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Chapter III – The Puritan

When Aurangzib was for a second time proclaimed Emperor in May 1659, he took for his title the Persian word engraved on the sword which his captive father had given him – ’Alamgir, ‘World-compeller’ – and by this title he was known to his subjects and to succeeding generations of Muslims. Before we consider the use he made of his power we must realize something of his character. All Muhammadan writers extol him as a saint; all contemporary Christians – except Dryden, and he was no historian, – denounce him as a hypocrite who used religion as a cloak for ambition, and said prayers to cover the most unnatural murders. Aurangzib has experienced the fate of his great contemporary, Cromwell, whom he resembled in many features of the soul. He has had his Ludlow among his biographers, and his Baxter, with their theories of selfish ambition and virtue vitiated by success; he has also been slavered with the panegyrics of Muhammadan Flecknoes and Dawbeneys. These opposite views, however, are less contradictory than might be supposed.

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They merely represent the difference between Christian bigotry and Muhammadan bigotry. To the Musalman of India Aurangzib is the ideal type of the devout and uncompromizing Muhammadan King, and his sanguinary advance to the throne is forgotten in his subsequent zeal for the faith and undeviating observance of the law and practice of Islam. On the other hand, Christian observers of the Great Mogul could not divest themselves of the western idea that a prince who says his prayers in public, like the Pharisee in the street, must necessarily be an ostentatious hypocrite; while they failed to reconcile the enormity of fratricide with piety or even common humanity. They did not understand the nature of the religion which could be honestly professed by such a man as Aurangzib, any more than the royalists of the Restoration could discover in the ambitious regicide the sincere Christian that Cromwell really was.

The executions which paved the path of Aurangzib to the throne lie at the root of the denunciations of his detractors. They forgot the proverb which Sultan Bayazid used effectively in his negotiations with his brother, Prince Jem: ‘Kingship counts no kinship.’ They did not remember the repeated lessons of oriental history which taught Aurangzib, and many before and after him, that a monarch’s deadliest enemies are those of his own household. The ’Othmanli Sultans had long recognized the principle of political fratricide. Muhammad ‘the Gentleman,’

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father of Murad the Great, humane as he was by nature, blinded his brother and slew his nephew. He had witnessed the disastrous effects of civil war among Ottoman scions, and he would not suffer the empire to be again plunged into the like intestine troubles. An oriental prince cannot be happy without a throne, and ‘it becomes a matter of sheer necessity, and not a question of jealous suspicion, to make it impossible for him to attain his ambition. In the present day this is done by imprisoning him in the seraglio till he becomes idiotic. The old, and perhaps the more merciful way, was to kill him outright13.’

Aurangzib, in his heart, was at least as humanely disposed as the Gentleman Sultan of Turkey, but he had equal reason to dread the ambitious tempers of his brothers and kindred. His forefathers had suffered from the rebellions of their nearest relations. Akbar had to fight his brother; Jahangir rebelled against his father, and in turn was resisted by his own eldest son, who was condemned to pass his life in prison, where he was a perpetual anxiety to the government; Shah-Jahan had defied his father, and came to the throne through the blood of his brother Shahriyar. With such warnings, Aurangzib could expect no peace whilst Dara, Shuja, and Murad-Bakhsh lived. Each of them had as good a right to the throne as he had himself, for there was no law of succession among Mughal princes; and each of them

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unmistakably intended to grasp the sceptre if he could. Aurangzib might indeed have renounced the dream of power, and reverted to the ascetic ideal of his youth: but Dara and Shuja were infidels or heretics whom it was his duty, as a true Muslim, to drive from the throne; moreover, the lust of power was hot in his blood; besides, the Prince-Fakir would never have been safe from the knives of his brothers’ agents. Death or imprisonment for life was the alternative fate of rival aspirants to the throne, and Aurangzib chose to inflict the former. It was shocking, but safe, and on the whole more merciful: but to men of generous hearts it might have been impossible.

The shrewdest of all contemporary European witnesses, the French doctor Bernier, who was a spectator of the horrors of the fratricidal war, a sympathizer with Dara, and no lenient critic of Aurangzib, at whose court he spent eight observant years, sums up the whole matter with his usual fairness:

‘My readers,’ he says, ‘have no doubt condemned the means by which the reigning Mughal attained the summit of power. These means were indeed unjust and cruel; but it is not perhaps fair to judge him by the rigid rules which we apply to the character of European princes. In our quarter of the globe, the succession to the crown is settled in favour of the eldest son by wise and fixed laws; but in Hindistan the right of governing is usually disputed by all the sons of the deceased monarch, each of whom is reduced to the cruel alternative of sacrificing his brothers that he himself may reign, or of suffering his own life to be forfeited

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for the security and stability of the dominion of another. Yet even those who may maintain that the circumstances of country, birth, and education afford no palliation of the conduct pursued by Aurangzib, must admit that this Prince is endowed with a versatile and rare genius, that he is a consummate statesman, and a great King14.’

The hostile criticisms of travellers regard chiefly Aurangzib’s conduct as Prince: to his acts as Emperor they manifest little save admiration. Throughout his long reign of nearly fifty years no single deed of cruelty has been proved against him15. Even his persecution of the Hindus, which was of a piece with his puritanical character, was admittedly marked by no executions or tortures. Hypocrite as he was called, no instance of his violating the precepts of the religion he professed has ever been produced, nor is there the smallest evidence that be ever forced his conscience. Like Cromwell, he may not have been ‘a man scrupulous about words, or names, or such things,’ but he undoubtedly ‘put himself forth for the cause of God,’ like the great Protector, a mean instrument to do God’s people some good, and God service.’

Aurangzib was, first and last, a stern Puritan. Nothing in life – neither throne, nor love, nor ease – weighed for an instant in his mind against his fealty

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to the principles of Islam. For religion he persecuted the Hindus and destroyed their temples, while he damaged his exchequer by abolishing the time-honoured tax on the religious festivals and fairs of unbelievers. For religion’s sake he waged his unending wars in the Deccan, not so much to stretch wider the boundaries of his great empire as to bring the lands of the heretical Shi’a within the dominion of orthodox Islam. To him the Deccan was Dar-al-Harb: he determined to make it Dar-al-Islam. Religion induced Aurangzib to abjure the pleasures of the senses as completely as if he had indeed become the fakir he had once desired to be. No animal food passed his lips, and his drink was water; so that, as Tavernier says, he became ‘thin and meagre, to which the great fasts which he keeps have contributed. During the whole of the duration of the comet [four weeks, in 1665], which appeared very large in India, where I then was, Aurangzib only drank a little water and ate a small quantity of millet bread; this so much affected his health that he nearly died, for besides this he slept on the ground, with only a tiger’s skin over him; and since that time he has never had perfect health16.’ Following the Prophet’s precept that every Muslim should practise a trade, he devoted his leisure to making skull-caps, which were doubtless bought up by the courtiers of Delhi with the same enthusiasm as was shown by the ladies of Moscow for Count Tolstoi’s boots. He not only knew the Koran by

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heart, but copied it twice over in his fine calligraphy, and sent the manuscripts, richly adorned, as gifts to Mecca and Medina. Except the pilgrimage, which he dared not risk, lest he should come back to find an occupied throne, he left nothing undone of the whole duty of the Muslim. Even the English merchants of Surat, who had their own reasons for disliking the Emperor, could only tell Ovington that Aurangzib was ‘a zealous professor’ of Islam, ‘never neglecting the hours of devotion nor anything which in his sense may denominate him a sincere believer17.’

The native historians have nothing but praise to bestow upon Aurangzib’s character as a true Muslim. A contemporary historian, who lived some time at Court, and was a favourite with the Emperor, has recorded an elaborate description of the Great Mogul’s religious practices18, which is worth quoting. Its tone, fulsome as it appears, is not more adulatory than Bernier’s letter to Colbert of the same period:–

‘Be it known to the readers of this work that this humble slave of the Almighty is going to describe in a correct manner the excellent character, the worthy habits, and the refined morals of this most virtuous monarch, Abu-l-Muzaffar Muhyi ad din Muhammad Aurangzib ’Alamgir, according as he has witnessed them with his own eyes. The Emperor, a great worshipper of God by natural propensity, is remarkable for his rigid attachment to religion. He is a follower of the doctrines of the Imam Abu Hanifa (may God be pleased with him!) and establishes the five fundamental

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doctrines of the Kanz. Having made his ablutions, he always occupies a great part of his time in adoration of the Deity, and says the usual prayers, first in the masjid [mosque] and then at home, both in congregation and in private, with the most heartfelt devotion. He keeps the appointed fasts on Fridays and other sacred days, and he reads the Friday prayers in the jami’ masjid [congregational mosque] with the common people of the Muhammadan faith. He keeps vigils during the whole of the sacred nights, and with the light of the favour of God illumines the lamps of religion and prosperity. From his great piety, he passes whole nights in the mosque which is in his palace, and keeps company with men of devotion. In privacy he never sits on a throne. He gave away in alms before his accession a portion of his allowance of lawful food and clothing, and now devotes to the same purpose the income of a few villages ... and salt-producing tracts, which are appropriated to his privy purse. During the whole month of Ramazan he keeps fast, says the prayers appointed for that month, and reads the holy Koran in the assembly of religious and learned men, with whom he sits for that purpose during six and sometimes nine hours of the night. During the last ten days of the month he performs worship in the mosque; and, although on account of several obstacles he is unable to proceed on a pilgrimage to Mecca, yet the care which he takes to promote facilities for pilgrims to that holy place may be considered equivalent to the pilgrimage. ...

‘He never puts on the clothes prohibited by religion, nor does he ever use vessels of silver or gold19. In his sacred court no improper conversation, no word of backbiting or of falsehood is allowed. ... He appears two or three times

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every day in his Court of Audience with a pleasing countenance and mild look to dispense justice to complainants, who come in numbers without any hindrance; and as he listens to them with great attention, they make their representations without any fear or hesitation, and obtain redress from his impartiality. If any person talks too much or acts in an improper manner, he is never displeased, and he never knits his brows. His courtiers have often desired to prohibit people from showing so much boldness, but he remarks that by hearing their very words and seeing their gestures, he acquires a habit of forbearance and tolerance. ... Under the dictates of anger and passion he never issues orders of death. ...

‘He is a very elegant writer in prose, and has acquired proficiency in versification; but agreeably to the words of God, Poets deal in falsehoods, he abstains from practising it. He does not like to hear verses except those which contain a moral. “To please Almighty God, he never turned his eye towards a flatterer, nor gave his ear to a poet.” ’

This is the character of a strict Muslim. The description is avowedly a panegyric, but nevertheless perfectly natural and probable in the judgment of every man who knows what the life of a really rigid Muslim is, such a life as a strict Wahhabi’s. There is nothing in the portrait which is inconsistent with the whole tenour of Aurangzib’s career or with the testimony of European eyewitnesses. Exaggerated as it must seem to a western reader, the Indian historian’s picture of his revered Emperor does not present a single touch which cannot be traced in the writings of contemporary French and English travellers, and in the statements of other native chroniclers who were less under

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the influence of the sitter for the portrait. Dr. Careri draws a precisely similar picture of the Emperor as he was in his old age in 1695. But the practice of such austerity as we see in this description is not the less remarkable because it is no more than what the religion of Islam exacts of the true believer. Aurangzib might have cast the precepts of Muhammad to the winds and still kept – nay, strengthened – his hold of the sceptre of Hindustan. After the general slaughter of his rivals, his seat on the Peacock Throne was as secure as ever had been. Shah-Jahan’s or Jahangir’s. They held their power in spite of flagrant violations of the law of Islam; they abandoned themselves to voluptuous ease, to ‘Wein, Weib, und Gesang,’ and still their empire held together; even Akbar, model of Indian sovereigns, owed much of his success to his open disregard of the Muhammadan religion. The empire had been governed by men of the world, and their government had been good. There was nothing but his own conscience to prevent Aurangzib from adopting the eclectic philosophy of Akbar, the luxurious profligacy of Jahangir, or the splendid ease of Shah-Jahan. The Hindus would have preferred anything to a Muhammadan bigot. The Rajput princes’ only wanted to be let alone. The Deccan would never have troubled Hindustan if Hindustan had not invaded it. Probably any other Mughal prince would have followed in the steps of the kings his forefathers, and emulated the indolence and vice of the Court in which he had received his earliest impressions.

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Aurangzib did none of these things. For the first time in their history the Mughals beheld a rigid Muslim in their Emperor – a Muslim as sternly repressive of himself as of the people around him, a king who was prepared to stake his throne for the sake of the faith. He must have known that compromise and conciliation formed the easiest and safest policy in an empire composed of heterogeneous elements of race and religion. He was no youthful enthusiast when he ascended the throne at Delhi, but a ripe man of forty, deeply experienced in the policies and prejudices of the various sections of his subjects. He must have been fully conscious of the dangerous path he was pursuing, and well aware that to run a-tilt against every Hindu sentiment, to alienate his Persian adherents, the flower of his general staff, by deliberate opposition to their cherished ideas, and to disgust his nobles by suppressing the luxury of a jovial court, was to invite revolution. Yet he chose this course, and adhered to it with unbending resolve through close on fifty years of unchallenged sovereignty. The flame of religious zeal blazed as hotly in his soul when he lay dying among the ruins of his Grand Army of the Deccan, an old man on the verge of ninety, as when, in the same fatal province, but then a youth in the springtime of life, he had thrown off the purple of viceregal state and adopted the mean garb of a mendicant fakir.

All this he did out of no profound scheme of policy, but from sheer conviction of right. Aurangzib was

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born with an indomitable resolution. He had early formed his ideal of life, and every spring of his vigorous will was stretched at full tension in the effort to attain it. His was no ordinary courage. That he was physically brave is only to say he was a Mughal Prince of the old lion-hearted stock. But he was among the bravest even in their valiant rank. In the crisis of the campaign in Balkh, when the enemy ‘like locusts and ants’ hemmed him in on every side, and steel was clashing all around him, the setting sun heralded the hour of evening prayer: Aurangzib, unmoved amid the din of battle, dismounted and bowed himself on the bare ground in the complicated ritual of Islam, as composedly as if he had been performing the rik’a in the mosque at Agra. The king of the Uzbegs noted the action, and exclaimed, ‘To fight with such a man is self-destruction!’ In the decisive battle with Dara, when the fortune of the day seemed cast against him, and only a small band surrounded him, he revived the courage of his wavering troops by a simple but typical act: he ordered his elephant’s legs to be chained together.

On his return towards Lahore from the pursuit of Dara, in Multan, pressing on with his customary forced marches, and riding ahead of his army, as usual, he was amazed to see the Raja Jai Singh, whom he believed to be at Delhi, advancing upon him at the head of 4000 or 5000 Rajputs. The Raja had been a loyal servant of Shah-Jahan, and it was rumoured that he had hurried to Lahore with the

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design of seizing the usurper and restoring his old master to power. Aurangzib knew he was in imminent peril, but he lost not a jot of his self-possession. Hail, my Lord Raja!’ he cried, riding straight up to Jai Singh, ‘Hail, my Lord Father! I have impatiently awaited you. The war is over, Dara is ruined and wanders alone.’ Then taking off his pearl necklace, and putting it round the Rajput’s neck, he said, ‘My army is weary, and I am fain that you should go to Lahore, lest it be in revolt. I appoint you Governor of the city and commit all things to your hands. We shall soon meet; I thank you for disposing of Sulaiman Shukoh. Haste to Lahore. Salamat bachist: farewell!’ And Jai Singh obeyed. He did more – he persuaded his neighbour, Jaswant Singh of Marwar, to abandon the cause of Dara and submit to Aurangzib.

When stricken down with an agonizing malady the Emperor never lost sight of his duty. From his sick-bed he directed the affairs of his kingdom, and, as Bernier records, with the wonder of an experienced physician,

‘On the fifth day of his illness, during the crisis of the disorder, he caused himself to be carried into the assembly of the Omrahs [or nobles20], for the purpose of undeceiving those who might believe he was dead, and of preventing a popular tumult or any accident by which Shah-Jahan might effect his escape. The same reasons induced him to visit

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that assembly on the seventh, ninth, and tenth days; and, what appears almost incredible, on the thirteenth day, when scarcely recovered from a swoon so deep and long that his death was generally reported, he sent for the Raja Jai Singh and two or three of the principal Omrahs, for the purpose of verifying his existence. He then desired the attendants to raise him in the bed; called for paper and ink that he might write to Etbar-Khan, and despatched a messenger for the Great Seal. ... I was present when my Aga became acquainted with all these particulars, and heard him exclaim, “What strength of mind What invincible courage! Heaven reserve thee, Aurangzib, for greater achievements Thou art not yet destined to die21.” ’

Bernier’s scholarly patron, Danishmand Khan, said no more than the truth. There is something greater than common courage in these actions. Nor was such contempt of danger and pain limited to his younger days. The old Emperor in his last campaigns in the Deccan shared the perils and hardships of the common soldier, and recklessly exposed himself to the enemy’s sharpshooters22.

Aurangzib was not only brave in face of danger and in battling with bodily weakness: he had an invincible moral courage – the courage of the man who dares to act unflinchingly up to his convictions. He showed this in his dealings with the powerful but, to him, heretical sect of the Persian Shi’is, who had been the backbone of Akbar’s army and still formed the best tacticians on his staff. Akbar had adopted

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the solar year of the Persians, and had authorized the celebration of the Nauroz, or New Year’s Festival, a characteristic national institution of Persia. One Aurangzib’s earliest acts after his accession was to prohibit the Nauroz and revert to the clumsy lunar reckoning of orthodox Muhammadanism . In vain did scholars and mathematicians point out the inconvenience of the lunar method, with its ever-shifting months, for the purposes of administration, collection of revenue, regulation of seasons, harvests, and a thousand other matters. All these things were patent to a man of Aurangzib’s shrewd intelligence; but they weighed nothing against the fact that the lunar system was the calendar of Muhammad the Prophet, and whatever Muhammad the Prophet ordained should be law whilst Aurangzib was king.

Footnotes

13. See my History of Turkey (1888), p. 83.

14. Bernier, p. 199.

15. The barbarous execution of Sambhaji is an exception, perhaps; but it was provoked by the outrageous virulence of the prisoner. Catrou’s allegations of cruelty are merely general and supported by no individual instances, or by any evidence worthy the name.

16. Tavernier’s Travels, transl. Dr. V. Ball (1889), vol. i. p. 338.

17. Ovington’s Voyage to Suratt in the year 1689 (Lond. 1696), p. 195.

18. Mirat-i ’Alam, Elliot and Dowson’s Hist. of India, vol. vii. pp. 156–162.

19. Nevertheless Tavernier (vol. i. p. 288) says he saw Aurangzib drink out of a rock-crystal cup with a gold cover and saucer, enriched with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.

20. ‘Omrah’ is the usual form employed by the old travellers for Amir, of which the plural is Umara, whence ‘Omrah.’

21. Bernier, pp. 125, 126.

22. See below, pp. 195 196.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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