do Mogor, but places it during the 16th century king Akbar's invasion of Chittor. Historian Kishori Saran Lal points out several inconsistencies in the Padmavat legend. For example, that Ratnasimha had ascended the throne in 1301, and was defeated by Alauddin in 1303 whereas Padmavat claims that Ratnasimha spent 12 years in quest of Padmavati, and then 8 years in conflict with Alauddin. Lal also points out the inconsistencies in the narratives of the later medieval historians. For example, Firishta states that Alauddin ordered his son Khizr Khan to evacuate Chittor in 1304, and then appointed a nephew of Ratnasimha as its new governor. However, Khizr Khan left Chittor much after 1304. According to Lal, Jaisi himself suggests that Padmavat is meant to be an allegory, not a narration of a historical event, because the author mentions that in his narrative, Chittor stands for the body, Raja (Ratnasimha) for the mind, Singhal for the heart, Padmavati for wisdom, and Alauddin for lust. Lal concludes that the only historical facts in the legend are that Alauddin captured Chittor, and that the women of the fort (including a queen of Ratnasimha) died in jauhar. Banarsi Prasad Saksena believes that even the jauhar narrative is a fabrication: the contemporary chronicler Amir Khusrau refers to the jauhar during the earlier conquest of Ranthambore, but does not mention any jauhar at Chittor. The poem Padmavat ends with Jayasi's own words, "I have made up the story and related it." According to Jawaharlal Nehru University historian Aditya Mukherjee, in "the contemporary period, there is no mention of this event, no accounts of Padmavati by Amir Khusrau, a prolific writer of the era and a courtier of Alauddin Khilji." He states that there "is no historical evidence of this Padmavati event - this story is a poet's imagination". Regarding the historicity of Padmini's (Padmavati) story, historian S. Roy wrote in The History and Culture of the Indian People that "...... Abu-'l Fazl definitely says that he gives the story of Padminī from "ancient chronicles", which cannot obviously refer to the Padmāvat, an almost contemporary work. ...... it must be admitted that there is no inherent impossibility in the kernel of the story of Padminī devoid of all embellishments, and it should not be totally rejected off-hand as a myth. But it is impossible, at the present state of our knowledge, to regard it definitely as a historical