Person · Mughal empress · India
Mariam-uz-Zamani (Harkha Bai)
Also known as Mariam-uz-Zamani, Harkha Bai, Hira Kunwari, Heer Kunwari, Jodha (popular)
Kachhwaha Rajput princess of Amber, daughter of Raja Bharmal, who married Akbar on 6 February 1562 at Sambhar, became the senior Hindu wife of the Mughal emperor and the mother of his heir Prince Salim who succeeded as Jahangir. She retained Hindu practice at court, was granted the title Mariam-uz-Zamani (Mary of the Age) around Jahangir's birth, and ran the only Hindu temple inside the Mughal palace at Fatehpur Sikri. Her Mariam's House there and her tomb at Sikandra beside Akbar's own are documented monuments; popular tradition conflates her with the semi-fictional Jodha Bai whose name comes from a Rajput princess of Marwar who married Jahangir, not Akbar.
- Date
- 1542–1623
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Mughal · Kachhwaha
- Tradition
- Standard reference and biographical literature; contemporary chronicles.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
The historical Jodh Bai of popular tradition is actually Jagat Gosain, a Rajput princess of Marwar who married Jahangir in 1586 and was Shah Jahan's mother — the two women have been confused in retellings since the eighteenth century. Mariam-uz-Zamani's own name is attested on coinage and in the Akbarnama; the name Jodha for her is a later popular invention solidified by the 1960 Hindi film Mughal-e-Azam and the 2008 Jodhaa Akbar.
About the place
Placed at Fatehpur Sikri (where she lived) and Sikandra (where she is buried).
Connections (4)
- Married toAkbar
Mariam-uz-Zamani (Harkha Bai), Kachhwaha Rajput princess of Amber and daughter of Raja Bharmal, married Akbar on 6 February 1562 at Sambhar as part of the Rajput-Mughal matrimonial alliance that gave Akbar the Rajput houses' military support. She became the senior Hindu wife of the emperor and the mother of his heir Prince Salim, who succeeded as Jahangir. She retained Hindu practice at court and ran the only Hindu temple inside the Mughal palace at Fatehpur Sikri.
- Lived atFatehpur Sīkrī
Mariam-uz-Zamani lived at Fatehpur Sikri through the fifteen years Akbar used it as his capital (1571-1585), with her own house — the Jodh Bai Mahal, as popular tradition misnames it — and the Hindu temple that is the only such shrine known within a Mughal palace complex. The house was built around a central courtyard with devotional space for her Hindu practice and private chambers for her Mughal household role as empress mother to Prince Salim.
- Mother in law ofHumayun
Mariam-uz-Zamani was the paternal grandmother of Shah Jahan, whose own mother Jagat Gosain of Marwar — the historical Jodh Bai whom popular tradition confuses with Mariam-uz-Zamani — was Jahangir's wife and Mariam-uz-Zamani's daughter-in-law. The two Rajput princesses in two generations of the Mughal line are routinely conflated in retellings, but Mariam-uz-Zamani was Akbar's wife and Jagat Gosain was Jahangir's.
- Buried atAkbar's Tomb, Sikandra
Mariam-uz-Zamani is buried at Sikandra in a tomb within the same gardens as Akbar's own mausoleum — a Mughal royal burial for the senior Hindu wife of the emperor and the mother of his heir Jahangir. Her tomb is modest compared to Akbar's five-tiered pyramidal structure beside it, but is within the imperial charbagh and is one of the few Mughal royal women's tombs built in a Mughal royal garden rather than as a separate structure. The two tombs together make Sikandra the senior Mughal mausoleum complex of its generation.