Jahangir

Jahangir (born Nur-ud-din Muhammad Salim, 1569–1627) was the fourth Mughal emperor, ruling from 1605 until his death in 1627. He was the son of Akbar and the Rajput princess Mariam-uz-Zamani (Jodha Bai of Amber), and ascended the throne under the regnal title "Jahangir" ("Seizer of the World") with the additional style Nur-ud-din. His accession was preceded by his rebellion against Akbar around 1599–1604, during which the prince had the historian Abul Fazl assassinated in 1602 by the Bundela chief Bir Singh Deo. As emperor, Jahangir consolidated Akbar's administrative legacy, formalising the zabt revenue system and the mansabdari hierarchy, and issued his celebrated "Twelve Edicts" (dastur-ul-amal) on accession, abolishing certain cesses and erecting the symbolic "Chain of Justice" (zanjir-i-adl) outside the Agra fort. His memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (Jahangirnama), written in Persian, are a primary source prized for their candour and naturalist observations.

The reign is defining for the UPSC art-and-culture syllabus as the zenith of Mughal painting. Jahangir, himself a connoisseur who claimed he could identify the individual hand of each artist in a composite work, patronised masters such as Ustad Mansur (renowned for natural-history studies including the Siberian crane and the dodo), Abu'l Hasan (titled Nadir-uz-Zaman), and Bishan Das. The Jahangiri atelier perfected portraiture, allegorical paintings (such as Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings), the use of European-influenced perspective and the decorative hashiya (margin) work. In architecture his reign is more restrained, but it produced Akbar's tomb at Sikandra (completed under Jahangir) and his wife's father's tomb — the Itimad-ud-Daulah at Agra (1622–1628), the first Mughal monument in pure white marble with pietra dura inlay, often called the "Baby Taj" and a stylistic precursor to the Taj Mahal.

Politically, Jahangir's reign saw the rising dominance of his wife Nur Jahan (Mihr-un-Nisa), whom he married in 1611; she effectively wielded power through the "junta" with her father Itimad-ud-Daulah and brother Asaf Khan, even having coins struck in her name. His reign received Sir Thomas Roe (1615–1619), ambassador of James I, securing English East India Company trading rights at Surat, and earlier the merchant William Hawkins (1609). He completed the conquest of Mewar in 1615 when Rana Amar Singh submitted, and executed the fifth Sikh Guru, Arjan Dev, in 1606. He died in 1627 near Bhimbar en route from Kashmir and was buried at Shahdara in Lahore; he was succeeded after a succession struggle by Shah Jahan.

For the examination, Jahangir is tested in Paper I (Indian Heritage and Culture, Art & Culture) and in medieval-history prelims. Typical question angles include: the artists and themes of Jahangiri painting; the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri as a source; the chronology of European missions (Hawkins, Roe); Nur Jahan's political role; and architectural attributions such as the Itimad-ud-Daulah tomb. Prelims often pair him in matching-type questions on Mughal emperors with monuments, court painters, and foreign travellers.