2
DYNASTY
1622–1628
DARA SHUKOH, THE ELDEST SON of seven living siblings, was almost seven years old when his uncle died. One winter day, early in 1622, Khusrau Mirza’s body was discovered in the Burhanpur palace.1 He was thirty-four years old. Dara’s father, Khurram (who was Khusrau’s younger brother and, lately, his custodian), had been out hunting. Nobody could tell for sure what happened in that closed bedchamber, but it was impossible to put a lock on people’s tongues. The winds of gossip blew and the contents of hushed conversations wafted into letters and journals. Business slowed down as merchants and government officials treaded cautiously.2
But the emperor, inveterate memoirist though he was, mentioned his eldest son’s death so casually and briefly, he might have been recording the weather or a banal administrative detail. On the twenty-third of February, a letter from Khurram had reached Jahangir while he was at the outskirts of Kashmir. The seals of all the Mughal noblemen stationed in Burhanpur adorned it, to prove its veracity. The emperor remarked “a report was received from Khurram containing the news that Khusrau had died on the eighth of the month after an attack of colic pain.”3
Did Jahangir’s reticence reflect a suspicion that he wished, for now, to keep private, in order to let his sons battle out the matter of succession themselves? Or did he have plans for dealing with Khurram that he wanted to keep up his sleeve? Did he regret handing over Khusrau while in a state of what Muhammad Salih Kamboh, a later chronicler, refers to as “wine’s world of oblivion,” knowing full well that the younger son desired to eliminate all competition for the throne?4
Others, notably European traders, had no compunctions about calling Khusrau’s death a murder. William Methwold, Matthew Duke, and Francis Futter, writing in March from far-away Masulipatnam, inform the English factory in Surat that the “newest newes here is that Sultan Caroone hath slayne his brother, but after what maner wee know as little as of what.” By the middle of the year they called Khusrau’s death an “unnaturall fratricide” and predicted that divine punishment would “fall heavey uppon the bloody abettres,” even though the crime might have been hidden “from thatt vicekinge Mogall, per the distance of place and connivency of freinds.”5
The rumor of Khurram’s involvement would have traveled to Jahangir. A Dutch merchant based in Agra reports that, upon hearing the news of Khusrau’s death, the emperor angrily demanded the truth in a letter that he dashed off to the noblemen serving Khurram. Jahangir might even have heard some of the lurid details in the Dutch merchant’s account: that a slave named Raza, dispatched to carry out the deed, went to Khusrau’s room with a group of accomplices; that Khusrau, wary, refused to open the door; that Raza and company eventually forced their way into the room and surrounded the hapless prince, who flung at them the only weapon he could lay his hands on—a chamber pot; that they knocked him down and strangled him with a cord and then placed him on the bed as though he had died in his sleep; and then, that Khusrau’s first wife, the daughter of Khan Azam Koka, was utterly distraught when she found him lifeless in the morning.6
Khusrau’s death caused a public stir. Khurram had judged that it would be better to make his brother’s demise known rather than try to cover it up. The historian Kamboh would later report that, in order to avert suspicion, Khurram made sure that Khusrau had a stately funeral procession accompanied by nobles and religious men offering prayers. Two days after his death, he was buried in nearby Alamganj, and masses of grieving men and women visited his grave every Friday.7 A prince whom people believed to have been unjustly killed could posthumously attract a large following.
Jahangir intervened by having Khusrau’s body exhumed and moved up north. In June 1622, the British merchant Robert Hughes reported to the Surat factory that the body had reached Agra.8 From there it was carried to Allahabad to be buried next to the late prince’s mother. The weather, which would have been searingly hot, must have necessitated special measures to protect the prince’s remains from decomposition. Embalming techniques in the seventeenth century were sufficiently developed for the dead wife of the Italian traveler Pietro della Valle to accompany him throughout his journeys across India in the 1620s.9 Though Hanafi jurists generally frowned upon transferring corpses over long distances, the Mughals had a precedent in their ancestor Timur, whose body, embalmed with camphor and musk among other substances, was carried over three hundred miles to its burial place in Samarkand.10
After Khusrau’s bier moved to Allahabad, replica tombs were made in each part of Burhanpur, and people would visit them every Thursday to pay their respects and sometimes stay the night.11 His tomb in Allahabad then became a shrine. Jahangir also made sure that Khusrau’s son, Dawar Bakhsh, was brought under his and Nur Jahan’s watch.
The young Dara Shukoh and his siblings could not have escaped the commotion. For more than a year, after the constant upheaval of long journeys, Khurram’s children had managed to achieve some measure of stability in the Burhanpur palace. But even before Khusrau’s death, the relative calm was abruptly shattered. Little Umid Bakhsh died, at just over two years old, his passing unnoticed in the emperor’s memoirs.12 Jahanara and Dara Shukoh now had their second experience with the loss of a sibling, and Shuja, Roshanara, Aurangzeb, and the infant Surayya their first. Their mother, Mumtaz Mahal, pregnant again and grieving for Umid Bakhsh, still had to carry the additional burden of supervising her children’s care and upbringing while living with their uncertain future.. What would their fate be, as the intrigues and struggles for the succession to Jahangir moved swiftly along? Khurram’s other wives, Qandahari Begam and Shahnawaz Mirza’s daughter, also staying in the Burhanpur Fort’s women’s quarters, no doubt wondered the same.
At age seven, Dara Shukoh was more or less halfway toward becoming a man. Like his father, and other male descendants of Timur in India, the prince would have had a lavish celebration marking his circumcision when he was four years, four months, and four days old.13 Though Akbar had ordered that boys should only be circumcised at age twelve, with their full consent, this decree turned out to be too impractical for most of the elite. Around the same time, at four years or so, children had their maktab ceremony, marking the beginning of their formal education. The small prince Dara would have traced an alif on a slate, the first letter of the Arabic and Persian alphabets. Then, touching the Quran to his forehead, he would have recited the fatiha, the Quran’s opening chapter.14 As he matured in Burhanpur, Dara would have been gradually initiated into the ritual practices of Islam and those of Mughal princeship, including the five daily prayers, Quran-reading, horse-riding, and hunting.15 During this period, he may well have begun to study calligraphic writing, Persian grammar and literature, and even Chaghatai Turkish, the ancestral language of the Timurids, useful for communicating with Central Asian army officers. Soon, however, his life, and those of his siblings, would be rudely disrupted.
Khusrau’s death had removed one obstacle on Khurram’s way to the throne, yet the prince’s position was hardly secure. His real threats were Parwez and Shahryar, as both were jostling to be Jahangir’s heir. These days Parwez assiduously showed concern for their ailing father’s health, edging closer into the emperor’s good graces.16 Shahryar, married to Nur Jahan’s daughter Ladli Begam, was coming into his own under the empress’s wing. Nur Jahan’s already considerable wealth and authority had recently soared. Her father, Itimad-ud-Daula, had died earlier that year. In an unprecedented step, Jahangir allowed all his properties to go to her rather than revert to him as was the norm for a deceased nobleman’s estate. He also granted her the right to have her own drums and orchestra played after his.17
Khurram soon had his first major confrontation with his father, though it was not directly linked to Khusrau’s killing. On the twenty-seventh of March 1622, Jahangir, who with Nur Jahan and Shahryar was on his way to summer in Kashmir, got wind that the Safavid emperor Shah Abbas was about to besiege Qandahar, a fortress town on the west
ern frontier of the Mughal empire.18 Shah Abbas, whom Jahangir had earlier referred to as his brother, always had his eye set on recapturing Qandahar, ever since Akbar seized it from him in 1595. Perturbed by Khurram’s recent victories over the Shii kingdoms of the Deccan, the Iranian ruler saw an opportunity to divert Mughal military resources from the southern to the northwestern frontier. Jahangir dispatched a messenger ordering Khurram to come posthaste with as large an army he could muster.19 The emperor made plans to leave for Lahore, along with Nur Jahan, to more closely supervise the operation. He sent his senior nobleman Mahabat Khan to guard Kabul as governor of the city.20
The young Dara Shukoh and the rest of his family set off with Khurram, who proceeded as though he were complying with the emperor’s demand. Stopping only a couple of hundred kilometers north of Burhanpur, at the hill fortress of Mandu, Khurram sent his father a list of conditions: He would remain in Mandu for several months until the muddy monsoon season ended. He required the governorship of Punjab, ostensibly to provide his army with provisions along the way. He also requested that the Ranthambor Fort be given to him for his family’s use while he led the campaign in Qandahar. The tone of Khurram’s letter was firm and direct.21 Though the dispatch did not proclaim outright rebellion, the emperor construed it as such.22 Yet, from Khurram’s perspective, he was only trying to leverage his way out of a trap. The other options open to him were equally risky: He could obey his father and abandon his secure position in the Deccan to brave the formidable Safavid army. Or, he could even try to negotiate some sort of collaboration with Shah Abbas, whose trustworthiness, or lack thereof, was all too apparent.
Nonetheless, Jahangir was deeply hurt by the insubordination of his once favorite son: “Of the patronage and favors I showered upon him I can say that until now no monarch has ever showered upon any son.” He commanded that the prince be referred to not as Khurram, let alone Shah Jahan, but as be-daulat, which literally means both “bereft of good fortune” and “stateless,” and, here, simply connotes “wretch.” The emperor’s health also multiplied his distress. Though sometimes he could muster the strength to mount a horse and go hunting, he felt out of sorts more often than not. Khurram’s recent behavior only added to his list of woes, and the hot weather he was suffering at the time did not help.23 A severe illness, possibly a stroke, that befell him two years earlier, would ultimately leave him unable to write his journal. Mutamad Khan soon took over the task of recording noteworthy events, though we are left to understand that Jahangir still closely supervised the project.24
The emperor appears to have made an effort to reach out to Khurram. A letter in Jahangir’s name severely admonishes the prince, calling him an “evil-dispositioned son” who had “obliterated the filial obligations of obedience.” But Jahangir also opened the door of reconciliation just a crack, by urging Khurram to fasten the “ring of servitude” onto the “earlobe of obedience.” This was a metaphor for submission, as such earrings used to be worn by slaves. The prince could make amends by sending the noblemen who were with him to assist in the Qandahar campaign, his father urged.25
The letter, if indeed penned by Jahangir, had no effect on the rapidly worsening relationship with his son. In mid-1622, the emperor received word that Khurram had forcibly seized territories assigned to Nur Jahan and Shahryar, including the subdistrict of Dholpur, close to Agra.26 Jahangir retaliated by confiscating the district of Hissar Firoza, part of Khurram’s land allotment, which he then transferred to Shahryar, the prince’s brother. The emperor then put Shahryar in charge of the Qandahar expedition.27 This turned out to be a futile effort, as Shah Abbas eventually captured the garrison town. The Iranian sovereign wrote a letter of faint apology to his “brother” Jahangir, asking him not to be perturbed by such “trivial” matters.28
By March 1623, with Jahangir in Lahore, Khurram stealthily moved forward to attack the imperial stronghold of Agra. But his armies arrived to find the gates of the fort impenetrably shut, thanks to the resourceful Itibar Khan, eunuch superintendent of the women’s quarters. Moreover, Nur Jahan had already sent her brother Asaf Khan to retrieve the wealth stored in its treasuries.29 After sacking the surrounding areas, Khurram’s army came face to face with the imperial army at Baluchpur, near Delhi. Here Khurram lost his finest general, Raja Bikramaditya. His army, demoralized, scattered ranks, even though the imperial general Abdullah Khan had defected to join them. They suffered a crushing defeat and were forced to flee west, with Parwez and Jahangir’s commander, Mahabat Khan, chasing after them.30
Throughout this turmoil, Khurram’s family accompanied him. In the difficult months that followed, Dara Shukoh, his siblings, and their pregnant mother endured countless upheavals and ongoing discomfort. Constant journeying was, of course, how Mughal royals lived and ruled.31 But a fugitive’s travels were of a different order. While planning his next course of action, Khurram had to also make arrangements for his household. Apart from his soldiers and those who provided for their needs, Khurram’s entourage would have also included a host of maids, cooks, wet nurses, eunuchs, and other servants. The women and young children customarily traveled at the rear, at a slower pace. They endured the journey’s jolts in narrow, closed palanquins, which were carried either by bearers traversing briskly on foot or by being laid across two camels. Sometimes they rode in covered litters atop elephants. As later reports witness, Arjumand was also closely involved in tactical planning and decision-making. Throughout it all, Arjumand and her cowives maintained the traditional practice of seclusion, and would have had to manage a network of informants to get news of the day’s events.
For now, though, the family had a brief respite in Udaipur, where Rana Karan Singh, the son of Khurram’s former foe, treated them to his hospitality. Several Rajput sources, at least one in Sanskrit and others in the Rajasthani vernacular, would later attest to this visit.32 The Mughal writings of the period, though, largely gloss over this stay at Udaipur. Karan Singh, who was busy rebuilding his capital, is said to have lodged Khurram’s family in a recently built pavilion on an island in Lake Pichola—a two-storied structure with a dome and canopied balconies.33 It was small by the standards to which they were accustomed. But the lake glimmered all around, and the pavilion faced the labyrinthine Jagmandir Palace that Karan Singh had been constructing. Khurram, indebted to the man whose father had once kissed his feet, exchanged turbans with him in a gesture of friendship before they parted.34
Then Jahangir arrived in nearby Ajmer, and the imperial army headed by Mahabat Khan and Parwez moved in swift pursuit. After a few months’ stay in Udaipur, Khurram’s household accompanied him as he retreated to Mandu. Finding Mahabat Khan’s forces close behind, they headed toward Burhanpur. Khurram left the majority of his household staff—servants, eunuchs, and concubines—as well as his belongings, at the lofty Asirgarh Fort north of Burhanpur, and took with him only his three wives, children, and a few servants.35
At Burhanpur, Khurram discovered that his third wife’s grandfather, the venerable Abd-ur-Rahim Khan of Khans, who had been in charge of the Deccan in his absence, had been corresponding with Mahabat Khan, the imperial general. Khurram put Abd-ur-Rahim and the khan’s son Darab, who was also Khurram’s general, under surveillance. Then, desperate, he begged the Khan of Khans to plead his case with Jahangir’s men. Khurram even did the unthinkable and invited his father-in-law into the women’s quarters, entry into which was reserved for only the closest of family members. There, his wives and children sobbed and pleaded for his aid—or so reports Jahangir, who was keeping a close watch on his rebel son’s activities. Khurram’s wife Arjumand played her part in trying to gain Abd-ur-Rahim, imploring him while her children, no doubt including Dara Shukoh, were by her side. The imperial army was drawing close, though, and Abd-ur-Rahim, wary of casting his lot with a rebel prince whose prospects were uncertain at best, defected to the imperial camp.
It was September 1623, and the monsoon was in full burst. Though Khurram had recently appealed
to the Shah of Iran for support, his letter was ignored. Pursued from the north, Khurram could only go south, crossing the muddy, gushing Tapti River with his family and army. Many people along with their animals and cargo were swept away in the dangerous crossing, but Dara Shukoh and his family survived. Jahangir, exulting in his son’s travails, notes that most of the imperial servants had by now deserted Khurram.36
Khurram knew that his only shot at regaining his footing was to leave Burhanpur, travel south through the neighboring kingdoms of Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, and Golconda, and then try to seize the empire’s eastern provinces. But no assistance was forthcoming from either Malik Ambar, who wished to avoid another war with the Mughals, or the ruler of Bijapur, who wanted nothing to do with the rebel contingent. Qutb-ul-Mulk, ruler of Golconda, allowed Khurram to pass through the kingdom provided that he did not halt long. He even provided some money, which Khurram gratefully accepted.37 Golconda, though farther away from Burhanpur, bordered the Mughal provinces of Orissa and Khandesh, the southern province of which Burhanpur was the capital.
By early November, Khurram arrived at Machilipatnam, a thriving Mughal entrepôt where British, French, and Dutch merchants came to trade, its hinterland lush with paddy fields and coconut-palm groves. Though he had lost many men and animals along the way, according to one English account, he still had four-and-a-half thousand horses, over ten thousand infantry, and five hundred elephants.38 By imperial Mughal standards, this was a smallish army but it was large enough for a quick attack in a frontier province. Khurram’s men and elephants went on a rampage to fill their bellies, destroying fields and trees and killing chickens in a prelude to their Orissa campaign. The governor of Orissa, Ahmad Beg, who had not expected Khurram to arrive so soon, was away fighting a local feudal chieftain named Giridhar. Unwilling, or perhaps afraid, to face Khurram’s troops, Ahmad Beg sought refuge in the Burdwan region of Bengal. Within a month, Khurram took Cuttack, the province’s capital.39 Finally, it looked as though the rebel prince’s fortunes were ascending.
The Emperor Who Never Was Page 6