Chasing the Mountain of Light

The dazzling and blood-stained history of the world's most famous diamond

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In the beginning diamonds came from India. And the greatest of those ancient stones, the Koh-i-Noor, the Mountain of Light, cut a deep and bloody path across its history and legends. Fought over, cursed and occasionally lost, taken from the mines of Golconda in the south to the Mughal palaces of Agra and Delhi in the north, it finally reached the Sikhs in the Punjab, only to be seized by British agents eager to please the young Queen Victoria. It now lies in the Tower of London, its ownership still disputed.

Kevin Rushby follows the trail of this great jewel through fascinating corners of India, crossing along the way the paths of dealers, smugglers and petty crooks. The historical characters he also encounters are no less colourful, from the bloodthirsty tyrants who built mountains of human heads to the man-god Krishna. Rushby unravels the religious symbolism and mysticism behind our passion for diamonds, on a journey that is humorous, informative and, as it progresses, more than a little dangerous.