The Decapitation of Khan Jahan Lodi (3 February 1631), c.1635-50 (Painting in opaque watercolour including...

Creator: Abid (illustrator) Padshahnamah fol. 94v (plate 16) See also ROC8970207 The posthumous decapitation of the rebellious nobleman Khan Jahan Lodi. Khan Jahan Lodi was an ethnic Afghan who had been a close confidant of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir and gained increasingly important positions at court. After Prince Khurram (later Emperor Shah-Jahan) rebelled against his father, Jahangir appointed Lodi commander-in-chief of his army, after. He did not support Shah-Jahan as heir and, according to the Padshahnamah text, after many of the Afghan tribes declared allegiance to him following the new Emperor’s accession ‘his brainless head’ became ‘a nest of false and demonic hopes and vain fancies’. In 1629, the former commander fled towards the court of the Nizam Shah in the Deccan but, when Shah-Jahan’s forces closed in, he and his entourage turned north towards the Punjab. They were eventually hunted down and one of his companions, Darya Khan Rohilla, was slain. Khan Jahan escaped but was pursued and eventually killed by Madho Singh on 3 February 1631 at Sihanda in central India. This painting captures the moment that his head was sawn off after the combat.