
few of the oldest with a background of written history. It was written
about in. a famous Indian poem, The Mahabharata, in which was described
its glory and how a chief went to war wearing it. Sultan Baber's
memoirs provide another contribution that survived.
Mixed
with these writings are many tales of tragedy and treachery. It has
been a bauble of rumors. It has been said that he who owned the
Koh-I-Noor would rule the world, even though its possession endangered
the position and the life of its owner, unless that owner were a woman.
That is why the stone is now set in the crown of the Queen of England,
say those who think in terms of legends.
Sultan Baber, in a memoir dated what is equivalent to May 14,1526, wrote as follows:
Bikeramjit, a Hindoo who was Rajah of Gwalior, had governed that
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