Royal treasury in the palace served many purposes to the Mughal emperors. For example, the tax collected, the war booty and the precious gifts presented to the emperor by nobles and ambassadors were kept in it. Mughal emperors were very fond of diamonds, pearls and others precious stones. Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir (1569-1627) used to keep the record of all the precious gems that were presented to him by nobles and ambassadors; Shahjahan (1592- 1666) built the famous Peacock Throne, and inlaid it with sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls and many other precious stones.

A more common use of such gems by kings was that they were used in their jewellery, weapons and turbans.

French traveller, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605–1689), visited India during 1665-67, and he writes about the Mughal library and the treasury as: The royal library Almost all Mughal emperors had great literary taste. Zahir ud-din Muhammad Babur (1483-1531) and Nur-ud-din Jahangir had royal historians who wrote their autobiographies. They also had poetic talent and composed excellent poetry. They were very fond of collecting books. It is also said that when Nasir ud-din Muhammad Humayun (1508-1556) was in exile and wandered from place to place, even in such critical time he kept his library with him. Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (1542-1605) was very much interested in religious and literary issues; he gathered material and rare manuscripts and to keep them safe, he, therefore, established the royal library in the palace.

Attached to the library was the department of calligraphy, where the best calligraphers available were appointed. Their work was outstanding; for example, margins in a book were decorated by making colourful flowers. When calligraphers had completed their work, artists would illustrate the whole work very beautifully. Akbar was fond of the story of Amir Hamza and got the book illustrated; this book contained one thousand and seven hundred beautiful illustrations.

Furthermore, Akbar set up a separate department for translations where books written in Sanskrit were translated into Persian. These books covered topics like Hinduism, philosophy, history, culture, etc.

Royal treasury On one occasion, the king offered Tavernier to stay in the court as he wanted to show him his personal collection of precious stones, Tavernier explains it as: “Akil Khan, chief of the jewel treasury, who, when he saw us, commanded four of the imperial eunuchs to bring the royal jewels, which were carried in two large decorated wooden trays lacquered with gold leaf, and covered with small cloth made for the purpose. After these trays were uncovered, and all the pieces had been counted three times over, a list was prepared by three scribes present there. The first piece which Akil Khan placed in my hand was the great diamond, which was a round rose, very high at one side. At the basal margin it had a small notch and flaw inside. Its water was beautiful, and its weight 319 ½ ratis, which is equal to 280 of our carats. He showed me another stone, pear shaped. Of good form and fine water, and also three other table diamonds, two clear and the other with some little black spots.

“Subsequently, he showed me jewellery set with twelve diamonds, each one of 15 or 16 ratis and they were all roses. Also a jewellery set with 17 diamonds, half of them were table and half rose, the largest of which could not weigh more than seven or eight ratis, with the exception of the one in the middle, which weighed about 16. All these stones are of first class water, clean and of good form and the most beautiful ever found.”