JAHANARA BEGAM 109 



celebrated Mumtaz Mahal ; and, like her, famous 

 for beauty and piety ; but being royal princesses, 

 they were not allowed to marry, no man being 

 considered worthy of the hand of a daughter 

 of the Great Mughal ; or rather, as Bernier 

 observes, the limitation grew out of the fear 

 "that the husband might hereby be rendered 

 powerful and induced perhaps to aspire to the 

 crown." There were always enough aspirants 

 and to spare when a Mughal Emperor died. In 

 spite of this restriction, each of these ladies, in 

 her turn, had unbounded influence, both inside 

 the harem and throughout the Empire. Like 

 their mother, and like their great ancestress, 

 Nur-Jahan Begam, they were magnificent patron- 

 esses of art and letters. Jahanara's simple tomb, 

 at the shrine of her favourite Saint Nizam-ud-din 

 Aulia, on the other side of Delhi, shows to the 

 full the taste and artistic feeling so manifest in 

 all the descendants of the Persian scholar, Ghiyas 

 Beg. The exquisite white marble grave is open 

 to the sky ; by her special request, grass alone is 

 grown in a hollow on the top of the monument, 

 and where in other royal tombs the white marble 

 gleams with garlands of inlaid gems, the " Humble 

 Grave " of the Lady Jahanara Begam shows, as 



