Udaipuri Mahal
| Udaipuri Mahal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spouse | Aurangzeb | ||||
| Issue | Muhammad Kam Bakhsh | ||||
| |||||
| Died |
shortly after 8 June 1707 Gwalior[Madhya Pradesh] | ||||
| Burial | shrine of Qutb-al Aqtab, Delhi | ||||
Udaipuri Mahal Sahiba (died shortly after 8 June 1707[1]), was a consort to Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.
Biography
Udaipuri Mahal was a slave girl and not a wedded wife of Aurangzeb, which is proved by Aurangzeb's own words. When her son Kam Bakhsh intrigued with the enemy at the siege of Jinji, Aurangzeb angrily remarked, — 'A slave-girl's son comes to no good. The contemporary Venetian traveler Manucci speaks of her as a Georgian slave-girl of Dara Shukoh's harem, who, on the downfall of her first master, became the concubine of his victorious rival. She seems to have been a very young woman at the time, as she first became a mother in 1667, when Aurangzib was verging on fifty. She retained her youth and influence over the Emperor till his death, and was the darling of his old age. Under the spell of he/ beauty he pardoned the many faults of Kam Bakhsh and overlooked her freaks of drunkenness, which must have shocked so pious a Muslim.
Kam Baksh is also called 'a dancing-girl's son' Orme speaks of her as a Circassian, evidently on the authority of Manucci. Aurangzeb had a special liking for Udaipuri Mahal, so her co-wives were very jealous of her. He bestowed upon her all the accouterments of a Queen. In 1678 in a battle against the Rana of Chittor and the Raja of Marwar, Udaipuri accompanied Aurangzeb. In the 28th year of Aurangzeb's reign, Udaipuri Mahal was in Aurangabad or Ahmadnagar with Aurangzeb.
In a letter written by Aurangzeb on his death-bed to Kam Bakhsh, he says "Udaipuri, your mother, who has been with me during my ilhiess, wishes to accompany [me in death]." From this expression Tod, infers, "Her desire to burn shews her to have been a Rajput." Such an inference is wrong, because a Hindu princess on marrying a Muslim king lost her caste and religion, and received Islamic burial. We read of no Rajputni of the harem of any of the Mughal emperors having burnt herself with her deceased husband, for the very good reason that a Muslim's corpse is buried and not burnt. Evidently Udipuri meant that she would kill herself in passionate grief on the death of Aurangzeb.
When Aurangzeb died she grieved so deeply and died within just four months at Gwalior, in July 1707. Bahadur Shah I carried out her dying wishes with regard to her household and had forwarded her remains for burial in a grove close to the shrine of Qutb-al Aqtab, Delhi.