gems, diamond, India, diamond mines, Golconda, Tavernier

To say that India has for many years been famous for her diamonds would be to enunciate a truism with which everyone is familiar. It is not an easy matter, however, to determine for how long this has been the case, still less so to fix with approximate accuracy any period of the world’s history as being that when the precious gem first came to be esteemed in the East. At least 3,400 years have elapsed since the first account of it in the Mahabaratta (B.C. 1500) was written—and it may have been known long previous to that. By some it is thought that the Koh-i-noor belonged to King Vikramaditya (B.C. 56), a personage who seems to have been most ubiquitous, if a tithe of all that is said of him could be believed. I show below, when describing the diamond localities of Sambalpur, that Ptolemy possessed a remarkable amount of information regarding them. Tavernier was of opinion that they were the oldest workings in India.