The Hindu Business Line : The inside story of Taj Mahal

Not everyone can build a Taj Mahal to mark the passing away of a middle-aged spouse after 20 years of married life. Not everyone wants to. This is the story of someone who did wish to do so, and did.

Sultan Khurram (later Shah Jahan) married Arjumand Bano Begam (later Mumtaz Mahal) on May 10, 1612. He was then 21, and she about 20. For neither of them was it the first affair; for him it was not the last.

A daughter was born to the couple on March 30, 1613, another on April 2, 1614, and then a son, Dara Shikoh, on the 30th of March the next year. These dates, like those to follow, were punctuated by the Sultan's expeditions to suppress insurrections or intrigues in this or that part of the far-flung Mughal empire that was handed down to the all-too-human Jahangir by Akbar the Great.

The first daughter died of small pox on June 14, 1916. Soon afterwards, on the third of July, "the creator of the world, in compensation of the loss of that daughter of pure origin, bestowed upon Her Majesty the Queen a prince of auspicious star," the Sultan Shah Shuja. Later that year Sultan Khurram was promoted to the rank of Shah Khurram. Life at home went on as before. On September 3, 1617, "A holy daughter was born to the Queen and named Roshanara Begum. On this same date also, by the command of the Emperor Jahangir, His Majesty the Shah married the noble daughter of Shah Nawaz Khan, the Commander-in-chief of the Army," and was soon thereafter crowned Shah Jahan.

On November 3, 1618, "Her Majesty the Queen brought into the world another illuminating star of princehood," the later Aurangzeb. Shah Jahan's mother (a Hindu lady, not the famous Noor Jahan) died a few months later.

In 1619, "a noble son was born to (his second wife,) the daughter of Shah Nawaz Khan; but as the child was not born in an auspicious hour, His Majesty did not keep him with himself," but sent him off to be looked after by a noble widow in the Deccan. The boy died in the second year of his life.

Shah Jahan left to accompany his father on an excursion of Kashmir early in 1620. "Just before this (on December 18th), the munificent God bestowed a happy omened son on His Majesty and Her Majesty the Queen."

Even at this late day, Shah Jahan "still had not tasted pure wine"; but was now persuaded by his father (who already had his own problems in this regard) to do so.

He seems to have liked it, judging from a note made in these records (the Shahjahannama of 'Inayat Khan) six years later, saying that, "His Majesty by the blessing of divine favour repented of drinking wine."

A daughter was born to the Queen on June 10, 1621. But "every happiness is followed by grief, so in the same year — Sultan Ummid Baksh (born Dec 18, 1619) shifted to the eternal world".

A week later, the rebellious "Prince Khusrau, who was in the custody of His Majesty (and brother Shah Jahan) also got deliverance from the prison of existence and instead became confined in the prison of non-existence". "The fires of intrigue and disturbance kept burning in Hind for the next four or five years"; perhaps, longer because Jahangir died only in November 1627 after eight years of chronic asthma.

These troubles did not, however, affect the family life of the Queen who bore another son late in 1622 (who "died before a name was given to him"), another on September 8, 1624, yet another on November 4, 1626 (the Sultan Lutf Allah); and then followed up four months after Shah Jahan's in absentia coronation in January 1628 with yet another "auspicious star".

However, during the same week, "while everyone was enjoying the gifts of this world, owing to the perverseness of obstinate heaven Sultan Lutf Allah departed to the asylum of the world beyond".

The "auspicious star" followed a little later, in 1629; but the next year, on April 23, 1630, Her Majesty the Queen gave birth to another heavenly infant. The end was now near, and on June 17, 1631, Mumtaz Mahal, not yet 40, "delivered her fourteenth child and died".

Concluding this part of his narrative, the court diarist noted that of the 14 children born to the Queen, "only seven now deck the surface of existence".

The diary itself, however, notes the occurrence of only five deaths up to that point in time. But then it also reports only two marriages, though a third wife is mentioned in passing as having been in existence at the time Mumtaz Mahal died.