Historically Speaking : Jahangir
I am no history buff, but I do enjoy the little tales from the bygone era. I guess I just love stories. Anyways for this series I did a little bit of digging around, quite a bit of podcast time and of course Reddit.
Before I venture further I have to give credit to : Masala History. They have a pretty interesting podcast series, one of them was on Emperor Jahangir. So I basically converted the words from their mouths into text, all this just so you don’t have to run through an hour of time unless of course you have the time or love for podcasts.
Let’s begin :
- Nur-ud-din Muhammad Salim, known by his imperial name Jahangir was born on 31st August 1569 in Fatehpur Sikri, to Akbar and one of his wives Mariam-uz-Zamani. #Polygamyftw
- Jahangir was an alcoholic and supposedly never the choice for the succession of Akbar. It’s claimed Jahangir used to drink 24 cups of wine in a day and upon going sober took to Opium to recover from his alcohol withdrawal symptoms. #Solidchoice
- Akbar favoured his youngest son Daniyal Mirza to take throne because of Jahangir’s alcoholism. Also Daniyal was a turning out to be an able general and had a keen eye for poetry and arts just like his father. Unfortunately Daniyal was killed surprisingly because of alcoholism. #IronthatIrony
- Akbar still did not favour Jahangir, and told him to get sober or he would hand over the empire to Jahangir’s first son : Khusrau Mirza. So eventually he sobered up and took upon the empire 8 days after Akbars death. #rehab
- Akbar was 14 when he took upon the crown. Jahangir was 36 by the time he took the crown. #AgenoBar
- Now the podcast lifts their content from Jahangir’s autobiography titled “Tuzk-e-Jahangiri /Jahangirnama” with the help of few other books and added it all together. It documents his life as a ruler. He wrote first 17 years of the book, the next 2 being written by someone else because he got busy with alcohol and opium. #killingit
- Jahangir was in constant awe of his father : Emperor Akbar. In his autobiography there are a lot of mentions of his father, usually mentioned fondly as “Revered Father”. Will get to more stories on his fondness for his father later.
- He was a generous king, and had a habit of gifting. Everyone was gifted jewels, land, animals etc. Obviously the more he found you valuable to the empire, the more he loaded them with. Infact he used gifting as a style of performance reviews, and would often even take back gifts given by him. Ranks were maintained through the concept of gift giving. #HR
- A mansabdar who broke Jahangir’s favorite porcelain plate and was almost whipped to death. He was later ordered to go to China to fetch one or never return. #HowfarisChina?
- Jahangir’s first son Prince Khusrau tried to overthrow him but the rebellion was quashed. #Songoals
- Prince Khusrau was jailed but not before being paraded down Chandni Chowk while being seated in grand style on an elephant. By the side of the narrow lanes, his supporters were lined up on knife point. It’s said with each step of the elephant a bunch of people by the side were killed. Khusrau was compelled to watch the grisly sight and listen to the screams and pleas of those who had supported him. This was repeated numerous times through the entire length of Chandni Chowk. #brute
- Jahangir loved animals and plants. In his book he mentions how he once saw an elephant shiver during his morning bath one winter, he immediately ordered only lukewarm water to be used for all elephants going forward. He loved them even more when convicts heads were crushed by those very elephants. #realfounderofpeta
- Like his father Akbar, he loved fruits and imported a lot of exotic ones. During his visit to Kabul he boasted about eating 150 cherries each day. In the book, he reminisces about how much his father would have enjoyed the fruit he had just had. #neverletgo
- Jahangir was caring too, he would gift his subjects generously. Apply moderate taxes. #SecretSanta
- During plagues he would send his personal doctors, set up hospitals and study on how to avoid further plagues in his empire. #RedCross
- Jahangir created twelve rules of conduct to be followed by his subjects, and set up the famous chain of justice.
- When Jahangir became an emperor, the first thing he did was that he made a chain [with a Golden Bell] from the Agra Fort, to all the way to Yamuna and it was huge. It was made of approximately 120 kilos of gold. The idea was that anybody who wants justice should ring it, and he will immediately get the attention of the emperor. There are contemporary travelers’ accounts that talk about how he [Jahangir] sits in his public darbar, which is where people come and that his decisions are swift and sometimes brutal. #Makeawishfoundation
- Jahangir observed no meat/liquor on every Sunday (coz Akbar died on a Sunday), Friday (Holy reasons) and Thursdays (coz he came on throne). #Dietgoals
- Jahangir had a weird fascination of measuring things. He used animals to determine how deep the water was. A range of animals from birds to elephants were used. #measurer
- Jahangir like all Mughal emperors loved hunting. But he had one golden rule, never to kill the female animals. #Feminism
- Favorite fruit : Mangoes #aamaadmi
- Nur Jahan has a very prominent place in history books thanks to the extreme influence she had over Jahangir. Incidentally there is no mention of Anarkali in his book and other scriptures from the era.
- Anarkali No More ? Earliest mention of her seems to be by an English traveler ! But one of the things that didn’t ring true was that the class issue would not have applied at the time. Being a Mughal emperor, he could marry and have as many wives or concubines as he wanted. Who was going to stop him? He wanted to get married to a daughter of one of the men in Akbar’s court. Akbar didn’t want Jahangir to get married to this woman because she was a cousin to one of his [Jahangir’s] other wives. But Jahangir insisted and Akbar just gave in, without any issue. So why would Akbar or anyone contest their union ? #kyahorahahain
Ok I’ll close this out with the mention of the most important person in Jahangir’s life : Nur Jahan.
- Nur Jahan was Jahangir’s supposed 20th wife. Nur Jahan was a widow when she first met Jahangir. She was in her 30s and he in his 40s. One day as per the book, she went along with the king for the royal hunt where she killed 4 tigers. Now Nur Jahan was one of the strongest women from the entire Mughal era, she walked hand in hand with Jahangir and was often consulted before any decision was passed. Infact the last few years of the Jahangir empire, Nur Jahan took complete control and ran the empire effectively on his behalf.
Jahangir died in 1627, after which his 3rd son Prince Khurram took over and took the Mughal dynasty to new heights. He later took the regal name Shah Jahan.
History doesn’t show Jahangir very kindly, he is often portrayed as the drunk or high emperor without showing him much due credit for what he achieved. But an author (Parvati Sharma) who has written extensively on Jahangir has this to say :
“ Even history didn’t have any expectation from him (Jahangir). We are just used to looking at him as a weak alcoholic man. This was my own sense when I started writing but of late, there has been a rethinking of Jahangir as a sovereign, that these notions of Jahangir are the result of propaganda that has been unchallenged since the time of Shah Jahan.
Shah Jahan rebelled against his father and in the last few years of Jahangir’s life they didn’t see each other. When Shah Jahan came to the throne, he could not say anything critical as such of Jahangir, the previous emperor, but he could be critical of Nur Jahan. So this idea of Jahangir as a weak alcoholic dominated by his wife, and about Nur Jahan as powerful and manipulative stems from Shah Jahan’s court accounts.
But if you think about it, for 22 years, the empire was ruled by him [Jahangir]. There was a lot of competition for the kind of power that he exercised. If he was really as easily manipulated and weak, as he is made out to be, the empire really wouldn’t have lasted, would it?”
