The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c17.33.3

v4.c17.33.3

His reference to disease is illustrated by the descriptions of a mysterious pestilence at Ahmadābād the exact nature of which cannot be identified. It was characterised by a very high temperature and the appearance on the body of large dark-coloured blisters the matter from which produced others. Death ensued in a few hours and even the small English community lost seven members. Both the emperor and Shāh Jahān were attacked but recovered after a lengthy convalescence. There was nothing to detain the court in western India. Two chiefs in Cutch, the Jām of Navānagar and a lesser chief on the borders of Sind, had been reduced by Rājā Bikramājīt in 1617. Jahāngīr therefore set out for Āgra in the rainy season, and during the leisurely march of the court, a son was born to Shāh Jahān’s wife, who was named Aurangzīb and later became emperor. Another epidemic now threatened the court and prevented its entry into Delhi. This, from the description given by contemporary writers, was clearly bubonic plague, as they describe the characteristic mortality among rats and the appearance of swellings in the neck and groin. It had broken out in the Punjab in 1616 and had spread south and east as far as Āgra, where it was still causing 100 deaths a day early in 1619, so that Jahāngīr on arriving at Fathpur Sīkrī remained there till April.¹ During the halt at that place Nūr Jahān distinguished herself by killing a tiger with one shot.