Bahar Banu Begum (Persian: بهار بانو بیگم; 9 October 1590 - 8 September 1653), meaning "The Blooming Lady", was a Mughal princess, the daughter of Mughal emperor Jahangir.[1]
Bahar Banu Begum was born on 9 October 1590, during the reign of her grandfather Emperor Akbar. Her mother was Karamsi, the daughter of Raja Keshav Das of the Rathore family.[2] On the same day, Jagat Gosain, the daughter of Udai Singh of Marwar, gave birth to another daughter named Begum Sultan Begum.[3] She was the seventh child and fifth daughter born to her father, but the only child of her mother.
In 1625, Prince Tahmuras Mirza, the eldest son of Prince Daniyal Mirza, and the grandson of Akbar, paid homage at the court. Prior to this his younger brother Prince Hushang Mirza also attained the honour of paying homage. In order to honour them, Jahangir married Bahar Banu to Tahmuras, and Hoshmand Banu Begum, the daughter of Prince Khusrau Mirza, to Hoshang.[4]
After the death of her father Jahangir on 28 October 1627, her youngest brother Prince Shahryar Mirza proclaimed himself the emperor. However, her nephew Dawar Bakhsh, the son of Khusrau Mirza, ascended the throne at Lahore. Shah Jahan ascended the throne on 19 January 1628, and on 23 January, he ordered the execution of Shahryar, Bahar Banu Begum's husband Tahmuras Mirza and his brother Hoshang Mirza, and Khusrau Mirza's sons Dawar Bakhsh, and Garshasp Mirza.[5]
^Balabanlilar, Lisa (January 15, 2012). Imperial Identity in Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern Central Asia. I.B. Tauras. pp. X. ISBN978-1-848-85726-1.
^Beveridge, Henry; Rogers, Alexander (1909). The Tūzuk-i-Jahāngīrī, Volume II. pp. 19 n. 3.
^Beveridge, Henry (1907). Akbarnama of Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak - Volume III. Asiatic Society, Calcutta. p. 880.
^Jahangir, Emperor; Thackston, Wheeler McIntosh (1999). The Jahangirnama : memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India. Washington, D. C.: Freer Gallery of Art, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 436.
^Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The Society. 1869. pp. 217–8.
^Khan, Inayat; Begley, Wayne Edison (1990). The Shah Jahan Nama of 'Inayat Khan: an abridged history of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, compiled by his royal librarian: the nineteenth-century manuscript translation of A.R. Fuller (British Library, add. 30,777). Oxford University Press. p. 489.
^Kanbo, Muhammad Saleh. Amal e Saleh al-Mausoom Ba Shahjahan Nama (Persian) - Volume 3. pp. 132–133.
