The Mountain of Light by Indu Sundaresan Guest Post!!

THE MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT by Indu Sundaresan

From the internationally bestselling author of The Twentieth Wife, a novel based on the tumultuous history of a legendary 186-carat diamond and the men and women who possessed it

As empires rose and fell and mighty kings jostled for power, its glittering radiance never dimmed. It is the “Mountain of Light”—the Kohinoor diamond—and its facets reflect a sweeping story of love, adventure, conquest and betrayal. Its origins are the stuff of myth, but for centuries this spectacular gem changes hands from one ruler to another in India, Persia, and Afghanistan. In 1850, the ancient stone is sent halfway around the world where it will play a pivotal role in the intertwined destinies of a boy-king of India and a young queen of England—a queen who claims the Mountain of Light and India itself for her own burgeoning empire, the most brilliant jewels in her imperial crown. 

The Mountain of Light is a magnificent story of loss and recovery, sweeping change and enduring truth, wrapped around the glowing heart of one of the world’s most famous diamonds.

March 29^th, 1849:  The eleven year old maharajah sits on his throne for the last time in his durbar hall.  He’s flanked by two British officers from the English East India Company.  The room is filled to thronging, on the right are lined up British officers and men, on the left—far outnumbering the others—are Indian guards and soldiers from the maharajah’s armies.

The mood is somber, the Indians curiously quiet.  Although it’s now a mere formality, one of the British officers near the throne, Henry Elliot, has his proclamation read out, first in Persian and then in Hindustani.  The proclamation details all the wrongs of the Punjab Empire, and how the British government of India has been forced to step in to correct those wrongs.

Diwan Deen Nath, a member of the young Maharajah’s Council of Regency, speaks up.  It’s a mild protest—the Diwan knows of the terms already—but he still asks for the Punjab to be restored to his child-king.  Clemency is impossible, Henry Elliot replies.  No one else voices an opinion after this.

The Treaty of Lahore is then read out—the Maharajah Dalip Singh gives up his Punjab Empire to the British.  He will not claim it for his heirs or his successors.  He will get an income, provided he remains obedient to the British government.  All of Dalip Singh’s personal and state property will be confiscated.  Among that property, one jewel, a 186 carat diamond, the Kohinoor, is to be sent to England and her queen, Victoria.

All of this happens behind the scenes in The Mountain of Light.  The novel begins before this incident, in 1817, when the Afghan king Shah Shuja comes to Dalip’s father’s court in the Punjab and asks for Ranjit Singh’s help in regaining his kingdom.  Ranjit agrees, on one condition.  He wants the Kohinoor diamond which Shuja then has.

The Kohinoor, translated from Persian as ‘a mountain of light,’ has a long reach into Indian history.  Some two thousand years ago, according to Hindu mythology, the diamond was possessed by one of the gods in the epic The Mahabharata.  And then the diamond emerges here and there through the centuries, beginning with the 14^th Century, owned mostly by Indian kings, and in its departures from India, by the kings of Persia and Afghanistan.

When Maharajah Ranjit Singh of the Punjab Empire gets the diamond from the Afghan king in The Mountain of Light, he holds onto it firmly.  Ranjit is also the most powerful independent king in India in the 1800s.  Most of the rest of the Indian map is stamped over with British possessions—two hundred years after the English East India Company first comes to India, it has established a hold almost everywhere.  Everywhere, but the Punjab.

This lasts only until Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839.  Again, backstage in The Mountain of Light, three of Ranjit’s heirs are shot down in quick succession, leaving, in 1843, only a six year old child, Dalip Singh, as heir to the vast Punjab lands.

The British then step in, nominally signing a treaty with the young Maharajah to look after his lands until he reaches his majority at sixteen years, when they will return to him a peaceful Punjab and make him master of his lands.

But, as you see from the first scene, Dalip Singh is only eleven years old when he signs the Treaty of Lahore giving up his Punjab.  According to Henry Elliot, who hands him the treaty, he signs it ‘with alacrity.’  Even Elliot realizes that Dalip is being forced to sign the treaty, much as the other members of his Council of Regency.  It’s a momentous occasion for Dalip Singh, the ramifications of which he begins to realize only later in his life.

There’s another Henry at this last durbar of the Punjab Empire—Henry Lawrence, who has been guardian of Maharajah Dalip Singh for the last three years, and who has a deep affection not just for his young charge, but also for the people of the Punjab.  Because Lawrence is considered too sympathetic to the natives, it is Elliot who is given the responsibility of getting the Treaty of Lahore ratified.  Lawrence is not just happy with the terms of the treaty; he’s firmly against the annexation of the Punjab, considering it not just ‘unjust,’ but also ‘impolitic.’

Henry Lawrence comes to the Punjab in The Mountain of Light in his capacity as the young Dalip’s guardian, in the chapter titled ‘Love in Lahore.’  Henry does fall in love twice in that chapter; once when he realizes that the eight year old Dalip, who insists he is lord of his lands, has a hold on his heart.  And another time…?

Lord Dalhousie is the Governor-General of India under whose watch the Punjab is dissolved, made defunct.  Dalhousie then orders Maharajah Dalip Singh to be escorted from the Punjab under the care of British guardians.  He never returns to his lands or his people again.

In 1850, Lord Dalhousie sends the Kohinoor diamond to England and his queen, Victoria, in the greatest of secrecy.  Two men, Colonel Mackeson and Dalhousie’s nephew, Captain Ramsay, take it on board a Royal Navy ship, and not until it reaches England, does anyone even know that the Kohinoor has left India.

In The Mountain of Light, this happens about three quarters of the way through the narrative, and I have the diamond travel aboard a commercial steamer instead.  In my fictionalized account, a slew of possible criminals also buy passages to England on the same ship—hoping for a glimpse of this secretly-carried Kohinoor, perhaps hoping to steal it.  Do they?

As the novel ends, the sixteen year old deposed Maharajah of the Punjab follows his diamond to England in 1854.  There, he’s treated very well by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  They give him presents (he reciprocates as well); they invite him on vacation to the Isle of Wight; Queen Victoria commissions a portrait of Dalip by Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

In this last chapter of The Mountain of Light, Maharajah Dalip Singh, much older now, reflects upon this first trip to England when he’s sixteen, how he’s feted and petted in the upper class English society, what his triumphs are…and eventually comes to the conclusion that nothing, nothing makes up for the loss of his vast Punjab Empire, the enormous wealth of the treasuries he was to inherit from his father, or his Kohinoor diamond.

Today, the Kohinoor is set in the Queen Mother’s crown and can be seen in the Tower of London.

Diamond is the Kohinoor diamond as it is today, at 105 carats.

Kohinoor in the Queen Mother’s crown is how it’s currently set—this is how you see it in the Tower of London.  (It’s the round stone at the bottom)

Ranjit Singh—is Maharajah Ranjit Singh of the Punjab Empire (Dalip Singh’s father).

Lord Dalhousie he was Governor-General of India (the man who annexed the Punjab) from 1848-1856

Henry Lawrence:  Maharajah Dalip Singh’s guardian in Lahore, Punjab.

Dalip Singh by Winterhalter:  This is the portrait by the court painter in London, Franz Xaver Winterhalter.  Commissioned by Queen Victoria for herself.

About the Author

Indu Sundaresan was born in India and grew up on Air Force bases all over the country. Her father, a fighter pilot, was also a storyteller—managing to keep his audiences captive and rapt with his flair for drama and timing. He got this from his father, Indu's grandfather, whose visits were always eagerly awaited. Indu's love of stories comes from both of them, from hearing their stories based on imagination and rich Hindu mythology, and from her father's writings.

After an undergraduate degree in economics from India, Indu came to the U.S. for graduate school at the University of Delaware. But all too soon, the storytelling gene beckoned.