Mughal Emperor Shahjahan and Empress Mumtaj Mahal
(Set of Two Paintings)

These two miniatures, one portraying the illustrious Mughal emperor Shahjahan, one of the Great Mughals, and the other, his queen Mumtaj Mahal, the only other powerful lady in the line of Mughals, the other being her aunt Nurjahan, have been rendered on two separate sheets and independent of each other but as in artistic perception that reflects in these two paintings so in real life, the two – Shahjahan and Mumtaj Mahal, were inseparably bound with each other by such ties of love of which the history of mankind does not have many parallels. Perhaps for illustrating this oneness of the two figures the artist has delineated in an identical manner every detail – architecture of the kiosk-pavilions they are seated in, style of its various members, pillars, brackets, beams, eaves, and parapets among others, the type of motifs, designing patterns and colour scheme seeking to embellish them, carpets laid over the outer railings, style of seats’ back and backdrops, figure-sizes, colours, diametric breadth and style of nimbuses, and even the colour scheme of the costume that they are wearing, besides the identically conceived, designed and embellished borders. Except the gesture of hands, the queen’s feminineness and the emperor’s maleness, the artist has pursued a common iconographic pattern, body posture, and modeling for rendering his figures.

Fifth in the Mughals’ dynastic line Shahjahan was Jahangir’s second son. He was born in 1592 of his Rajput queen Bhanumati and was named Khurram. He succeeded his father in early 1628 after the death of the latter in late 1627, though not before defeating other contenders to the throne in the war for succession. Like his father Jahangir and grandfather Akbar, he too chose to rule under a title, and proclaimed himself as Shahjahan – the Ruler of the World.

Mumtaj Mahal, the title that Shahjahan bestowed upon his wife Arjumand Banu Begum after he ascended the Mughal throne, came in his life when he was merely fifteen. Though it took five years to finally accomplish, his marriage was fixed with her in 1607 itself. It seems that Shahjahan, fascinated by her exceptional beauty when he saw her in the course of engagement ceremony, sought occasions to see her, and being the daughter of a Mughal army officer Etiqad Khan who was subsequently honoured with the title of Asaf Khan it was quite possible. Hence, despite that he was married to a Safavid princess in between, his forced five-year separation from Arjumand Banu Begum only further strengthened his fascination for her, and this love of his adolescent days had its final expression in the form of Tajmahal that Shahjahan built in her memory after her death in 1631.

Arjumand Banu Begum, soon after his marriage with her, emerged in Shahjahan’s life as his motivation and dynamism, and in every moment when he was without her he suffered with a sense of being incomplete. Her paramount beauty apart, she was his constant companion, his guide and advisor, and his real support, during all his military campaigns before and after his succession. Hence, when he succeeded to Mughal throne, he honoured her with the title of Mumtaj Mahal – ‘Chosen One of the Palace’, and acclaimed her as the Empress of Hindustan. Mumtaj Mahal bore by him fourteen children. It was while delivering her fourteenth child, when at Burhanpur accompanying her husband during a military campaign, that she died. This left a broken and incomplete Shahjahan to rule but without the glow that earlier enshrined his face. He built Tajmahal, her mausoleum, and after about a decade shifted her body from Burhanpur to it. Haunted by her memories Shahjahan decided to leave Agra. The great builder as he was, he built at Delhi his new fort, the Red Fort, and created a whole township Shahjahanabad and shifted to it.

Shahjahan fought dozens of battles, secured and compacted Mughal Empire and held its prestige as high as before; however, the history does not hail him for his polity or diplomacy or even warship. It hails him for his great architecture, his cultural innovations and for the poetic imagination, fresh aesthetic levels, finesse of execution and unprecedented grandeur that he added to art, a painting or a building. He re-defined the meaning of magnificence and artistic grandeur and infused it into everything that he created or was created for him. He loved designing jewellery like an accomplished gemologist and conceiving rich and colourful textiles, which reflect in his architecture, specially the Tajmahal, and in the paintings of his period with mirror-like clarity, and these two portraits, though the contemporary ones, have in accuracy of their lines, precision of their forms and in gems’ like glow of the faces, the reflection of this Shahjahani spirit. They have the same touch of delicacy, sophistication and splendour, and thrive with the same triumphant mood, as have the most merited miniatures of Shahjahan’s period.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.

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