Notes:
1. Nādir Shāh was crowned king of Persia in 1736, entered the Panjāb, at the close of 1738, and occupied Delhi in March 1739. Having perpetrated an awful massacre of the inhabitants, he retired after a stay of fifty-eight days, He was assassinated in May 1747.
2. Meshed, properly Mashhad ('the place of martyrdom'), is the chief city of Khurāsān. Nādir Shāh was killed while encamped there.
3. Ahmad Shāh defeated the Marāthās in the third great battle of Pānīpat, A.D. 1761. He had conquered the Panjāb in 1748. He invaded India five times.
4. In 1773.
5. Lūdiāna (misspelt 'Ludhiāna' in I.G., 1908) is named from the Lodī Afghāns, who founded it in 1481. The town is now the headquarters of the district of the same name under the Panjāb 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 Biās river.
6. The above history of the Kohinūr may, I believe, be relied upon. I received a narrative of it from Shāh Zamān, the blind old king himself, through General Smith, who commanded the troops at Lūdiāna; 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 Kohinūr with the great diamond found in one of the Golconda mines, and presented by Amīr Jumla to Shāh Jahān. The much-disputed history of the Kohinūr 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 Kohinūr is almost certainly the diamond given by Amīr (Mīr) Jumla to Shāh Jahān, though now much reduced in weight by mutilation and repeated cutting. Assuming the identity of the Kohinūr with Amīr Jumla's gift, the leading incidents in the history of this famous jewel are as follows;—
| Event. | Approximate Date. |
| Found at mine of Kollūr on the Kistna (Krishna) river | Not known |
| Presented to Shāh Jahān by Mīr 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 Aurangzēb's treasury, its weight being 268 19/50 English carats | 1665 |
| Taken by Nadir Shāh of Persia from Muhammad Shāh of Delhi, and named Kohinūr | 1739 |
| Inherited by Shāh Rukh, grandson of Nadir Shāh | 1747 |
| Given up by Shāh Rukh to Ahmad Shāh Abdālī | 1751 |
| Inherited by Tīmūr, son of Ahmad Shāh | 1772 |
| Inherited by Shāh Zamān, son of Tīmūr | 1793 |
| Taken by Shāh Shujā, brother of Shāh Zamān | 1795 |
| Taken by Ranjit Singh, of Lahore, from Shāh Shujā | 1813 |
| Inherited by Dilīp (Dhuleep) Singh, reputed son of Ranjit Singh | 1839 |
| Annexed, with the Panjāb, and passed, through John Lawrence's waistcoat pocket (see his Life), into the possession of H.M. the Queen, its weight then being 186 1/16 English carats | 1849 |
| Exhibited at Great Exhibition in London | 1851 |
| Recut under supervision of Messrs. Garrards, and reduced in weight to 106 1/16 English carats | 1852 |
The difference in weight between 268 19/50 carats in 1665 and 186 1/16 carats in 1849 seems to be due to mutilation of the stone during its stay in Persia and Afghanistan.