164 
H. Beveridge —The Mother of Jahangir. 
[No. 3, 
The Mother of Jahangir.—By H. Beveridge, C. S. 
It is curious that there should be any uncertainty about the name 
and family of Jahangir’s mother. He was born in August 1569 at 
Fathpur Sikri in the house of Salim Chishti, and it was to be expected 
that the historians who have so carefully chronicled the circumstances 
of his birth, would tell us who his mother was. But apparently none 
of them mentions her name ; or, at least, none of them does so in his 
narrative of the birth. Jahangir is equally reticent in his autobio¬ 
graphy, and so English writers have fallen back on tradition and con¬ 
jecture. This much seems considered certain; the lady was a Hindu, 
and it has been suggested that this is the reason why she has not been 
named by the Muhammadan historians. I should think, however, that if 
Hinduism has had anything to do with the omission, it is more 
because it made it difficult for the historians to know the name, than 
because of bigoted feelings, or an unwillingness to hint that Jahangir 
was not a pure Mogul. Jahangir has no scruple about mentioning his 
Hindu wives and their progeny, and though he speaks with horror of 
Muhammadan women marrying Hindus, he has very little blame for the 
converse practice. Barring a few bigots like Badaoni, it may be ques¬ 
tioned if the Muhammadan subjects of Akbar and Jahangir had any 
serious objections to the marriages with the Rajput princesses. Indeed 
Sir William Sleeman tells us that he has heard many Muhammadans 
attribute the decline of their empire to the discontinuance of the 
practice. Muhammadans might object to the ladies being allowed to 
remain Hindus, and no doubt Akbar caused scandal by allowing his wives 
to sacrifice to fire in his palace, but the fact that the wife was a Hindu 
by origin would be no objection. Rather it would be considered meri¬ 
torious to convert a Hindu to the true faith and then marry her. 
Now if the lady who was Jahangir’s mother was a Hindu l) 3 r origin, 
she can hardly have remained one, or she would not have been placed 
in the cell of a Muhammadan priest at tho time of her confinement. 
Nor would sho luivo been buried after death and a Muhammadan tomb 
erected over her. Still less could sho continue a Hindu, if, as Mr. 
Bloch man n thinks, sho received the title of Maryamu-z-Zamani, “tho 
Virgin Mary of the age.” That it was ignorance rather than prejudice, 
which prevented historians from giving tho names of their emperor's 
Hindu wives, may bo perhaps inferred from the fact that we tind two 
ladies described by tho name of Jodh Bai. Now Jodli Btii is not tho 
special name of any woman, but simply means that she belonged to the 
family of tho Rajas of Jodhpur. 
At p. 309 of his edition of the Ain Mr. Blochmann tells us that 
