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XXIV. Sultan Khusrau

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

Khusrau was the eldest son of Jahangīr, and was born at Lahore on August 4th, 1587. His mother was the daughter of Rajah Bhagwān Dās. Her original name does not seem to be known, but after birth Jahangīr, or, as he then was, Prince Selīm, gave her the name of Shāh Begam. She poisoned herself with opium on May 6th, 1605, on account, her husband says, of the bad behaviour of and of one of her brothers. But there was madness in the family, and her father once tried to kill himself.

There are three interesting points connected with First, was he blinded by his father? Secondly, was he murdered by his half-brother, Shāh Jahān? Thirdly, what is the date of his death?

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1907

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References

page 597 note 1 This is the date given by Jahangīr. According to the continuation of the Akbarnāma and the chronogram in the she died in 1012 = 1603–4.

page 597 note 2 Though Jahangīr does not say so in the Tūzuk, it appears from Price's “Jahangīr,” p. 15, that really was a prisoner in the fort of Agra. His flight, therefore, is intelligible.

page 599 note 2 There is a curious passage in Price's “Jahangīr,” p. 123, where the describes himself as pardoning at the request of Parvez, and allowing him to have hunting parties. This was in the sixteenth year, and the account implies that was not blind then. But Price's “Jahangīr” is full of misstatements, and cannot be relied upon as authentic.

page 602 note 1 Beale, in the , gives the date as 9th Bahman or 13th Rabiu-l-awwal.

page 602 note 2 There is, or at least was, a little uncertainty as to where Shāh Jahān was when Banārasī brought him the news of his father's death, for the authorities, or, at all events, the manuscript copies of their works, mention two places besides Junair. Mr. Blochmann, in his interesting article in the Calcutta Review for October, 1869, apparently considers that Shāh Jahān was then at some place north of the Taptī, and between it and the Narbada. It is, however, Junair (Junnar) in Kāmgār Husainī's book, B.M. MS. Or. 171 (Rieu, i, 257), and in a MS. of the Majālisu-s-Salātm, which was composed in the year after Jahangīr's death, it is stated that at the time of Jahangīr's death Shāh Jahān was at Junair, “a place three months' journey from the imperial camp” (see also Elliot, vii, 137). Manucci, too, as Mr. Irvine informs me, states that Shāh Jahān used to live at Junair. It seems, therefore, to be certain that Shāh Jahān was at Junair when the news reached him.

page 603 note 1 Called Goīndwāl by Cunningham.

page 606 note 1 Khurramī. Mr. Burn thinks there may be an allusion here to Shāh Jahān, who was called .

page 606 note 2 Perhaps this is an allusion to the word meaning the Sun (it is the same word as Cyrus).

page 606 note 3 Beale has ahl-i-ūbāsh instead of ahl u ūbāsh. If so, the meaning is ‘people in general.’

page 607 note 1 Autād, literally tent-pegs, or props.

page 607 note 2 Salmā is a common name for a mistress, and seems to be so used here, though apparently Eastwick regarded it as meaning ‘Ask'st thou.’ The chronogram faiz yields 1031 = 1622, and so also does the last line. was horn on 24th Amardād, 995, or 4th August, 1587, and as he died in the end of January, 1622, he was about 34½ years old at his death. His birth is recorded in the Akbarnāma, iii, 523.

page 607 note 2 Her name was Sultan Nisā Begam, and she was the eldest of Jahangīr's children. She was full sister, and was born about a year and a half before him. Her birth is recorded in the Akbarnāma, iii, 493. She was horn on the eve of the 16th Ardībihisht, 994, corresponding to about 26th April, 1586. According to the chronogram, Rauza pāk, “The pure lawn (or cemetery),” she died in 1034 (1624–5). Her name, according to some authorities, was Sultan Begam. Her mother was a daughter of Rajah Bhagwān Dās, and so is regarded as a sister of Rajah Mān Singh, though it appears that the latter was only the adopted son of Rajah Bhagwān, and was originally his nephew. Beale does not give the verses which appear in Mr. Burn's copy of the inscriptions. Sultan predeceased her father, who died in 1037 (1627). It is said that two of sons are also buried in the .

page 607 note 2 The second line of this stanza is missing. Beale states that there is a small tomb to the west of the others, and that it is not known whose it is. Some say it is the tomb of , while others say it is Jodh Bai's. Eastwick speaks of there being a cenotaph in the of . According to Beale, Jahanglr built the wall round the garden with the surplus of the materials for the Allahabad Fort.

page 609 note 2 The ‘chaste tomb.’ The words yield 1034, or 1625. I may here note that, though Mr. Keene translated and edited Beale's work, he omitted the chronograms. It seems a pity that Beale's work has not been reprinted. I presume that he was an Eurasian. He must have been a good Persian scholar. He died at Agra, says Mr. Keene, at a very advanced age, in the summer of 1875. He was only a clerk in the office of the Board of Revenue at Agra, but, like Taylor of Dacca, Christian of Bihar, and Haji Mustafa, the translator of the Siyar , he has left more permanently useful work than many highly placed officials. Elliot's History of India fitly closes with a notice of Mr. Beale's work. It is to be hoped that his burial-place is known, and that it has a tombstone. Eastwick (Murray's Handbook, 292) notices the tomb of a Catherine Beale who died in August, 1857.