History of Aurangzib/Volume 1/Chapter 1

by Jadunath Sarkar

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The History of Aurangzib.

CHAPTER I.

Boyhood And Education, 1618–1634.

Muhiuddin Muhammad Aurangzib, who ascendedBirth. the throne of Delhi as Alamgir I., was the sixth child of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, the royal couple who lie buried in the famous Taj Mahal. His grandfather, the Emperor Jahangir, after putting down one of Malik Ambar's attempts to revive the Ahmadnagar kingship, was leisurely making a royal progress from Guzerat to Agra, with Shah Jahan and his family in his train, when at Dohad,^[1] on the way to Ujjain, Aurangzib was born, in the night of 15th Ziqada, 1027 A.H.^[2] (or, according to European calculation, the night preceding Sunday, 24th October, 1618 A.D., Old Style). A few days afterwards when the Imperial Court reached Ujjain, the capital of Malwa, the princely infant's birth was celebrated with befitting splendour.^[3]

Aurangzib cherished an affectionate memory of the place of his birth; we find him in his old age writing to his son Muhammad Azam, "Noble son, the village of Dohad, in the province of Guzerat, is the birth-place of this sinner. Deem it proper to treat its inhabitants with kindness. Conciliate and retain at his post the old man who has been its faujdar for a long time past."^[4]

Shah Jahan was intensely devoted to his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and never in her life parted from her in weal or woe. Wherever he moved, whether marching on a campaign, visiting different provinces, or, in Jahangir's later years, fleeing from his father's wrath through the wilderness of Telingana to Bengal,—his wife always bore him company. Thus, Aurangzib was born on the return march from the Deccan and Murad Bakhsh^[5] in the fort of Rohtas in South Bihar.

From 1622 till almost the end of his father'sAurangzib a hostage for his father. reign, Shah Jahan was under cloud; the infatuated old Emperor, entirely dominated by his selfish and imperious consort Nur Jahan, deprived Shah Jahan of his posts and fiefs, and at last drove him into rebellion in self-defence. But the prince's efforts were in general unsuccessful, and he had to flee by way of Telingana, Orissa and Bengal to Jaunpur and back again to the Deccan by the same wild and terrible route, his wife and children accompanying him. At last he had no help but to submit to his father and give up young sons, Dara and Aurangzib, as hostages. These two reached Jahangir's Court at Lahore in June 1626,^[6] and remained under the care of Nur Jahan. Shortly afterwards Jahangir died, Shah Jahan ascended the throne, and the two boys were escorted by Asaf Khan to Agra, where a most pathetic scene was acted: their eagerly expectant mother clasped her long lost darlings to her bosom and poured out all her pent up affection for them^[7] (26 February, 1628). Aurangzib's daily allowance was now fixed at Rs. 500.

Thus, at the age of ten he came to a settled life; and arrangements were evidently now made for his regular education. Sadullah Khan, who rose to be the best reputed of Shah Jahan's wazirs, is said^[8] to have been one of his teachers. Another teacher was Mir Muhammad Hashim of Gilan, who after a study of twelve years at Mecca and Medina came to India, learnt medicine under Hakim Ali Gilani, and kept a famous school at Ahmadabad, here he was afterwards made Civil Judge (Sadr). As Aurangzib's tutor he remained in the Prince's service till the end of Shah Jahan's reign.^[9] Bernier^[10] speaks of Mulla Salih as his old teacher, but the Persian histories do not bear this statement out. Of one Mulla Salih Badakhshani^[11] we read that he was a scholar of Balkh and had his first audience of Shah Jahan on 4th January, 1647, when Aurangzib was already 29 years of age,—too old to go to school.

That Aurangzib had a natural keenness of mind and quickly learnt what he can readily believe. His correspondence proves that he had thoroughly mastered the Quran and the Traditional Sayings of Muhammad (Hadis), and ever ready with apt quotations from them. He spoke and wrote Arabic and Persian like a scholar. Hindustani was his mother tongue, the language used by the Mughal Court in private life. He had some knowledge of Hindi, too, and could talk and recite popular sayings in that language.^[12] He acquired a mastery over Chaghtai Turki, as he had served in Balkh and Qandahar, and the Mughal army contained a large body of men recruited from Central Asia. Under exactly the same circumstances Jai Singh had learnt that foreign tongue.^[13]

Aurangzib wrote Arabic in a vigorous and masterly naskh hand. In this he used to copy the Quran, a deed of piety in Muslim eyes. Two manuscripts of this book he presented to Mecca and Medina, after richly binding and illuminating them.^[14] A third copy is preserved at the tomb of Nizamuddin Auliya near Delhi. Others were sold in his lifetime by this puritan Emperor, who deemed it sinful to eat the bread of idleness, and used to ply the trade of copyist and cap-maker in his leisure hours in order to earn his livelihood. Copies of these Qurans are known to exist here and there in India.

"His nastaliq and shikasta styles of writing were also excellent," says Saqi Mustad Khan, and this we can readily believe, for Aurangzib was the author of a vast number of letters, and made it a point to write orders across all petitions in his own hand^[15] The princes of the house of Akbar were taught handwriting with great care, as the signatures of Shah Jahan and Dara Shukoh on some Persian MSS. of their libraries, and the autograph remarks of Jahangir in his book of fate (a copy of the Diwan of Hafiz), look remarkably clear and beautiful.^[16]

In his letters and speeches, he frequently quotesFavourite studies. verses to point his remarks. But these "familiar quotations" were a part of the mental equipment of every cultured Muhammadan, and do not prove any special taste for poetry. Indeed his historian remarks, "This emperor did not like to hear useless poetry, still less laudatory verses. But he made an exception in favour of poems containing good counsels."^[17] The moral precepts of Sadi and Hafiz he had evidently learnt by rote in his youth, and he quoted them to his last day, but he does not seem to have studied these poets in later life. Once he asked for the works of a poet named Mulla Shah.^[18] But we may rightly hold that, unlike his grandfather he was not fond of poetry, and unlike Shah Jahan he had no passion for history. "His favourite study was theological works,—Commentaries on the Quran, the Traditions of Muhammad, Canon Law, the works of Imam Muhammad Ghazzali, selections from the letters of Shaikh Sharf Yahia of Munir, and Shaikh Zainuddin Qutb Muhi Shirazi, and other works of that class."^[19] We also learn that he highly prized the Nihaiyya of Mulla Abdullah Tabbakh.^[20] Like many other pious Muslims, and even some ladies of the Mughal royal family, Aurangzib committed the Quran to memory.

Such intellectual tastes made him find delight in the society of dervishes, and when he was Viceroy of the Deccan, he took care to visit the holymen of Islam in his province, engaging them in talk, and reverently learning wisdom at their feet.

Painting he never appreciated. Indeed theNo taste for the fine arts. portraiture of any living being was impossible under an orthodox Islamic king, as an impious imitation of the Creator. Music he banished from his Court, in the outburst of devotion which marked the completion of the tenth year of his reign. Fine Chinaware he liked, and these were presented to him by nobles and traders. But he had none of his father's passion for building. No masterpiece of architecture, no superb or exquisite mosque,^[21] hall, or tomb marks his reign. All that he built took the impress of his utilitarian mind. They were commonplace necessary things, piles of brick and mortar, which quickly decayed. Such were the mosques which marked the scenes of his victories, and the numberless serais which he built along the Imperial highways running to the south and the west.^[22]

One incident of his boyhood made his fame ring throughout India, andElephant combat at Agra. showed what stuff he was made of. It was his encounter with a fighting elephant on 28th May, 1633. That morning Shah Jahan, who loved this sport, set two huge elephants, Sudhakar and Surat-sundar by name, to fight a combat on the level bank of the Jumna near the mansion at Agra which he used to occupy before his accession. They ran for some distance and then grappled together just below the balcony of the morning salute in the fort. The Emperor hastened there to see the fight, his eldest three sons riding a few paces before him. Aurangzib, intent on seeing the fight, edged his way very close to the elephants.

The brutes after a while let go their grip andElephant charges Aurangzib. each stepped back a little. Sudhakar's spirit was fully roused. Losing sight of his opponent he turned to vent his wrath on the prince standing by. Trumpeting fiercely, the moving mountain charged Aurangzib. The Prince, then only fourteen years old, calmly stood his ground, kept his horse from turning back, and flung his spear at the elephant's head. All was now confusion and alarm. The crowd swayed this way and that, men stumbling on one another in their eagerness to flee. The nobles and the servants ran about shouting, fireworks were let off to scare away the elephant, but all to no effect. The animal came on and felled Aurangzib's horse with a sweep of his long tusk. But the prince jumped up from the ground, drew his sword, and faced the raging beast. The unequal combat would have soon ended fatally for the heroic boy, but succour was at hand. His brother Shuja forced his way through the crowd and smoke, galloped up to the elephant, and wounded it with his spear. But his horse reared and he was thrown down. Rajah Jai Singh, too, came up, and while managing his shying steed with one hand attacked the elephant with the other from the right side. Shah Jahan shouted to his own guards to run to the spot.

Just then an unlooked for diversion came to the princes' aid. The other elephant, Suratsundar, ran up to renew the combat, and Sudhakar, having now no stomach for the fight, or being daunted by the spear-thrusts and fire works discharged at him, fled from the field with his rival thundering at his heels.

Aurangzib rewarded. The danger thus passed away, and the princes were saved. Shah Jahan clasped Aurangzib to his bosom, praised his courage, gave him the title of Bahadur or 'hero,' and covered him with presents. The courtiers cried out that the boy had inherited his father's reckless courage, and told each other how Shah Jahan in his youth had attacked a wild tiger sword in hand before the eyes of Jahangir.^[23]

Brave words. On this occasion Aurangzib gave a foretaste of his lofty spirit and royal contempt for death, in his speech as reported by Hamiduddin Khan. When his father lovingly chid him for his rash courage, he replied, "If the fight had ended fatally for me it would not have been a matter of shame. Death drops the curtain even on emperors; it is no dishonour. The shame lay in what my brothers did! ^[24]

Three days afterwards occurred his fifteenth birthday. The Emperor had the boy weighed against gold pieces in full Court and presented him with the amount (5000 mohars,) the elephant Sudhakar, and other gifts worth two lakhs of rupees in all. The heroic deed was celebrated in Urdu and Persian verses. The Poet Laureate, Saidai Gilani, surnamed Bedil Khan, got Rs. 5,000 for his ode. Shuja was praised for his gallant exertions. Another sum of 5,000 gold pieces was distributed by the Emperor in charity.^[25]

Thereafter we get occasional glimpses of Aurangzib. Next year the Emperor paid a visit to Kashmir. Aurangzib accompanied him, and was presented with the parganah of Lukh-bhavan near Sahibabad or Achbal (September, 1634).^[26]

Hitherto Aurangzib had been getting, likeHis first mansab. other Mughal princes before they were old enough for military appointment, a daily allowance of Rs. 500. But on 13th December, 1634, though not yet sixteen, he got his first post in the Mughal peerage, with the rank of a Commander of Ten Thousand Horse, with an additional following of 4000 troopers. He was also permitted to use the red tent, which was a royal prerogative.^[27] The governorship of the Deccan was intended for him, and there, under the guidance of the highest generals of his father's Court, he was expected to receive the best education then possible for a man of action and a leader of men. As a preparation for this high and difficult post he was given his first lessons in the art of war and the control of men by being sent to the Bundela Expedition in September, 1635.^[28]

1. Dohad (22°50 N. 74°20 E., Indian Atlas, Sheet 36 s. w.) is a subdivision of the Panch Mahal District in the Bombay Presidency, and the town stands just south of the Dohad Station on the B. B. & C. I. Railway.
2. Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri ed. by Syud Ahmud, p. 250.
3. Tuzuk, p. 251.
4. Ruqat-i-Alamgiri, lithographed ed., No. 31.
5. Tuzuk, 391.
6. Tuzuk, 380-391, 397, 410. Gladwin, 69-75, 78.
7. Abdul Hamid's Padishahnamah, I.A. 70, 97, 177.
8. Hamiduddin's Ahkam-i-Alamgiri, Ir. MS. 23a. But Sadullah entered Shah Jahan's service in Dec. 1640. (Pad. ii, 220).
9. Padishahnamah, I. B. 345.
10. Bernier's Travels, ed. by Constable, p. 154.
11. Padishahnamah, ii. 624.
12. Masir-i-Alamgiri, 334. Alamgirnamah, 1095.
13. Dilkasha, p. 63.
14. Masir-i-Alamgiri, 532.
15. Alamgirnamah, 1092—'94.
16. MSS. containing the autographs of these princes are preserved in the Khuda Bakhsh Library, Bankipur.
17. Masir-i-Alamgiri, 532.
18. Asiatic Society of Bengal Pars. MS. F. 27, 5a. He mentions another poet whose pen-name was Fani.
19. Masir-i-Alamgiri, 531-532. He spent his leisure in the afternoon in investigating theological problems, deliberating on the philosophy of truth, (lit., 'the certain sciences,') reading the books and pamphlets of wisemen and saints. (Alamgirnamah, 1103.) Aurangzib speaks of his having read two books of Ghazzali (A.S.B. Pers. MS. F, 27, 126a and b.)
20. Masir-i-Alamgiri, 391.
21. Except one, the Pearl Mosque in the Delhi palace, which was begun on 10 Dec. 1659 and completed in 5 years at a cost of one lakh and sixty thousand rupees, (Alamgir-namah, 468, Masir-i-Alamgiri, 29). His mosque at Lahore is not the best one in that city.
22. Aurangzib's mosque at Fatihabad or Dharmat, where he defeated Jaswant Singh, was in ruins when I visited it on 19th October, 1909. For the serias he built, see Alamgirnamah, 1084
23. Abdul Hamid, I.A. 489—495, Khafi Khan, I. 474. In one MS. we have Madhukar for Sudhakar.
24. Hamiduddin Khan's Ahkam-i-Alamgiri, Ir. MS. 15a & b. Dara Shukoh is unjustly taunted with cowardice in the above speech. He was at some distance from Shuja and Aurangzib, and could not, even if he had wished it, have come to Aurangzib's aid as the affair was over in a few minutes. For another version of the incident, see Dow, iii. 136.
25. Abdul Hamid, I. A. 493.
26. Abdul Hamid, I. B. 52. Achbal, in the Kuthar Pargana, 75°17 E. Long. 33°41 N. Lat., famous for its beautiful springs described by Bernier (Constable's ed. p. 413). At the western end of the Pargana and 5 miles to the s. w. of Achbal is the village of Lokbavan. King Lalitaditya is said to have built a town here. A small garden-palace erected in Mughal times near the spring is partly constructed of old materials. (Stein's Rajatarangini, i. 50n, ii. 468.)
27. Abdul Hamid, I. B. 65.
28. Ibid, I. B. 99.