History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c37.s5: §5. Aurangzib's sisters : Jahanara.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c37.s5
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§5. Aurangzib's sisters : Jahanara.
v3.c37.s5.1
The Emperor's eldest sister Jahanara had been a partisan of Dara Shukoh and a supporter of the legitimate authority of Shah Jahan. In 1658 she had tried hard to dissuade Aurangzib and Murad from the fratricidal war, visited their victorious camp at Agra with a proposal of peace, and, on their refusal to accept it, had sternly rebuked them for their unnatural conduct. Then she had chosen the better part by sharing her father's lifelong captivity instead of seeking wealth and freedom by coming over to the victor's side. But her saintly character won rewards rich beyond the dreams of subserviency. In those long years of gloomy restraint thrice had she entreated Shah Jahan to forgive Aurangzib; twice had the justly incensed father refused; but in the end love had conquered hate, and shortly before his death he had signed a formal pardon to Aurangzib for all that he had done to his king and father.
v3.c37.s5.2
When Aurangzib went to Agra after Shah Jahan's funeral, (February, 1666), he repeatedly visited Jahanara,* showed her great affection, and made her the first lady of the realm. All the nobles were ordered to go to her quarters in Agra fort, salam her from outside, and offer presents, while eunuchs conveyed the salute and offerings to the invisible lady within. On the next coronation day (27th March), she was presented with a hundred thousand gold pieces (worth 14 lakhs of Rupees), and her annual pension was raised to seventeen lakhs. The same respect continued to be shown to her throughout life. In October 1666 she removed to Delhi and was given Ali Mardan Khan's grand mansion to live in. Here Aurangzib used to visit her occasionally and talk with her for hours like a loving brother. In December, 1669 he ordered Danishmand Khan, a high minister, to go to her and standing in her outer drawing-room (deorhi) to inform her that he was present there to do any service in which she might command him. From her house her special favourite and almost adopted daughter, Jahanzeb Banu, Dara's orphan child, was married to Aurangzib's third son, Muhammad Azam, in January 1669 with the most lavish pomp. Murad's daughters, too, seem to have received shelter in her house, and to have been given away in marriage by her, while the unhappy Sulaiman Shukoh's daughter, Salima Banu, was brought up by another of the Emperor's sisters, Gauharara Begam, and afterwards married to Muhammad Akbar.
v3.c37.s5.3
∗ Jahanara secures pardon (K. K. ii. 188; Storia, ii. 127); is honoured by Aurangzib, (A. N. 938, 959; Akh. 5, 7, 21); gives him frank advice (Storia, iv. 59); dies (M. A. 213; Storia, ii. 256).
v3.c37.s5.4
In fact, in Mughal times the first lady of the realm was not the Empress Consort (except in the cases of Nur Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal), but the royal mother or the royal sister. Indian etiquette requires that not the wife but the widowed mother or some other elderly lady should be the mistress of the household. Natural bashfulness would keep an empress from ordering about the general establishment of the harem, regulating the marriages and other ceremonies in the family, or presiding over the female society of the capital. But the death of her husband would at once raise her to the dignity of a widow and the influence of a Queen-mother, and remove from her even the possibility of any younger and fairer rival supplanting her in her husband's favour and hurling her from her seat of honour and influence. Social decorum prevented an emperor from placing his wife above his mother, his elder sister, or his paternal aunt. Thus it was that dowagers and old maids ruled the ladies' world in the Delhi palace.
v3.c37.s5.5
At Shah Jahan's accession the dowager Nur Jahan had to be relegated to obscurity as his deadliest enemy and the partisan of his defeated rival Shahriyar. The Empress Consort, Mumtaz Mahal, lived to share the throne for four years only. Thereafter, Jahanara, as the eldest Princess Royal, continued for 27 years to rule her imperial father's household. She was given the title of *Begam Sahib* or ‘Princess par excellence,’ and even *Padishah Begam* or ‘Sovereign Lady.’ Shah Jahan's captivity imposed on her, as his nurse and companion, the life of a recluse for eight years. But on his death she emerged, and Aurangzib restored her to her old place as the first lady in the Court, and she continued as such till her death on 6th September, 1681. Her age and position enabled her to give Aurangzib unpleasant but sound advice when none else durst give it. The Emperor mourned her death for three days and ordered her name to be entered in all official papers in future as *Sahibat-uz-zamani* or ‘the Mistress of the Age.’