India Through the Ages Part 27

JAHaNGIR AND NURJAHaN

A.D. 1605 TO A.D. 1627

These names, "Conqueror of the World" and "Light of the World," are inseparable.

It is as well they should be so, for they supply us with the only excuse which Prince Salim could put forward for the curious animosity that for many years went hand in hand with his undoubted affection and respect for his great father, Akbar; the excuse being that he had been crossed in love, real, genuine love, by that father's absurd sense of justice.

The story will bear telling.

There was a poor Persian called Mirza or "Prince" Ghia.s.s, of good family but abjectly poverty-stricken, who, finding it impossible to live in his own country, determined to emigrate to India with his family. On the way thither, his wife, Bibi Azizan, somewhat of a f.e.c.kless fas.h.i.+onable, was delivered of another daughter. Already in dire distress, the parents felt unable to cope with this fresh misfortune. So they left the child by the wayside. The chief merchant of the caravan by which they were travelling, happening to come along the same road a few hours afterwards, found the baby, and being struck by its beauty, determined to rear it as his own.

Now in a travelling caravan wet-nurses are rare. Small wonder, then, that the infant, whom the merchant had instantly called the "Queen of Women" (_Mihr-un-nissa_), should find its way back to its mother. This led to explanations. The merchant, discovering the father to be much above his present position, employed him in various ways, and became interested in his future.

This led to his being brought to Akbar's notice, who, finding him straightforward and capable, advanced him until he rose to be Lord High Treasurer of the Empire. A fine position, truly, especially for Bibi Azizan, who, amongst the ladies of the court, was noted for the _dernier cri_ of fas.h.i.+on both in dress and perfume. It was she, briefly, who invented the attar of rose, which at first sold for its weight in gold.

Now Bibi Azizan was a matchmaking mamma, and in little Mihr-un-nissa she had a pretty piece of goods to bring to market. A thousand pities, indeed, that husband Ghia.s.s, honest man, had already allowed talk of betrothal with young Sher-Afkan of the King's Light Horse. All the more pity because there was Prince Salim giving his father trouble despite the Rajput wife they had given him.

That Bibi Azizan cast nets is fairly certain; but it was Fate which sent the bird into them.

It was after one of Akbar's favourite diversions, a Paradise Bazaar, when the lords and ladies of the court had been playing pranks, that Salim first saw the girl who was, long years afterwards, to be his good genius. The tale may be fully told in verse of how--

"Long ago, so runs the story, in the days of King Akbar, 'Mid the pearly-tinted splendours of the Paradise Bazaar, Young Jahangir, boyish-hearted, playing idly with his dove, Lost his boyhood, lost his favourite, lost his heart, and found his love.

By a fretted marble fountain, set in 'broidery of flowers, Sat a girl, half-child, half-maiden, dreaming o'er her coming hours.

Wondering vaguely, yet half guessing, what the harem women mean When they call her fair, and whisper, 'You are born to be a queen'.

Curving her small palms, like petals, for their store of glistening spray, Gazing in the sunny water where in rippling shadow lay Lips that ripen fast for kisses, slender form of budding grace, Hair that frames with ebon softness a clear, oval, ivory face.

Arched and fringed with velvet blackness from their shady depths her eyes s.h.i.+ne as summer lightning flashes in the dusky evening skies.

Mihr-un-nissa, Queen of Women, so they call the little maid Dreaming by the marble fountain where but yesterday she played.

Heavy sweet the creamy blossoms gem the burnished orange groves, Through their shade comes Prince Jehangir, on his wrist two fluttering doves.

'Hold my birds, child!' cries the stripling, 'I am tired of their play', Thrusts them in her hands, unwilling, careless saunters on his way.

Culling posies as he wanders from the flowers rich and rare, Heedless that the fairest blossom 'mid the blaze of blossom there Is the little dreaming maiden by the fountain-side at rest With the orange-eyed, bright-plumaged birds of love upon her breast.

Flowers fade and perfume pa.s.ses; nothing pleases long to-day; Back toward his feathered fav'rites soon the Prince's footsteps stray.

Dreaming still sits Mihr-un-nissa, but within her listless hold Only one vain-struggling captive does the lad, surprised, behold.

'Only one?' he queries sharply. 'Sire', she falters, 'one has flown!'

'Stupid! How?' The maiden flushes at his quick imperious tone.

'So! my lord!' she says defiant, with a curving lip, and straight From her unclasped hands the other circling flies to join its mate.

Heavy sweet the creamy blossom gems the burnished orange tree, Where the happy doves are cooing o'er their new-found liberty.

Startled by her quick reprisal, wrath is lost in blank surprise, Silent stands the heir of Akbar, gazing with awakening eyes At the small rebellious figure, with its slender arms outspread, Face half frowns, half laughter, royal right of maidenhead.

Slowly dies the flush of anger as the flush of evening dies, Slowly grow his eyes to brightness as the stars in evening skies.

'So, my lord!' So Love had flitted from the listless hand of Fate, And the heart of young Jahangir, like the dove, had found its mate!"

Such is the tale which, even nowadays, the women of India love to tell, bewailing the unkind destiny which separated the lovers for nearly twenty years. But, as a matter of fact, there is no evidence to prove that the little Queen-of-Women fell in love with the prince at all. On the contrary, it seems probable that, being a girl of great sense as well as great beauty, she preferred her father's young soldier to her mother's somewhat debauched heir to a throne. Certain it is, however, that the orthodox Mahomedan faction would have viewed with favour the introduction of a Mahomedan bride. Akbar, however, possibly from political motives, ostensibly because of the previous promise, vetoed the match, and giving the young soldier-bridegroom an estate in Bengal, sent him thither with his disturbing wife. Here they seem to have been very happy. But Jahangir did not forget, and the fact that fourteen years afterwards, at least, one of the very first acts of his reign was to send to Bengal, pick a quarrel with Sher-Aikan (who appears to have acted as an honest and upright gentleman by point-blank refusing to be bribed), and treacherously killing him, carry off his wife, makes one pause to wonder whether Jahangir's life might not have been a better one had his inclinations towards this most masterful woman not been thwarted.

It is a curious story altogether, one which needs reading between the lines. Not the least curious part of it being the fact that Jahangir, pa.s.sionately l.u.s.tful as he must have been by the time when, as a man of nigh forty, he gained actual possession of Nurjahan, used no force towards her. He accepted her scornful rejection of her husband's murderer, and after months spent in the endeavour to soothe and conciliate her, accepted his defeat.

For six long years Nurjahan lived at the court as one of the attendants of Jahangir's Rajput mother, refusing any pension from the hand of the man who had killed Sher-Afkan, and supporting herself entirely by her exquisite skill in embroidery and painting.

And then?

It is customary to say that ambition overcame her scruples; but the seeing eye, reading between the lines, may find a womanly pity for the man who in the prime of life had lost all control over himself, and who sorely needed help. She was a clever, a fascinating woman; and no woman could quite keep her head before such long constancy as his.

It needed little to bring him back. The story runs, that a single visit to her rooms, where, dressed in the simple white which she always wore after her widowhood, she received him gravely, kindly, was sufficient.

They were married almost immediately, and from that time the woman whom he had first seen as a little maiden beside the fountain was the one over-mastering influence in his life.

Thus before we begin even on Jahangir's career we must concede to him the grace of being a constant lover.

The six years which had pa.s.sed since he had succeeded to his father had been fairly peaceful ones.

He had found the whole of his vast empire tranquil. The Rana of Oudipur, it is true, was still unvanquished; but the thorn of Chitore had almost ceased to rankle from its sheer persistence. The Dekkan was also disloyal; but there was no pressure of battle, no stress of struggle anywhere, for Jahangir's eldest son, Khushrou (Fair Face), had, after years of open enmity, subsided for the time into sullenness and dejection.

But almost the very first act of Jahangir's administration was one which, as it were, swept away the whole foundation of the empire which Akbar had built up.

He restored the Mahomedan confession of faith to the coins of the realm, thus giving the casting vote to a creed.

It was the first nail in the coffin of Unity.

For the rest, Jahangir evidently did his best for a while. He issued a few edicts, notably one against drug-takers and dram-drinkers, he all the while continuing his notorious habits.

Just before his marriage with Nurjahan, the Dekkan gave him serious trouble. An Abyssinian slave called Malik-Amber rose to power and swept all before him, compelling the Imperial troops to retire. But in Bengal peace was restored, and after many successes Oudipur succ.u.mbed to a final attack from Prince Khurram, Jahangir's second son, who afterwards reigned as Shah-jahan. The emperor's delight on this occasion was childlike. In a rather inefficient and unreal diary, which he kept in imitation of his great-grandfather Babar, he records how the very day after the arrival of some captured elephants from Chitore, he sent for the largest of these and "went abroad mounted on alam-goman, to my great satisfaction, and distributed gold in great quant.i.ty."

But in all ways he appears to have been blatant, even in his good humours. And these came to the front after his marriage. For Nurjahan was skilful. She held him hard in leash; her ascendency was absolute.

It is usual, once more, to discount her influence by a.s.serting its root to have been ambition; but there is absolutely nothing to warrant this a.s.sertion. It is true that she raised her own minions to office, that her father held the post of prime minister; but he was wise and just. Nor can there be any doubt that the whole administration improved after Jahangir's marriage. As for his private character, he became, for a time, quite a decent and respectable monarch. If he drank, he drank at night in secret; his day duties were done with decorum.

Meanwhile, the report which a certain Mr Ralph Fitch had brought home to a certain "island set in steely seas" was beginning to bear fruit, and something more than hope of mere commerce filled the sails of the innumerable fleets which, not from England alone, but from Holland also, set forth to break through the monopoly of the sh.o.r.es of Ind which Portugal was endeavouring to maintain. The Dutch succeeded first, and their East India Company was formed in 1602. The first Royal Charter given to an English Trading Company was in 1601, but it was not until 1613 that a fleet of four joint-stock vessels, with Sir Thomas Roe aboard, as accredited amba.s.sador from James I to Jahangir's court at Ajmir, sailed for India.

The journal of this voyage, written by Sir Thomas Roe himself, is excellent reading, and gives us a quaint picture of life at the court of the Great Moghul. Jahangir himself, dead-drunk as often as not, with the figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary hanging to his Mahomedan rosary. A spurious Christianity (deep-dyed by the monkish legends which the Jesuit translators had coolly interpolated into the version of the gospels which Akbar had ordered and paid for!), hustling Hinduism and Islamism combined. Nurjahan, with trembling lips, no doubt, at times, driving her despot gingerly what way he should go, proud of her power, but weary, a-weary of heart. A beautiful queen, beautifully dressed, clever beyond compare, contriving and scheming, plotting, planning, s.h.i.+elding, and saving, doing all things for the man hidden in the pampered, drink-sodden carcase of the king; the man who, for her, at any rate, always had a heart.

The inconceivable magnificence of it all, the courtesy, the hospitality, the devil-may-care indifference to such trivialities as English merchants or solid English presents! As Sir Thomas Roe writes sadly to his Company:--

"But raretyes please as well, and if you were furnished yearly from Francford, where are all knacks and new devices, 100 would go farther than 500 layd out in England, and _here better acceptable_."

Thus the rivalry of "made in Germany" is no new thing to India. Sir Thomas himself seems to have been a most excellent, G.o.d-fearing man, who was both perplexed and distressed at the att.i.tude of the heathen towards his own faith.

"I found it impossible," he writes, "to convince them that the Christian faith was designed for the whole world, and that theirs was mere fable and gross superst.i.tion. There answer was amusing" (?) "enough. 'We pretend not,' they replied, 'that our law is of universal application. G.o.d intended it only for us. We do not even say that yours is a false religion; it may be adapted to your wants and circ.u.mstances, G.o.d having, no doubt, appointed many different ways of going to Heaven.'"

Whether amusing or not, the argument was singularly unanswerable!

One of Sir Thomas Roe's most striking sketches is that of Prince Khurram, who moved through the court, a young man of five-and-twenty, cold, disdainful, showing no respect or distinction of persons; "flattered by some, envied by others, loved by none." "I never saw,"