whose mother, Udaipúrí Báí, was the only woman for whom the Emperor entertained anything approaching to passionate love[1]. The young Prince was suspected of trafficking the imperial honour with the Maráthás, and placed under temporary arrest, but his father forgave or acquitted him, and his last letters breathe a tone of tender affection which contradicts the tenour of his domestic life.
His officers were treated with the same consideration, and the same distrust, as his elder sons. To judge from his correspondence, there never were generals more highly thought of by their sovereign. 'He condoles with their loss of relations, inquires about their illnesses, confers honours in a flattering manner, makes his presents more acceptable by the gracious way in which they are given, and scarcely ever passes a censure without softening it by some obliging expression:' but he keeps all the real power and patronage in his own hands, and shifts his governors from place to place, and surrounds them with spies, lest they should acquire undue local influence. It would be a gross injustice to ascribe his universal graciousness to calculating diplomacy, though his general leniency and dislike to severe punishments,
- ↑ Aurangzíb's wives played but a small part in his life. According to Manucci the chief wife was a Rájput princess, and became the mother of Muhammad and Mu'azzam, besides a daughter. A Persian lady was the mother of A'zam and Akbar and two daughters. The nationality of the third, by whom the Emperor had one daughter, is not recorded. Udaipúrí, the mother of Kám-Bakhsh, was a Christian from Georgia, and had been purchased by Dárá, on whose execution she passed to the harím of Aurangzíb.
