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Aurangzib

Introduction – The Heritage of Akbar

The greatest of Indian rulers, the Emperor Akbar, died in 1605. Third in the succession of his dynasty, he was first in his genius for government the true founder of the Indian Empire of the Great Moguls. He left a magnificent heritage to his descendants. His realm embraced all the provinces of Hindustan, and included Kabul on the west, Bengal on the east, Kashmir beside the Himalayas, and Khandesh in the Deccan. He had not merely conquered this vast dominion in forty years of warfare, but he had gone far towards welding it into an organic whole. He united under one firm government Hindus and Muhammadans, Shi’a and Sunnis, Rajputs and Afghans, and all the numerous races and tribes of Hindustan, in spite of the centrifugal tendencies of castes and creeds. In dealing with the formidable difficulties presented by the government of a peculiarly heterogeneous empire, he stands absolutely supreme among oriental sovereigns, and may even

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challenge comparison with the greatest of European kings. He was himself the spring and fount of the sagacious policy of his government, and the proof of the soundness of his system is the duration of his undiminished empire, in spite of the follies and vices of his successors, until it was undone by the puritan reaction of his great-grandson Aurangzib.

Akbar’s main difficulties lay-in diversity and jealousies of the races and religions with which he had to deal. It was his method of dealing with these difficulties which established the Mughal Empire in all the power and splendour that marked its sway for a hundred years to come. It was Aurangzib’s reversal of this method which undid his ancestor’s work and prepared the way for the downfall of his dynasty.

Akbar had not studied the history of India in vain. He had realized from its lessons that, if his dynasty was to keep its hold on the country and withstand the onslaught of fresh hordes of invaders, it must rest on the loyalty of the native Hindus who formed the bulk of the population, supplied the quota of the army, and were necessarily entrusted with most of the civil employments. His aim was to found a national empire with the aid of a national religion. ‘He accordingly constructed a State Religion, catholic enough, as he thought, to be acceptable to all his subjects. Such a scheme of a universal religion had, during two hundred years, been the dream of Hindu reformers, and the text of wandering preachers

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throughout India. On the death of the Bengal saint in the fifteenth century, the Muhammadans and Hindus contended for his body. The saint suddenly appeared in their midst, and, commanding them to look under the shroud, vanished. This they did: but under the winding-sheet they found only a heap of beautiful flowers, one half of which the Hindus burned with holy rites, while the other half was buried with pomp by the Musalmans. In Akbar’s time many sacred places had become common shrines for the two faiths: the Muhammadans venerating the same impression on the rocks as the footprint of their prophet, which the Hindus revered as the footprint of their god1.’

The inscription written by the Emperor’s friend and counsellor Abu-l-Fazl, for a temple in Kashmir, might serve as a motto for Akbar’s creed:

O God, in every temple I see people that see thee, and in every language I hear spoken, people praise thee.

Polytheism and Islam feel after thee.

Each religion says, ‘Thou art one, without equal.’

If it be a mosque, people murmur the holy prayer; and if it be a Christian Church, people ring the bell from love to thee. Sometimes I frequent the Christian cloister, and sometimes the mosque.

But it is thou whom I seek from temple to temple.

Thy elect have no dealings with heresy or with orthodoxy: for neither of them stands behind the screen of thy truth.

Heresy to the heretic, and religion to the orthodox,

But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the perfume-seller.

He discarded the rigid tenets of Islam, and adopted

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in their stead an eclectic pantheism, in which he incorporated whatever he found admirable in various creeds.

‘I can but lift the torch

Of Reason in the dusky cave of Life,

And gaze on this great miracle, the World,

Adoring That who made, and makes, and is,

And is not, what I gaze on – all else, Form,

Ritual, varying with the tribes of men2.’

Akbar’s State Religion was a failure. It never took hold of the people. No eclectic philosophy ever does. But his broad-minded sympathy drew the severed links of the empire together and for a while created a nation where there had been races. His watchword was Toleration. He was tolerant of all shades of religion and every tinge of nationality. He encouraged Portuguese Jesuits and admired their painted and graven images; he presided over philosophical discussions in which every received dogma was freely criticized; he sanctioned the worship of the sun, ‘Symbol the Eternal,’ as the most glorious manifestation of Deity, and would himself daily set the example to his people, and

‘Kneel adoring Him the Timeless in the flame that measures Time.’

To carry out his public toleration in the privacy of home, he took his wives from different races and religions. All this was not done out of policy alone: he had a distinctly philosophical bent of thought. The practical side of this open-minded attitude was

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seen in the abolition of all taxes upon religious non-conformity. The detested jizya or Muhammadan poll-tax upon unbelievers, was done away. In the eyes of Akbar’s tax-gatherer, as well as of his God, all men were equal, and nothing was ‘common or unclean.’ To conciliate the prejudices of race, he employed native Hindus, Persian heretics, and orthodox Afghan and Mughal Sunnis impartially in the offices of state and in the army, and conferred equal honours upon each denomination. To form the leading men of all races and creeds into one loyal corps, directly attached to the throne, he established a sort of feudal, but not hereditary aristocracy called mansabdars who were in receipt of salaries or held lands direct from the crown, during the pleasure of the sovereign, on condition of military service. The dangers of a possible territorial aristocracy, into which this body of life-peers might have developed, were minimized by a rigorous system of inspection and a careful supervision of the rent-collectors3. The system worked admirably so long as it was strictly carried out. For nearly a century Hindu and Persian nobles loyally served their common sovereign in war and in the civil government of the country. It broke down only when religious intolerance sapped its strength.

Akbar’s son, Salim, who ascended the throne with the title of Jahangir, in October, 1605, at the age of

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thirty-seven, offered a striking contrast to his incomparable father, against whom he had openly rebelled. His temper was violent and he was a notorious drunkard. In his astonishingly candid ‘Memoirs,’ he relates how (like his wretched brothers Murad and Daniyal) he had been addicted to intoxicating liquors from the age of eighteen, and used to drink as much as twenty cups a day, at first of wine, then of ‘double-distilled liquor’ of such potency that it made Sir Thomas Roe, the British ambassador, sneeze, to the delight of the whole Court. As he got older, he reduced his potations, but still was in the habit of becoming unconscionably muddled every night, insomuch that at supper he had to be fed by his servants, after which ‘he turned to sleep, the candles were popped out,’ says Sir Thomas, ‘and I groped my way out in the dark.’ But, sot as he was, Jahangir was no fool. He kept his orgies for the evening, and during the day he was sobriety personified. None of his nobles dared risk the faintest odour of wine at the daily levees; and an indiscreet reference to the ‘obliterated’ revels of the previous night was severely punished. The Emperor even went so far as to issue a, virtuous edict against intemperance, and, like his contemporary James I, wrote a treatise against tobacco, though he said nothing about his favourite opium.

He must have inherited a splendid constitution from Akbar and his mother, a Rajput princess, for his debauchery does not seem to have materially injured his mind or body. Sir Thomas Roe formed

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a favourable opinion of his intelligence, and there can be no question that he displayed commendable energy in maintaining his authority throughout his wide dominions, in suppressing the rebellion of his eldest son, and in directing campaigns in the Deccan and against the Rajput chiefs. Jahangir cannot be credited, it is true, with the genius of initiative; but he was wise enough to continue the policy of his father, and this policy still retained the loyalty of the Hindus. His toleration arose more from indifference than from a liberal mind; but Muslim as he professed to be, he showed the same indulgence towards Hindus and Christians as Akbar had displayed. He too was a patron of Christian art: pictures and statues of the Madonna formed part of the decoration of his palaces. No doubt the success of his government was largely due to the abilities of his statesmen and generals; but the Emperor had wit and power enough to have taken his own line, if he had not preferred wisely to follow in the steps of his father. Towards the end of his reign, indeed, he fell completely under the influence of his imperious and gifted queen, the celebrated Nur-Jahan, who practically ruled the empire, with the aid of her brother, Asaf Khan; and the effects of her sway were seen in the weakening of the old military spirit of the Mughals, the driving of the most capable of the Emperor’s sons, Prince Khurram, into open rebellion, the increase of the pernicious practice of farming out the provincial governments, the spread of brigandage, and the monstrous cupidity of the Court in the matter

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of gifts. No one ever dreamt of coming to the Empress or her ministers empty-handed.

Jahangir died suddenly in November, 1627, at the age of fifty-eight, whilst on his way back from his usual summer visit to the refreshing valleys of Kashmir. After a brief delay, during which his grandson Maki was provisionally set on the throne with the title of Dawar-Bakhsh, Prince Khurram assumed the sceptre at Agra in January, 1628, with the title of Shah-Jahan, or ‘King of the World.’

Like his father, Shah-Jahan was the offspring of a union with a Rajput princess, a daughter of the proud Raja of Marwar, and had more Indian than Mughal blood in his veins. Yet he was a good Muhammadan of the orthodox Sunni profession, compared with his ancestors, and showed a tinge of intolerance which was wholly foreign to his easy-going father and broad-minded grandfather. His orthodoxy was fostered by the influence of his best-beloved wife, Mumtaz-Mahall, the mother of all his fourteen children, whose monument, erected by a devoted husband, is the famous Taj at Agra. But Shah-Jahan was too prudent a king to let religion override statesmanship. He did not object to the presence of Jesuit missionaries, and, like Akbar, he employed Hindus to command his armies. The wars of his reign were unimportant: the Deccan was, as usual, a source of trouble, but the kingdoms of Bijapur and Golkonda were brought to temporary submission and compelled to pay tribute; and several campaigns were undertaken in the hope of recovering

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Kandahar from the Persians. In these wars the Emperor’s son Aurangzib won his spurs.

The reign of Shah-Jahan is notable chiefly for peaceful prosperity. His ministers were men of the highest ability. Sa’d-Allah ’Allami, a converted Hindu, was the most upright statesman of his age; and Ali Mardan and Asaf Khan were men of approved integrity and energy. The French traveller Tavernier speaks of the gracious government of the Emperor as like that of a father over his family,’ and bears witness to the security of the roads and the just administration of the law. A Hindu writer of the time vies with his Muhammadan and Christian contemporaries in extolling the equity of Shah-Jahan’s rule, his wise and liberal administration of the land, the probity of his courts of law, his personal auditing of the accounts, and the prosperity of the country resulting from all these causes.

The general tranquillity of the empire left Shah-Jahan ample leisure to indulge in his favourite passion for display. To this day, his great works at Agra and his splendid palace at New Delhi testify to his grandiose conceptions of architecture. He christened his new city Shahjahanabad, and for generations this was the only name given to Delhi on coins and in official documents. It was completed in 1648, after being ten years a-building, and, according to all accounts, it must have been the most magnificent palace on the face of the earth4. He is said to have

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possessed a set of travelling tents, made in Kashmir, which took two months to pitch in succession. His coronation anniversaries were kept with the utmost splendour and extravagance. On these festivals he was weighed in the Mughal fashion against the precious metals, and bowls of costly jewels were poured over him, all of which, to the value of a million and a half, were ordered to be distributed to the people on the following day. Yet with all his magnificence, Shah-Jahan was never arrogant. He discontinued the obnoxious ceremonial of prostration before the royal presence; and he was renowned for his kindness and benevolence, which endeared him to the people. No other Mughal Emperor was ever so beloved as Shah-Jahan.

As he grew old, his benevolence and popularity did not decrease, but he abandoned himself more and more to pleasure, and allowed himself to be managed by his children. His favourite wife, the lady of the Taj, had died in 1631, in giving birth to their fourteenth child, and her husband had centred his affection upon his eldest daughter, Jahan-Ara, with so much fervour as to cause no little scandal, while he also denied himself none of the more transitory joys of the zenana. He had been a grave stern man in his prime, an energetic soldier, and a prudent counsellor: at the age of sixty-four he was a sensual pleasure-loving pageant of royalty, given over to ease and the delights of the eye:–

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‘Oh! had he still that Character maintain’d

Of Valour, which in blooming Youth he gain’d,

He promised in his East a glorious Race;

Now, sunk from his Meridian, sets apace.

But as the Sun, when he from Noon declines,

And with abated heat less fiercely shines,

Seems to grow milder as he goes away,

Pleasing himself with the remains of Day:

So he who, in his Youth, for Glory strove,

Would recompense his age with Ease and Love5.’

The burden of state interfered with his enjoyment, and he sought to devolve his power upon his four sons, to each of whom he gave the viceroyalty of one of his distant provinces, in the hope of stilling their never-ending jealousies, and removing them from opportunities for unfilial ambition. The sceptre was falling from his hand, and he sought to secure peace for his old age by breaking it into pieces. The mistake soon became apparent. The fragments of the sceptre, like the rods of the Egyptian sorcerers, turned into so many serpents, which hissed about his throne, and strangled the remnant of his power, till the rod of Aurangzib swallowed up the rest, and with them the Peacock Throne.

It was the tradition of Mughal monarchy that the dying eyes of the father should witness the rebellion of the son Akbar had forgiven his undutiful heir Jahangir on his death-bed. Shah-Jahan was himself in revolt when his parent died. It was now his turn to suffer the like fate. In 1657 he was afflicted with a malady which, in the words of Bernier, the ever

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polished French physician and traveller, ‘it were unbecoming to describe.’ The self-indulgence of the old sensualist had brought its retribution: It was generally feared that the disease would prove fatal: reports of his death were freely circulated, and each of the Princes at once prepared to fight for the crown:–

‘As at a signal, streight the sons prepare

For open force, and rush to sudden war:

Meeting like winds broke loose upon the Main,

To prove, by Arms, whose Fate it was to Reign.’

Whosesoever fate it should be, the new Emperor would have to confront different circumstances from his predecessors. Akbar’s organization had welded an empire out of heterogeneous materials with marvellous success, but there were flaws in the work, which threatened to develop into serious cleavage. Toleration had bred indifference, and success had engendered luxury: the hardy troopers of Balkh had grown soft in the Capua of the Jamna, and their religious convictions had gone the way- of the Deputy of Achaia. They had thrown away their old standard of manliness, and had become fops and epicures. Two of Akbar’s sons died of drink, and the habit of intoxication had become so universal among the nobles and officials that even the chief Kazi used to smuggle his daily dram into his house of a morning. In short, ‘the heroic soldiers of the early empire, and their not less heroic wives, had given place to a vicious . and delicate breed of grandees. The ancestors of

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Aurangzib, who swooped down on India from the north, were ruddy men in boots: the courtiers among whom Aurangzib grew up were pale persons in petticoats. Babar, the founder of the empire, had swum every river which he met with during thirty years’ campaigning; the luxurious nobles around the youthful Aurangzib wore skirts made of innumerable folds of the finest white muslin, and went to war in palankins.’ The rough breath of their highland birth-place was changed to sickly essences; and the old battle-cry of Allah had become a hollow symbol of the religion they had studied to forget. Childish superstition or impotent indifference had taken the place of the old faith; and immorality and debauchery had followed close upon the loosening of the religious bond.

Against the Mughals – a term which by this time meant any Indian Muslim with a fair complexion, and implied very little Mughal blood – the new Emperor could set the Rajputs, the pick of the warriors of Hindustan, who had been loyal servants to three successive Mughal kings, but whose fidelity depended upon the respect paid to their prejudices and customs. They might either be the flower of the Imperial army, or its most formidable foe. The new Emperor had it in his power to decide which it should be.

To retrieve the growing effeminacy of the Mughals, to attach or curb the Rajputs, to check the tendency of provincial governors to transmit their prestige to their sons and found dynasties, to put a heart into a decaying system and a faith into a listless soul, –

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such were the problems which confronted the son of Shah-Jahan who should succeed to his father’s splendid but cankering power. It was a task for a prophet like Muhammad, or such a king as Theodoric. The question was, should it be done by the zeal of the Lord, or by the compromise of the man of the world?

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The Family of Aurangzib

Footnotes

1. Sir W. W. Hunter, The Ruin of Aurangzeb, Nineteenth Century, May, 1887.

2. Tennyson, Akbar’s Dream (1892), p. 33.

3. See my History of the Moghul Emperors illustrated by their Coins, reprinted from the ‘Catalogue of Indian Coins in the British Museum,’ pp. xv ff., from which part of the present chapter is derived.

4. See below, p. 93.

5. Dryden, Aureng-Zebe, Constable’s Oriental Miscellany,’ vol. iii. (1892) P. 55.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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