The stone came out of the Kollur mines in the Deccan. It was in Mughal hands at Delhi, taken by Nadir Shah in 1739, carried to Persia and then to Kabul with the Durranis.
Shah Shuja, deposed and in exile at Lahore, gave it to Ranjit Singh Ji in 1813 under pressure that the Sikh sources describe as negotiation and the Afghan sources as extortion. Ranjit Singh Ji wore it on his arm.
On his deathbed in 1839 he is said to have wished it given to the temple at Puri. The durbar did not carry that out and the point is disputed.
Article III of the Treaty of Lahore, March 1849, required it to be surrendered to the Queen of England. A ten-year-old signed. It was recut in London in 1852, losing about forty per cent of its weight, and set into a crown.
India, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan have all made claims to it. The British position has been that it was acquired legally under a treaty, which is true and is also a description of what was done to a child.
It is the most famous object in Punjab's history and it has been out of Punjab for more than a hundred and seventy-five years.
It came from the Golconda mines, passed through the Mughal treasury, was taken by Nadir Shah in 1739, went to the Afghan rulers, and was surrendered to Ranjit Singh Ji by Shah Shuja in 1813.
It was taken as part of the terms of annexation in 1849 and sent to England, where it was recut and reduced by about forty per cent.
It is set in a crown kept at the Tower of London and is brought out only for a coronation. It was moved into a consort's crown in the twentieth century and has not been worn by a reigning monarch since it arrived.