2.  Meshed, properly Mashhad (’the place of martyrdom’), is the chief city of Khurasan.  Nadir Shah was killed while encamped there.

3.  Ahmad Shah defeated the Marathas in the third great battle of Panipat, A.D. 1761.  He had conquered the Panjab in 1748.  He invaded India five times.

4.  In 1773.

5.  Ludiana (misspelt ‘Ludhiana’ in I.G., 1908) is named from the Lodi Afghans, who founded it in 1481.  The town is now the headquarters of the district of the same name under the Panjab Government.  Part of the district lapsed to the British Government in 1836, other parts lapsed during the years 1846 and 1847, and the rest came from territory already British by rearrangement of jurisdiction.  Hyphasis is the Greek name for the Bias river.

6.  The above history of the Kohinur may, I believe, be relied upon.  I received a narrative of it from Shah Zaman, the blind old king himself, through General Smith, who commanded the troops at Ludiana; forming a detail of the several revolutions too long and too full of new names for insertion here. [W.  H. S.] The above note is, in the original edition, misplaced, and appended to two paragraphs of the text, which have no connexion with the story of the diamond, and really belong to Chapter 47, to which they have been removed in this edition.

The author assumes the identity of the Kohinur with the great diamond found in one of the Golconda mines, and presented by Amir Jumla to Shah Jahan.  The much-disputed history of the Kohinur has been exhaustively discussed by Valentine Ball (Tavernier’s Travels in India:  Appendix I (1), ’The Great Mogul’s Diamond and the true History of the Koh-i-nur; and (2) ’Summary History of the Koh-i-nur’).  He has proved that the Kohinur is almost certainly the diamond given by Amir (Mir) Jumla to Shah Jahan, though now much reduced in weight by mutilation and repeated cutting.  Assuming the identity of the Kohinur with Amir Jumla’s gift, the leading incidents in the history of this famous jewel are as follows;—­

Event.  Approximate
Date. 
Found at mine of Kollur on the Kistna (Krishna)
river . . . . . . . . .Not known
Presented to Shah Jahan by Mir Jumla, being
uncut, and weighing about 756 English carats 1656 or 1657
Ground by Hortensio Borgio, and greatly reduced
in weight . . . . . . . about 1657
Seen and weighed by Tavernier in Aurangzeb’s
treasury, its weight being 268 19/50 English
carats . . . . . . . . . 1665
Taken by Nadir Shah of Persia from Muhammad
Shah of Delhi, and named Kohinur . . . 1739
Inherited by Shah Rukh, grandson of Nadir Shah. . 1747
Given up by Shah Rukh to Ahmad Shah Abdali . . 1751
Inherited by Timur, son of Ahmad Shah . . . 1772
Inherited by Shah Zaman, son of Timur . .