Empire: World History - 215. Jahangir: A World of Light And Darkness

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

Prince Salim grows up in the continuously expanding empire of his father, Akbar. The young prince is being primed to take on this legacy, but he is more interested in studying the natural world with intense curiosity by dissecting animals and observing their mating rituals. Later, with Akbar dead and Salim ready to rule, he fights off claims to power from his own son, blinding him as punishment for his insubordination. In 1605, Prince Salim becomes Emperor Jahangir, but is it his love of nature or his brutish desire for revenge that characterises his rule? Is he more David Attenborough or Hannibal Lecter?  Join Anita and William as they debate this question and explore the early life of the fourth Mughal Emperor. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producers: Anouska Lewis & Alice Horrell Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. Ho, ho, ho and hello. And welcome to this Boxing Day episode of Empire with me, Anita Arden. And me, William Dripal. You sound as if you've been at the Christmas spirit's already, Anita. I'm just on the sherry even now.

Sometimes you need it, William. Sometimes. What is it about empire that drives you towards your drinks cabinet? I'm kind of looking at him, but... Look, we are picking up the baton for our Mughal series that we took a little hiatus for over the Christmas period. We hope you enjoyed the Christmas episodes. They were very, very fun to do.

But we're talking about... Well, we're going to largely concentrate on Jahangir, but remember, we sort of left Akbar. I was describing a... picture in the last Akbar episode, which you absolutely refused to accept, was him looking sad. And everybody else I've shown it to says, he looks sad. He looks sad. He looks bloody miserable. I don't know what you're talking about. Look up pencil, charcoal sketch of Akbar, and you make up your own mind and then, you know, agree with me as you do. Do that. Do that instead.

So, Akbar is coming to the end of this glorious rule. Just for those who may not have listened to the Akbar episode. Just explain in a nutshell, and I mean a very small nutshell, a tiny nutshell, William Durunple, who Akbar was and why he was important. I was just looking at his picture. There's no way he's looking sad. He's looking tired. I know how he feels if that's the case. So Akbar was important. Oh, God, you've gone on Christmas mad. Akpah was important because he set up what seemed to be a very tolerant empire where he drew in the influence. and indeed the presence of Hindus in his court. More than tolerant, sort of pluralistic.

Purellistic. Okay. Yeah. And would you go as far as secular? Would you say that or not? Not at all. It's the wrong word. No. Pluralistic is the right word.

Because he was obsessed about religious ideas. So it wasn't secular. Yes, religions, all sorts of religions. Yes, you're right. Quite right. But, you know, we talked about the nine gems that he surrounded himself by these nine advisors who were, you know, both Hindu and Muslim. We talked about the influence of different religions, how he set up an interfaith forum,

no less, how he had pictures of the nativity in his bedroom. So, you know, if you haven't listened to those episodes, do go back because they are interesting and they are things that are not often talked about when you talk about the Mughals these days. And how his age was the greatest period of temple building in North Indian history for 700 years or something. Yeah. Well, I suggested that he looked sad because of his kids at the end of the last episode, and we are going to look at one particular kid who might have caused him a great deal of grief, and that is Jahangir, his son. Not born Jahangir, born Salim, Prince Salim. Tell us a little bit about this young man. Well, just like you introduced Akbar with the thing that most South Asians will know about him, which was Akbar and Birbal and the whole story of all the kind of wisdom of Birbal in the court of Akbar.

The reason that a generation of South Asians will know Jahangir and his difficult time as Prince Salim with his father, Akbar, is not so much. straight history as the version of the story told by Bollywood, and particularly my favourite film arguably of all Bollywood, which is Mughalian, which translates as the Great Mughal. The Great Mughal. And starring the beautiful Madhubala, who's one of my all-time favorite vintage Hindi film actresses. And the story tells the tragic tale of Anarkali, the legendary dancing girl, who's supposed to have been the mistress of Salis. but also rather caught the eye of his father, Akbar. Not necessarily in the best way.

Well, hang on, tell this story properly. You're taking all the drama out of this. It's my mother's favorite film, and she will not have this. You're not giving it the due respect. So you've got Malthubala, who, you know, William has a crush on, who is absolutely the most beautiful woman of her day. Completely stunning. She's the actress who plays her.

And the young Prince Saleem is played by what you would describe as the then, you know, De Niro of Bollywood cinema, a man called Dilip Kumar, who falls in love with this completely inappropriate courtesan. And then the father. And I think there was a real-life romance behind it, wasn't there? Yeah. Which is also part of the sort of steamy legend of the film. Isn't it always the way with your leading man?

And then you've got the dad played by actually the godfather of Indian cinema, Prithvi Raj Kapoor, like so the Kapoor family, dominate Bollywood for generations. And my mother would like you to know, because William's telling it so badly. The love between Salim and Anarkali is gorgeous. It's poetic. It's beautiful. It's like the first flush of love in two young people. And involves a lot of the best film music ever made for Bollywood.

Oh, absolutely. Real bangers. They are such good songs. The father of Salim, who is Akbar, is not impressed because he cannot, cannot, cannot have a prince. And the heir apparent falling in love with a mere dancing girl. and she's sort of being walled up to separate the two of them. But it's only a pretend wall. Well, you're not going to give away the bloody, what is wrong with you, honestly?

And one of the greatest film songs in all Bollywood, Mohabbat Kijuti. Yes, she sings as she's being walled up and singing about love. And it's sort of a defiant thing. I have sat in the real Anakli's tomb, which is now the archives of Lahore. And I played Mahabat Kajuti to the tomb of the real Anakli, in case she hadn't had the music. I thought she needed to hear it. I mean, whether she was real or not, I don't think we know for certain, but there is a whole area in Lahore was anarkali. We think she may well be real, actually.

Yeah, it's like the latest scholarship, because I know it was sort of a bit wishy-washy for a while. It is disputed, but there definitely was a tomb built by Jahangir when he was emperor for a lover when he was a prince. And it seems to fit this story, which is first told, I think, by Ralph Fitch, the English travel writer at the time. Well, there's a Persian inscription on the actual tomb, which reads, and I won't read it in the original Persian, but I'll translate it. Ah, could I behold the face of my love once more? I would give thanks to my God until the day of resurrection. Yeah, that's good enough for me. That works. Okay. Fine. Sold. Done. So that's how most people know the story, the fraught relationship between father and son, you know, because he didn't like a girlfriend. But it's much more complicated than that. It is a fraught relationship.

And it's well worth watching the movie. Yeah, it is. Okay, so remind us where we were. in Akbar's life when we left. We sort of talked about the grandeur. We talked about the architecture. We talked about the jewel houses and their house of books and all of these things. We didn't really talk about family. So tell me a little bit about how that all worked. So I'll tell you about Prince Salim, because he is one of my favorite characters in the whole mogul story.

And one of the reasons I think that the moguls continued to fascinate so many historians is the extraordinary counts they left themselves. We had three episodes on Babbo that was powered by his extraordinary autobiography, the Babonama. And we have a similar autobiography by Jahangir called the Tuzuki-Jangiri. And it's generally believed not quite to be the equal of his great-grandfather's diary, which really is one of the great memoirs of all time. But it's an extraordinary account of an extraordinary man. and today in modern India, Johanjah is often dismissed, as he has been for 40 or 50 years, as this debauched and drunken ruler who handed over all power to his wife.

And it's certainly true that at the end he was very addicted to both opium and to alcohol. But the man revealed in his diary is an extraordinary figure that defies all the usual Western stereotypes of what an Indian or a Muslim ruler is like. First and foremost, he was personally enormously curious and intelligent, observant of the world around him and a keen collector of its curiosities from, you know, Venetian swords and globes to Safavid silks, jade pebbles, and even narwhal teeth. You know those long, twisty... Like unicorn horns. Exactly. My aunt had two in her house. And I remember be fascinated by them as a kid. And he was able to take delight in the simple pleasures provided by the landscape through which he passed and the animals and flowers and places and personalities

which filled them. There's a lovely passage which I love as he's crossing the river Bayas on his way to Kabul in I think 1606. And he records his happiness at seeing the pink and red oleander in full bloom. So he orders his troops to wear nosegays of flowers on the helmet. so that soon he writes, a wonderful flowing flower bed was produced. And that's such a sort of jangir thing to do, both in that you're ordering people to do something completely pointless for your own aesthetic pleasure, but also the fact that he was able to do that and had that sensibility. Yeah, also, but apart from sensibility, he's like a proper naturalist as well. He's interested in the natural world.

I was very entertained to see that he took an active interest in goat and cheetah breeding, not with each other. But just, you know, it's sort of, you know, medicine, astronomy, you know, all of these things interested in. As a goat farmer myself, I can tell you, you don't really need to help goats breed. The difficult thing is to stop goats breeding. We've just had two baby goats at the farm over Christmas, and very, very sweet they are. Anyway, yeah, he's interested in animal husbandry and the curiosities of the natural world. And he's captivated by, you know, the antics of monkeys and orangutans, and he loves to study black Buck, which are the antelope you have around the plains of Delhi, gazelles and elephants.

And, you know, he sort of gets all sort of like an 18th century enlightenment naturalist. He spends months working out the exact gestation period of elephants, how long they take to have babies. And he's equally fascinated by a turkey, which arrives from North America, which it's gobble, he writes. One might have said, it had adorned itself with red coral. Isn't that lovely? It is lovely, but it's very weird because you know you've got Akbar who's also interested in science and nature and beauty and has a whimsical scientist who seems to be just intensely pissed off with his son most of the time.

Well, there are fathers who like that. Yes, I know, but I mean, just to give it a little bit of context, because we've quoted Apple Fuzzle so many times. And Apple Fuzzle doesn't like Salae either because he writes very scathingly about him. Well, with good reason, as it turns out. Yes, he says sort of, you know, his antics are unacceptable. He talks about Akbar being really irritated by his eldest son. Who is the second most powerful man in the realm? Let's not forget, you're the crown prince.

You are the second most powerful man in the empire. When Salim does things like he executes three offenders who have annoyed him with some very sadistic devices, that kind of thing pisses off Akbar, who doesn't like that kind of throwback to the old Mughal days and indeed his own past when he was a more bloodthirsty man. Well, Abel Fuzzle is one of the things they fall out about, isn't it? Because Abel Fuzzle is this sort of, it must have been incredibly irritating for poor Prince Alim.

I'm rather on Prince Salaim side on this one. Because Abel Fuzzle is this sort of classic Delhi courtier. One of the nine gems, one of the inner coterie of Akbar's court. But the guy who's written the main account we have of Akbar's inner circle, which is called the Ayniakbari. And he just thinks quite literally that the sun shines out of Akbar. all parts of Akbar, and he lays it on with a trowel. And I think Prince Saleem must have just sort of gagged eventually,

because he actually organizes the assassination of Abelphazil as he's passing. He gets one of his friends, who's the young Raja of Orcha in Madhya Pradesh, to whey him and assassinate him on his way through. And this again causes a major rift between Akbar and his son. Yeah, but I mean, you know, Salim, does other things that really pisses dad off. And first of all, let's go right back to the beginning. So he's born on the 30th of August, 1569, at Fatibu Sikri, this fabulous city that we described in the last episode when we were talking about Akbar. And his father is Akbar. His mother is Mariam

Usmani, the Rajput Hindu princess, sister of Akbar's general Man Singh. And the name itself, Salim, means healthy, because he was a bonny little lad. He was a beautiful little boy. Everyone commented on his sort of, you know, the great pink cheeks in the big chubby legs. He was a healthy little, bonny little thing. And he came much prayed for because Akbar didn't have an air for many years and was going to all the shrines begging various saints and holy personages. And the mother goddess, you know, went barefoot to visit the mother goddess's shrine. So, you know, really wanted a son. And without success until he went to Sikri, to the Chishti's of Sikri, to Salim Chesterishti. To Salim

which is why he was named Salim, not so much that he was healthy, or not just that he was healthy, but because Salim Chistee had helped produce the magical ingredients for his conception, though not directly. No, but while he's a teenager, he's kind of like a teen on a gap yard,

because they keep telling him to lead expeditions. That wants to groom him to be his successor, and keeps trying to send him out to different corners of the realm, distant parts of his empire. But Salim just keeps saying, No, don't want to do. No, don't think so. Don't think so, Peter. Don't think I can do that. And again, this is coming from the bitchy pen of Abel Fussel, so, you know, temperate with that, that this is going to be a man that he eventually murders. But he doesn't like it. Abbaselam also

tells another story about a quarrel between father and son on a journey to Kashmir. So this would be sort of fairly early on, you know, when he's sort of still young. Salim had been told to bring the harem forward to join Akbar, but he decided the road was too dangerous. So he came on his own and left the harrim behind. And Uckra's response was on the verge of hysterical, we are told. He refused to see the prince and laid hectic plans to ride all through the night to get the harem all together, almost unaccompanied to try and sort of get the ladies himself. And Abel Fasel says, you know, there's absolutely no excuse for the prince's behaviour

and he had never seen Akbar so angry in his life. So though it was turbulent between father and son. And then Prince Salim goes down to Al-Habat and sort of establishes not formally but informally a second capital there. I've been to that fort and it's one of the largest. No one ever goes to it as a choice because it's a military zone and you have to get permission to go inside. But it's a fort on the scale of the Red Fort in Delhi or Lahore or Agra. And it is on the promontory of rock which separates the two rivers. the Ganges and the Amunah, which meet at the confluence of Priyag.

And on the foreshaws are all the saddues at this holy place, one of the most holy places of Hinduism, and where this year there is going to be, in fact, this month, there's going to be a Mahakummela, one of the great gathering of the Hindu holy men. I will be going. So wait a minute, Mahakum Mela. Are you going to go? God, you're a brave man. I wouldn't go.

It's going to be so crowded. Make sure you have like a telephone number written on your arm or something for Olive to come and get you. in case you get lost. Olive is coming to, in fact, Oliver is leading the trip because one of her artworks is going to be immersed in the Ganges and worshipped. Oh, wow. Okay. Which is not a special. But Mahakomillo doesn't happen very often.

It happens, I don't know how many, after how many years, but it is a confluence of all of the rivers, isn't it? And everybody sort of comes to worship. And what's fascinating is that Salim, being the inquisitive boy that he is, not only has kidnapped half of his father's best painters, including the wonderful young superstar of the Atelier Govaden, who he brings with him. But he gets him to go down to the confluence and paint the saddues there. And this results in the oldest set of images that we have anywhere of all the different yoga positions. And this is again, you know, purely the result of Jahangir's curiosity and sort of fascination with this world. He gets Govaden to paint all the different yogis doing their different forms of penance. It's the most wonderful, wonderful

manuscript. I know your team Salim, straight Jahangir, but... I like them both, actually. Well, I mean, others are also less than complimentary about him when he's a young man. I mean, it should be said he's married by the age of 15 to a Rajput princess from Umber. So, you know, he's got this lavish ceremony. He's being set up, you know, bit by bit, his entire life and future is set out before him. And again, like Agbe did, he's forging alliances with the Rajputs through marriage. But his wife, I mean, people are unkind about his first wife as well. They say that, you know, she's neurotic, she's paranoid. I think she's worse than that. She has severe mental problems. Jagger says she's lost her mind. Yes, that's right. I mean, he says, you know, from time to time, her mind wandered,

and her father and brothers all agreed in telling me she was insane. So that might be part of the problem between father and son that, oh my God, they've saddled me with a mad woman. Because, you know, it's one of those treaty marriages, but I have actually got someone. one mad in my life. You can understand why he might go off with Madhubala, given the circumstances. Yes, she was an actress. It's not real, but it might have been a little bit real with an archery. Okay, so we've got the layout for a fractious relationship. After the murder of one of the nine gems of Akbar, does he just break off relations or does he still, you know, he doesn't disown his son. I get the feeling he starts favouring his other sons, though, thinking this guy

is out of bloody control. I might as well look to my other sons, because he has four sons after Salim. First of all, he starts favouring Salim's younger brothers, but that's not good enough, and then his eyes light upon somebody else, William. Tell us who Akbar starts thinking about

as the successor. So, with Salim Inda's grace, Akbar splits the family by pouring his patronage and love over Salim's son, who is Kusra, born 1587, and Akbar had all

always loved this child. It's always been the favourite grandson. And now he's old enough to favour him over his father, which, as you can imagine, goes down very badly. So, you know, you've got Prince Salim already simmering because he's been passed over by his father. But what makes it worse is his father loves his own child more, the son of the mad wife. And so this will drive a wedge between Prince Salim and his own son, which is like utterly Shakespearean, and actually utterly Mughal pre-Uqqvah when people's brothers were plotting against them and families were torn apart. You know, you had sort of one bit of stability with Uckbar. It didn't seem to hate many of his relatives that much.

But here you have a father and son rift that is going to be problematic. And Kustro, you know, he's just a kid. What does he know? But with the love and the patronage of his grandfather starts building up a household of his own, not just a household of his own, but a power base of his own. because people can see which way the wind is blowing, it's blowing towards Kusra, and so they start gravitating towards him. And that's going to make Salim even more angry. I mean, all these mogul stories are so like soap operas because it's always father and son and father

and grandson and all this. But to add to Salim's unhappiness at this point, the first wife dies by suicide. And although she'd obviously been unstable, Jhange clearly rather loved her. So what should I write of her goodness and excellence? She was so loyal to me that she would have sacrificed to thousand sons and brothers for one hair of my head. She wrote constantly advice to Kusrow and tried to reason with him to be loving and loyal to me. When she saw it was of no use and there was no telling where it would end, she decided to take her own life out of zeal, which is an integral part of Rajput culture. When I was away on a hunt on the 26th of Doolah Haja 1013, which is May the 5th, 60.05, with her mind in a state of imbalance.

She ate a lot of opium and died soon thereafter. So it's great sort of tragedy. I mean, my God, there's a heroin overdose, isn't it? But also, it's cruel because what he's saying is that she died because of her son. Selim puts the blame firmly at his son's feet, which is very, very hard for a son to hear that, you know, you're the reason your mother killed it. herself, instead of perhaps blaming on the fact that she had always all her life been insane, as he even puts it, you know, that her family said she was insane. So that is going to be souring a relationship even more. And Akbar is watching all of this. What is Akbar doing as he's

watching this rift that he's created get wider and wider? Well, I don't think Akbar would have accepted that he created the rift. I think he saw it as his son being difficult. And he goes for his his loyal grandson who's better behaved. But in October 1605, six months after Salim's wife has committed suicide, it becomes clear that Akbar is dying. And in the last three weeks of his life, he's plagued by diarrhea and internal bleeding. And the nobles are worried, along with everybody else, that there's going to be a complete chaos if he goes without reconciling with Salim. So Salim gets there in time And he visits his dying father on literally his last day

He gets there just in time Last day on earth Now this is the story, this is the way it goes And we've come across these stories before Particularly in the Coenol story That somebody makes a deathbed proclamation And that's what you get here supposedly So Akbar has never been too impressed with Prince Saleem

Beckons him over from his bed You know barely able to move very, very sick entirely dehydrated because of this terrible diarrhea and internal bleeding. And he motions, he doesn't even speak, he sort of beckons him over his son, come here. And he motions with his hand towards his turban, the royal turban and the royal robes,

telling him, these are yours now. Just with emotion, not with words. I mean, it's very much. Well, like the end of Ranjit Singh, where he's not able to speak, but supposedly motions about what he wants to do with the Coenor diamond, which then people will argue about forever and ever saying,

Did he say the words? Did he say the words? Did he actually say the words? You can't just do a pointy thing and say that's what he meant. But look, Akbar dies October 1605. And people don't question it. They say, okay, this is what is meant to be. He may not have always seen I-tie with Salim, but he did want Salim to take over not to jump a generation, not to go to Salim's son, Kustra. And Salim becomes Jahangir. The emperor's new name is going to be Jahangir, who comes to the throne on the 24th of October 1605. So let's take a break here. Join us after the break where we look at Jahangir's empire and also don't forget there may be trouble with the sun. So welcome back. We are now in the early days of Jahangir's reign and he's inherited a relatively stable realm.

I mean compared to what his father succeeded. Remember when Humayin fell down the steps and and banged his head. Akbar was only a teenager of 12. There were innumerable enemies. The situation now is completely different. There is a vast empire, which goes from Kashmir and Afghanistan in the north, right through Delhi and Madhya Pradesh down to the Deccan, from Gujarat in the west to Bengal, in the east.

And it's now beautifully administered. There's a whole new administrative system. Hindu and Muslim are working together in a way they never have since the first Islamic conquests of the 12th century. In all sorts of ways, this is a very strong and integrated empire. But as ever with the Mughals, there is family trouble. Anita. Yes, I was going to say, I mean, just took more on the changing of the name. It's not a whimsical thing. There was actually a reason given.

And he wanted to avoid any confusion on the international stage, because Turkey had recently had a Sultan Selim the 2nd. Sell him the grim, as he's memorably named. Selim the grim, indeed. So he doesn't want any confusion. So he, I think himself chooses Jahangir as a name or in consultation with his court. It means the world Caesar. Caesar of the world.

Not Caesar as in, you know, sort of Latin Caesar, but to seize something, the man who takes the world. So, you know, you've got a new start, a new name, an old realm and also an old enmity. So you mentioned like family problems because Kusra has, by this time, amassed quite a powerful retinue, also has notions above his station, some may say, because of his granddaddy, who's been grooming him to take over. And this is going to be a problem right at the start. So Kusra rebels in 1606. So just one year after Jahangir, the Caesar of the world, takes over the empire,

Kusra, his little kid who is, you know, just, again, sort of more than a boring, at the time, decides that he's going to challenge for the throne. So, you know, what's happened is Jahangir has kind of put him away to one side. It's not exactly house arrest, but he is confined, but he escapes the confinement. He escapes Agran and rides to Lahore, doesn't he? He goes all the way to Lahore with his followers. And the rebellion lasts about a month. His followers are defeated. Jhungir proves to be far more militarily capable than anyone is suspected. And with, Within a week or so, the rebellion has been crushed and Kusra has been captured and dragged, weeping in chains before his father in a garden just outside Lahore.

I think even is it the site of Shalimar Bagh where the garden is today? And the punishment of Kusra's followers is brutal. They're impaled on both sides of the roads. And this is this sort of strange paradox we get with the Mughals, whereby these men who are were so aesthetically sensitive and such brilliant writers are also capable of being torturers and war criminals. That famous line of Rushdie that we read in an earlier episode that was Babur, an East Seat or a war criminal, he was both. And the same is true of Jahangir. Jihangir, when he's crossed by his son, takes all of Kusra's young men, all the young gallants who

have followed Kusrow into rebellion. And they are young. You know, They are the flower of the Mughal Kingdom. These are the boys of the Mughal Kingdom. And I should say, you know, this sort of putting people on spikes and letting them die that way is particularly awful. And then some of them are taken down from their spikes, placed on an elephant and made to receive homage from his supporters as they ride in agony, then put back onto the spikes. On the spikes. Oh, no, it's really, really gruesome. And, you know, what you see or what anybody will see if they witness this horror is the sun, the full sun, sort of shrinking.

their skin as they die slowly of constriction and suffocation. It's a lot like crucifixion, actually. You don't die of the pain, you don't die of the blood loss, you die of the suffocation. I mean, this isn't Jahangir's invention of a torture. It is one that he's sort of dug up from age-old India. But he is the man who sort of makes it modern. For Cusrow himself, what he does to Cusra, which is really just cruel. You know, this is his son. He forces him to ride an elephant along this street of stakes. And... past all his friends. He sees all of his friends and his retinue groaning their last breaths.

And, you know, that is quite the warning to your young son. And Cusrow then embittered now, hating his father more than anything, makes another half-hearted plan to rebel. Is caught. The pot is uncovered. And at this point, Jihangir partially blinds Cusro to make sure he cannot rule. And that ends Cusra's rebellion. And Jahangir. Yeah, why do you like him then?

I mean, I think, you know, he was played by Dilip Kumar, but he does some pretty awful things right at the beginning, doesn't he? I think this is what's so important when you're talking about these guys is to recognize that both things are true, that they are war criminals, that they are brutes, that they are capable of things that we would regard as appallingly brutal, but they're also East Seats, poets, and sensitive men. I mean, anywhere in the world you will find this at this.

period of history. If we look at, this is the period of Medici, Italy. The same is true there. It's the period of Machiavelli. Machiavelli is exactly like this, sensitive, deeply aesthetic, but also a brute who understands the nature of power. I don't think he's any different from any other princely lineage anywhere else. But it's a long, drawn-out end for Custro, because, I mean, he doesn't kill him. He remains a prisoner in the royal court on very rare occasions he's brought into his father's presence, you know, supposedly for a reconciliation, but it doesn't work because the prince depressed Jahangir. That's what it says, is that, you know, Jahangir didn't like to look at him because it made him feel, you know, a bit rubbish. So these visits became

less and less frequent. Also, Jahangir was irritated because his son didn't look cheerful. So there is a court chronicler who writes at the time, you know, Jahangir was irritated because Kusra's appearance showed no signs of openness and happiness. And he was always mournful and dejected. I mean, you would be if your father's taking your eyes, really, wouldn't you? And if your father has impaled all your friends. I mean, I don't always love all my son's friends, but I wouldn't have to impel them. Oh, well, Sam and Adam, do they know this? Do they know you feel this way about their friends? Lovely friends. All right, so Custra is now out of the way. So is he now secure in his reign? And what does he do now that he hasn't got a young pretender who's snapping at his heels?

Well, he is now free to be the kind of amateur scientist that he'd always wanted to be. And so you find all sorts of strange, sort of natural, he so turns into a sort of Mughal David Attenborough at this point. He talks about a Barbary U that's been brought from Morocco, a loriquet from Sumatra, and a zebra which is bought from Ethiopia, though he's initially skeptical about the zebra. And the strangely decorated wildass should be. be investigated. Then he said only after a minute inquiry into the truth, did it become clear that the Lord of the world was its creator? One might say that the painter of fate with a strange brush had left it on the page of the world. In other words, he thought that someone had just painted the zebra stripes. Just to fool him. I can I just say a few more things? I do love all this amateur enlightenment stuff. Go on. All right. You go do that and then I'll talk about human things. Go on. Go nuts. I'll give you a couple of other examples. Go on. Okay. So, he is at his happiest when he's sort of dissecting the windpipes of birds or poking around the

belly of a snake which has swallowed a hair. And it is very David Attenborough. He made test to see whether Bichman could help men broken bones. I mean, he's a psycho, David Atterbra. David Attenborough has never cut open a pregnant bird. I'm sure he has. What are you talking about? Some kind of Dexter meets Attenborough. I don't know what Attenborough is you've been watching. I mean, carry on. He has this test to see whether bitcherman could help men broken bones, which he's been told. And after trying it out on a chicken, it concludes it's just a old wife's tale. Then he wants to try and work out, this is very kind of contemporary India, whether the air of Amidabad and Mamudabad was more noxious, which has got the nastier smell. So he hangs a sheep carcass up

in both and observes the putrefaction and see which decays quicker. And then he compares the liver of a wolf. He's a pretty psycho. He's a baddable lector. Do you know what? It's the first sign of psychopathy. It's people who torture animals just for their own amusement. This is not torturing animals. This is studying them. You compare us the liver of a wolf with that of a lion to see if it's true that the reason for the courage of the lion is its liver. Because in Mughal and in Islamic culture, people talk about your courage as rather like we talk about the heart being the centre of love. I mean, we used to think it was the liver and spleen. And we used to think that. Elizabeth in England was full of treaties about the liver and spleen. So he takes the liver

of a wolf and that of a lion see which is the larger and then that he decides that too is an old wife's tale. Process of elimination by eliminating every living thing around him. Very unfair. Because he is a man who values reason. And for example, he imprisons a Muslim holy man who he thinks is a fake. And when he visits a shrine where miracles said to occur, his first question is, what is the real state of the case? An investigation to the story of the philosopher's stone leads him to conclude, my intelligence in no way accepts this story.

It appears to me all delusion. So he's sort of like Montaigne or Voltaire or Hume, if only give him a chance. I think you're very hard on him. If they were more murdery. They sort of like to cut people open and fill them with bitumen. Yes, very much like them. One last story. He loves the cranes which come to North India in the winter.

and there's a pair which have been captured when they're just one month old, and they travel with Jahangir for five years, and they've got their own little enclosure that he always has put up next to his tent. And one day, there's a terrific moment of excitement in the diary when the eunuch in charge of the birds reports that they'd mated in his presence. And Jhungir is convinced that this has never been closely observed and recorded. So again, like Sir David Attenbury, he goes out not with his cameraman, but with his artist Mansoe, and he gave orders that he should be placed discreetly so that he can see what he

describes as the slightest indication of love play. When that moment comes, he bounds into action and is taking notes. The female, having straightened its legs, bent down a little. The male then lifted up one of its feet from the ground and placed it on her back, and afterwards a second foot, and immediately seating himself on her back paired with her. Then he came around and straightened out his neck, put his beak on the ground, and walked once around the female. It is possible they may have an egg and produce the younger one. I love on this. I don't understand.

We see this in very different ways, you see. I see psychopathy and animal porn. And you see something entirely different. I was sort of a little bit worried. But look, love is in the air, not just among the cranes, because this is also at the point of his life where he falls in love with. The woman, Marenisa, who will later become Nourjah. And if you want to know more about Nourjaja, it's an exquisite story of an exceptionally interesting woman. We've done a whole episode on her, so just to have a look at our back.

We did two episodes on her. So, you know, and we'll put it in their show notes or in the newsletter, so you know where to find us. But, yeah, we won't dwell on that story. But he finds the great love of his life. He's met an equal, not a sort of choppy-up psycho-equal, but an equal. You're so unflung- Not one who blinds their children, but, you know, an equal. not one who gets fed up because the blind children aren't smiley enough, but an equal.

I feel very much. He's much happier. Yeah. Thank God he's found someone he loves. Anyway, so their love affair is a huge definition of who Jahangir is and who the world remembers him as being. He is Jahangir with No Jahan. They're very much drawn together.

So go back and listen to that episode is what I'm saying. My final pitch for Jahangir as unrecognized David Attenborough, than Hannibal Necta that you're trying to make him out to me, is the fact that he has this lovely relationship with, I think, my favourite of all mogul artists. And we're going to talk about Mansour more in the next episode, when with the wonderful Sue Strong, we investigate Jahangir's artistry,

all the incredible paintings painted under Jahangir. But just to have a little aperitif on Mansour, Mansoe is always kept on hand with the Emperor. to record any of these curiosity. So, for example, when the turkey turns up or the zebra, Mansour is there busy painting it. And occasionally he's not quite fast enough. There's one moment when...

I was going to say, painting like his life depends on it, because it probably does, because it's jahangir. So there he is. A swirl of paint, sweat and terror. Paint faster. Paint faster. Carry on. Yes, go on.

Occasion when it doesn't paint fast enough. And a particular fine falcon is brought. he's waiting for Mansour to turn up with his pen and paper. And instead, the falcons attacked by a cat, quote, due to the carelessness of mere Shikar, the chief huntsman. And the emperor is beside himself with grief. What can I say of the beauty of this falcon? He writes, there were many beautiful black markings on each wing and back and sides.

As it was something so extraordinary, I ordered Mansour, Ustad Mansour, to paint and preserve its likeness. So poor old Mansour has to paint this corpse of this bird. It's been attacked by a cat. Not a dead parrot sketch. It's a dead falcon sketch. Quite literally. You didn't appreciate my human here.

Sketch. I thought it's good. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I'm just saying. Go on as you were.

Carry on. The favourite and the weirdest of all Mansour's paintings are his painting of the lizard. Is it a chameleon, I think, that's in a tree. I don't know. Mansour paints in one colour. It keeps changing. It's really difficult. Paul Mansour, it's like the worst.

It's like the worst job in the entire realm. You've been at the sherry again, I think. The Christmas sherry has been... It's green. No, it's red. No, it's green, Monsor. God's sake, Monsor. Paint faster.

Anyway, my lovely artist-story friend, Stuart Kerry Welsh, who died last year, who was a great fan of Mansour. And he wrote a lovely description of Mansour's image of the chameleon on a branch. And he said, the lizard looming, vast as a dinosaur, Clutches a springy branch with its tiny fingers and coiled tail while following an appetizing butterfly with its piercing eye. Each paw, wrinkle and toenail is recorded with a passionate attention that transcends mere accuracy.

At his best, the artist so sympathized with this subject, he explored its inner as well as its outer nature. And I think both Jhangir and Mansour do this. I think you have this extraordinary pairing of natural. list with these two. So I'm going to remain in my little trench here and resist Anita trying to denigrate the great jargir. It's an alternate version to yours, but I don't stand by it. But no, look, I mean, it is. His interest in the natural world does lead to something of a revolution, if you like, in paintings of the natural world. You know, he commissions people to do

nature painting. We're going to talk about that in the next episode, actually. We are. We are in more detail with the wonderful Susan Strong of a VNA. And I will be much better behaved because we'll have a guest. I'm sure Sue is on my side in this. Well, I'm not going to behave like this when she's here, am I? Because it's us. I'll be very respectful. But he is sort of plunging into opium and booze this time as well. You know, he may be an Atabro. This does become a bit of a problem, it's true. I mean, he's not like Atabran. He's pissed as a part most of the time, isn't he? He does become more so. And what's interesting is, again, very typical Jahangir is he records his own addiction.

with this unsparing attention. And he monitors the amount of opium and the amount of drink that he's taking. And so we know exactly what he's drinking and indulging in each day. And then one of his friends, who's a much more advanced opium addict, is dying.

And he sends in Mansour to paint the dying aristocrat. Oh, that's an amazing picture. And you see this man who's been painted several times by other artists when he was at the peak of his beauty and power. And you see him transform. into this hollow-cheeked. It reminds me of the famished Buddha. It's the famished Buddha kind of look, isn't it?

He's just slumped into a couch. You can see his rib cage. You can see his clavicle sticking out. His shirt is open. He's all bones. He's as close to death as you can be without being a skeleton. It's an amazingly powerful picture. Anyway, more of this next time.

When I hope that Alita will not have been at the sherry in the way she clearly has to do it. I've not been on the sherry. I genuinely have a problem with people who've blind their sons and then criticize them for not being chipper about it. Call me mad. Call you old-fashioned. Call me old-fashioned.

But, you know, in this season of good cheer, I think that's a bit much. Cheer up. What the hell's wrong with you, son? Look, I'm over here. Why are you smiling at me? Why smile at me? Oh, yes, you don't know because I blinded you. They're just, I mean, what's wrong with you?

Just being contrarian. Anyway, till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnott. Goodbye from me, William Trimple.