MAUSOLEUMS FOR KINGS AND QUEENS
THE MAUSOLEUM OF EMPEROR JAHANGEER

A woman’s touch, Nur Jahan alive in Lahore

The Taj Mahal complex was put into motion by a King with immense love for his departed queen. The Mausoleum of Jahangeer complex is in reverse. It was put in place by a retired Queen with enormous love for departed King. Both results exceptional but both mausoleums are same and yet very different, due to the feminine touch in one of them.

Jahangeer died before Nur Jahan and the relation she had with the Emperor Shah Jahan was not sufficient to give her better place in society than she was getting at that time. Mumtaz Mahal died before Shah Jahan and all his plans for a separate mausoleum were dashed with his own circumstances. He had annoyed his son by trying to poison Aurangzeb himself. Few know about this at all. Aurangzeb buried Shah Jahan with Mumtaz Mahal herself. Nur Jahan could not get buried with Jahangeer because of her political circumstances. Now what did she do?

There is a concept of ASHIQ MASHOOQ in the mausoleum of Nur Jahan. Dr Abdullah Chaghatai tells us that contrary to common thought, the person so called buried with Nur Jahan is not at all her daughter Ladli Begum. Simply for Ladli Begum is elsewhere and her grave is well known, and that is a separate story. To fulfill her desire to be buried with her husband, she had an empty coffin, or false grave with her own grave. The grave is an empty one. There are only one set of rings at the bottom basement. The grave is a romantic empty grave of Jahangeer himself. The Sikhs removed the sarcophagus, otherwise this would have been very clear with time.

An amazing statement is made by Thornton and Kipling in their research on Lahore. Mirza Azeem Baig an artist of Wazeer Khan Mosque is termed as a direct descendant of Nur Jahan from her daughter and Prince Khusrow. This family exists in Lahore to this day, having lived in Mochi Darwaza (Murchi Gate) all their life. I have seen girls of the family and they resemble the Nur Jahan of the miniatures to ditto. We will present their photograph when available. So Nur Jahan is still represented in Lahore. We have a farman of Nur Jahan with us and will publish it one day.

The mystery of the Mughal monuments is always there but their aesthetics are an aroma with us even in their decayed condition in present days.