Babur was the first of the Mughals to flee Samarkhand and arrive in India on the invitation of Daulat Khan Lodhi, the governor of Lahore. A tale suggests that he was lured to India with mangoes. Lodhi is said to have sent him a preserve made of half ripened mangoes and honey along with the invitation to fight Ibrahmin Lodhi. Mangoes would go on to be an obsession with the Mughals and find a place in their kitchens, their gardens, their art, and even their memoirs!
The memoirs of Baburnama were later translated and illustrated by the orders of his grandsons. He writes in the Baburnama,
"Mangoes when good, are very good. They are usually plucked unripe and ripened in the house. Unripe, they make excellent condiments, are also good preserved in syrup. Taking it altogether, the mango is the best fruit of Hindustan. Some so praise it as to give it preference over all fruits except the musk-melon. Such praise outmatches it. It resembles the kardi peach. It ripens in the rains. It is eaten in two ways: one is to squeeze it to a pulp, make a hole in it, and suck out the juice, the other, to peel and eat it like the kardi peach. Its tree grows very large and has a leaf somewhat resembling the peach tree. The trunk is ill-looking and ill-shaped, but in Bengal and Gujrat is heard of as growing handsome"
Babur never could adjust to India completely, frequently pining for his homeland. Even when talking of Indian fruits he constantly compares them to the peaches and melons of Central Asia. These bouts of homesickness lead to him complaining about everything in India right from the dry weather to the lack of irrigation facilities for his gardens which led to his inability to grow his favorite melons (which he wept over!). But it seems that the mango is something that managed to strike a chord with him. He calls it the best fruit of India, if not his favorite. Babur, the avid gardener that he was, would go on to plant several mango trees at his famous garden in Dholpur. Years later, while on a campaign and camped near Fatehpur, Babur mentions,
"After spending several days pleasantly in that place where there are gardens, running-waters, well-designed buildings, trees, particularly mango-trees, and various birds of colored plumage, I ordered the march to be towards Ghazlpur."
Babur's son Humayun was defeated at the Battle of Chausa by Sher Shah Suri. Suri, to commemorate his victory over Humayun named a variety of mango as 'Chausa mango'. Humayun had to flee India and spent a large part of his life on the run. In spite of this, he managed to have mangoes delivered to himself while on the run and later is said to have even named a variety after himself called the 'Humayun Pasand'. Both these varieties are still grown today.
Akbar built a large garden at Darbhanga where he planted over a lakh mango trees. The garden was thus named 'Lakhi Bagh'. Mangoes also find several mentions in the Ain I Akbari, composed by Abul Fazl. At one point Fazl says,
"The Mango: The Persians call this fruit Naghnak, as appears from a verse of Kimsran. This fruit is unrivaled in color, smell, and taste; and some of the gourmands of Tehran and Iran place it above muskmelons and grapes. In shape, it resembles an apricot, or a quince, or a pear, or a melon, and weighs even one ser and upwards. There are green, yellow, red, variegated, sweet, and subacid mangoes. Tho tree looks well, especially when young; it is larger than a nut tree, and its leaves resemble those of the willow but are larger. The new leaves appear soon after the fall of the old ones in autumn and look green and yellow, orange, peach-colored, and bright red. The flower which opens in spring resembles that of the vine, lias a good smell, and looks very curious. About a month after the leaves have made their appearance, the fruit is sour and is used for preserves and pickles. It improves the taste of qalyahs as long as the stone has not become hard. If the fruit gets injured whilst on the tree, its good smell will increase. Such mangoes are called koilhs. Tho fruit is generally taken down when unripe and kept in a particular manner. Mangoes ripened in this manner are much finer. They mostly commence to ripen during summer, and are fit to be eaten during the rains; others commence in the rainy season and are ripe at the beginning of winter. The latter are called Bhadiyyah. Some trees bloom and yield fruit the whole year, but this is rare. Others commence to ripen, although they look unripe; they must be quickly taken down; else the sweetness would produce worms. Mangoes are to be found everywhere in India, especially in Bengal, Gujarat, Malwa, Khandesh, and the Deccan. They are rarer in the Punjab, where their cultivation has, however, increased, since His Majesty made Lahore his capital. A young tree will bear fruit after four years. They also put milk and treacle round about the tree, which makes the fruits sweeter. Some trees yield in one year a rich harvest, and less in the next, others yield for one year no fruit at all. When people eat a great deal of mangoes, they may promote digestion by partaking of milk with the kernels of the mango stones. The kernels of old stones are subacid and taste well. When two or three years old, they are used as medicine. If a half-ripe mango, together with its stalk to a length of about two fingers, be taken from the tree, and the broken end of its stalk be closed with warm wax, and kept in butter, or honey, the fruit will retain its taste for two or three months, whilst the color will remain even for a year."
It seems mangoes were particularly dear to Jahangir since he speaks about them quite frequently in the Jahangirnama. He mentions Akbar's fondness for them, his own rides through mango orchards, descriptions of places where mango trees always seem to feature, him placing orders of mangoes, and supervising their arrival, measurement, and ripening and even the death of a man due to eating too many mangoes. At one point in the Jahangirnama, he says,
"...in spite of the excellence of the fruits of Kabul, not one among them is as delicious as the mango"
This shows an interesting juncture the Mughals had reached by the time of Jahangir. The savage and nomadic Babur pined for melons from his homeland. For him, mangoes were but a consolation. But by the time his great-grandson reigned, the Mughals had become so civilized and Indianized that tropical fruits were now more precious to them than the fruits of their homeland.
Noor Jahan is said to have concocted wines out of mangoes and roses for Jahangir. Mangoes were also rumored to have been used as aphrodisiacs during this time. Just like Humayun, there is a variety of mangoes named after Jahangir. It is called the 'Jahangir mango'.
Both Jahangir and his son Shah Jahan are said to have awarded their khansamahs for recipes like aam panna, aam ka lauz, and aam ka mitha pulav that were developed in the shahi kitchens during their reigns. Shah Jahan is said to have loved mangoes so much that he once punished Aurangzeb for not sending him mangoes from the Deccan and keeping them all to himself.
Mangoes seem to have served a variety of purposes during Aurangzeb's reign ranging from diplomatic to romantic. A record states that Aurangzeb had sent mangoes to the Shah of Iran as a diplomatic gift. On one instance Aurangzeb had received 200 camel loads of dry fruits and mangoes as part of a peace treaty. Aurangzeb's sister Jahanara, who had originally sided with Dara Shukoh, was reconciled with Aurangzeb and later took over her old position of Padshah Begum. This reconciliation is said to have happened over innumerable plates of mango delicacies. Jahanara would go on to continue this tradition and use mangoes while negotiating with Aurangzeb. It seems that for all his frugality and orthodoxy, mangoes were one pleasure that Aurangzeb couldn't manage to sacrifice.
His love story with Hirabai is also intertwined with that of the mango. It is said that the first glimpse Aurangzeb got of Hirabai was as she was plucking mangoes from a fruit-laden tree in his aunt's garden in Burhanpur.
In the Ruqaat-i Alamgiri, a compilation of Aurangzeb's letters to his son, mangoes feature quite prominently. One of the letters goes as such,
"Exalted son, I was much pleased with the basket of mangoes sent by you to your old father. You have requested me to suggest names for the mangoes. When you yourself are very clever, why do you give trouble to your old father? However, I have named them 'Sudharas' and 'Rasnavilas'"
Curiously enough, here Aurangzeb gives the mangoes Sanskrit names that roughly translate to 'divine nectar' and 'relishable to the palate'
Aurangzeb met his end in the Deccan, tired out and defeated by the Marathas. Just like Babur who had pined for his beloved melons, it is said that Aurangzeb pined for mangoes till his last breath.
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