308
HISTORY OF INDIA.
[Book H.
A.U. 1707.
Auniiig- ZBbe's illness and deatli.
setting the Rajah Salio at liherty, and even submitting to jniy an annual percentage on the revenue of tlie Deccan. The Mahrattas li.stened to his over- tures ; but, conscious of their advantages, became so exorbitant in their demands that all attempts at negotiation failed, and Aurungzelje, threatened on every side, was com})elled to retreat. He reached Ahmednuggur after a series of disasters and naiTow personal escapes. Here his health gave way, and it soon, became apparent that his end was approaching. Thus brought face to face with the last enemy, he cowered before him, and trembled under both real and imaginary terrors. None of his crimes seems to have filled him with so much remoi'se as the dethronement of his father. He feared that the same measure was about to be meted out to himself, and hence saw his worst enemies in his own sons. A suggestion by Prince Moazzim to make arrangements for the future was interpreted into a wish to pluck the crown from his head before he had ceased to wear it ; and when a letter from Prince Azim was read, requesting permission to come to Ahmednuggur because his health was suffering at Gujerat, he exclaimed, " That is exactly the pretext I used to Shah Jehan in his illness.' Nothing, indeed, could be more melancholy than Aurungzebe's death-bed. A letter dictated to Azim in his last moments gives utterance to his remorse and terror, and concludes thus: — "Come what may, I have launched my vessel on the waves. Farewell ! farewell ! farewell ! ' Another letter to Prince Cambaksh, his youngest son, is in the same spirit — "Wherever I look I see nothing but the Divinity. . . I have committed numerous crimes, and I know not with what punishments I may be seized. . . Tl e agonies of death come upon me fast."
It was so ; and on 2 1 st February, 1707, Auning- zebe expired, in the eighty-ninth year of his ase and the fiftieth of his reign. After his death a document of the nature of a will was found under liis pillow, giving the northern and eastern pro- vinces of the empire, with the title of emperor, and the capital, Dellii, to Moazzim — the south- west, and south, including the noi'them part of the Deccan, with Agra as a capital, to Azim — and the kingdoms of Golconda and Bejapoor to Cambaksh. The extent to which these arrangements were carried out, and the results, will afterwards be seen.
Adrungzebe's Bukial-pi.ace at Rozah. — Elliotts View.s in the East,
