Marriages between two weaker clans could provide ballast against more formidable neighbours while clans could try to appease encroaching pretenders by offering daughters in marriage, thus securing bonds and alliances.
A further unit of relationship and strength increasingly became the saga, the in-law family, who were also expected to provide warriors and fealty in times of strife. On the one hand there were the rulers, linked to their thikanedars and small jagirdars in an intricate web of blood and obligation called bhai-beta, or clan. In the turbulent, fractious environment of Rajasthan, the clan structure of ruling families was the scaffolding upon which layers of loyalty were constructed. But there may also have been something the Rajput brides brought with them, along with their gods, dancing girls, and feasts, that made this process inevitable. That there was a growing Mughal desire to circumscribe the harem within an ordered space as a reflection of the exalted charisma of the Padshah, which now removed the harem from the sight of ordinary people, is clear from Abu’l Fazl’s writings. This was noted in a history of the reign of Akbar’s grandson, Shah Jahan, when it was written that “ever since the reign of Akbar, it had been ordained that the names of the inmates of the seraglio should not be mentioned in public, but that they should be designated by some epithet derived either from the place of their birth or the city in which they might have first been regarded by the monarch with the eye of affection”. The purdah, which had been cursory in the case of the Timurid women, who rode on horseback, participated in mixed gatherings at banquets and feasts, and travelled with their husbands and sons, had now suddenly become opaque. The name of Prince Murad’s mother was not noted and the celebrations following births were negligently narrated, formal and bloodless. So very rigorous would this vigilance be that there is only one record that clearly states that the mother of the much longed-for Mughal heir, Salim, was indeed Harkha Bai Kachhwaha.įor these women, there would be no intimate accounts of labours arrested by plain-faced midwives or compassionate recordings of a young girl’s mixed feelings towards her determined groom. For Akbar did not require these women to convert to Islam and they were allowed to fully participate in their Hindu rituals as they had in their own homes.Īnd yet, in an astounding sleight of hand, these women would disappear completely from the Mughal records, smoothed into impossible standards of purity and chastity, all individuality removed. When the Rajput brides entered the Mughal harem they brought with them their holy fires and their sparkling language, their busy gods, and their swaying clothes. At the same time Har Raj of Jaisalmer also submitted to Akbar and offered a daughter, Rajkumari Nathi Bai, as a wife for the Padshah while his son, Kuar Sultan Singh, was accepted as a nobleman at the Mughal court. Rao Kalyanmal then offered a daughter and two nieces, Raj Kanwar and Bhanumati, in marriage to Akbar. In November 1570, Rao Kalyanmal of Bikaner and his heir, Kuar Rai Singh, accepted Mughal overlordship and were brought into the Mughal fold. A daughter, Khanum Sultan, was born to Akbar and then in 1570, a second prince, Murad.
In the harem at Agra, meanwhile, there was a flurry of further additions.