Was Anarkali buried alive or did she escape? If so, where?

Question

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Answer 1

NO incident in the history of Mughal India enjoys so much popularity as the royal romance of Prince Salim (later Jahangir) and Anarkali. It is believed that the original name of Anarkali was Nadira or Sharfunnisa and that she received the name or the title of Anarkali (literally meaning pomegranate bud) for her beauty.

The popular version of the story runs thus. Anarkali was a dancer at the court of Emperor Akbar. The emperor’s eldest son and heir apparent, Salim, fell in love with her. Akbar did not approve of the relation as the dancer was of lowly birth and hence considered not fit to be the queen of the would-be emperor of Hindustan. But the lovers did not pay heed to the emperor’s disapproval. At last, Anarkali was sentenced to death — she was bricked alive in a wall. This basic story-line is variously told with minor variations in detail. However, one may be surprised to note that the name of Anarkali is not even mentioned in the historical details of the period of Akbar or in the memoirs of Jahangir.


Today many historians doubt the authenticity of the story and consider it a mere fabrication.
The believers in the story mention a tomb in Lahore which is popularly considered to be that of Anarkali. It is situated on the premises of the Punjab Civil Secretariat and now houses the Punjab Records Office. It is an octagonal building covered with a dome. At each corner of the building is an octagonal turret surmounted with a kiosk. In olden times, this building was surrounded by a garden that had at its entrance a double-storeyed gateway. But no trace of the garden survives now. The building still enshrines a beautifully inscribed monolithic sarcophagus.

On the sarcophagus are inscribed 99 names of Allah and the Persian couplet:

Ta qayamat shukr goyam kard gar khwish ra
Ah! gar man baz beenam rui yar khwish ra
(Ah ! could I behold
the face of my beloved once more;
I would give thanks unto my God
Unto the day of resurrection).

On the northern side of the sarcophagus are inscribed the words Majnun Salim Akbar i.e. "The profoundly enamoured Salim (son of ) Akbar".

The sarcophagus bears two dates also. The date given in letters as well as in numerals is 1008 hijri(1599-1600 AD). On the western side of the sarcophagus is another date 1024 hijri (1615-16 AD).

Scholar Ahsan Quraishi mentions one more inscription in the tomb which is said to have been destroyed by General Ventura, the French mercenary fighting for the Sikhs, who used the monument as his residence. The contents of this extinct Persian inscription can be translated as follows: "The innocent who is murdered mercilessly and who dies after enduring much pain, is a martyr. God considers him/her a martyr".

Although the name of Anarkali is not mentioned in any of these inscriptions but on the basis of the contents of these inscriptions, a group of scholars construe that the person buried in the memorial is no other than Anarkali. Of the two dates, the first is believed to be that of the execution of Anarkali and the second one as the date of the erection of the tomb. But this supposition cannot be correct because Akbar was not at Lahore in 1008 hijri. He had already left it for Agra in 1007 (hijri ) (in November 1598). So the story about Anarkali being buried alive by the orders of Akbar cannot be correct.

The earliest writers to report the love affair of Salim were two British travellers — William Finch and Edward Terry. William Finch reached Lahore in February 1611 (only eleven years after the supposed death of Anarkali), to sell the indigo he had purchased at Bayana on behalf of the East India Company. His account, written in early seventeenth century English, gives the following information: In the suburbs of the town, a fair monument for Prince Daniyal and his mother, one of the Akbar’s wives, with whom it is said Prince Salim had a liaison. Upon the notice of the affair, King Akbar caused the lady to be enclosed within a wall of his palace, where she died. The King Jahangir, in token of his love, ordered a magnificent tomb of stone to be built in the midst of a walled four-square garden provided with a gate. The body of the tomb, the emperor willed to be wrought in work of gold....

Edward Terry who visited a few years after William Finch writes that Akbar had threatened to disinherit Jahangir, for his liaison with Anarkali, the emperor’s most beloved wife. But on his death-bed, Akbar repealed it.

Basing his analysis on the above two Britishers’ accounts, Abraham Eraly, the author of The Last Spring: The Lives and Times of the Great Mughals, suspects that there "seems to have been an oedipal conflict between Akbar and Salim." He also considers it probable that the legendary Anarkali was nobody other than the mother of Prince Daniyal.

Eraly supports his hypothesis by quoting an incident recorded by Abul Fazl, the court-historian of Akbar. According to the historian, Salim was beaten up one evening by guards of the royal harem of Akbar. The story is that a mad man had wandered into Akbar’s harem because of the carelessness of the guards. Abul Fazl writes that Salim caught the man but was himself mistaken for the intruder. The emperor arrived upon the scene and was about to strike with his sword when he recognised Salim. Most probably, the intruder was no other than Prince Salim and the story of the mad man was concocted to put a veil on the indecency of the Prince.

But the accounts of the British travellers and consequently the presumption of Eraly is falsified when one comes to know that the mother of prince Daniyal had died in 1596 which does not match the dates inscribed on the sarcophagus.

Another scholar, Muhammad Baqir, the author of Lahore Past and Present opines that Anarkali was originally the name of the garden in which the tomb was situated, but with the passage of time, the tomb itself came to be named as that of Anarkali’s. This garden is mentioned by Dara Shikoh, the grandson of Jahangir, in his work Sakinat al-Auliya, as one of the places where the Saint Hazrat Mian Mir used to sit. Dara also mentions the existence of a tomb in the garden but he does not give it any name.

Muhammad Baqir believes that the so-called tomb of Anarkali actually belongs to the lady named or entitled Sahib-i Jamal, another wife of Salim and the mother of the Prince’s second son Sultan Parvez, and a daughter of the noble Zain Khan Koka. This conclusion is also partially faulty. The mother of Sultan Parviz was not a daughter of Zain Khan Koka but the daughter of Khawaja Hasan, the paternal uncle of Zain Khan. Of course, subsequently, the daughter of Zain Khan was also married to Salim, on June 18, 1596.

It is recorded in Akbar Nama that Jahangir "became violently enamoured of the daughter of Zain Khan Koka. H.M. (Akbar) was displeased at the impropriety, but he saw that his heart was immoderately affected, he, of necessity, gave his consent." The translator of Akbar Nama, H. Beveridge, opines that Akbar objected to the marriage, because the Prince was already married "to Zain Khan’s niece" (actually the daughter of paternal uncle of Zain Khan, and hence his sister). Akbar objected to marriages between near relations. But we do not know the date of death of the either of these two wives of Jahangir.

Noted art-historian R. Nath argues that there is no wife of Jahangir on record bearing the name or title of Anarkali to whom the emperor could have built a tomb and dedicated a couplet with a suffix Majnun. He considers it "absolutely improbable that the grand Mughal emperor would address his married wife as yar designate himself as majnun and aspire to see her face once again. Had he not seen her enough? Obviously she was not his married wife but only his beloved, to whom he would take the liberty to be romantic and a little poetic too, and it appears to be a case of an unsuccessful romance of a disappointed lover.... The prince could not save her, though it is on record that he was so unhappy with his father in this year 1599 that he defied his orders and revolted. It may be recalled that Mehrunissa (later Nurjahan Begum) was also married to Sher Afgan the same year and the young Prince was so dejected and disturbed on the failure of his two romances and annihilation of his tender feelings of love that he went as far as to defy Akbar."

Answer 2

According to legend, Mughal Prince Salim, later to become Emperor Jahangir, fell in love with a girl named Anarkali as a young prince. As she was a dancing girl, not of noble birth, the romance was forbidden by the prince's father, Emperor Akbar. Anarkali, whose title means "pomegranate bud" (bestowed for her beauty), was buried alive in a wall said to be located within the bazaar, by the order of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Whether or not Anrkali existed is a totally controversial, there is not the slightest of the evidence that Prince Salim ever fell in love with a courteson, even the earliest Indian film made on the subject, declares Anarkali to be a fictional character. Furthermore, she is nowhere to be mentioned in Salim's autobiography.

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Answer 3

Anarkali was spared to life by her mother's request coz the emperor had promised Anarkali's mother on the occassion of Salim's birth news that she can ask anything for giving the good news of Salim's birth. So Anarkali was escaped through the underground tunnel which lead to the outskirts of the capital city Delhi.

Answer 4

I have already answered the previous question on Anarkali, wherein I said that Anarkali's escape with the help of her mother, as given out in the film, is a filmy stuff, to heighten the effect of pathos. That end to the film is a beatiful finale, befitting a love tragedy. The film maker has used his right to blend fiction with fact, for embellishing his work of art.

In Lahore, there indeed is a place called Anarkali's tomb and there is a folklore version, which suggests that a person called Anarkali was buried alive, by Akbar. There is also a confession by Jehangir that there was an uneasy relationship between him and his father, Akbar. Two English writers also vouch for the fact that there was tension between them on account of the mistrust Akbar had about his son, Salim for having an illicit relationship with one of his wives. There is also a reference to an incident which said to have taken place in the harem of Akbar, in Amir Khushru's Akbar Nama, a biography on Akbar. It is mentoned therein that Akbar almost tried to kill his son, by putting him to his sword, mistaking him for a mad fellow, who tried to enter his father's harem, stealthily. We must presume that Salim was indeed the culprit and Akbar was greatly displeased with Salim, for his misdemeanour.

As to the point of discussion, whether she was buried alive or she escaped, I tend to believe that she must have been buried. If she was allowed to escape, whose grave was that in the tomb? Is that empty or that of some body else's? No. If she had escaped and every body believed it, then how come Jehangir was not aware of it? How do you explain the fact that after he became the king, he got the tomb built in her memory, wherein he got an epitaph written, expressing his longing to see the face of his lady love? Jehangir was certainly conscious of the fact that the person in whose memory the tomb was built was no more. If he knows that she had been permitted by his father to escape, by deceit, there was no need for him to construct the memorial and have an epitaph written on it. As I had said, it is a filmy stuff to say that she had been allowed to escape.

May I suggest this, to clear all the controvery surrounding this incident and put an end to the doubt? The Pakistan government may arrange for a scientific study of the tomb, with the help of the archaeological experts, to find out whether there was any body entombed and if so, all possible details about the person. The tomb and all the construction therein can again be put to scrutiny by the experts to throw more light. Perhaps, the authorities may not be interested. The eastern sensibilities love the mystery to remain as a mystery, so that more and more stories can remain in circulation to the delight of the story/myth/film makers. See the popularity of the movie, even after four decades and yet there is a big project waiting to launched very soon, for production of a mega serial on this story.

Answer 5

In my opinion, she was not buried alive, but forced into a cave and closed from front. She could have escaped, if there was any other opening. However, the possibility, is less, as she has been portrayed, as a brave woman and if she had escaped she would have contacted, Jahangir again.

Answer 6

Anarkali was buried alive and a tomb was constructed. It is situated in Lahore, Punjab in Pakistan. There is a writing there by her lover Jahangir in a stone-" I would give thanks unto my Lord unto the day of resurrection, Ah! could I behold the face of my beloved once more." He was the ruler after his father and could not have lamented like this had she was saved.

Answer 7

Anarkali- Salim- just a fiction, not a history.

Answer 8

Anarkali's existence also comes under doubt.As there is no proof that she was there & related to shahzada salim,so the question can not be answered surely.

Answer 9

Prince Salim

Answer 10

The anarkali in Mughal-e-azam was buried behind a wall in the palace of shenshah.But the other anarkali is sitting right beside me laughing and joking.

Answer 11

Salim Akbar