The fabulous Golconda diamonds - I

The very name of Golconda evokes images of glittering, grand diamonds. Its mines have produced a galaxy of famous diamonds that have dazzled the royal as well as the common people. The word 'Golconda' itself now stands for diamonds of highest purity with nearly total absence of nitrogen atoms. Merriam-webster dictionary explains that 'By the 1880s, "Golconda" was being used generically by English speakers to refer to any particularly rich mine, and later to any source of great wealth'. For long centuries, from 2500 years ago till early 18th century, the Deccan mines, most in the state of Golconda, were the only source of diamonds in the world -except for a very small quantity produced in the island of Borneo. For this article, multiple sources have been used but especially the credible 'Diamonds in the Deccan' by SV Satayanaryan and 'Six voyages by JB Tavernier'. Tavernier's account is especially fascinating. He was gem trader and diamond connoisseur, who came to the sub continent during the Qutub Shahi rule in Golconda and Adil Shahi rule in Bijapur. He travelled through our region in five of his six voyages between 1630 and 1668. He toured many mines, purchased diamonds, saw the diamond operations, met Emperor Aurangzeb -who showed him his jewels- and wrote his narratives in vivid details for the posterity. He is also believed to have procured and carried a large number of diamonds, one thousand by some reports, and sold them to the French King Louis XIV. Among them was a 115 carats blue behemoth, now cut down to 67 carat 'Hope diamond' and on permanent display in National Museum of Natural History Washington DC. It is reportedly insured for $250 million. There were 38 recorded diamond mines in Deccan, 23 in Golconda and 15 in Bijapur. They are now all commonly known as Golconda mines. Imagine, 38 diamond mines in one area alone when the rest of the world had none! River Krishna in the Deccan is appropriately called the Diamond River. For 300 km along its banks between its confluence with Tungabhadra River in the west and the town of Vijayawada in the east, it was the centre of intense diamond mining that produced such world famous diamonds as he Koh-i-Noor, The Great Mughal, the Pitt or Regent, the Orloff, the Nizam and the Tavernier or the Hope. Each one of these diamonds needs a separate article to describe its composition, discovery, history and change of hands. Most of them have ultimately ended up as museum pieces for the people to appreciate these unique gifts of nature. These gems are priceless. The colourless Koh-i-Noor or the pink Darya-i-Noor that have never been sold, having changed hands free, are too precious to have a price. Diamonds are accorded 'type' according to the level of impurities present in them. Type IIa, with no or almost negligible nitrogen atoms, forms 1-2% of all diamonds found in nature. They are colourless, transparent and high thermal conductors. Type IIb are type IIa but have a slight amount of boron atoms that give them a blue hue. Their occurrence is .1% of all diamonds and are considered the best quality diamonds. A major portion of Golconda diamonds fell in Type IIa and IIb category. Some experts have even opined that all Golconda diamonds are Type IIa. The term has gained such respect that all high quality crystal diamonds, regardless of origin, are called Golconda diamonds. Moreover, if it can be proved that a diamond originated from Golconda mines, it commands 50% premium over diamonds of similar quality from other regions of the world. All diamonds mines were located along the course of rivers. Kullur, Malavaram, Kodavatakallu and Paritala mines were along the Krishna river. Chennur mines were located along the Pennar river. Basavapur/Gajulapalle mines were along the Kundair river. Old mines have also been found in Kalasapadu-Sanjivaraopeta area along the Sagileru river. Laxmipuram mines were on the Hindri river. The sites along the river were easy to mine as the diamonds were found in narrow pits and the gravel could be sifted with river water to collect the diamonds. Some mines had abundant yields. Dr Benjamin Heyne, a BEIC naturalist and surgeon in 18th/19th century, has recorded that in its initial stages, Kodavatakallu produced bullock cart loads of diamonds. Large sized diamonds were also obtained from Vajrakarur mines on the Pennar River in Andhra Pradesh where a Portuguese traveller procured a 400 carat diamond in 1610. Adil Shah of Bijapur is reported to have obtained around 1565, a diamond as big as a small hen's egg in addition to several tens of other diamonds weighing above 150 carats. The region had been visited by many foreign travellers in medieval times who have recorded the abundance of diamonds. Marco Polo visited the Tamil coast in the year 1292 for about one year on his return sea journey from China to Venice, having served in the court of the Mongol Kublai Khan. It was at the same time when in the Northern Sub-continent, Alauddin Khilji was repulsing repeated intrusions of Mongols and at the same time, extending the boundaries of Delhi Sultanate across Vindhya Range and Narmada River in to Deccan. Marco Polo mentions a diamond site by the name of Mutfili, in Krishna valley in Andhra Pradesh, in his 'Travels', where 'If a piece of meat is thrown in a valley and retrieved, it is embedded with diamonds.' He reported that the locals frisk eagle's droppings and stomachs for diamonds that they sometimes ingest involuntarily. He writes that 'No other country but this Kingdom of Mutfili produces them, but there they are found both abundantly and of large size. Those that are brought to our part of the world are only the refuse, as it were, of the finer and larger stones. For the flower of the diamonds and other large gems, as well as the largest pearls, are all carried to the Great Kaan (Kublai Khan of China) and other Kings and Princes of those regions; in truth they possess all the great treasures of the world'. In addition to Marco Polo, other chroniclers of 16th and 17th centuries include Nicolo de Conti and Lewes Uertomannus from Italy, Asthanasius Nikitin from Russia, Garcia de Orta and Fernao Nuniz from Portugal, Jan Huyghen Linschoten and Jacques de Coutre from Holland, William Methwold and Henry Howard from England, and Jean de Théveno and JB Tavernier from France. One mine located at Kullur, which was the most famous and productive of all, 170 km south east of Hyderabad city, will be discussed in detail below. At this mine site, the River Krishna goes in a wide northerly u-shaped meander around a 1500 foot high escarpment, before resuming its easterly course to the Bay of Bengal. Although the diamonds were found for a good length along the river, the heart of the mine lay in a narrow belt between the right bank of the river on the west and the escarpment on the east. The mine was discovered in the mid sixteenth century and is believed to have produced some of most fabulous diamonds found in the sub-continent, indeed in the whole world. The mine, as per Tavernier, was discovered by chance by a villager, who found a 25 carat pointed glittering stone while digging to sow millet. He had never seen a diamond in his life but took the stone to Golconda. On being questioned by a jeweller, he revealed the place of its find. Soon, everyone who had the means to do so, left for Kollur. People found a great number of diamonds in the river sand, many of them in the range of 10 to 40 carats. Some were even bigger. William Methwold visited the mine in 1618-22. He recorded that there were 30 thousand people working in the mines, while Tavernier, during his visit to the mine 50 years later found that the strength of workers had swelled to 60 thousand. The now little village of Kolluru had a population of a hundred thousand. There was extensive mining activity from Kolluru, through Pulichintala, to the north till the river swung right around the escarpment. The mine was owned by the King but leased to diamond merchants. In addition to the rent, the King received 2% from all diamond sales, and also kept all diamonds over 10 carat in weight. Though generally honesty prevailed, some merchants, reportedly banians of Gujrat, resorted to hiding the bigger diamonds from the King and selling them to foreigners. However, punishment for this smuggling was death for both the merchant and the foreigner. Mines were gravel pits to a depth of upto 4 to 14 feet due to the high water table. The diamond bearing seams were narrow one foot thick in a mine measuring 1.5 km long and 500 to 800 meters wide. The pits had no timber support and were susceptible to collapsing. The bigger stones were found nearer the river and none found up the escarpment. De Coutre personally witnessed the collapse of a mine killing 150 people. Karin Hofmeester in his essay 'Working for diamonds from the 16th to the 20th century' states on the strength of medieval witnesses that the mines employed crude, labour intensive and dangerous methods. The miners used no pulleys but sat on top of each other and passed on the gravel baskets. The women and children carried the soil away, soaked it in water and left it to dry to loosen the diamonds. If the soil was too hard, it was smashed to reveal its diamonds. The working and living conditions at the mines were dreadful. Tragically, the bonded labour were often given only food and no money. The area now remains under up to 50 feet of water for most part of the year due to construction of Pullichintala dam in 2013/14. Most of the pits have since been filled up with soil. Writing for 'The Hindu', Appaji Reddam reported that when the water recedes during the dry pre-monsoon two months, serious diamond traders, historians, authors and movie makers flock to the villages hoping to find the next Koh-i-Noor or Darya-i-Noor -the mountain and river of light- in the rocky terrain. In the chapter XI part II of his 'Travels in India', Tavernier, who was in India between 1665 and 1669, describes in detail the working and management of mines, trading of diamonds, and diamond cutting tools and operations at the Raolconda or Ramallakota mines in Bijapur kingdom. De Coutre visited this same mine 50 years before Tavernier did and counted 50 thousand men, women and children at the site. Tavernier mentions a technique for splitting diamonds practiced efficiently only in India. He states that 'when the miners see a stone in which there is a flaw of some size, they immediately cleave it, that is to say split it, at which they are much more accomplished than we are'. The products of sub-continent style of cutting diamond are known as 'Mughal cut', which now describes a diamond fashioned in Deccan rather than a shape or arrangement of facets. Golconda mines remained productive for a very long time. Mohammed Safiullah, historian says that the estimated output from all mines in Golconda was around 12 million carats. It is miniscule as compared to the production of some of the modern mines. The Argyle mines in Western Australia, the largest source of pink diamonds in the world, has produced close to a billion carats since mining began in 1983, averaging 8 million carats per year with peak production of 42 million carats in 1994. However, the biggest diamond found here is 12.76 Pink Jubilee, which dwarfs as compared to Tavernier's pink 'The Great Table' diamond found in Kullur weighing 182 carats. Part III of 'Travels in to the Levant' by Jean de Théveno is about his 'Travel in to the Indies' in the period from Jan 1666 to Feb 1667. He visited Hyderabad/Golconda during the reign of Qutub Shahi ruler Abdullah. He terms Golconda as the country of diamonds and mentions seeing several 10 to 70 carat diamonds. He also saw diamond cutters at work. Golconda was the diamond capital of the world for centuries. It produced a an array of sparkling high quality huge diamonds ranging from colourless to Blue to Pink to yellow. Commensurate with its large quantity of these gems, there was a large number of people employed in the diamond trade in quarrying, cutting and trading. Diamonds were a substantial part of the economy, as testified by the western travellers to the area. As the produce from the mines declined, so that the trade. Ultimately, even the exact location of the mines became obscure. However, the diamonds that they produced continue to embellish the museums, and state and private collections. Their attraction will endure for as long as the humanity exists on this planet and that will keep the name of Golconda alive. In the second part of this article, I will write about diamond diplomacy practiced by Mughals within and outside India and about some of the most alluring diamonds disgorged by these mines. This article was published in The Friday Times dated 12 Oct 2018. Parvez Mahmood retired as a Group Captain from PAF and is now a software engineer. He lives in Islamabad and writes on historical and social issues. He can be reached at parvezmahmood53@gmail.com