Through India and Burmah with pen and brush

by A. Hugh Fisher

When I had looked long at the lovely tints of worn decoration and the rosy colour of the red sandstone, we left the blue carpets and polished marble floor of the mosque and sat for a while under the shade of some trees in an enclosure at the back.

I have heard of people being much pestered at Fateh-pur-Sikri by would-be "guides," but not only did I escape any such experience there, but Riaz Ahmad, whom I engaged as cicerone for the day, proved a very agreeable companion, not at first over-communicative but as the hours wore on becoming more so.

Under a little astambole tree near us, as we sat resting, were two tombs, one under a small pillared canopy and the other by its side without any covering. Both were small and one was exceedingly tiny, so that it was not large enough to contain more than a kitten or a very small doll. It is probable that confirmed information is obtainable about both, but there was a certain naïveté about Riaz' talk which pleased me, and it seemed more illuminating than a mere repetition of authenticated fact.

"The small tomb," said Riaz, "is that of the infant son of Salim Chisti, of whose family I am. The child died at six months by the power of his own mind, just to show a miracle, and the very small tomb close beside it is that of a tooth. Akhbar, childless, came to Salim Chisti and some say that to give Akhbar a son the child of the holy man was sacrificed; but that is not true, for the babe, of its own mind, ceased to live that a child might be born to Akhbar. As for the tooth," he went on, "there was a woman who lived in our family a long time ago (we may not tell the names of our women), whose husband went away with Jehangir when the king sent an army to capture Nour Jehan. Now this man who went with Jehangir died in battle, and because his body could never be found and his wife happened to have one tooth of his which had come out, the tooth was buried in memory of her husband."

And this is how Riaz Ahmad told me the story of Jehangir's marriage as we sat in the shade by the mosque wall.

"Nour Jehan was found by a traveller—abandoned upon the road when she was quite a baby, because her parents could not bear to support her on account of the poverty, and she was presented by the traveller to the king because she was beautiful, with the report that he had found her upon the roadside. And as he also found her to be of extreme beauty the king ordered her to be nursed in his palaces. When she became twelve years old Jehangir, who was about the same age and had played with her as companion, became enchanted with her beauty and loved her." I thought of their padding feet as they chased one another in children's games about those paved courts—playing "catch me" over the pachisi-board, and of Nour Jehan shrieking safety as she reached a crossed square where the pieces are not permitted to be "taken."

And Riaz continued—"But Akhbar would have none of this, and to keep her away from Jehangir, married her to Shareef-Ghan-Khan, the Governor of Bengal. Now Nour Jehan had never loved Jehangir, but had only played with him in friendship. When Akhbar died, Jehangir at once sent to Shareef-Ghan-Khan demanding his wife, but was refused. Then sent Jehangir an army in which that man of the tooth was one of the officers. After great fighting, that Shareef was killed and Nour Jehan was forced to come to the Imperial Palace, though she said she would have been more contented to be the wife of a common soldier than to be queen with a husband she did not love. For six months she lived in the palace in a separate house with the mother of Jehangir, but at last when she did not see any way to get rid of him she accepted his love, became queen and obtained such influence over her husband that he put her name upon the coins."

This story led us to talk about women and Riaz Ahmad said, in spite of the tale of Nour Jehan—"God gave the man more power than woman, so she is the inferior; she is not like man. She has the right that we should be just to her, to clothe her as well as we clothe ourselves, and not to give away her right to another woman. We may not say of one of our wives—'she is the more beloved'—they must be equal, otherwise it would be a sin to have more than one wife." Perhaps emperors may have preferences!

Before leaving Fatehpur-Sikri I went to see the magnificent Gate of Victory. Inside, the inner portals are carved with wonderful skill, letters upstanding upon the red sandstone. At the top words are carved in Arabic, which Riaz translated for me thus:—"That one who stands up to pray and his heart is not in his duty, he remains far from God. Thy best possession is to give in alms and thy best traffic is to sell this world for the next." Then a Persian Rubaiyat:—"What fame could you gain sitting on a throne in a silver mansion? The beauty of the world is simple, like a looking-glass. Behold yourself when you look at it." There follows the name of the carver of these verses—"Mohammed Mason."