394 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



The QuEEif of Delhi's Exgeaved Diamond King. 



The diamond in this ring, which was recently oSered for sale in 

 London, is engraved with the words ii b "Oh Ali"! It is said 



VlBPP' •• 



to have been in the possession of Maharajah Bhulwand Singh. 



The ring is enamelled, and is described as a fine specimen of the 

 best style of Indian workmanship. 



There is nothing about it apparently to fix the date of the work- 

 manship with any degree of certainty, though it has been suggested 

 that the ring was made between 1550 and 1650, and the stone engraved 

 much earlier. 



From all these facts it would appear to have been a custom with 

 the Mogul Emperors, Akbar and his successors, Jahangir, Shah Jahan 

 and Aurangzeb, tokave their iiames engraved on their jewels either on 

 their succession or on some subsequent occasion, as fancy or the desire 

 to commemorate particular events suggested. 



This is otherwise borne out by such statements as the following: — 

 " In the art of cutting carnelians Mulana Ibrahim is the pupil of his 

 brother Skaraf of Yazd. He surpasses the ancient engravers : and it 

 is impossible to distinguish his riqa and nastaHiq from the master- 

 pieces of the best caligraphers. He engraved the words laH jalali, or 

 tke glorious ruby, upon all imperial rubies of value." ^ 



It is said that Dara Sheko, instead of tke sacred name of God, 

 -adopted tke Hindu name Prallm (Lord), wkick tke Hindus consider 

 koly, and ke kad kis name engraved in Hindi letters upon rings of 

 diamond, ruby, emerald, &c.^ 



It is a source of amazement to some persons to learn tkat diamonds 

 kave ever been engraved; but the pkrase "diamond cut diamond" is 

 merely founded on tke fact wkick is eskibited in tke ordinary cutting 

 of diamonds by mutual attrition. Selected "kard" points can grave 

 tke surfaces of otker diamonds witk no great difficulty. 



[List, &c. 



1 Blochmann, " Ain i Akbari", Calcutta, 1868, p. 53. 



* Muhammad Khazim in " Alamgir-nama." See Elliot, vol. vii., p. 179. 



