than a week of days. In Emperor Shah Jahan’s case, it was a full eight days, for he had decided to return to his duties on the second Friday after his wife’s death, and he would also visit her grave for the first time on this holiest of days in the week.
But his absence had had its effect. Rumors sprouted on the dry, dusty mud around Burhanpur and grew into great fears, fanciful tales, and some complete untruths. The Emperor had died, killing himself by his own hand. The Emperor had been deposed, killed by his sons. Which son’s hands were bathed with his father’s blood? One prince or another was considered in the mouths of the rumormongers and dismissed . . . and reassessed as the murderer of his father. The Afghan kings, having heard of the Empress’s death and the Emperor’s demise, were planning another rebellion from the north and the east—soon, very soon, there would be another dynasty upon the throne of Hindustan. And so forth.
One accusation, vile and torrid, fluttered even this soon after Mumtaz Mahal’s death, based eventually on the premise that the Emperor was indeed alive. He was said to have used his daughter in the place of his wife, because she had so much the look of her mother and the personality of her mother—and so, Emperor Shah Jahan bore the same . . . love for Princess Jahanara Begam that he had for Mumtaz. These were early days yet, filled with fear and uncertainty, so this rumor did not take wing as it could have. But it would later on.
After Jahanara fell in love with an amir from the court.
Six
Before sunrise musicians played to wake the court and at the moment of sunrise the emperor presented himself in his jharoka-i-darshan. . . . The custom . . . to reassure them that he was alive and well and all calm in the kingdom was an old one . . . this . . . was an occasion for common people to make personal requests direct to their ruler.
— BAMBER GASCOIGNE , The Great Moguls
Burhanpur
Friday, June 26, 1631
27 Zi’l-Qa’da A.H. 1040
B y the time the sun rose in the maidan that had been hammered out in the dust and scrub outside the fort at Burhanpur, men had been gathering in front of the marble jharoka balcony for hours. As dawn broke, lanterns and torches were extinguished and people turned to one another in the first light of the day with questions and sleep-deprived faces. But the questions could wait. They combed their hair, rubbed clean hands around their necks and behind their ears, wiped their faces, and straightened their clothing. This was no usual jharoka, on this Friday morning, and in their haste most had been hurried with their toilettes, a huge breach of etiquette in appearing before the Emperor. The men stood in three loose tiers leading up to the jharoka. Under the balcony itself were the Khan-i-khanan Mahabat Khan, solemn and upright; Mirza Abul Hasan, the Emperor’s father-in-law and a grandee of the Empire; and the Grand Vizier, the Prime Minister of the Empire. Behind them were the other nobles at court—Hindu Rajas, Muslim amirs, holders of high rank, much wealth, quite a bit of magnificence. In Emperor Jahangir’s or Emperor Akbar’s court, some of these men could have called themselves fathers-in-law to the Emperor and been proud of having their blood mingle with the Emperor’s, but Shah Jahan had been contrary to his father and his grandfather, limiting his wives to a mere three.
Behind the amirs of the Empire were the tradesmen, the businessmen of affluence but not equal rank, and traveling merchants. In court, the demarcations between these classes of men were marked by railings of gold, silver, and wood, and by the texture and value of the carpets each class of men stood on. But the jharoka, by its very definition, was not a court, not even an audience, merely a looking upon the Emperor to be assured of his well-being. It was as casual a royal ritual . . . as royal rituals could afford to be casual.
And yet, the war
But his absence had had its effect. Rumors sprouted on the dry, dusty mud around Burhanpur and grew into great fears, fanciful tales, and some complete untruths. The Emperor had died, killing himself by his own hand. The Emperor had been deposed, killed by his sons. Which son’s hands were bathed with his father’s blood? One prince or another was considered in the mouths of the rumormongers and dismissed . . . and reassessed as the murderer of his father. The Afghan kings, having heard of the Empress’s death and the Emperor’s demise, were planning another rebellion from the north and the east—soon, very soon, there would be another dynasty upon the throne of Hindustan. And so forth.
One accusation, vile and torrid, fluttered even this soon after Mumtaz Mahal’s death, based eventually on the premise that the Emperor was indeed alive. He was said to have used his daughter in the place of his wife, because she had so much the look of her mother and the personality of her mother—and so, Emperor Shah Jahan bore the same . . . love for Princess Jahanara Begam that he had for Mumtaz. These were early days yet, filled with fear and uncertainty, so this rumor did not take wing as it could have. But it would later on.
After Jahanara fell in love with an amir from the court.
Six
Before sunrise musicians played to wake the court and at the moment of sunrise the emperor presented himself in his jharoka-i-darshan. . . . The custom . . . to reassure them that he was alive and well and all calm in the kingdom was an old one . . . this . . . was an occasion for common people to make personal requests direct to their ruler.
— BAMBER GASCOIGNE , The Great Moguls
Burhanpur
Friday, June 26, 1631
27 Zi’l-Qa’da A.H. 1040
B y the time the sun rose in the maidan that had been hammered out in the dust and scrub outside the fort at Burhanpur, men had been gathering in front of the marble jharoka balcony for hours. As dawn broke, lanterns and torches were extinguished and people turned to one another in the first light of the day with questions and sleep-deprived faces. But the questions could wait. They combed their hair, rubbed clean hands around their necks and behind their ears, wiped their faces, and straightened their clothing. This was no usual jharoka, on this Friday morning, and in their haste most had been hurried with their toilettes, a huge breach of etiquette in appearing before the Emperor. The men stood in three loose tiers leading up to the jharoka. Under the balcony itself were the Khan-i-khanan Mahabat Khan, solemn and upright; Mirza Abul Hasan, the Emperor’s father-in-law and a grandee of the Empire; and the Grand Vizier, the Prime Minister of the Empire. Behind them were the other nobles at court—Hindu Rajas, Muslim amirs, holders of high rank, much wealth, quite a bit of magnificence. In Emperor Jahangir’s or Emperor Akbar’s court, some of these men could have called themselves fathers-in-law to the Emperor and been proud of having their blood mingle with the Emperor’s, but Shah Jahan had been contrary to his father and his grandfather, limiting his wives to a mere three.
Behind the amirs of the Empire were the tradesmen, the businessmen of affluence but not equal rank, and traveling merchants. In court, the demarcations between these classes of men were marked by railings of gold, silver, and wood, and by the texture and value of the carpets each class of men stood on. But the jharoka, by its very definition, was not a court, not even an audience, merely a looking upon the Emperor to be assured of his well-being. It was as casual a royal ritual . . . as royal rituals could afford to be casual.
And yet, the war
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