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History of Aurangzib/Volume 1/Chapter 12

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CHAPTER XII.

The Illness of Shah Jahan, 1657.

In December, 1656, the public health of Delhi became so bad that Shah Jahan with his Court proceeded to the bank of the Ganges at Garh Mukteshwar, a place noted for its game. In less than a month he returned to the capital; but as the epidemic continued, he again left it (February, 1657), and went to Mukhlispur on the Jumna, nearly a hundred miles north of Delhi. The cool climate of this place, at the foot of the Sirmur hills and yet within easy reach of the capital by boat, had led him to choose it as his summer retreat, and he had adorned it with fine palaces for himself and his eldest son, and given it the glorious name of Faizabad.[1]

Here a grand Court ceremony was held.[2] He just completed three decades of his reign and began the 31stShah Jahan's reign: year on 7th March. In the ​ official annals of the Mughal Emperors written by their command, every period of ten years (called dawwar) was taken together and a volume devoted to it. Three such decades formed an epoch (qarn),[3] which was regarded as a sort of perfect and auspicious number. Shah Jahan had completed one such epoch and begun another. The occasion was, therefore, one of peculiar importance and solemnity.

The reign had been as prosperous as it had its glories; been long. The 'wealth of Ind' under this Great Mughal dazzled the eyes of foreign visitors, and on gala days ambassadors from Bukhara and Persia, Turkey and Arabia, as well as travellers from France and Italy, gazed with wonder at the Peacock Throne and the Kohinur and other jewels which cast a luminous halo round the Emperor's person. The white marble edifices which he loved to build were as costly as they were chaste in design. The nobles of the empire eclipsed the kings of other lands in wealth and pomp. Save for two failures of his arms outside the natural frontiers of India, the Imperial prestige stood higher than ever before. The bounds of the ​"protected empire" had been stretched further than in any preceding reign. happiness of the people.Within the country itself a profound peace reigned. The peasantry were carefully cherished; harsh and exacting governors were in many cases dismissed on the complaint of the people. Wealth and prosperity increased on all hands. As a panegyrist sang:—

"The people are light of heart as the
Emperor bears the heavy burden
(of looking after them);
Disorder has fallen into a deep sleep
through his wakefulness."[4]

A kind and yet wise master, Shah Jahan had gathered round himself a band of very able officers, and made his Court the centre of the wit and wisdom of the land.

But some ominous shadows had already been cast on this bright prospect, and with the passage of time they were deepening. One by one the great ministers and generals who had contributed to the glory of the reign were being removed by the pitiless hand of Death. The three best known officers and dearest personal friends of Shah Jahan died within the last five years: Said Khan Bahadur Zafar Jang on 4th January, 1652, Sadullah Khan, the Abul Fazl of his age, ​on 7th April, 1656, and Ali Mardan Khan, the premier peer, on 16th April, 1657.[5] And, as the giants of old passed away, the Emperor found no worthy successors to them among the new faces and younger men about him.[6] He had already completed 67 lunar years,[7] and the life of warfare and hardship that he had gone through in his father's latter years, followed by the long ease of his own tranquil reign, had undermined his body, and he already felt the hand of age. What would happen after him? The question of succession.That was the question now present in all minds. Often and often had he talked with his confidants about the future,[8] and that future was most gloomy.

Shah Jahan had four sons. All of them were past youth, and all had gained experience as governors of provinces and commanders of armies. But there was no brotherly love among them, though the three younger princes,—Shuja, Aurangzib and Murad Bakhsh, were usually drawn together by a common jealousy of the ​eldest, Dara Shukoh, their father's favourite and intended heir. The ill-feeling between Dara and Aurangzib in particular was so bitter and had continued growing bitterer for so many years past, that it was the talk of the whole empire, and peace had been maintained between them only by keeping Aurangzib far away from the Court and his eldest brother.[9] Everyone foreboded that the succession to Shah Jahan's throne would be disputed, and that a universal and complicated civil war would deluge all parts of India with blood, as soon as he would close his eyes or even earlier.

Shah Jahan had given clear indications that he wished to leave the crown Dara Shukoh, the heir designate:to Dara. As this prince was the eldest of four brothers by the same mother, the choice was not an act of unjust partiality, but simply followed the law of nature which gives to the eldest-born authority and precedence above the younger ones. In order to train him in the administration of the empire and to smooth the transfer of the supreme authority to him, the Emperor had kept Dara by his side for many years past. The viceroyalty of rich and long-settled provinces like Allahabad, the ​ Panjab, and Multan, had been conferred on him, but he was allowed to stay at his father's Court and govern them by deputies. At the same time the Emperor bestowed on him rank and privileges which raised him to an almost royal position, midway between the Emperor and thehis power and influence at Court, other princes. Dara now enjoyed the high title of Shah-i-buland-iqbal, (King of Lofty Fortune), the unprecedented rank of a Commander of Forty Thousand Horse, and an income which many a king might have envied. When he attended Court he was allowed to sit near the Emperor on a gold chair only a little lower than the throne.[10] Dara's sons got military ranks as high as those of the Emperor's younger sons, and his officers were frequently ennobled by the Emperor.[11] Dependent kings, tributary princes, offenders under the Imperial wrath, aspirants to office or title, all bought or begged Dara's mediation before they could approach the Emperor. Government officials and new recipients ​ of titles, after having had audience of the Emperor were sent by him to pay their respects to the Crown Prince.[12] Much of the administration was latterly conducted at Dara's direction in the Emperor's presence, or even by Dara alone with permission to use the Emperor's name and seal. In short, everything was done to make the public familiar with the idea that he was their future sovereign and to render the transfer of the crown to him on Shah Jahan's death easy.

Dara was just turned of forty-two years. He had taken after his great-grand-father Akbar. In his thirst for his religious views. pantheistic philosophy he had studied[13] the Talmud and the New Testament, the writings of the Muslim Sufis, and the Hindu ​ Vedanta. The easy government of Allahabad had assisted his natural inclination, and with the help of a band of pandits he had made a Persian version of the Upanishads. The title of Majmua-ul-Baharain ("the Mingling of Two Oceans") which he gave to another of his works, as well as his prefatory remarks,[14] proves that his aim was to find a meeting-point for Hinduism and Islam in those universal truths which form the common basis of all true religions and which fanatics are too apt to ignore in their zeal for the mere externals of faith. Alike from the Hindu yogi Lál-dás and the Muslim faqir Sarmad, he had imbibed his eclectic philosophy, and at the feet of both he had sat as an attentive pupil. But he was no apostate from Islam. He had compiled a biography of Muslim saints, and he had been initiated as a disciple of the Muslim ​ saint Mian Mir, which no kafir could have been.[15] The saintly Jahanara also speaks of Dara as her spiritual preceptor. The manifesto in which Aurangzib as the champion of Islamic orthodoxy denounces Dara for heresy, ascribes to him no idolatrous practice Charge of heresy against Dara. brought or denial of Muhammad's prophetic mission, but only the following faults: (i) Consorting with Brahmans, yogis and sanyasis,—considering them as perfect spiritual guides and knowers of God',—regarding the Veda as a divine book, and spending his days in translating and studying it.

(ii) Wearing rings and jewels inscribed with the word Prabhu ("Lord") in Hindi letters.[16]

(iii) Discarding prayers, the fast during the month of Ramzan, and other canonical cere​ monies of Islam, as necessary only in the case of the spiritually undeveloped,—while he believed himself to be a man possessed of a perfect knowledge of God.[17]

Dara's own words in introducing to the reader his theological works, clearly prove that he never discarded the essential dogmas of Islam; he only displayed the eclecticism of the Sufis, a recognised school of Islamic believers. If he showed contempt for the external rites of religion, he only shared the standpoint of many noble thinkers of all churches, such as John Milton. However, his coquetry with Hindu philosophy made it impossible for him, even if he had the inclination, to pose as the champion of orthodox and exclusive Islam, or to summon all Muslims to his banners by proclaiming a holy war against the people beyond the fold of the faith.

Then, again, his father's excessive love didCharacter of Dara. him a distinct harm. He was always kept at Court and never, except at the third siege of Qandahar, sent to conduct campaigns or administer provinces. Thus he never acquired experience in the arts of war and government; ​he never learnt to judge men by the crucial test of danger and difficulty; and he lost touch with the active army. Hence he was rendered unfit for that war of succession which among the Mughals served as a practical test for the survival of the fittest. Basking in the sunshine of his father's favour and flattered by an entire empire, Dara had acquired some vices unworthy of a philosopher and fatal to an aspirant to the throne. Aurangzib in later life spoke of Dara as proud, insolent to the nobles, and ungovernable in temper and speech.[18] But while rejecting this testimony of his mortal enemy, we may at least believe that his unrivalled wealth and influence were not likely to develop moderation, self-restraint, or foresight in him; while the fulsome flattery which he received from all must have aggravated the natural pride and arrogance of an heir to the throne of Delhi. The detailed account of his siege of Qandahar, written by an admirer, shows him in the odious light of an incompetent braggart, almost insane with conceit, capricious and childish in the manage​ ment of affairs. His history during the war of succession clearly proves that, with all the wealth and influence he had enjoyed for years, he could secure very few devoted followers or efficient lieutenants. Evidently he was no judge of character. Men of ability and self-respect must have kept away from such a vain and injudicious master, while the mercenary self-seekers of the army and Court must have recognised that in following him against the astute and experienced Aurangzib they would be only backing the losing side. Dara was a loving husband, a doting father, and a devoted son; but as a ruler of men in troubled times he must have been a failure. Long continued prosperity had unnerved his character and made him incapable of planning wisely, daring boldly, and achieving strenuously,—or, if need were, of wresting victory from the jaws of defeat by desperate effort or heroic endurance. The darling of the Court was utterly out of his element in the Camp. The centre of a circle of flattering nobles and ministers knew not how to make a number of generals obey one masterly will and act in harmony and concert. Military organisation and tactical combination were beyond his power. And he had never learnt by practice how to guide the varying tides of a battle with the coolness and judgment of a true ​ general. This novice in the art of war was destined to meet a practised veteran as his rival for the throne.[19]

However dark the future might look, for the present things were going on well with Shah Jahan. The usual Court festivals were celebrated as they came round. The victory over Bijapur led to the playing of joyous music, and the granting of rewards and titles.[20] Marriages took place among his grand-children. He held darbars with his usual magnificence, and received or sent off generals and viceroys, ambassadors and scholars.

From Mukhlispur Shah Jahan had returned to Delhi at the end of April, 1657.Illness of Shah Jahan: Here, on 6th September, he suddenly fell ill of stranguary and constipation.[21] For one week the royal physicians toiled in vain. The malady went on increasing; his lower limbs swelled, his palate and tongue grew very dry, and at times symptoms of fever appeared. During all this period the patient took no food or nourishment, and the medicines produced no effect on him. His ​weakness was extreme and his pain intense, though borne with heroic fortitude.

The daily darbar was stopped; the Emperor even ceased to show his face to the public from the balcony as was his wont every morning; the courtiers were denied access to his sick-bed, which only Dara and a few trusted officers watched. Immediately the wildest rumours spread through the empire: Shah Jahan was dead, and Dara was keeping the fact a secret till he had ensured his own succession!

After a week the doctors at last got control over the malady. Soup of mint and manna did him great good, and he felt some relief. But the needs of empire are imperative. So, on 14th September the patient dragged himself to the window of his bed-room (khwabgah) and showed his face to the anxious public standing outside, to prove that he was still alive! Large sums were given away in charity, prisoners were released, and Dara was covered with rewards and honours for his filial care.

But the improvement in the Emperor's condition had been slight; he had still to be carefully treated and nursed; and his weakness continued. It was more than a month (15th October) before he again appeared at the window in view of the public, though papers were taken to his chamber ​ ostensibly to be read out for his order, and royal letters were still issued in his name and stamped with his seal. The acute stage of the disease had passed, no doubt. But his death was now regarded as only a question of time.he is removed to Agra. He knew it, and in the presence of the nobles appointed Dara as his successor. Then, with his mind freed from earthly cares, he went to Agra to die there[22] quietly in sight of the tomb of the wife he had loved so well. A change of air had also been advised by the doctors. On 18th October Shah Jahan left Delhi and moved by easy stages to Agra. Sami Ghat, on the Jumna, six miles above Agra Fort, was reached on 5th November, and here he waited for an auspicious day. The journey had restored him to health and he now discarded drugs as unnecessary. On the 26th, the day chosen by the astrologers, he made a royal progress from Bahadur-pura, down the Jumna, in a State barge, the people thronging both banks for miles and miles to gaze on their beloved and long-lost ruler. Shouts of prayer and blessings for him filled the air. In this way he entered Agra city and put up in Dara's mansion on the river-bank. After nine days he entered his sumptuous palace in the Fort and there held a darbar. At Agra he lived for ​ the next five months. To Agra he returned after a short and futile effort to go back to Delhi (April), and from Agra Fort he was destined never again to issue in life.

During Shah Jahan's illness Dara constantly watched by his bed-side; but he also stopped the visit of others to the sick-chamber. Only three or four officers of the highest trust and the Court physicians had access to the Emperor. "Dara tended and nursed his father beyond the utmost limit of possibility." But he showed no indecent haste to seize the crown. All urgent Dara's devotion to his father in his illness, orders were issued by him, but in the Emperor's name.[23] He exercised supreme authority and transacted public affairs at his own will, but merely as his father's agent. The transfer of power to his own hands, he hoped, would be easy, and he might wait for his father's death without any harm to the work of the State. He had so long occupied in the public eye the place at the right hand of the Emperor that he naturally expected that his exercise of authority on behalf of his invalid father would be accepted without question.

When Shah Jahan's illness first took a favourable turn (14th September), he heaped on Dara ​ promotion and rewards worth 2½ lakhs of rupees, and again on 20th December presented him with one krore of rupees besides jewellery valued at 34 lakhs, in recognition of his filial piety and tender nursing during the Emperor's illness. Dara's rank was raised to that of a Commander of Sixty Thousand Horse, and his eldest two sons were promoted Commanders of 15,000 and 10,000 troopers respectively.[24]

Dara is nominated by Shah Jahan as his successor, but does not assume the crown. After the first week of illness Shah Jahan, as we have already seen, felt some relief, but no hope of recovery. So he piously set himself to prepare for the next world. Calling to his presence some confidential courtiers and the chief officers of the State, he made his last will before them, and ordered them to obey Dara henceforth as their sovereign in everything, at all times, and in every place. To his successor he gave the advice to seek to please God, to treat the public well, and to care for the peasantry and the army.[25] Dara now had the supreme power in his hand, though he did not assume the crown but continued to issue orders in his father's name. The history of the next eight months is ​ the history of his attempt to strengthen his position, an attempt often thwarted by the necessity of taking Shah Jahan's consent in important matters, and also by his own faults of judgment. His policy lacked that strength and singleness of purpose which it might have gained if he had been the absolute master of the realm, or if Shah Jahan, in full possession of his physical powers, had dictated every step himself.

First of all, He attempts to strengthen his own position. Mir Jumla, the confidant and partisan of his rival Aurangzib, could no longer be retained as Prime Minister of the Empire. Towards the end of September he was removed from the wazirship, and his son Muhammad Amin, who had been acting as his vicar at Delhi, was forbidden entrance to the office. Orders were also sent to Mir Jumla, Mahabat Khan, and other Imperial officers to return from the Deccan[26] to the Court with the reinforcements that they had led to Aurangzib's army for the Bijapur war.

In the case of Mir Jumla the order of recall was not peremptory: he was first of all to secure the surrender of Parenda Fort from the Bijapuris. But Mahabat Khan and Rao Chhatra Sal were ​ commanded to come away immediately with the Muhammadan and Rajput troops respectively of the supplementary force; and this they did without waiting to take leave of Aurangzib. They returned to Agra and had audience of the Emperor on 20th December.[27]

Meantime Dara's partisans and followers received from the Emperor promotions and high administrative offices, and even the province of Bihar was given to him in addition to the Panjab and Multan. Dara also set about acquiring new friends: Khalilullah Khan was promoted and appointed Subahdar of Delhi; Qasim Khan was tempted with the viceroyalty of Guzerat from which it was decided to remove Murad.[28]

By the middle of November Shah Jahan was completely recovered, and important matters which had hitherto been kept from him, could no longer be withheld. Dara, therefore, told him how Shuja had crowned himself and was advancing from Bengal. Shah Jahan consented to an army being sent against against Shuja, him, under the leadership of Rajah Jai Singh. But as only Armies sent against Shuja Murad and Aurangzib. a prince could cope with a ​ prince, Dara's eldest son Sulaiman Shukoh was joined in the command. This force, 22,000 strong, left Agra on 30th November and encountered Shuja near Benares on 14th February, 1658, as we shall see. Dara's most trusted friends and best generals were sent to support his son, and thus he greatly weakened himself at Agra.[29]

Meantime equally alarming news had arrived from Guzerat. There Murad had murdered his diwan Ali Naqi (early in October), looted Surat city (early in November), and finally crowned himself (5th December). At first Dara sent him a letter purporting to proceed from the Emperor, transferring him from Guzerat to Berar. Dara thereby hoped to set one foe against another, as Berar was included in Aurangzib's viceroyalty. Murad saw through the plan, laughed the order to scorn, and neither moved from Guzerat nor acted against Aurangzib.[30] As yet Aurangzib had done no overt act of disloyalty or preparation for war. But "Dara feared him most." He learnt that Aurangzib had allied himself with Murad and Shuja, and at the same time was secretly intriguing with the nobles of the Court ​ and the officers of the army. Strong letters were, therefore, sent out in the Emperor's name recalling Mir Jumla and the remaining generals from the Deccan (early in December), and on 18th and 26th December two armies were despatched to Malwa, the first to oppose the advance of Aurangzib from the South and the second to march into Guzerat and oust Murad from the province, or, if necessary, to stay in Malwa and co-operate with the first force.[31]

The leadership of these two armies had gone abegging. Noble after noble had been offered the posts, but had declined, saying that they were ready to fight to the last drop of their blood under the Emperor or Dara in person, but could not of themselves presume to resist to the bitter end a prince of the Imperial blood. The rash Rathor chief Jaswant alone had consented to fight Aurangzib and even promised to bring him back a prisoner.[32] So, he was sent (18 Dec.) to Ujjain as governor of Malwa, vice Shaista Khan, whose presence so near Aurangzib gave Dara ground for fear. Such a great noble and near kinsman of the Emperor could not be safely left close to the rebel frontier, as his ​ adhesion to the two younger princes would have greatly increased their strength and influence. Shaista Khan had served with Aurangzib in the Golkonda and Bijapur wars and there was a brisk and friendly correspondence between the two. Murad had even planned to dash into Malwa, seize Shaista Khan, and force him to join his side! So Shaista Khan was recalled to the capital, where he secretly served Aurangzib's cause.[33] Qasim Khan was induced to accept the command of the second army by being created governor of Guzerat in the place of Murad.

While giving leave to the three armies sent from Agra, Shah Jahan had besought their generals to spare the lives of his younger sons, to try at first to send them back to their provinces by fair words if possible, otherwise by a demonstration of force, and not, except in extreme need, to resort to a deadly battle.[34]

In January 1658, the news of further developments reached Agra. Aurangzib openly defies the Imperial authority. Aurangzib had arrested Mir Jumla, who was coming to Delhi in obedience to Imperial orders, and seized his property, troops, and ​ artillery. The Prince, no doubt, wrote a lying letter to the Emperor, saying that he had arrested Mir Jumla for treasonable intrigue with Bijapur and neglect of the Imperial business;[35] but Dara knew the true reason. Murad had captured Surat Fort, and the preparations of the two brothers to advance into Hindustan could not be kept concealed any longer. Aurangzib's Vanguard began its northward march from Aurangabad on 25th January. At last all the three younger princes had rebelled; they had dropped the mask, or, in the language of the Persian annalists, "the curtain had been removed from the face of the affair."

At Dara's instigation the Emperor threw into prison Isa Beg, the Court agent of Aurangzib, and attached his property. But after a time he felt ashamed of such persecution, released the innocent man, and let him go to his master, whom he joined at Burhanpur early in March.[36]

Shah Jahan's severe illness and withdrawal from the public gaze had at once Dara tries to cut off news of Shah Jahan. created a popular belief that he was dead. Dara guarded the sick-bed day and night; none but one or two ​ ministers in his confidence had access to the Emperor. Even the people of Delhi, therefore, had reason to suspect that Shah Jahan was no more. The rumour spread to the farthest provinces with the proverbial speed of ill news. The evil was aggravated by Dara's injudicious action. To smooth the path of his own accession, he set men to watch the ferries and stop all letters and messengers going to his brothers in Bengal, Guzerat, and the Deccan. He also kept their Court agents under watch lest they should send any report to their masters.[37]

But this only wrought greater mischief. Ignorance and uncertainty are more Alarm, suspicion and confusion throughout the Empire. dangerous than the knowledge of truth. The princes and people in the distant provinces, with their regular news-letters from the Court suddenly stopped, naturally concluded that the worst had already come to pass. What letters they got indirectly only confirmed the belief. While their official news-writers and Court-agents at the capital were being guarded by Dara, other people of the city contrived to smuggle letters out to the princes, offering their devotion and reporting the gossip of the market-place about the condition ​ of Shah Jahan, which was a compound of truth and falsehood.[38] It was clearly the interest of such men, who from their low position had no access to the inner circle of the Court, to send misrepresentations likely to fan the ambition of the younger princes. Above all, the princess Raushanara intrigued vigorously for Aurangzib from within the harem and guarded his interests[39] as against Dara's.

Shah Jahan being given up as dead, all the confusion and disorder of a Mughal succession broke out, and the evil was intensified by the expectation of a four-sided duel between his sons, each with the army and resources of a province at his back. Everywhere lawless men caused tumults, the ryots refused to pay the revenue, the zamindars disobeyed the local governors or tried to rob and conquer their rivals; foreign powers, especially in the north-east, violated the frontiers and made inroads into the Imperial territory. Wicked men of every class took advantage of the political trouble to raise their heads, and thereby added to the disorder. The local authorities were paralysed by uncertainty and anxiety about the future, and law ​ and order suddenly disappeared in many places.[40] Such is the curse of autocracy: when the one central authority, from which all have been accustomed to receive their orders and to which they have ever taught themselves to look up for guidance, ceases to exist, all the officers become bewildered and helpless like children.

The younger princes in their provinces got ready to contest the throne.Shuja and Murad crown themselves, Shuja and Murad crowned themselves. Aurangzib played a cool and waiting game, while carefully increasing his resources and army. Even when Shah Jahan began to show his face to the public again, the mischief did not cease. It was openly said all over the empire that Shah Jahan was really dead, and that a slave who bore some resemblance to him, disguised in the Imperial robes, personated him on the high palace-balcony, and received the salams of the public standing below.[41] Letters in Shah Jahan's hand and seal were issued to the princes and the nobles, but they did not remove the suspicion. Murad ​echoed the sentiments of others when he asserted that these letters were really written by Dara, an expert imitator of Shah Jahan's hand, and that the late Emperor's seal was necessarily in the possession of his successor.[42] Even those who did not go so far, thought with Aurangzib that Shah Jahan was either dead or a helpless invalid entirely under Dara's control, so that he had practically vacated the throne. Some even asserted that Dara had wickedly flung his helpless father into prison and was doing him to death.[43] The three younger brothers, therefore, very plausibly asserted in their letters to the Emperorand march on Agra. that their loving minds had been unsettled by these alarming rumours, and they were marching on Agra to see their father with their own eyes and satisfy themselves as to his real condition. Thereafter (they promised) they would return peacefully to their provinces or loyally do whatever their father would personally command them. Their marching on Agra was no sign of rebellion. Had they not hastened thither from their head quarters without waiting ​ for permission, when they heard of Jahanara being burnt? And was not Shah Jahan's present illness a more serious affair and a greater cause of anxiety to them? Thus argued Murad in one of his letters.[44]

When the agents of Aurangzib and Murad at the Imperial Court wrote to their masters that the Emperor had fully recovered, Murad frankly refused to accept such letters as genuine. For, Dara had previously imprisoned these agents, and their houses were still watched by his men; they could not communicate the truth, but had to write to the dictation of Dara's secretary. Hence their letters contained only what Dara wished his brothers to believe. Nothing (Murad argued) would disclose the truth except a march on Agra and an interview with the Emperor himself.[45] Seeing is believing.

Events moved apace. On 20th March, 1658, Aurangzib set out from Burhanpur, crossed the Narmada on 3rd April, joined Murad on the 14th, and attacked the Imperial army the next day. The period of intrigue and diplomacy now ends, and the appeal to the arbitrament of the sword begins.

  1. ↑ Waris. 118b, 119a, 121a and b, (Mukhlispur described); 122a (palaces described).
  2. ↑ Kambu, 1b.
  3. ↑ Inayat Khan's Shah Jahan-namah (as quoted in Elliot, vii, 74). Waris, 16.
  4. ↑ India Office Library, Pars. MS. No. 1344, folio 7b.
  5. ↑ Waris, 57b, 108a; Kambu, 1b; M. U. ii. 43b.
  6. ↑ Ruqat-i-Alamgiri, No. 48.
  7. ↑ 25th January, 1657, was his 68th lunar birth-day, (Waris, 120b), while his 66th solar year began 15 days earlier (Waris, 119b).
  8. ↑ Riiqat-i-Alamgiri, No. 54.
  9. ↑ Anecdotes of Aurangzib § 2 and 5, Masum, 6b, Kambu, 8b, Adab, 171b, 174b, Aqil Khan, 10.
  10. ↑ Waris, 96a, (golden chair and title of Shah given to Dara, 3rd February, 1655), 97a, 120a, (Dara's pay was 1½ krores of rupees, January, 1657), 1236, (mansabs of all the princes). Kambu, 6a (Dara promoted to a command of 50,000 horse, 14th September), 7b (Dara promoted to a command of 60,000 horse, with a pay of above 2 krores, 30th December), 8b, Masum, 6b.
  11. ↑ Waris, 96a, 116a.
  12. ↑ Waris, 85a, (Ismail Hut presents a remarkable horse to Dara), 91b, 116a (Srinagar Rajah makes Dara his mediator), 87b, 97b (Dara procures pardons).
  13. ↑ This account of Dara's philosophical studies is based on the extracts from the prefaces of his works given by Rieu in his British Museum Catalogue. Dara wrote in Persian (i) Sirr-ul-asrar, a translation of 50 of the Upanishads, completed on 1 July, 1657. (2) Majmua-ul-Baharain, a treatise on the technical terms of Hindu pantheism and their equivalents in Sufi phraseology. (3) Dialogue with Baba Lal (really recorded by Chandrabhan). (4) Safinat-ul-awliya or lives of Muslim saints, completed 11 Jan., 1640. (5) Sakinat-ul-awliya or the life of Mian Mir, completed 1052 A. H. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th are in the Khuda Bakhsh Library. See also Faiyas-ul-qawanin, 377 388, for Dara's correspondence with Shaikhs Muhibullah and Dilruba.
  14. ↑ He writes that although he had perused the Pentateuch, the Gospels, the Psalms and other sacred books, he had nowhere found the doctrine of Tauhid or Pantheism explicitly taught but in the Vedas, and more especially in the Upanishads, which contain their essence. As Benares, the great seat of Hindu learning, was under his rule, he called together the most learned pandits of that place, and with their assistance wrote himself the translation of the Upanishads (Rieu, i. 54, quoting preface to Sirr-ul-asrar). Elsewhere he states that he had embraced the doctrine of the Sufis, and having ascertained in his intercourse with Hindu Fakirs that their divergence from the former was merely verbal, he had written the Majmua-ul-Baharain with the object of reconciling the two systems. (Rieu, ii. 828, quoting Dara's preface).
  15. ↑ During his stay in Kashmir, 1050 A. H., Dara had become a disciple of the great Sufi, Mulla Shah (who died in 1072)...... Dara received the initiation to the Qadiri order in 1049 from an eminent master, Muhammad Shah Lisanullah, one of the disciples of Mian Mir. He erected a sumptuous dome over Mian Mir's tomb outside Lahore. Jahanara wrote the Munis-ul-arwah, a life of Shaikh Muinuddin Chishti, into whose order she was initiated as a disciple or murida. (Rieu, i. 54, 358 & 357) Dara used to add to his signature the titles Qadiri and Hanifi, which is not consistent with a profession of heresy.
  16. ↑ Prabhu is simply a Sanskrit word meaning "one able to punish and to bless", "the supreme lord". It is not the name of any idol, but an epithet of the Deity, as innocent of any connection with polytheism as the Arabic term Rabb-ul-alamin ("Lord of the Universe") applied to God in the Quran.
  17. ↑ Alamgirnamah, 34 and 35. Some other charges of heresy, such as the drinking of beer made from sugar, were brought against Dara by Aurangzib, if we can believe Masum (71a).
  18. ↑ Ruqat-i-Alamgiri, Nos. 5, 47, 53. Anecdotes of Aurangzib, § 3 and 4. In the Adab (260b) Aurangzib writes to Shah Jahan that Dara's only qualifications for winning his father's favour were "flattery, smoothness of tongue, and much laughing, while in carrying out any business entrusted by his father his heart was not in conformity with his tongue."
  19. ↑ Kambu, 9a, 10a, 15a. Alamgirnamah, 99. Aqil Khan, 33.
  20. ↑ Kambu, 5b,
  21. ↑ For the history of the illness, Kambu, 6a, 7a; Alamgirnamah, 27, 80-81; Masum, 29b—30b; Isardas, 7b—9a.
  22. ↑ Kambu, 8b.
  23. ↑ Kambu, 7b.
  24. ↑ Kambu, 6a, 7b.
  25. ↑ Kambu, 8b.
  26. ↑ Kambu, 6b, 10a. Alamgirnamah, 29.
  27. ↑ Kambu, 5b, 6b, 10b, 8a. Aqil Khan, 16.
  28. ↑ Kambu, 6b, 11a. Faiyaz-ul-qawanin, 413, 414.
  29. ↑ Kambu, 9a and b. Alamgirnamah, 31. Khafi Khan, ii. 5; Masum, 326-406.
  30. ↑ Kambu, 10a and b, 11a. Faiyas-ul-qawanin, 414, 420.
  31. ↑ Kambu, 10a. Alamgirnamah, 29, 34. Aqil Khan, 20 & 21.
  32. ↑ Isar-das, 18b
  33. ↑ Kambu, 11a. Alamgirnamah, 114. Aqil Khan, 21. Faiyas-ul-qawanin, 426. For Aurangzib's friendly correspondence with Shaista Khan, see Adab, 102a—113a.
  34. ↑ Masum 45b. Aqil Khan, 21. Kambu, 11a.
  35. ↑ Alamgirnamah, 84. Khafi Khan, ii. 9. Adab, 95a, 676. Aqil Khan 19, 20, 22.
  36. ↑ Alamgirnamah, 35 and 39. Aqil Khan, 18 and 23.
  37. ↑ Alamgirnamah, 28. Kambu, 8b. Faiyos-ul-qawanin, 418. Masum, 30a and b.
  38. ↑ Kambu, 8b.
  39. ↑ Alamgirnamah, 368.
  40. ↑ Alamgirnamah, 27 and 28. Kambu, 8b. Masum, 30b. The Rajah of Kuch Bihar raided Northern Bengal and Kamrup, while an Assamese army occupied Kamrup including Gauhati. (Fathiyya-i-ibriyya, and 7). Adab, 94a. The official history Alamgirnamah and Aurangzib's letters to Shah Jahan in the Adab speak of the disorder in the country caused by "Dara's usurpation."
  41. ↑ Masum, 32a and b.
  42. ↑ Faiyas-ul-qawanin, 418, 425, 429. As a matter of fact both Shah Jahan and Dara wrote in the same style of hand, as the signatures of the two in some Persian MSS. of the Khuda Bakhsh Library show.
  43. ↑ Isardas, 9a. Adab, 200b.
  44. ↑ Faiyas-ul-qawanin, 425.
  45. ↑ Faiyas-ul-qawanin, 418; Masum, 44a and b.
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