1887.] 
165 
H. Beveridge —The Mother of Jahangir. 
Jahangir’s mother was Jodh Bai, but at p. 619 he corrects himself and 
says that Jodh Bai was the wife of Jahangir, and that there is little 
doubt that the daughter of Bihari Mall and sister of Bhag’wan Das was 
the mother of Jahangir. 
It is with great hesitation that I venture to differ from Mr. Bloch- 
rnann, but here the hesitation is diminished by the fact that we have 
Mr. Blochmann differing from himself. He originally held that Jodh 
Bai was the mother of Jahangir, and it seems to me that he was wrong 
to abandon this view in favour of Bihari Mali’s daughter. What I think 
he overlooked was that there were two Jodh Bais, i. e., two ladies of 
the harem of Jodhpur. One of then was the sister of Udai Singh, i. e., 
the Mota or fat Raja, and married Akbar, and the other was Udai’s 
daughter and married Jahangir. 
The general native belief seems to be that a Jodh Bai was the 
mother of Jahangir, and I think that weight should be given to this. 
Sir William Sleeman in his Rambles, vol. II, p. 65, speaks of his seeing 
the tomb of Jodh Bai, the mother of Jahangir, near Agra. Further on, 
pp. 68 and 71, he speaks of seeing the little room at Fathpur Sikrf 
where she give birth to Jahangir. Similarly Tod describes Jodh Bai as 
the mother of Jahangir. 
On the other hand the daughter of Bihari Mall is mentioned by 
Jahangir in his Memoirs in a way which seems to me quite incon¬ 
sistent with the idea that she was his mother. Speaking of Pahar 
Khan who was Raja Man Singh’s uncle and consequently a brother 
of Bhag’wan Das, he says “ One of his sisters was in my father’s harem, 
but no favourite with destiny, although possessed of uncommon beauty. 
The proverb says ‘ if there be any special destiny, it is for the ill-favoured,’ 
for from all I can observe in this workshop of creation, scarcely any¬ 
thing appears in its proper place. The poor in spirit are absorbed in 
the rigour of abstinence, while those who love the world find their 
fortune ever in advance.” (Price’s translation, p. 34.) 
This passage seems to me to disprove the view that Bihari Mall’s 
daughter was Jahangir’s mother. Ho man would be likely to speak in 
this way of his own mother, and Jahangir would not have regarded a 
woman as no favourite with destiny who had the honour of giving birth 
to himself.* 
There is another passage in his Memoirs which sets the matter 
at rest, if the translation is correct. That is (Price, p. 19) where he tells 
us that he himself married Bihari Mall’s daughter, but I suspect that 
it is granddaughter in the original. 
* I cannot find any passage corresponding to this in the Tuznk. I have not 
seen the Persian original of Major Price’s translation. 
V 
