History of Aurangzib/Volume 1/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
The history of Aurangzib is practically the history of India for sixty years. His own reign (1658—1707) covers the second half of the seventeenth century and stands forth as a most important epoch in the annals of our country. Under him the Mughal empire reached its greatest extent, and the largest single State ever known in India from the dawn of history to the rise of the British power was formed. From Ghazni to Chatgaon, from Kashmir to the Karnatak, the continent of India obeyed one sceptre; and beyond this region, in far-off Ladak and Malabar, the suzerainty of the same ruler was proclaimed from the pulpit. Islam made its last onward movement in India in this reign.
The empire thus formed, while unprecedented in size, was also one political unit. Its parts were governed not by the mediation of sub-kings, but directly by the servants of the Crown. Herein Aurangzib's Indian empire was vaster than that of Asoka, or Samudra-gupta or Harsha-vardhan. No provincial governor had as yet set up his own rule and withheld revenue and obedience from the central power. There were rebellions here and there, but no other crowned head raised itself to defy the Emperor of Delhi even in any province.
But the reign that saw the formation of the greatest Indian empire of pre-British days, witnessed also unmistakable signs of its commencing decline and disruption. Long before Nadir Shah the Persian or Ahmad Shah the Afghan proved the Padishah to be an impotent shadow of royalty and Delhi the mere memory of past greatness, long before the Maratha confederacy hid beneath its super-imposed sway the regular monarchy of the land,—even before Aurangzib closed his eyes, the Mughal empire had turned bankrupt in finance and prestige, the administration had broken down, the Imperial power had confessed its failure to maintain order and hold this vast realm together.
The reign of Aurangzib is also marked by the upspringing of the Maratha nationality out of the ashes of their short-lived kingship, and by the appearance of the Sikh sect in the role of warriors and armed opponents of the ruling power. Thus the supreme factors of Indian politics in the 18th and early 19th centuries owe their origin to Aurangzib's reign and policy. In the Deccan, after kings like Adil Shah and Qutb Shah, Sambhaji and Rajah Ram, had bowed low before the Mughal blast, the people asserted themselves and drove back the spoiler from the North. To the Marathas, alone among the Indian peoples, belongs the glory of giving the first successful check to the onward advance of the Mughal power and saving their fatherland from foreign encroachment. Their development into conquerors and raiders belongs to the next age.
In the very reign in which the Mughal crescent rounded to fulness and then began to wane visibly, the first glow of a new dawn was distinctly seen in our political sky. The future lords of our country's destiny gained a firm and safe footing on its soil. Madras and Bombay became presidencies of the English East India Company in 1653 and 1689 respectively; Calcutta was founded in 1690. The shelter thus secured to the Europeans formed a dominion within a dominion, and was fortified to defy the greatest onslaughts of the "country powers." The "merchant adventurers" here began their first experiments in Oriental government and legislation,—experiments which were destined in the fulness of time to result in an empire larger than that of the Romans and more populous than that of Charles V., and a civilised and progressive administration to which the world, ancient or modern, affords no parallel.
The end of the seventeenth century reveals the Mughal empire as rotten at the core. The grand edifice which Akbar had built up and Shah Jahan and Aurangzib had extended, still looked fair as before, but it was ready to tumble down like a house of cards at the first touch of the foreign invader's lance. The Treasury was empty. The Imperial army knew itself defeated and recoiled from its foes. The centrifugal forces were asserting themselves successfully, and the empire was ready for disruption. The moral weakness of the empire was even greater than the material: the Government no longer commanded the awe of its subjects; the public servants had lost honesty and efficiency; ministers and princes alike lacked statesmanship and ability; the army broke down as an instrument of force. In letter after letter the aged Aurangzib mourns over the utter incapacity of his officers and sons and chastises them with his sharp pen, but in despair of a remedy. Contemporaries like Bhimsen and Khafi Khan, sadly contrast the misery and degradation of the nobles and the people alike in Aurangzib's closing years with the glory of the empire under his forefathers, and wonder why it was so.
Why was it so? The ruler was free from vice, stupidity, or sloth. His intellectual keenness was proverbial, and at the same time he took to the business of governing with all the ardour which men usually display in the pursuit of pleasure. In industry and attention to public affairs he could not be surpassed by any clerk. His patience and perseverance were as remarkable as his love of discipline and order. In private life he was simple and abstemious like a hermit. He faced the privations of a campaign or a forced march as uncomplainingly as the most seasoned private. No terror could daunt his heart, no weakness or pity melt it. Of the wisdom of the ancients which can be gathered from ethical books, he was a master. He had, besides, undergone a long and successful probation in war and diplomacy in his father's life time.
And yet the result of fifty years' rule by such a sovereign was failure and chaos! The cause of this political paradox is to be found in Aurangzib's policy and conduct. Hence his reign is an object of supreme interest to the student of political philosophy no less than to the student of Indian history.
Happily, the materials for a study of it are abundant in Persian, the literary language of Mughal India. First, we have the official annals,—the Padishahnaman (in three sections by three writers) and the Alamgirnamah—which cover the 41 years lying between the accession of Shah Jahan and the tenth year of Aurangzib's reign. These works were written by order, on the basis of the State papers preserved in the Imperial archives, such as official correspondence, despatches, newsletters, treaties and revenue returns. They are rich in dates and topographical details of the utmost value and accuracy, but as they were read to the Emperor and revised by him before presentation to the public, they suppress or belittle all incidents likely to throw discredit on his character or government. For the last forty years of Aurangzib's reign we have the Masir-i-Alamgiri, compiled from the same class of official records, but after his death, and hence free from the fulsome flattery and misrepresentation of the former two histories. Unfortunately, this work is very condensed and lacks the fulness and detail of the regular official annals.
Next come a class of private histories, like those of Masum, Aqil Khan, and Khafi Khan. These were written by officials, but, not having been meant for the Emperor's eyes, they supply us with many of the facts suppressed in the court annals, though their dates and names are sometimes inaccurate and their descriptions meagre. They, however, contain many personal traits and graphic touches which the more formal official histories have excluded. Khafi Khan, who has been mainly relied on by European writers, completed his work twenty-six years after the death of Aurangzib. His history is professedly an abridgement of the Court annals for the entire reign of Shah Jahan and the earlier part of that of Aurangzib, But he begins to speak with personal knowledge from about 1688 and often quotes what he had gathered from his father and his friends, who had witnessed earlier scenes. In the same class must be placed the biographical dictionary of the peers of the Mughal empire, the Masir-ul-umara, written in 1780 on the basis of the existing Persian annals, but giving many characteristic anecdotes from tradition and throwing many side-lights on the manners of past generations.
There are even two histories of Aurangzib's reign written by Hindus in the Persian tongue. One is the Nuskha-i-Dilkasha by Bhimsen Burhanpuri, the business man of Aurangzib's general Dalpat Rao Bundela. This author was an active traveller, with a good eye for topographical details, and a careful recorder of all he saw from Mathura to Malabar. His work is of special value for Deccan affairs, because there he was brought up and spent nearly all his life. He lived near enough to the Imperial Court to learn facts accurately, but was not so closely connected with it as to be a lying flatterer. The other is the Fatuhat-i-Alamgiri of Isar-das Nagar, who long served the Shaikh-ul-Islam and lived at Pattan in Guzerat. This work is of great importance for Rajput affairs.
Besides these general histories of the reign, we have monographs in Persian touching only particular episodes or personages of the time,—such as Niamat Khan Ali's account of the siege of Golkonda, Shihabuddin Talish's diary of the conquest of Kuch Bihar, Assam, and Chatgaon, the memoirs of Iradat Khan and of some other servants of Bahadur Shah I. which start from the closing years of Aurangzib's reign. Of the two Deccani kingdoms of Golkonda and Bijapur we have separate histories, which throw light on the dealings of the Mughal Government with them. On the Maratha side there are chronicles (Bakhars) of Shivaji, Sambhaji, and Rajah Ram written by their officers and others. Mr. Rajwade is said to have hunted out a number of historical letters of the 17th century in Marathi for inclusion in the Aitihasik Lekh Sangraha series.
The Royal Asiatic Society of London has a box of Court bulletins of Aurangzib's time (Akhbarat-i-Darbar-i-Muala). They are bare skeletons,—dry, extremely brief, and good only for dates. Only a few have been preserved for the first 22 years of the reign, but from the 36th year they are more numerous.
The accounts of Aurangzib's reign now current in India, especially in Urdu, are based on works like the Tarikh-i-Muhammad Shahi, and the Tarikh-i-Farah-Bakhsh, written long after the events and merely reproducing the bazar gossip and popular traditions. Not being based on official records and other contemporary sources of information, their evidence must be rejected wherever they conflict with the earlier and authoritative histories of Aurangzib's reign. These unreliable but picturesque works have inspired Dow's History of Hindostan and Stewart's History of Bengal, and continue to perpetuate many historical heresies in the popular belief of India.
Most fortunately, for several portions of Aurangzib's reign I have been able to secure the very raw materials of history,—a source of information even more valuable than the contemporary official annals described above. These are the LETTERS of the actors in the political drama of the 17th century, of which nearly three thousand are in my possession. In them we see events as they happened day by day, and not as they were dressed up afterwards by writers with a purpose. In them we see the actual hopes and fears, plans and opinions of those who made Indian history. To this class belong the letters of Aurangzib (forming many different and bulky collections, to be described in the bibliography), of his father, brothers and sisters (in the Faiyaz-ul-qawanin, Lucknow MS.), of Jai Singh (in the Haft Anjuman, Benares MS.), of Aurangzib's fourth son Prince Akbar (in the Adab-i-Alamgiri, the Zahur-ul-insha, and the Khatut-i-Shivaji), of Shah Abbas II. (in a MS. picked up by me in the Lucknow bazar), the Mughal-Maratha correspondence in the Khatut-i-Shivaji, and the letters of various officials such as Nur-ul-Hassan, Radandaz Khan, and Lutfullah Khan, besides several miscellaneous collections in the libraries of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, the India Office of London, and the Nawab of Rampur. Mr. P. V. Mawji of Bombay has collected some Persian letters addressed to Shivaji and his father, but he has declined to let other scholars use them.
An extremely interesting collection of anecdotes about Aurangzib with many of his sayings and orders on petitions, is the Ahkam-i-Alamgiri, ascribed to Hamiduddin Khan Nimchah, which I have translated as Anecdotes of Aurungzib.
We have a cloud of witnesses,—both professed histories and collections of letters,—for the beginning and the end of Aurangzib's reign; but the intervening period of nearly thirty years (1667-1696) is comparatively dark. I, however, believe that many other historical letters of these decades can still be discovered in India, especially in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, if my educated countrymen interest themselves in the quest and make it a point to examine the Persian MSS. in private possession with knowledge and care.
The European travellers, Tavernier, Bernier, and Manucci, who visited India in this reign, have left long accounts of the country. Their works are of undoubted value as throwing light on the condition of the people, the state of trade and industry, and the history of the Christian churches in India. Moreover, the criticism of Indian institutions by foreign observers has a freshness and weight all its own. But of the political history of India, apart from the few events in which they took part or which they personally witnessed, their report merely reproduced the bazar rumours and the stories current among the populace, and cannot be set against the evidence of contemporary histories and letters in Persian. Tavernier and Bernier touch only the beginning of the reign; the former took most of his facts from Bernier, who, again, was indebted to Manucci for several particulars. The last-named writer's Storia do Mogor covers the whole reign; but he was a run-away lad of poor education when he reached India, and, as is admitted by his able editor, was a credulous listener. He wrote long after most of the events, and from memory; hence we cannot expect accuracy in his narrative. From their position these foreign travellers had no access to the best sources of information; the State archives were closed to them. They visited the makers of Indian history only occasionally and as suppliants for favours; hence they could not derive the oral information which only familiar intercourse with the highest personages in camp and Court could have given them. Finally, their imperfect knowledge of literary Persian prevented them from using the written annals of the time and checking the reports they had received orally. For instance, Manucci's story of how Aurangzib, when travelling slenderly guarded, met with Jai Singh at the head of an army and with great presence of mind hailed him as a friend (Storia, i. 320), is proved by the known dates to have been impossible. The official annals are so detailed that any wrong date in them clashes with what goes before and after, and can be at once detected. We must accept their dates as against those supplied by the European travellers. Hence, in my narrative, I have not been able to use Bernier and Manucci except to a limited extent, viz., where they supplement the official histories or record the writers' personal experiences.
I cannot place this history before the public without acknowledging the deep debt of gratitude I owe to the late Mr. William Irvine, I.C.S., the author of the Later Mughals. He freely lent me his own Persian MSS., took great pains in securing on my behalf permission from European public libraries to take copies of their MSS., and beat down the rates demanded by photographers in London and Paris for mechanically reproducing (by a process called 'rotary bromide print') Persian MSS. for me. In every difficulty and doubt that I have appealed to him, he has given prompt assistance and advice. A certain Indian Nawab has a rare volume of Persian historical letters. I secured his permission to take a copy of it at my expense, and engaged a scribe. But for more than a year the Nawab's officers under various pretexts refused my man access to the MS. At last, in despair I wrote to Mr. Irvine about the case. He wrote to one of his friends, high in the Civil Service of the U. P., and this gentleman communicated with the Nawab. The owner of the MS. now had it copied at his own expense, bound the transcript in silk and morocco, and presented it to Mr. Irvine, who lent it to me as soon as he received it!
Mr. Irvine criticised and emended the first five chapters of this history, as carefully and minutely as if it were his own work. His lamented death has robbed me of the pleasure of presenting these volumes to him; but I am happy that I could show him at least a portion of the book, and I have been heartened in my undertaking by the following cordial appreciation from a critic of his standing and ability:—
"I like the style—from this first impression,—it being a judicious compromise between the over-crowded stiffness of my Later Mughals and mere popular, journalese writing,—yet without any sacrifice of exactness." And again, "I like very much your attention to genealogy and topography and above all your recourse to all modern sources of information—the Indian Atlas and modern travellers."
Dr. C. R. Wilson, the historian of the Early Annals of the English in Bengal, who encouraged my historical studies and recommended me, unsolicited, to the Bengal Government for aid, is also beyond the reach of my thanks. The Education Department of Bengal, at his instance, very kindly made a grant of £39 5s. for getting copies of the MSS. I needed from the Bodleian, the British Museum, and the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris,—the copies to remain in the Imperial Library, Calcutta, as Government property, after I had done with them. The Secretary of State for India has lent me Persian MSS. from the India Office Library on four occasions and the Royal Asiatic Society of London twice, for which priceless help I am deeply indebted to them.
My thanks are due to the authorities of the Khuda Bakhsh Library (Bankipur), the Bodleian, the British Museum, the Cambridge University Library, the Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris), and the Berlin Royal Library, and to H. H. the Nawab of Rampur, Nawab Abdus Salam Khan Bahadur (late Sub-Judge, Oudh), Major Vaman Das Basu, I.M.S. (ret.), and Munshi Shyam Sundar Lal (of Benares), for their enlightened courtesy in allowing me to take copies of certain of their Persian MSS.
Among friends in India who have taken pains for me in securing the permission of owners of MSS. and engaging copyists, I gratefully mention Hafiz Ahmad Ali Khan (Rampur State), Mr. D. N. Mallik (Electrical Engineer) and Mr. Maqbul Alam, B.A., LL.B., (Benares). Nor should I omit the name of my former colleague, Maulvi Abdul Hai, Lecturer, Patna College, to whom I have gone in every difficulty in interpreting Persian and who gave much of his time to collating the Persian MSS. copied for me.
In the spelling of Eastern words I have followed the Hunterian system, restricting u to express the sound of oo, except in a very small number of cases (such as Jumna, nullah, Calcutta, &c.) I have also in a few instances (like Barhamdeo) refrained from Sanskritising Hindi proper names, in order to avoid too great a departure from the popular pronunciation. All the dates in the Hijera era have been converted to the Christian era according to the Old Style.
Two volumes of my history are now placed before the public. A third is expected to be ready in manuscript a year hence. To complete this long reign of 50 years and give some account of the condition of the people, trade, life and manners, two more volumes at least will be needed. I am now on the threshhold of my subject and can see its distant end but dimly.
Jadunath Sarkar.
⁂ Chapters I-IX, XI—XV, XIX, XXIII and XXIV were first printed in the Modern Review and a portion of Ch. XXV in the Indian Review; but they have been thoroughly revised and emended before publication in their present form.