The Serpent's Tooth

by Alex Rutherford

  As always, though, the sources need handling with care. Official chroniclers were constrained in what they could write and eulogy and propaganda play their part in their accounts. Foreign visitors to the Moghul court were far freer to write what they wanted but were often attracted by the sensational as well as being hampered by ignorance of local customs and languages from understanding what was really going on. Nevertheless, certain themes emerge consistently through the sources, whoever the author and whatever their purpose, especially the unshakeable bond between Shah Jahan and Mumtaz and his collapse after her death, and the emerging rivalries between the surviving children of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan, undetected until too late by Shah Jahan himself.

  As in the earlier books in the series, nearly all the main characters existed in real life – the imperial Moghul family themselves, the Rajput rulers, the Moghuls’ close confidants like Satti al-Nissa. A few, though, are composite characters, like Nicholas Ballantyne who first made his appearance in The Tainted Throne and is based in part on Niccolao Manucci and the Rajput prince Ashok Singh. The main events and battles all happened though I’ve sometimes altered timescales to maintain the narrative pace. I’ve also omitted some events to focus on those which best capture this tipping point in the story of one of the world’s greatest dynasties.

  Research took me to many places that still speak of the love between Shah Jahan and Mumtaz and the tragedy that overtook the dynasty in the next generation. I travelled south, following the route taken by Shah Jahan and Mumtaz on their final journey together to the ill-omened fortress-palace of Burhanpur on the Tapti river. Here staff of the Archaeological Survey of India showed me the chamber where most believe Mumtaz died. Across the river, surrounded by fields, I found the Zainabad garden – an old Moghul hunting ground – where the Baradari pavilion beneath which Mumtaz’s body was temporarily laid to rest still stands.

  The Agra fort where Mumtaz spent her brief time as empress still conjures the imperial family’s luxurious life, bathing in marble hammams flowing with rosewater and eating from jade dishes. Standing in the many-pillared Chamber of Public Audience, I thought of Shah Jahan, ablaze with gems, dispensing justice to his subjects while an equally glittering Mumtaz watched from behind a carved purdah screen. In the fort’s marble pavilions – built by Shah Jahan overlooking the Jumna river and destined to become his prison – the colours of the flowers inlaid into the white marble remain as vivid as when the craftsmen first sliced the leaves and petals from semi-precious stones and the marble floors and pillars feel cool to the touch. Loveliest of all is the bronze-canopied octagonal tower where a fluidly carved marble pool fills the centre of the floor and sculpted friezes of swaying irises and yet more jewelled flowers overlay walls and pillars. I could picture Shah Jahan in his imprisonment looking from the tower towards the Taj Mahal, floating mirage-like beyond the ox-bow bend in the Jumna, and like Shakespeare’s Troilus sighing his soul as he thought of the long-dead Mumtaz.

  I roamed Shah Jahan’s mahtab bagh, his moonlight garden, from where, before his overthrow, he often contemplated the melancholy beauty of the Taj Mahal. And of course I returned to the Taj itself. Though I’ve seen it many times I always find it enduringly lovely, whether at sunrise when it emerges ethereal through the early morning mists, at sunset when purple shadows wrap around the dome, or by the light of the silvering moon. People argue about what makes it so perfect. Artistry, symmetry, setting all play their part, yet the heart of its magic is surely the knowledge that it is above all a monument to love and loss.

  Additional Notes

  Chapter 1

  Shah Jahan came to the throne at the beginning of January 1628 and faced several assassination attempts during his reign. He was born on 5 January 1592. His wife Mumtaz was a year younger. They married in May 1612.

  Khusrau’s wife Jani did take her life by swallowing a hot coal.

  Shah Jahan’s court poets wrote many verses in praise of Mumtaz including those quoted here, which are from Kalim’s Padshah Nama.

  The Deccan crisis which drew Shah Jahan south erupted towards the end of 1629.

  Chapter 2

  The Archaeological Survey of India are currently restoring the fortress palace of Burhanpur.

  Chapter 3

  The famine around Burhanpur was extremely severe. Shah Jahan’s historian recorded how ‘During the past year no rain had fallen … and the drought had been especially severe … dog’s flesh was sold for goat’s flesh, and the pounded bones of the dead [people] were mixed with flour and sold [to make bread] … Destitution at length reached such a pitch that men began to devour each other, and the flesh of a son was preferred to his love’. To aid his stricken subjects, Shah Jahan remitted taxes and ordered his officials to open feeding stations in Burhanpur and other cities, where bread and broth were doled out to the hungry. He also ordered 5,000 rupees to be distributed amongst the poor every Monday.

  Chapter 4

  Delicate frescoes still cover the ceiling of the marble hammam in the fortress palace of Burhanpur where Mumtaz bathed in warm scented water.

  Mumtaz spent some of her pregnancy planning the marriage between Dara Shukoh and Nadira, daughter of Shah Jahan’s half-brother Parvez. It was a dynastically sensible alliance and perhaps Mumtaz also hoped to heal rifts within the imperial family. Whatever the case, her husband and son welcomed the suggestion and Shah Jahan despatched messengers to Agra with instructions to his officials to prepare for a magnificent ceremony.

  Mumtaz died on 7 June 1631. Gauharara was the fourteenth child born to her, of whom only the seven who are characters in this volume survived to adulthood. Some archaeologists believe they have identified the chamber overlooking the Tapti river where Mumtaz died.

  Chapter 5

  The chronicles agree on the immense emotional and physical effect on Shah Jahan of Mumtaz’s unexpected death, and capture his despair at the fleeting nature of human happiness, even for emperors: ‘Alas! This transitory world is unstable, and the rose of its comfort is embedded in a field of thorns. In the dustbin of the world, no breeze blows which does not raise the dust of anguish; and in the assembly of the world, no one happily occupies a seat who does not vacate it full of sorrow.’ They record how Shah Jahan went into deep mourning, exchanging his ‘night-illuminating gems and costly clothes’ for ‘white garb, like dawn’ – the most celebrated poet of his reign wrote: running tears turned his garments white In Hind, white is the colour of mourning.

  Similarly they record his hair went white overnight and even that he contemplated abdication. In an age when marriage was not seen as a partnership, as now, Shah Jahan, who approved daily the content of his court chronicle, sanctioned the inclusion of the following:

  The friendship and concord between them had reached such an extent the like of which has never been known between a husband and wife from among the classes of sovereigns, or the rest of the people and this was not merely out of carnal desire but high virtues and pleasing habits, outward and inward goodness, and physical and spiritual compatibility on both sides had been the cause of great love and affection and abundant affinity and familiarity.

  Shah Jahan is said to have lamented: ‘Even though the Incomparable Giver had conferred on us such great bounty … yet the person with whom we wanted to enjoy it has gone.’

  Shah Jahan did ask Dara and Jahanara to accompany Mumtaz’s body back to Agra and a court poet wrote of ‘the indigo of grief’ covering the land.

  Chapter 6

  Various claims have been made for the architect of the Taj Mahal but the most credible candidate is probably Ustad Ahmad Lahori. During the 1930s a researcher discovered an early eighteenth-century manuscript of a poem written by one of Lahori’s sons, claiming he was architect of both the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort at Delhi. Whatever the case, Shah Jahan’s chroniclers show that he himself took a very close personal interest in the design. He had a fine appreciation of architecture – something for which, even in his youth, his father Jahangir c
ommended him.

  The English word ‘paradise’ is a simple transliteration of the old Persian word pairideza, meaning a walled garden. The association of gardens with an eternal idyll is common to both Christianity and Islam with their shared roots in the Old Testament and the arid Middle East. The Book of Genesis states that ‘… a river went out of Eden to water the garden and from thence it was parted and became into four heads’.

  The site chosen by Shah Jahan for the Taj Mahal was about one and a half miles from the Agra fort, downstream from a sharp approximately right-angled bend in the river at the Agra fort which formed a watershed, thus reducing the thrust of the Jumna. The land in question was owned by the Raja of Amber who willingly offered it to the emperor. However, Islamic tradition considers that women like Mumtaz Mahal, who die in childbirth, are martyrs and thus that their burial sites should become places of pilgrimage. Tradition also requires that there should be no perceived element of coercion – whether real or not – in the acquisition of such holy sites. Therefore Shah Jahan gave the Raja not one but four separate properties in exchange. The Raja of Amber also supplied Shah Jahan with marble from his quarries at Makrana.

  Chapter 7

  In June 1632, Shah Jahan returned to Agra where he could personally oversee the building of the Taj Mahal. Englishman Peter Mundy witnessed the return of the imperial court minus its empress, writing that it made ‘a most gallant show’.

  According to Lahori, work on the Taj Mahal site began in January 1632 while Shah Jahan was still in the Deccan.

  The jewelled inlay decorating the Taj Mahal astonished contemporaries. A court poet wrote: They set the stone flowers in the marble That by their colour, if not their perfume Surpass real flowers.

  Gem experts estimate that over forty different types of gems were used. Many were personally selected by Shah Jahan himself. French jeweller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was impressed by the emperor’s knowledge of gems, writing that ‘in the whole empire of the Great Moghul no one was more proficient in the knowledge of stones’.

  Masons working on the Taj complex did carve their marks into the stone. The Archaeological Survey of India have found over 250 marks – stars, squares, arrows and even a lotus flower.

  For a full historical account of Shah Jahan’s building of the Taj Mahal and the heaven on earth he was seeking to create, as well as of the events of his reign, see the non-fiction work A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time by Diana and Michael Preston.

  The description of Dara Shukoh’s wedding is in part based on a surviving illustration from Lahori’s Padshah-nama – one of forty-four illustrations covering the first decade of Shah Jahan’s reign preserved in the royal library of Windsor Castle.

  The elephant fight during which Aurangzeb displayed his cool courage is a true incident.

  Chapter 8

  Amanat Khan was the only artist allowed by Shah Jahan to inscribe his name on the Taj. His signature is visible in two places – above the south arch on the interior of the mausoleum and towards the bottom of the same arch.

  European visitors to the Moghul court describe Shah Jahan’s frenetic sexual adventures as he sought physical compensation for his emotional loss. The Venetian Manucci described the opportunities afforded to Shah Jahan by the Meena Bazaar: ‘In those eight days, the king visited the stalls twice every day, seated on a small throne carried by several Tartar women, surrounded by several matrons, who walked with their sticks of enamelled gold in their hands, and many eunuchs, all brokers for the subsequent bargaining; there were also a set of women musicians. Shah Jahan moves past with his attention fixed, and seeing any seller that attracts his fancy, he goes up to the stall, and making a polite speech, selects some of the things and orders whatever she asks for them to be paid to her. Then the king gives an agreed-on signal and having passed on, the matrons, well versed in these matters, take care that they get her; and in due time, she is produced in the royal presence.’

  Chapter 9

  Shah Jahan indeed made Aurangzeb his viceroy in the Deccan and Shah Shuja his governor in Bengal and Orissa.

  Jahanara was badly burned in an incident on 4 April 1644 described thus by Inayat Khan:

  … the border of her chaste garment brushed against a lamp left burning on the floor in the middle of the hall. As the dresses worn by the ladies of the palace are made of the most delicate fabrics and perfumed with fragrant oils, her garment caught fire and was instantly enveloped in flames. Four of her private attendants were at hand, and they immediately tried to extinguish the fire; yet as it spread itself over their garments as well, their efforts proved unavailing. As it all happened so quickly, before the alarm could be given and water procured, the back and hands and both sides of the body of that mine of excellence were dreadfully burned.

  It is my suggestion that the accident was caused by Shah Jahan mistaking Jahanara for Mumtaz in his wine and opium-dazed state. Some foreign visitors to the Moghul court reported rumours of incest between Shah Jahan and Jahanara. Peter Mundy wrote that: ‘The Great Moghul’s daughters are never suffered to marry … This Shah Jahan, among the rest, hath one named Chiminy begum [Jahanara], a very beautiful creature by report, with whom (it was openly bruited and talked of in Agra) he committed incest, being very familiar with her many times.’ However, Niccolao Manucci, who was much closer to the imperial family, dismissed the stories of incest as rubbish, attributing them to the fact that Jahanara served her father ‘with the greatest love and diligence’ and that ‘It was from this cause that the common people hinted that she had intercourse with her father.’ The official sources are of course silent on the relationship between Jahanara and her father.

  Chapter 10

  A French doctor indeed wrote that it was impossible to find his patient’s pulse because of the ropes of gems coiled around her arms.

  Chapter 11

  A lakh is one hundred thousand. Many contemporaries commented on the great cost of building the Taj Mahal.

  Shah Jahan’s mahtab bagh garden lay forgotten, its pools and pavilions crumbling beneath layers of slit, until in the 1990s archaeologists uncovered evidence that it was designed as an integral part of the Taj Mahal complex. Today the gardens are being restored. Conservationists have planted 10,000 trees and shrubs, including the richly scented white champa – a member of the magnolia family that blooms at night – and the flowerbeds are again a vivid, jostling mass of nasturtiums, pansies, marigolds and stocks.

  Aurangzeb’s refusal to enter an underground chamber in Dara’s new mansion for fear of being murdered was reported by a courtier. Clearly some sort of showdown occurred since the sources agree that in the aftermath of Jahanara’s accident, Aurangzeb lost his father’s favour and relations between them soured. Lahori wrote somewhat obliquely that Aurangzeb had fallen ‘under the influence of ill-advised and short-sighted companions’. More specific clues are offered in a letter from Aurangzeb to Jahanara written some years later in which he stated that ‘I knew my life was a target [for rivals]’. Plainly, the person he suspected of plotting against him was Dara, their father’s favourite and in Aurangzeb’s eyes a religious heretic. Accounts agree that Jahanara interceded on Aurangzeb’s behalf with Shah Jahan.

  Chapter 12

  Shah Jahan did despatch Aurangzeb to Gujarat and give the Central Asian command to the younger, less experienced Murad.

  Chapter 13

  When Murad failed to advance on and capture Samarkand, Shah Jahan did turn to Aurangzeb who also failed in what was the first major setback of Shah Jahan’s reign.

  Chapter 14

  Kandahar had been lost to the Persians in Jahangir’s reign then regained by Shah Jahan in 1638. In February 1649, the city fell to the armies of Shah Abbas II and Shah Jahan’s subsequent attempts to retake – one under the command of Dara Shukoh – all failed. Kandahar was never again in Moghul hands.

  Chapter 15

  At the height of battle Aurangzeb was indeed observed unfurling a mat to kneel down and pray.

 
Foreign travellers like François Bernier recorded rumours that Jahanara had lovers on whom Shah Jahan wrought a terrible revenge, for example ordering one to be boiled alive in a cauldron. There is, however, no evidence that Jahanara, denied the chance to marry, took lovers.

  Chapter 16

  Inayat Khan recorded that Shah Jahan fell seriously ill in December 1657. His three younger sons, in their distant provinces, indeed began plotting how to seize the throne. None allowed emerging proof that Shah Jahan was in fact recovering to destroy their momentum. Manucci – a supporter of Dara – later claimed that Aurangzeb ordered any letters reaching the Deccan suggesting that Shah Jahan still lived to be burned and their bearers immediately beheaded.

  Chapter 17

  Murad indeed ordered his forces to plunder Surat so he could raise a large army to support his bid for the throne. He also murdered his finance minister, Ali Naqi – an act that would later prove his downfall.

  Dara’s son Suleiman and the Rajput general Jai Singh of Amber defeated Shah Shuja at Bahadur near Benares in February 1658, after which Shah Shuja retreated along the Ganges. Suleiman could not resist giving chase.

  Aurangzeb and Murad routed the imperial Moghul forces commanded by Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Marwar at Dharmat on 15 April 1658.