17-5 |A Mughal Emperor Describes His Life and Rule
NURUDDIN SALIM JAHANGIR, From the Memoirs of Jahangir (ca. 1580–1600)

Akbar’s third son, Prince Salim (1569–1628), succeeded his father as the Mughal sovereign in 1605 and took the name Jahangir, or “World Conqueror.” During his reign, he continued many of his father’s policies, including (limited) religious tolerance and wars of territorial expansion. Jahangir found himself locked in a familiar pattern of Mughal succession when his son Khurram rebelled in 1622, just as Jahangir rebelled against his own father. The passages here are taken from Jahangir’s autobiography. In the first section, he presents measures to promote justice and social welfare in the realm. In the second, he describes a hunting trip with his favorite wife, Nūr-Jahān Begam.

After my accession, the first order that I gave was for the fastening up of the Chain of Justice, so that if those engaged in the administration of justice should delay or practice hypocrisy in the matter of those seeking justice, the oppressed might come to this chain and shake it so that its noise might attract attention. Its fashion was this: I ordered them to make a chain of pure gold, 30 gaz in length and containing 60 bells. Its weight was 4 Indian maunds, equal to 42 ’Irāqī maunds. One end of it they made fast to the battlements of the Shāh Burj of the fort at Agra and the other to a stone post fixed on the bank of the river. I also gave twelve orders to be observed as rules of conduct in all my dominions —

  1. Forbidding the levy of cesses [taxes] under the names of tamghā and mīr bahrī [river tolls], and other burdens which the jāgīrdārs3 of every province and district had imposed for their own profit.
  2. On roads where thefts and robberies took place, which roads might be at a little distance from habitations, the jāgīrdārs of the neighborhood should build sarā’īs [public rest houses], mosques, and dig wells, which might stimulate population, and people might settle down in those sarā’īs. If these should be near a khāliṣa estate,4 the administrator of that place should execute the work.
  3. The bales of merchants should not be opened on the roads without informing them and obtaining their leave.
  4. In my dominions if anyone, whether unbeliever or Musalman, should die, his property and effects should be left for his heirs, and no one should interfere with them. If he should have no heir, they should appoint inspectors and separate guardians to guard the property, so that its value might be expended in lawful expenditure, such as the building of mosques and sarā’īs, the repair of broken bridges, and the digging of tanks and wells.
  5. They should not make wine or rice-spirit or any kind of intoxicating drug, or sell them; although I myself drink wine, and from the age of 18 years up till now, when I am 38, have persisted in it. When I first took a liking to drinking I sometimes took as much as twenty cups of double-distilled spirit; when by degrees it acquired a great influence over me I endeavored to lessen the quantity, and in the period of seven years I have brought myself from fifteen cups to five or six. My times for drinking were varied; sometimes when three or four sidereal hours of the day remained I would begin to drink, and sometimes at night and partly by day. This went on till I was 30 years old. After that I took to drinking always at night. Now I drink only to digest my food.
  6. They should not take possession of any person’s house.
  7. I forbade the cutting off the nose or ears of any person, and I myself made a vow by the throne of God that I would not blemish anyone by this punishment.
  8. I gave an order that the officials of the Crown lands and the jāgīrdārs should not forcibly take the ryots’ [farmers’] lands and cultivate them on their own account.
  9. A government collector or a jāgīrdār should not without permission intermarry with the people of the pargana [district] in which he might be.
  10. They should found hospitals in the great cities, and appoint physicians for the healing of the sick; whatever the expenditure might be, should be given from the khāliṣa establishment.
  11. In accordance with the regulations of my revered father, I ordered that each year from the 18th of Rabī’u-l-awwal, which is my birthday, for a number of days corresponding to the years of my life, they should not slaughter animals [for food]. Two days in each week were also forbidden, one of them Thursday, the day of my accession, and the other Sunday, the day of my father’s birth. He held this day in great esteem on this account, and because it was dedicated to the Sun, and also because it was the day on which the Creation began. Therefore it was one of the days on which there was no killing in his dominions.
  12. I gave a general order that the offices and jāgīrs [land plots] of my father’s servants should remain as they were. Later, the manṣabs [ranks or offices] were increased according to each one’s circumstances by not less than 20 percent to 300 or 400 percent. The subsistence money of the aḥadīs was increased by 50 percent, and I raised the pay of all domestics by 20 percent. I increased the allowances of all the veiled ladies of my father’s harem from 20 percent to 100 percent, according to their condition and relationship. By one stroke of the pen I confirmed the subsistence lands of the holders of aimas [charity lands] within the dominions, who form the army of prayer, according to the deeds in their possession. I gave an order to Mīrān Ṣadr Jahān, who is one of the genuine Sayyids of India [descendants of Muhammad], and who for a long time held the high office of ṣadr [ecclesiastical officer] under my father, that he should every day produce before me deserving people [worthy of charity]. I released all criminals who had been confined and imprisoned for a long time in the forts and prisons. . . .

On the 25th the contingent of I’timādu-d-daulah passed before me in review on the plain under the jharoka.5 There were 2,000 cavalry well horsed, most of whom were Moghuls, 500 foot [soldiers] armed with bows and guns, and fourteen elephants. The bakhshis reckoned them up and reported that this force was fully equipped and according to rule. On the 26th a tigress was killed. On Thursday, the 1st Urdībihisht, a diamond that Muqarrab Khān had sent by runners was laid before me; it weighed 23 surkh, and the jewellers valued it at 30,000 rupees. It was a diamond of the first water, and was much approved. I ordered them to make a ring of it. On the 3rd the mansab [military rank] of Yūsuf Khān was, at the request of Bābā Khurram, fixed at 1,000 with 1,500 horses, and in the same way the mansabs of several of the Amirs [nobles] and mansabdars [office holders] were increased at his suggestion.6 On the 7th, as the huntsmen had marked down four tigers, when two watches and three gharis [a length of time] had passed I went out to hunt them with my ladies. When the tigers came in sight Nūr-Jahān Begam submitted that if I would order her she herself would kill the tigers with her gun. I said, “Let it be so.” She shot two tigers with one shot each and knocked over the two others with four shots. In the twinkling of an eye she deprived of life the bodies of these four tigers. Until now such shooting was never seen, that from the top of an elephant and inside of a howdah [carriage atop an elephant] six shots should be made and not one miss, so that the four beasts found no opportunity to spring or move. As a reward for this good shooting I gave her a pair of bracelets of diamonds worth 100,000 rupees and scattered 1,000 ashrafis [over her].

The Tūzuk-i-Jahangīrī or Memoirs of Jahāngīr, ed. Alexander Rogers and Henry Beveridge (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1909–1914), 2, 105.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. What is the purpose of Jahangir’s Chain of Justice? What impression does it create of the sovereign?
  2. Jahangir’s twelve orders deal with a variety of issues. How would you categorize them? Which order is most striking to you, and why?
  3. What is the effect of Jahangir’s frequent references to gold and jewels in both of these excerpts? What image does that create of him and his realm?
  4. In the second excerpt, Jahangir describes both military forces and a hunting expedition with his wives. How would you compare the tone of this passage with his comments about justice and social order?