Evening Star Newspaper, January 19, 1930, Page 88

1 10 b e h g THE SUNDAY STAR, WA -« SHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 19, GUARDING the NASSAK Hoz the Half-Million-Dollar Stone, Rival of the Famous Koh-i-noor and Other Great Diamonds of the World, Worshiped as “Shiva’s Third Eye,”” Has Found Its Way From a Temple in India to a Swanky Shop in New York. BY GILBERT SWAN. Sketches by George Clark. HE “third eye” of Shiva, destroying god of the Brahmins, glows today with a cold, white fire from the show case of a smart Manhattan gem shop, revealed at last to the eyes of th: world. Or, to be more exact, revealed to that part of the world which can make its way past the uniformed guards who protect the street door- way, or the plain clothes det:ctives who peep out from behind barred®vindows like so many speakeasy proprietors. Today they call it the “Nassak diamond” —a stone to be mentioned in the same breath with such fabulous and leg=ndary gems as the Orloff, the Mogul, the Koh-i-noor, the Regent or the Nizam. The swankiest shoppers of New York walk noiselessly by it, treading thick, velvety carpets —when once the tiniest glint of any of its facets would have sent men. of the East into discordant chants for mercy or into orgiastic dance gyrations to its beauty. A strange ending this, for one of the most mystical and most venerated jewels of the Orient! But it is only one of many adventures, since most of the historic diamonds have had fateful careers. As the “all-seeing” cyclopean eye, fastened Two views of the $500.000 Nassak, at top, full face and profile. Below, the Koh-i-Noor. All these sketches are ex- act size. to the forehead of the idol Shiva, it has played its part in lore and in life. Holy men have traveled on exhausting pilgrimages to view it &nd men have died to guard it. In its Indian temple it has looked down icily and imper- sonally upon the passing centuries. Wars have tircled abouteit and warriors have feared to tount it with their loot, lest they defile the god whose capacity for vengeance and destruc- tion was a fearsome thing before the Christian era had begun. J<OR Shiva was the third god of the Hindu “trimurti,” which included also Brahma &nd Vishnu. Shiva was both the destroyer knd the healer. He has many significances, kince that which destroys also rebuilds—as Wwith seasons, storms, plagues, time, death and Rll the rest. Also he was god of the dance and ®f art, which, being esthetic, were looked upon s destructive to the ascetic and to love. Shiva was a very complicated god, and his thief temple was in the town of Nassak, some 100 miles from Bombay, and one of the holy places of India. Here dwelt more than a thou- sand Brahmin priests and their families. Rim- ming this town is the sacred Godavari River, only rival of Benares as a place of pilgrimage. . Centuries passed before Shiva came to possess his cyclopean eye. Then a rich and devout believer came upon & huge diamond in Gol- tonda, famed in history as a gem mine. He hastened to the temple and presented it to the priests, who had it set in the forchead of the god. Immediately new rites were contrived that the pageantry might glow more brilliantly under the mystic new light. Thousands viewed it with fear and vencration. Fanaticism reached weird extremes under its influence. It was indeed a gift for only the gods, an attribute of an accepted power that knew no Jimitaticns. And so for many centuries it re- maned in the temple of 8hiva, sacred th> pillag s of in.asion, escaping the thos: who killed e&nd tu nt ut touch the temps. NOW so long as the Mogul Empire main- tained its authority, the riches and gems were respected. It sd happened, however, that the Peishwas viewed the holy relics with less veneration. They were tribal lootcrs—seeking gain as well as power. An independent group, nominal heads of a great confederacy, the Peishwas helped themselves freely to gifts, whether sacred or profane. And in the course of their wars they pilfered coffers and temples alike—and so came into poss:ssion of the Nassak. Then England, following the ways of em- pire, found her soldiers in India. Early in the 1800's a certain Capt. Briggs defeated Bajerow, an iconoclastic leader and last of the Peishwa conquerors. The British seized his baggage. And in a hidden nook, Capt. Briggs discovered the hidden Nassak. Thus the historic diamond found its way back to London, where the soldier presented it te his particular leader, the Marquis of Has- tings, under whose command the Indian opera- tions and invasion had been conducted. And the marquis, with further generosity, passed it on to the East India Company. Being a commercial concern, the company eventually put it on the market and it passed to the Duke of Westminster. The fame of the diamond spread through the court circles of Europe. It was the fashion of the moment to possess some treasure of art or jewelry, passing these on from one genera- tion to another. The influence of the Orient, with its fabulous ceremonials, had just begun to invade regal circles. And so the Duke of Westminster distin- guished himself and crealed a vast spotlight for himself by appearing on Queen Victoria's birthday wearing the eyes of Shiva in the hilt of his sword. IT was this same duke who possessed *“The Blue Boy,” the Gainsborough painting which became one of the most valuable in art history. Both the painting and the dia- mond passed from the hands of the Westmin- sters at the same sale. M. Mauboussin, then an exclusive French jeweler, purchased the gem. And such is the irony of time and change that today, turning at Madison avenue into Fifty-first street in New York, you will come upon the marble front of Mauboussin's, a modernistic transplantation from the Rue de la Paix. Instead of the turbaned and devoted guardian of India, a trio of suspicious-eyed gents from a detective agency stand at the portals. They wear the conventional blue coats of the average doormen, They wear braided trousers and braided caps, and they give the appearance of having guns within easy reach of a quick right hand. Unless one is known and accepted, a detour must be arranged up a flight of stairs and pést a barricade of doors. FINALLY emerging into the room of the Nassak, the usual scene to be encountered in a swanky jewelry shop is faced. A dozen glass-top tables are spread about the room. Beneath the glasses are wrist watches and cigarette cases; rings and pen- dants; brooches and unset stones. At the tables sit salesmen displaying endless baubles to endless parades of fashionably dressed women. Few have the slightest interest in anything save their own purchases. From its own case, the eye of Shiva looks impersonally on. It catches first this light and that. What religious and mythical sig- nificance it may have had seems lost to all but a few students and experts who drift in. The curious are drawn by the knowledge of its presence. It has even taken on a monetary value— though it is doubtful if it could be purchased for less than a king’s ransom. Something like half a million dollars is said to be its worth. Although it's a rather fantastic parking place for one of the dozen historic diamonds. The Koh-i-noor found its way to the crown of Queen Victoria. The Orloff was lost in the confusion of the Russian revolution and has never been rediscovered since the Romanoffs were driven to their deaths by the rising mobs of peasants and soldiers. The regent is in the Louvre. But what has become of the Grand Mogul, the Nizam and the River of Light? Only legends concerning them remain, ’l‘HE Orloff, with a weight of 195 carats, was of doubtful origin. It was said to have been stolen from a sacred temple in India, and finally came into the hands of Catherine II of Russia via Prince Orloff, with whom she carried on her historic intrigue. The Kceh-i-noor weighed 102 carats, but lost some of its weight in rzcutting. It had been led cowa through a long line of Indian ; and fcund its way to the British royal Diamond Barbarous Bajerow, last of the Peishaw conquerors, blinded the great god Shiva’s “third eye” by seizing the Nassak diamond from the idol's forehead, and thus started the huge jewel's march through history. family during the British invasion of the Punjab. It fell into the hands of the East Indian Co., even as did the Nassak, and was presented to Victoria. The Hope diamond, though it weighed but 44 carats, has achieved more prominence per- haps than any through the curse it seemed to carry to all who possessed it. In the world of diamonds, however, the prize went to the Cullinan, found in the Transvaal, a gorgeous solid mass of more than 3,000 carats. So great was its estimated value that a syndi- oate had to be formed to buy it and it had to be cut into nine stones. As for the Nassak, one of its chief claims to a sort of precious immortality is not only its former place as the cyclopean eye of an ancient god, but also that its original cut has escaped the successive retouches which owners of most historic stones have insisted upon. Ancient gems have completely disappeared through recuttings or subdivision into smaller stones. Before the Koh-i-noor was recut, it and the Nassak were of the same shape and appearance, giving rise to a theory that they came from similar temples and were first handled by the same workmen. BRINGING such a stone as the Nassak diamond to America was, naturally, no simple matter. It was under constant guard during the trip. And it so happens that even the smallest custom house records keep photo- graphic replicas and drawings of about a dozen gems, which include the Nassak. Then came litigation over its entrance as a museum piece. To bring it in under customs duty would have involved perhaps a prohibitive fee. Thus it has been only recently that its exhibition became possible, though new Govern- ment difficulties threaten to present themselves now. One of the most amusing experiences in the long history of the Nassak came when the matter of its entrance was being argued in the Government, appraiser’s court in Manhattan. It was necessary to take the Nassak from a , safe well up town to the courtroom. Fearing thieves and hold-ups, it was at first decided to send the custodian with a small regiment of armed guards. This, on second thought, seemed likely to attract too much public atten- tion to its whereabouts. Whereupon the representative merely stuck the mystical gem in a trousers pocket, boarded a subway and rode for half an hour with no one suspecting the treasure he carried. And just as casually it was introduced to New York not long ago, with M. Claudel, the French Ambassador, officiating at the ceremony. So it happens that today the “third eye” of Shiva glows with cold, icy fire from a case, surrounded by this trinket and that—causing only admiring “ohs” and “ahs!” lF a hardy modern purchaser some day steps into the shoes of the heathen worshipers or the dazzling Duke of Westminster he will never dare for a minute to relax the vigilance of the hard-eyed detectives. For the Nassak is marked; it can scarcely change hands without common knowledge. And modern diamond thieves have brought their methods up to date. Already the game of the “diamond trimmer” is well known to the detectives of jewelry underwriters. Such diamonds as the Nassak are always covered by a blanket insurance policy, but the “trimmer” discounts this. His game is to stage a fake robbery or disappearance which will enable the insurance on the diamond to be collected. (Copyright, 1930.)