[15] Nur Jahan had invited the mother of Khusru, the sister of
Raja Man Singh, to look with her down a well in the courtyard of her
apartments by moonlight, and as she did so she threw her in. As soon
as she saw that she had ceased to struggle she gave the alarm, and
pretended that she had fallen in by accident.[16]
By the murder of the mother of the heir-apparent she expected to
secure the throne to a creature of her own. Khusru was treated with
great kindness by his father, after he had been barbarously deprived
of sight;[17] but when his brother, Shah Jahan, was appointed to the
government of Southern India, he pretended great solicitude about the
comforts of his _poor blind brother_, which he thought would not be
attended to at court, and took him with him to his government in the
Deccan, where he got him assassinated, as the only sure mode of
securing the throne to himself.[18] Parwiz, the second son, died a
natural death;[19] so also did his only son; and so also Daniyal, the
fourth son of the Emperor.[20] Nur Jahan's daughter by Sher Afgan had
married Shahryar, a young son of the Emperor by a concubine; and,
just before his death he (the Emperor), at the instigation of Nur
Jahan, named this son as his successor in his will.
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