afe mH •'f'r.'. ■ k»> m^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Ik €> Hukrs ai Jnbia EDITED BY SIR WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER, K.C.S.L, CLE. M.A. (Oxford): LL.D. (Cambridge) AURANGZIB bonbon HENRY FROWDE Oxford University Press Warehouse Amen Corner, E.G. (Hew ?)orft MAC.MILLAN & CO., 112 FOURTH AVENUE [An rights reserved^ J StOTxArrdls G«oq^ Istdf ^^ AURANGZIB )ii a coHtemhorary I vidian drawimy. Sec />. q^ RULERS OF INDIA Euvano3tb By STANLEY LANE -POOLE, B.A. AUTHOR OF THE CATALOGUE OF ORIENTAL AND INDIAN COINS IN THE BRITISH MrSElM THE LIFE OF VISCT. STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE, ETC. Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS: 1893 Oxfotb PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY NOTE ON AUTHORITIES The most important contemporary European authority for the early part of Aurangzib's reign is the French physician Bernier, who lived in India from 1659 to 1666, and whose Travels have recently been admirably edited by Mr. Constable. Bernier writes as a philosopher and man of the world : his contemporary Tavernier (1640-1667) views India with the professional eye of a jeweller; nevertheless his Travels, of which Dr. Ball has produced a scientific edition, contain many valuable pictures of Mughal life and character. Dr. Fryer's New Account of India is chiefly useful as a description of the Maratha power under Sivaji, for the author during his visit to India 1672-81'! did not extend his travels further north than Surat. Like Fryer, Ovington (1689-92) did not go to the Mughal Court, and his Voyage to Sio'utt contains little beyond what the English merchants of Bombay and Siirat (the only places he visited) chose to tell him. Something may be gleaned from Yule's elaborate edition of Hedges' Diary as to the Mughal pro- vincial administration in 1682-4 ; and Dr. Gemelli Careri's visit to Aurangzib's camp in the Deccan in 1695 throws light on an obscure portion of the reign. Catrou's Histoire Generate cle V Empire du Mogol (17 15), founded on the Portuguese memoirs of ' M. Manouchi," would be invaluable if there were any means of authenticating it by comparison with Manucci's MS. ; as it is, the work is too full of errors, and savours too strongly of the chronique scandatev.se of some malicious and disappointed backstairs underling at the Mughal Court, to be esteemed as an authority. The contemporary Indian chroniclers, Khiifi Khan, Musta'idd Klian, 'Abd-al-Hamid Lahori, Inayat Khiin, Bakhtawar Kluin, and others, may be con- sulted in Elliot and Dowson's invaluable History of India as told by its oicn Historians, vol. vii. Elphinstone's History of India has been followed in its admirable account of the Deccan campaigns. All dates are given in New Style, and the varying spellings of Indian names have been reduced to uniformity. I have to express my gratitude to Sir William W. Hunter, who had originally under- taken this volume of the series, for making over to me in the most generous manner all the MS. materials which he had collected in India for this purpose. S. L.-P. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGES Introduction — The Heritage of Akbar . . 7-21 I. The Prince 22-34 II. The Fight for the Throne 35-59 III. The Puritan 60-74 IV. The Emperor .... 75-87 V. The Court .... 88-105 VI. The Government I06-II8 YII. The Kevenue II9-I29 VIII. The Hindus 130-142 IX. The Deccan 143-154 X. SiVAJi the MarIthI . 155-168 XL The Faix of Golkonda 169-187 XII. The Ruin of Aurangzib 188-206 NOTE ON THE VOWEL SOUNDS The orthography of proper names follows generally the system adopted by the Indian Government for the Imperial Gazetteer of huUa. That system, while adhering to the popular spelling of very well- known places, such as Punjab, Poona, Deccan, &c., employs in all t.ther cases the vowels with the following uniform sounds : — a, as in woman : a, as in father : i, as in km : i, as in intrigue : 0. as in cold : u, as in b«dl : u, as in ride. AURANGZIB INTRODUCTION The Heritage of Akbar The greatest of Indian rulers^, the Emperor Akbar, died in 1 605. 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 ho had gone far towards welding it into an organic whole. He united under one fii'm 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 difticulties presented by the government of a pecu- liarly heterogeneous empire, he stands absolutely supreme among oriental sovereigns, and may even 8 A URANGZIb 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 the 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 hot 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 empii'e 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 THE HERITAGE OF AKBAR 9 throuo-hout India. On the death of the Bens^al 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 shi'oud, 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 god ^.' The inscription written by the Emperor's friend and counsellor Abu-1-Fazl, for a temple in Kashmir, might serve as a motto for Akbar's creed : God, in every temple I see people that see thee, and in every language I hear spoken, peoj^le 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 ' Sir W. W. Hunter, The, Ruin of Auratxgzeh^ ' Nineteenth Century,' May, 1887. lo AURANGZIB in their stead an eclectic pantheism, in which he in- corporated 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 men\' 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 w^as 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 philo- sophical 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 ^ Tennyson, Akbar's Dream (1892), p. 33. THE HERITAGE OF AKBAR II seen in the abolition of all taxes npon 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 un- clean.' To conciliate the prejudices of race, he em- ployed 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 mansahddrs, 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-collectors ^. The system worked admirably so long as it was strictly canied 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 * See my History of the Moghul Emperors ilhistrafed bij their Coins, re- printed from the ' Catalogue of Indian Coins in the British Museum,' pp. XV ff., from which part of the present chapter is derived. 12 AURANGZIB thirty-seven, offered a striking contrast to his incom- parable 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 de- light of the whole Court. As he got older, he reduced his potations, but still was in the habit of becoming un- conscionably 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 vh'tuous 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 iujured his mind or body. Sir Thomas Roe formed THE HERITAGE OF AKBAR 13 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 14 AURANGZIB of gifts. No one ever dreamt of coming to the Em- press 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 Biilaki 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 fos- tered 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 Hindtis 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 THE HERITAGE OF AKBAR 15 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 'AK Mardan and Asaf Khan were men of approved integrity and energy. The French traveller Taver- nier speaks of the gracious government of the Em- peror 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 Chi'istian con- temporaries 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 earth ^. He is said to have * See below, p. 93. 1 6* AURANGZIB 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 pro- stration 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 theii' 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:— THE HERITAGE OF AKBAR 17 * 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 Love^' 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 viceroy alty 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 1 Dryden, Aureng-Zebe, 'Constable's Oriental Miscellany/ vol. iii. (1892) p. 55. 1 8 AURANGZIB polished French physician and traveller, 'it were unbecominof to describe.' The self-indulo-ence 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 Keign.' Whosesoever fate it should be, the new Emperor would have to confront diiFerent circumstances from his predecessors. Akbar's organization had welded an empire out of heterogeneous materials with mar- vellous success, but there were flaws in the work, which threatened to develop into serious cleavage. Toleration had bred indifierence, 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 in- toxication 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 THE HERITAGE OF AKBAR 19 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 petti- coats. Babar, the founder of the empire, had swum every river which he met with during thirty years' campaigning; the luxurious nobles around the youthful Aurancfzi'b wore skirts made of innumerable folds of the finest white muslin, and went to war in palan- kins.' 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 Em- peror 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, — B 2 20 aurangzIb 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 ? ??r o w _-^0 S _Dqvovg i^;- ^"^'S _S*o iC s ^ M W j^-< -li-l-S ^i^-. ^ lo O - CO vo r^ <^--« 05 rfi ^ |fe; -it 11^^ s = a . : . CO < 1 .. •^ ro o — ^ \0 tv, g M M N CHAPTER I The Prince The four sons of Shah-Jahan who made ready in 1657 to fight for their apparently d}?ing father's throne were Dara the eldest, a man of forty-two, Shuja', a year younger, Aurangzib, almost thirty-nine, and Murad-Eakhsh, the youngest, then in his thirty- fourth year^. Their characters have been drawn by Bernier, who knew Dara and Aurangzib personally, and acted as physician to each in succession. Dara Shukoh, he tells us, was not wanting in good quali- ties, and could be both gracious and generous ; but he was inordinately conceited and self-satisfied, very proud of his intellectual gifts, and extremely intolerant of advice and contradiction, which easily roused his imperious and violent Mughal temper. Though ^ The translation of these names is Lara, King ; Shuja', Valiant ; Aurangzib, Throne - ornament ; Murad - Bakhsh, Desire • attained. Shah-Jahan had altogether fourteen children, all by his wife Mumtaz Mahall, whom he married in 1612, and who died in 1631, Six were girls and eight boys. Seven of them died in infancy ; the names of those who grew up are given in the annexed pedigree, where the princesses are printed in italics. The Princess Kudsiya was apparently also known as Gohar-Ara. THE PRINCE 23 nominally a Muhammadan in outward forms, he was really all things to all men, and prided himself on his breadth of view ; accepting philosophical ideas from the Brahmans who lived upon his bounty, and lending a sympathetic ear to the religious suggestions of the Reverend Father Buzee of the Company of Jesus. He wrote treatises on comparative theology, in which he maintained that 'infidelity' and Islam were almost twin sisters. It has been suggested that Dara's wide religious sympathies were assumed for political reasons, in order to win over the tributary Eajas, and the Christians who furnished all the best gunners for the artillery, with a view to the coming struggle for the throne : but it is more likely that he was honestly trying, accord- ing to his lights, to tread the path wherein Akbar had walked. As will be seen, Dara's ' emancipated ' ideas did him more harm than good, and formed a pretext for 'his destruction. But apart from his creed, or agnosticism, he was a nervous, sensitive, impulsive creature, full of fine feelings and vivid emotions, never master of himself or of others, and liable to lose his self-control just when cool judgement was most necessary. He might have been a poet or a transcendental philosopher ; he could never have become a Ruler of India. His next brother, Shuja, had more will and less elevation of character than Dara. He was brave, discreet, subtle, and a dexterous diplomatist. He knew how to bribe the Hindu chiefs, and succeeded a4:- AURANGZIB in interesting the "great Maharaja of Marwar, Jaswant Singh, in his cause. He professed himself a Shi'i, or follower of 'Ah', in order to secure the adhesion of the powerful Persian lords. But he had a fatal weakness : ' he was too much a slave to his pleasures ; and once surrounded by his women, who were exceedingly nu- merous, he would pass whole days and nights in dan- cing, siuging, and drinking wine. He presented his favourites with rich robes, and increased or diminished their allowances as the passing fancy of the moment prompted. No courtier who consulted his own in- terest would attempt to detach him from this mode of life : the business of government [he was viceroy of Bengal] therefore often languished, and the affections of his subjects were in a great measure alienated^.' It is recorded of the great Khalif Al-Mansur, the true founder of the 'Abbasid empire, that when he was engaged in a war, he never looked upon the face of woman till he had triumphed. Shuja' might well have emulated his example. No Mughal sovereign who shut himself up in the seraglio, and neglected to show himself constantly to his subjects and listen to their complaints, had any chance of retaining his ascendancy over them. Shuja's zenana was the prison of his career. Murad-Bakhsh, the youngest son of Shah-Jahan, was a gallant swashbuckler, brave as a lion, frank ^ Bernier, Travels, translated by Arch. Constable (1891), pp. 7, 8. To this edition, published as vol. i. of 'Constable's Oriental Miscellany,' all subsequent quotations from Bernier refer. THE PRINCE 25 and open as the day ; a fool in politics, a despiser of statecraft, and a firm believer in ruddy steel. He was the terror of the battle-field, and the best of good fellows over a bottle. No one could be better trusted in a melley ; none was more fatuous in council or more reckless in a debauch. The hereditary passion for wine, which had descended from Babar to his pos- terity, found a willing victim in this valiant boor. His name justified itself in accordance with his mental limitations : his '^ desires ' were indeed ' attained ', but they were the sort of desires which lead to perdition. Two princesses played an important part in the intrigues which circled round the sick-bed of their father. The elder, Jahan-Ara, or ' World-adorner/ known as Begam Sahib, or Princess Koyal, was her father's darling. Beautiful and ' of lively parts ', she devoted herself to the solace of his old age, won his unbounded confidence, and, in the absence of any preeminent Queen, exerted unlimited influence in the Mughal Court. No intrigue or piece of jobbery could prosper without her aid, and the handsome presents she was always receiving from those who had any- thing to gain from the Emperor, added to her magni- ficent pin-money, made her extremely wealthy. She was condemned to the usual fate of Mughal princesses, the state of single blessedness, because no alliance in India was considered worthy of the Princess Royal, or because no great Lord cared to burden himself with the oppressive glory of becoming the husband of an imperious wife. Princesses did not conduce to 26 AURANGZIB domestic peace in a polygamous household. The Princess Royal is said, however, like some other grandes et honnetes dames de par le ntonde, to have consoled herself. In politics, she was a warm ally of Dara, and exerted all her influence with the King on his behalf. Her younger sister, Kaushan-Ara, or ' Brilliant Ornament,' on the other hand, was a staunch supporter of Aurangzib, and cordially hated the Princess Royal and her eldest brother. So long as Dara lived, she had little power, but she watched zealously over Aurangzib's interests, and kept him constantly in- formed of all that went on at Court. She was not so handsome as her sister ; but this did not prevent her having her little afi'airs, without which a spinster's life in the zenana had few distractions. Aurangzib, the third son of Shah-Jahan, was born on the night of the 4th of November, 1618, at Dhud, on the borders of Malwa, nearly half-way between Baroda and Ujjain. His father was at that time Viceroy of the Deccan province, but the future em- peror was only two years old when Shah-Jahan fell into disgrace with the Court, and was forced to fly, fighting the while, through Telingana and Bengal, and three or four years passed before he could again resume his place in the Deccan. At last he offered his submission and apologies to Jahangir, and was allowed to remain undisturbed, on condition that he sent two of his sons, Dara and Aurangzib, as hostages to the Court at Agra (1625). Nothing is known of the life of the child during the years of civil war, or THE PRINCE 27 of his captivity under the jealous eyes of Queen Niir- Jahan. Nor is anything recorded of his boyhood, from the day when, at the age of nine, he saw his father ascend the throne, to the year 1636, when the youth of seventeen was appointed to the important office of Governor of the Deccan. The childhood of an eastern prince is usually uneventful. Aurangzib doubtless received the ordinary education of a Muslim, was taught his Koran, and well grounded in the mys- teries of Arabic grammar and the various scholastic accomplishments w^hich still make up the orthodox body of learning in the East. He certainly acquired a facility in verse, and the prose style of his Persian letters is much admired in India. In later years he complained of the narrow course of study set before him by his ignorant — or at least conventional — tutor \ and drew a sketch of what the education of a Prince ought to be. To his early religious trainiug, however, he probably owed his decided bent towards Muslim Puritanism, which was at once his distinction and his ruin. Aurangzib's early government of the Deccan was a nominal rule. The young prince seems to have been more occupied with thoughts of the world to come than with measures for the subjugation of the earth beneath his eyes. Possibly the pomp and empty pageantry of his fathers sumptuous Court set the earnest young mind thinking of the 'vanity of human wishes ' ; or some judicious friend may have instilled ^ See below, p. 76. 2$ AURANGZIB into the receptive soul the painful lessons to be drawn from the careless self-indulgence of too many of his royal relatives. Whatever the influence, it is clear that he had early learnt to look upon life as a serious business. In 1643, when only twenty-four, he an- nounced his intention of retiring from the world, and actually took up his abode in the wild regions of the Western Ghats (where Dr. Fryer was shown his re- treat) and adopted the rigorous system of self-morti- fication which distinguished the fakir or mendicant friar of Islam. This extraordinary proceeding, far more bizarre in a youthful Mughal prince than in the elderly, gouty, and disappointed Emperor Charles V, has been set down by some of his critics to Aurangzib's subtle calculation and hypocrisy. It is insinuated that the pretence of indifference to the seductions of power was designedly adopted with a view to hoodwink his contemporaries as to his real ambition. There is, however, no reasonable ground for the insinuation, which is but one of many instances of the way in which Aurangzib's biographers have ridden to death their theory of his duplicity. So far from prov- insf of service to him, his choice of a life of devotion only drew down his father's severe wrath. The Prince was punished by the stopping of his pay, the loss of his rank and estates, and his deposition from the governorship of the Deccan. His own family were un- doubtedly impressed with his rehgious character, and his eldest brother Dara, with the superior air of an THE PRINCE 29 "* emancipated ' agnostic, called him ' that saint ' ; but it remains to be proved that they were deceived in their estimate of their brother, — a rare experience among close relations, — or that his accepted role as a devotee raised his character in the estimation of either the nobles or the people. Moreover, had he been so deeply designing an impostor, he would have played his part so long as was necessary to develop his plans ; he would have waited till the opportunity came to strike, for which he was watching in his lonely cell. Instead of this, in a year's time Aurangzib was out of his seclusion, exercising all the powers of a Viceroy in the important province of Gujarat. Henceforward we shall see him always to the fore when war was going on, keeping himself steadily before the eyes of the people. The truth seems to be that his temporary retirement from the world was the youthful impulse of a morbid nature excited by religious enthusiasm. The novelty of the experiment soon faded away ; the fakir grew heartily tired of his retreat ; and the young Prince returned to carry out his notions of asceticism in a sphere where they were more creditable to his self-denial, and more operative upon the great world in which he was born to work. He was not destined to be a '■ Deedless dreamer, lazying out a life Of self-suppression : ' his ascetic mind was fated to influence the course of an empire. The youthful dream was soon dispelled, and the 30 AURANGZIB erewhile fakir became a statesman and a leader of armies. In February, 1647, Shah-Jahan raised him to the rank of a mansahddr of i5,coo personal and io,coo horse, and ordered him to take command of the pro- vinces of Balkh and Badakhshan, on the north-west side of the Hindu Kush, which had lately been added to the Mughal Empire. They had once been the dominion of Babar, the grandfather of Akbar, and it had long been the ambition of Shah-Jahan to assert his dormant claim and recover the territory of his renowned ancestor. He even aspired to use these provinces as stepping-stones to the recovery of the ancient kingdom of Samarkand, once the capital of a still earlier and more famous ancestor, Timur, the ' Scourge of God.' This kingdom, with the dependent provinces of Balkh and Badakhshan, now belonged to the Uzbegs, who were governed by a member of the Astrakhan djmasty, ultimately descended, like their Indian antagonists, from Jinghiz Kaan. Their sway, however, was but a shadow of the power which Tamerlane had bequeathed to his successors ; and the Persian general 'Ali Mardan, accompanied by the youngest Imperial Prince, Murad-Bakhsh, at the head of 50,000 horse and 10^000 foot and artillery, had ac- complished, though not without severe fighting, the conquest of Balkh and the neighbouring cities in 1645. The difficulty, however, was not so much how to take, but how to keep, this distant region, separated by the snowy ranges of the Hindu Kush from the rest of the Empire, inaccessible in winter, and exposed at THE PRINCE 31 all times to the attack of the indomitable hill tribes, who have always made the government of the mountain region a thankless task to every ruler who has attempted to subdue them. When Aurangzib reached the scene of his government, he soon per- ceived the character of the country and its defenders, and like a wise general counselled a retreat from an untenable position. He made terms with the King of the Uzbegs, restored the useless provinces, and began his march home. It was now October, and no time was to be lost in re-crossing the mountains. A long scene of disaster ensued, though Aurangzib, in concert with his Persian and Indian advisers, took every precaution, and personally superintended the move- ment. The hill men hovered about the flanks of the retreating Rajputs, cut off detached parties, and harassed every step. The baggage fell over preci- pices ; the Hazaras bristled above the narrow defiles ; the Hindu Kush was under snow, which fell for five days ; and ^000 men, to say nothing of horses, elephants, camels, and other beasts of burden, died from cold and exposure. It was but a dejected frost- bitten remnant of the army that reached Kabul ; and Shah-Jahan's precious scheme of aggrandizement had cost the exchequer more than two million pounds. Aurangzib's next employment was equally un- successful. Kandahar, which had belonged to the Shah of Persia, had been surrendered to the Mughals ten years before (1637) by its able and ambitious governor, 'Ali Mardan, who speedily wiped out his 32 AURANGZIB treachery to the old master by distinguished services to the new, not only in war, but in such works of peace as the well-known canal at Delhi, which still bears his name. Towards the close of 1648 the Persians besieged the city, and Aurangzib and the great minister, Sa'd- Allah 'Allami, accompanied by Raja Jai Singh and his Rajputs, were sent to relieve it. The Mughal army numbered 6o,coo horse and 10,000 infantry and artillery. Before they reached Kabul, however, Kandahar had fallen ; and measures were accordingly taken for a siege. In May, 1649, the Mughals opened their batteries, and mines and countermines, sallies and assaults, went on with great vigour for four months. The army, however, had come for a pitched battle, not for a siege, and there were no heavy guns. By September little progress had been made, and the winter was coming on. Aurangzib had experienced one winter retreat in the mountains, and he would not risk a second. The army retired to Kabul. In the spring of 1652, another attempt was made to recover Kandahar, and Aurangzib was again sent with Sa'd-Allah, at the head of an army ' like the waves of the sea,' with a siege-train, including eight heavy and twenty light guns, and 3000 camels carry- ing ammunition. But the frontiers were strong and vigorously defended ; the besiegers' guns were badly served, and two of them burst ; the enemy's sallies and steady fire drove back the engineers ; and after two months and eight days the siege was again abandoned. THE PRINCE 33 Nor was an even more determined leaguer by Prince Dara early in the following year any more successful, though some of his ordnance projected shot of nearly a hundredweight. These campaigns in Afghanistan and beyond the Hindu Kiish are of no importance in the history of India, except as illustrating the extreme difficulty of holding the mountain provinces from a distant centre, whether it be Delhi or Calcutta ; but they were of the greatest service to Aurangzib. They put him in touch with the imperial army, and enabled him to prove his courage and generalship in the eyes of the best soldiers in the land. It is not to be supposed that, with tried commanders like 'All Mardan, Jai Singh, and Sa'd- Allah, at his side, Aurangzib enjoyed the real com- mand. He was doubtless at first more a nominal than an acting general, — a princely figure-head to decorate the war-ship of proved officers. But as time went on, opportunities occurred for the exercise of his personal courage and tactical skill. The generals learnt to appreciate him at his true value, and the men dis- covered that their Prince was as cool and steady a leader as the best officer in India. When they saw him, in the midst of a battle with the Uzbegs, at the hour of evening prayer, calmly dismounting and performing his religious rites under fire, they recognised the mettle of the man. Henceforth every soldier and statesman in Hindustan knew that, whatever time should bring forth in the future of the empire, Aurangzib was a factor to be reckoned with. c 34 AURANGZIB He had gone over the mountains an unknown quantity, a reputed devotee, with no military record to give him prestige. He came back an approved general, a man of tried courage and powers of endurance, a prince whose wisdom, coolness and resolution had been tested and acclaimed in three arduous campaigns. The wars over the north-west frontier had ended as such wars have often ended since, but they had done for Aurangzib what they did for Stewart and Roberts ; they placed their leader in the front rank of Indian generals. After Balkh and Kandahar, the Prince was recognized as the coming man. CHAPTEK II THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE The inevitable destiny of a prince who had dis- played such ability and energy in the campaigns in Afghanistan was to govern the ever-disturbed province of the Deccan. The record of what Aurangzib did there in 1655-7 "^^^^ ^^^ i^^ place in a later chapter^ ; here it suffices to say that his dealings with the Muhammadan kingdoms of Golkonda and Bijapiir added greatly to his renown both as a general and as a diplomatist. In the midst of his successes, he was called away to face the crisis of his life. In the autumn of 1657, as has already been related, his father, Shah-Jahan, was reported to be sick unto death. A fratricidal struggle for the crown at once began, in which Aurangzib took the principal part. It was no child's play, for all the four brothers were mature men of fixed characters and definite aims, and each had had experience in the art of war and in the government of provinces. Their father, remember- ing his own contumacy towards Jahangir, and ever ^ See below, pp. 147-151. C % 7/S AURANGZtB fearful of civil war and unfilial ambition, had en- deavoured to minimize their jealousy and power for mischief by appointing them Viceroys of provinces as distant as possible from the capital and from each other. Shuja' was away to the east, Governor of Bengal ; Aurangzib was down south in the Deccan ; Murad-Bakhsh was in the west, making merry in the capacity of Viceroy of Gujarat. Dara, the eldest, was assigned the government of Multan and of distant Kabul, but had become so necessary to his father that he deputed his functions to others, and himself remained at Delhi attached to the King's person. Each of the princes behaved more like an independent sovereign than a lieutenant of the Emperor. They had the command of large revenues, which they devoted to the formation of large armies in preparation for the struggle which they knew to be inevitable. Dara was apparently the favourite, and as the Em- peror grew older his eldest son's influence increased. After the last desperate assault upon Kandahar, the prince had received many marks of his father's regard. He was given the title of Shah Baland Ikbal, ' Lord of Exalted Fortune,' and invested with a robe of honour studded with diamonds and pearls, said to be worth 50,000 rupees (£5600), and a splendid ruby for his turban, besides other jewels and money to the value of a third of a million. Most significant of all, a golden couch had been placedfor him below the imperial throne, and Dara, alone of all the royal family, was allowed to be seated in the presence of the King. No clearer sign THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 2>7 was needed to show the Court that Shah-Jahan in- tended his eldest son to succeed him. When the Kind's dangerous illness withdrew him from the manage- ment of affairs, it was naturally Dara who took his place. In so doing he was within his rights as eldest son and presumptive heir to the crown of Delhi. But he knew he had to reckon with three brothers, each at the head of an army and in command of a province, and the measures he took to prevent the news of his father's illness reachinor them show that he dreaded the consequences of his assumption of royal functions. A singular light is cast upon the instability of the imperial organization when it is remembered that no Mughal king dared to absent himself from the public levees for more than a day or two, for fear of a general rebellion. The people were satisfied only if they could see their king : if he were not seen he must be dead. Even Jahanofir, after his nightly debauch, had to ' pull himself together,' coiXte que coitte, and make his punctual appearance at the levee window. Shah-Jahan's absence from his accustomed seat overlookinor the srreat Hall of Audience could not fail to arouse suspicion, and the rumour that he was dead, in spite of Dara's assurances, spread rapidly throughout the provinces, and every man looked to his weapons and made ready for the fray. Bernier describes the tumult of this anxious time : — * The Mughal's illness filled the whole extent of liis dominions with agitation and alarm. Diira collected power- 38 AURANGZfB ful armies in Delhi and Agra, the principal cities of the kingdom. In Bengal, Sultan Shuja' made the same vigorous preparations for war. Aurangzib in the Deccan and Murad-Bakhsh in Gujarat also levied such forces as evinced a determination to contend for empire. The four brothers gathered round them their friends and allies ; all wrote letters, made large promises, and entered into a variety of intrigues . . . Meanwhile the King's distemper increased, and it was reported that he was dead. The whole Court was in confusion ; the population of Agra was panic-stricken; the shops were closed for many days ; and the four Princes openly declared their settled purpose of making the sword the sole arbiter of their lofty pretensions. It was, in fact, too late to recede : not only was the crown to be gained by victory alone, but in case of defeat life was certain to be forfeited. There was now no choice but between a kingdom and death.' Shah Shuja', the second son, was the first in the field. He at once announced that his father had been poisoned by Dara ; proclaimed himself Emperor ; engraved his name on the coinage of Bengal, and set out to march upon Agra. Shah-Jahan hastened to reassure him on the score of his health : but Shuja' declined to believe the good news. Almost at the same moment Murad-Bakhsh caused his coins to be struck at Ahmadabad and the Prayer for the King to be recited in his own name, and displayed his lordly instinct by immediately assaulting the city of Siirat and extorting six lacs of rupees from its luckless mer- chants. Aurangzib, alone of the four brothers, as- sumed no royal function. Whatever his designs may THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 39 have been, he kept them to himself. It is possible that as yet he did not know them, but was led on by the hazard of events. At any rate he played a waiting game. He knew the impetuosity of Dara, the sluggish inertness of Shuja', and the careless, happy- go-lucky disposition of his truculent youngest brother. He let them push themselves forward, and waited for the upshot. He did not declare himself even when he heard that Dara had seized his house and imprisoned his agent at Delhi. But he must have known that the accession of any of his brothers meant death or captivity for himself, and his mind must soon have been made up. In self-defence he was bound to make his bid for power, and once this was determined, it only remained to choose the line of action. Others, like Murad-Bakhsh and Shuja', might strike boldly at their quarry : Aurangzib ever loved to stalk it by circuitous paths. His genius lay in diplomatic craft, and his approach to the throne was made by round- about curves and zigzags. Dara was prompt in asserting his authority. He lost no time in sending out the imperial armies to chastise Shuja' and Murad-Bakhsh. In December, 1657, he despatched his own son, Sulaiman Shukoh, under the tutorship of Raja Jai Singh, to suppress Shuja'; whilst the Maharaja Jas want Singh of Marwar, assisted by Kasim Khan, marched to meet the advance of Murad-Bakhsh, with instructions to cut the line of communication between the rebel viceroy of Gu- jarat and his wary brother of the Deccan. Dara was 40 AURANGZIB more anxious about Aurangzib's movements than the others, but he feared to let Shuja' approach the capital and possibly seize the person of Shah-Jahan, who was the key of the situation. His forces were so large that he thought he might safely divide them. The result proved that he had committed a false move. He had better have left Shuja' alone for a while, and concen- trated all his resources upon the task of crushing Aurangzib. Shuja', it is true, was easily repulsed. Jai Singh sui'prised him at his camp near Benares, and attacked before sun-rise, while the careless hon vivant was yet heavy with wine. After a brief contest the rebels gave way, and the dazed Prince, hardly awake, hastily took to flight, leaving his camp and treasure, artillery and ammunition, in the hands of Dara's officers. The pursuit was merely perfunctory, for Shah-Jahan had strictly enjoined leniency towards his rebellious son. Meanwhile Aurangzib pursued his policy of playing a strictly subordinate part. He wrote to congratulate Murad-Bakhsh on his successful capture of Surat, and added, 'Whatever course you have resolved upon in opposition to the shameless and umighteous conduct of our abandoned brother, you may count on me as a staunch ally. Our father is still alive, and we two are bound to come to his aid, and punish the pre- sumption and pride of the apostate.' He threw out hints, quite after his puritan ideas, that after restoring order, they should try to reclaim the malignant and send him on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He urged an THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 41 immediate advance against ' that presumptuous infidel Jaswant Singh,' promised to join the army of Gujarat on the north of the Narbada, and ended by invoking ' the Word of God as his bail for this compact.' Still more to the purpose, he sent a lac of rupees^ as earnest of his sincerity. Aurangzib's policy was actuated as much perhaps by hatred of Dara and the dread of his tyranny, as by personal ambition. The eldest Prince had used his influence with Shah-Jahan to thwart his brother's plans in the Deccan, had re- stricted his powers, countermanded his campaigns, and placed the Persian Jumla, formerly a distinguished officer of the King of Golkonda, in supreme command of the army of the south. Fortunately for Aurangzib, the Amir showed himself devoted to his cause, and allowed the Prince to lead the whole Deccan army to meet the imperial host. At the end of March, 1658, Aurangzib left Bur- hanpiir on his progress to the capital. His younger brother joined him near the Narbada, and towards the close of April the combined forces came upon the enemy near Dharmatpur in the territory of Ujjain. The invalid Emperor at Agra had sent repeated messages to Aurangzib, assuring him of his convales- cence, and commanding him to retire to his govern- ment in the south. But the brothers knew it was too late to go back ; they pretended, or perhaps really ^ The rupee at that time was worth 2s. 3^. The lac (toM) is 100,000 rupees (£11,250), and the crore ykardr) 100 lacs, or 10,000.000 rupees (£1,125,000). 42 AURANGZIB believed, that the Emperor's letters were forged by Dara ; they declared that their father was either dead or dying, and they announced their determination, if he were still living, to throw themselves at his feet and deliver him from the tyranny of ' the apostate/ In accordance with this resolve, which may have been genuine, Aurangzib sent a Brahman orator to the Ma- haraja Jaswant Singh with a message to this effect: 'I desire to visit my father. I do not wish for war. Either come with me, or keep out of my way, that no blood be shed.' The Rajput returned an insulting reply, and both sides made ready for battle. The accounts of the engagement of the 25th of April are in many respects conflicting. It is evident that Shah-Jahan's temporizing policy, and possibly Aurangzib's promises and bribes, had divided the counsels of the generals. Some were for carrying out Dara's furious orders and exterminating the rebels ; others paid heed to his father's command to deal gently with the misguided princes. Had Jaswant Singh attacked as soon as Aurangzib appeared on the opposite bank of the Narbada, the history of the Mughal empire might have been turned into a dif- ferent channel. Dara as Emperor might have played the part of a lesser Akbar ; the Hindu element might have become supreme in India ; and a united king- dom, dominated by Rajput chiefs, might have offered a stubborn resistance to the encroachments of the English traders. But Shah-Jahan, in his weak desire to play ofi' the ability of Aurangzib against the overbearing THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 43 pretentions of Dara, had ordered his troops merely to dispute the passage of the river, not to cross to the attack. The enemy was thus allowed two precious days in which to bring up his entire forces, and when Murad-Bakhsh at length rode over the ford, under a withering storm of arrows and javelins, the whole strength of the Deccan followed, and crashed into the royal army with an overwhelming shock. Kasim Khan and his Muhammadans fled from the field like traitors or pohticians. The Rajputs fought desperately, till only 600 remained out of their 8000 men. The wounded remnant sadly followed their Raja back to his desert fastness in Marwar. There he was re- ceived with bitter scorn. His high-mettled wife shut the castle gates in his face, saying that a man so dis- honoured should not enter her walls. ' I disown him as my husband : these eyes can never again behold him. If he could not vanquish, he should die.' This was the true Rajput spirit, and the fact that the princess eventually became reconciled to her husband only proves that, though a daughter of the proud house of Chitor, she was, after all, a woman. The Mughal capital was in an uproar. All sorts of plans were devised and rejected. Shah-Jahan wished to go himself at the head of his army to confront the insurgents, and had he done so the issue might have been different ; for his sons would hardly have ven- tured to attack him, lest their own troops should desert them for the standard of their revered Emperor. But Dara was full of rage at the defeat of Jaswant 44 AURANGZtB Singh, and resolved to wipe out the disgrace by a victory which should glorify his own name. He wanted no one to share his coming triumph. He would not even wait for his son Sulaiman Shukoh and the victorious army of Bengal, lest he should find an ambitious partner in his exploit. He longed for a personal glory such as the mighty Kameses recorded in the proud inscription which we read on the pylons of Karnak : ' The princes and captains joined not hands with me in fight. By Myself have I done battle. I have put to flight thousands of the nations : and I ivas alone!' But there were other and better reasons for Dara's precipitate attack. The enemy were exhausted by long marches ; they had not then crossed the Chambal; and the imperial army was more than strong enough to crush the jaded invaders as they struggled across a rapid ford. Moreover, every day's delay was an encouragement to the enemy, and an opportunity for Shah-Jahan to exercise his fatal bent for diplomacy. If the blow were not struck now, it might never be struck at all. The Emperor was too weak to resist his son's eager importunity. He let him go, with tears. Had he for- bidden, it would have been useless, for the troops were under Dara's orders, and knew his violent temper too well to disobey him. The lowest calcu- lation places his army at ioo,oco horse, 20,000 foot, and 80 guns ; but the unpopularity of their headstrong commander, and the growing belief in the Puritan's fortune, bred traitors in the camp. Aurangzib openly THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 45 boasted that he had 30,000 adherents among the enemy, and the result showed at least that there were many half-hearted fighters in their ranks. The pro- phets were gloomy; no one presaged success for the Crown Prince ; the temper of his troops was not that of men going to victory. Heedless of these ominous forecasts, and full of the lust of personal edai, such as he had sought and missed at Kandahar, Dara led a splendid array to the encounter. On arriving at the Chambal, he found that Aurangzib had given him the slip, and making a circuit had crossed the river on the 2nd of June, in spite of the imperial outposts. The two armies came in sight of each other on the 7th, at Samugarh, afterwards known as Fathabad, ' The place of victory.' For a day or more they remained observing one another. The heat was such as is only known on the plains of India. It was a true Agra summer, and the men were fainting and dying in their heavy armour. During the pause, letters came from the Emperor, announcing the near approach of the Bengal army, and urging Dara to wait for this reinforcement. His answer was characteristic : Before three days he would bring his brothers, bound hand and foot, to receive theii* father's judgment. Early in the morning, or in Persian metaphor ' when the sun, the mighty monarch of the golden crown, with his world-conquering sword, rose brightly re- fulgent from his eastern bed, and the king of the starry host put his head out of the window of the 46 AURANGZfB horizon,' Aurangzib marshalled his men. Keeping the command of the centre for himself, he placed Murad-Bakhsh in the left wing, appointed Bahadur Khan to lead the right, and sent forward his own son Muhammad with the advance guard to act with the artillery, which were, as usual, in the van. Dara meanwhile disposed his forces in a similar order. He placed his cannon in front, linked together by iron chains, so that the enemy's cavalry might not break through. Immediately behind the cannon, he ranged a line of light artillery-camels, mounting brass pieces worked on swivels, and fii'ed by the rider. Then came infantry armed with muskets. The mass of the army was composed, as usual, of cavahy, armed with sabres, pikes, and arrows. The last was the favourite weapon of the Mughals and Persians ; the hand-pike being the special arm of the Rajputs. Khalil-Allah Khan commanded the right, Rustam Khan the left, and Dara himself was with the centre. The battle began, as Mughal battles always did, by an artillery engagement ; cannon were fired ; rockets or hand-grenades were thrown to create a stampede among the enemy's horses and elephants ; and then the infantry came into action with their clumsy matchlocks, whilst flights of arrows flew over their heads from the archers behind. Dara's advance guard, under his son Sipihr Shukoh, then came out and drove in Prince Muhammad's squadrons, and this advantage was immediately followed up by bringing THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 47 the left wing to bear upon Aurangzlb's right, which wavered, and seemed on the point of breaking, when reinforcements oppoi*timely came up from the centre. After this the engagement became general. Dara, towering high above his horsemen on a beautiful Ceylon elephant, led his centre against Aurangzib, carried the enemy's guns, after severe loss, and routed the camel corps and infantry. With the shock of horsemen against horsemen the real struggle began. No Mughal Prince, as yet, knew the colour of the ' white feather,' and Dara displayed all the splendid valour of his famous blood. Emptying their quivers upon the Deccan horse, he and his men came to the sword, and fought hand to hand till the enemy began to break and fly. It was the critical moment of the fight. The day was going against Aurangzib. The flower of his cavalry was di'iven back, and he was now standing with scarcely a thousand men about him, awaiting Dara's onslaught. Never was cool courage put to a severer test : but Aurangzib's nerve was steel. ^ Dili, Ydrdnd, Take heart, my friends,' he cried. ^ Khuda-hel There is a God! what hope have we in flight *? Know ye not where is our Deccan ? Khuda- he\ Khuda-heV Thereupon he ordered the legs of his elephant to be chained together, to make retreat impossible. The mere order was enough to restore the ebbing courage of the few squadrons that still stood beside him. A fortunate distraction at this instant diverted 48 AURANGZIB Dara s attack. Instead of annihilating Aurangzib, he went to support his own left wing which had at length been repulsed by the enemy's right, and thus he lost the best chance that fate ever threw in his way. Meanwhile Murad-Bakhsh was hotly engaged with Dara's right, and was fighting like a lion and reeking with slaughter. Three thousand Uzbegs charged up to his ensanguined elephant, and arrows, spears, and battle-axes rained so thickly that the frightened animal turned to fly. The Mughal courage was again put to the test. The elephant's legs were quickly chained. Then Eaja Earn Singh, of the valiant Rantela stock, came riding up with his Rajputs, insolently shouting, 'Dost thou dispute the throne with Dara Shukoh?' and hurling his spear at the Prince, tried to cut his elephant's girths. The Mughal, wounded as he was, and sore beset on all hands, cast his shield over his little son, who sat beside him in the howdah, and shot the Raja dead. The fallen Rajputs, in yellow garb, and stained with their warpaint of turmeric, were heaped about the elephant's feet, and 'made the ground yellow as a field of safiron.' In another part of the field, the Rahtor Raja Rup Singh sprang from his horse, and having 'washed his hands of life,' cut his way through the Mughals, and throwing himself beneath the elephant strove to cut the girths of Aurangzib' s howdah. The Prince had enough to do to hold his own without this desperate assault ; but he found THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 49 time to admire the gallant attempt with disinterested coolness, and bade his followers take the daring Rahtor alive — too late. The cool courage of the one Prince and the fiery- valour of the other daunted Dara's division. The Rajputs had been slain in heaps, many of their chiefs were dead, and now Rustam, the commander of the imperial left wing, had fallen in rallying his men to one more spirited charge. The advan- tage was still on the side of the Agra army, and Aurangzib and Murad-Eakhsh were perilously hemmed in by raving Rajputs, maddened with hang^ and furious at the death of their chiefs : but it needed httle to turn the balance of fortune either way. It was Dara's unlucky destiny always to tui'n it against himself. At this crisis he committed the most fatal error that an Indian commander could perpetrate. All the army looked to his tall elephant as to a standard of victory. Yet now, when the day seemed almost his own, he must need dismount. He may have been alarmed at the rocket which just then struck his howdah, or listened to the treacherous counsel of Khalil- Allah, the commander of the right wing, who had chosen to consider himself held in reserve, and had looked on with his 30,000 Mughal troops without stirring a finger in the fight. What- ever impelled him, Dara descended. Murad-Bakhsh was still there on his gory elephant, with his howdah stuck as full of arrows as a porcupine with quills, grimly dealing blow for blow and shaft for shaft. 5© AURANGZfB Aurangzib towered high above a seething scrimmage of Rajputs. But where was Dara % It was as though the sun had vanished in mid heaven. Dara is dead, cried one ; we are betrayed, said another : Aurangzib will have vengeance, thought all. A blind panic seized upon the all but victorious army, and every man fled for dear life. Once a panic has got hold of an Indian army, no power can save or check it. Like a river which has burst its banks, it pours over the land, and none may dam or guide its widening waves. In a brief moment the tide had turned, and the all but vanquished became the victors. For a terrible quarter of an hour Aurangzib had steadily maintained his seat on his besieged elephant, and his reward was the Peacock-Throne. A little too soon Dara had dismounted, to be ' numbered among the most miserable of Princes/ a fugitive and a vaga- bond in the earth. The unlucky Prince, * prizing life more than the hope of a crown,' turned and fled. A few of his once superb host followed him to Agra. Then, and not till then, did Aurangzib descend from his elephant, and prostrating himself on the bloody field ofl*ered thanks to God for this great and glorious victory. ' Nothing succeeds like success.' The battle of Samugarh was the signal for all the world to come and tender their homage to Aurangzib, who remained for some days on the field of his triumph, busily en- gaged night and day in negotiating with his father's Amirs. They required little inducement to come over THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE ^i to the side of the rising man. It was an instructive and lamentable sight to behold them trooping to the new colours, totally unmindful of the old Emperor, who with all his senile faults had been a kind and generous master. Among those who offered Aurang- zib their services was his uncle, the Khan-Jahan Shayista Khan, son of the late minister Asaf Khan, and brother of the Queen Mumtaz-Mahall. He had already used his great influence with the Emperor on behalf of his successful nephew, and Shah-Jahan was persuaded to mingle paternal reproof with conciliatory overtures. He sent his triumphant son a sword en- graved with the auspicious name 'Alamgirr, ' world- compeller.' The Raja Jai Singh, who commanded the army which had successfully repulsed Shuja' in Bengal, was quickly advised of Dara's fall, and gave in his adhesion to the coming man. The Maharaja Jaswant Singh, burying the hatchet, presently followed his example, and tendered his fealty to the new power. Fortified by these signs of support, Aurangzib turned his attention to his most dangerous rival, the still popular Shah-Jahan. Dara had already fled with a few hundred followers^ and his father had sent money and 5000 horsemen to assist him. It was evident that the Emperor's sympathies were with his vanquished son, whatever he may have written in the futile hope of throwing dust in the eyes of the very clear-sighted victor. Aurangzib was not deceived ; he had taken his father's measure with great accuracy, and never intended to give him an- D 2, 52 AURANGZIB other chance. Shah- Jahan had missed his opportunity when he was dissuaded from putting himself at the head of Dara's army and compelling the submission of the opposing forces, who were still loyal to their Emperor. He missed it again when he neglected to come out in state, surrounded by his nobles and re- tinue, and compel the filial homage of his sons on the field of their victory. The luxurious old epicure had lost his chances, and exposed his weakness of purpose. To restore such a man to power meant the recall of Dara and the revival of the horrors of civil war. Even to be friendly with him, and visit him in his palace, was to court assassination at the hands of the imperial guards, or the 'large and robust' Tatar amazons of the seraglio — so Aurangzib was warned by his faithful sister Raushan-Ara. There was but one possible course : the weak-kneed Emperor must be made a prisoner. The trap which Shah-Jahan laid, to ensnare his son to his ruin, caught the old king himself. Instead of Aurangzib coming to be murdered, his son Muhammad entered the fortress on the 1 8th June, 1658, overcame the guard, and turned the palace into a prison. Aurangzib pretended, in his excess of political prudence, that the detention was only temporary, and that he hoped to see his father again restored to power as soon as the evil machina- tions of Dara should be finally suppressed. But this was mere talk, intended to reconcile the people to the deposition of a popular sovereign : and it must be al- lowed that they were very speedily consoled. Shah- THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE '^^i Jahan never left the fortress of Agra during the seven years of life that remained to him. At first a bitter correspondence widened the breach between the cap- tive and his jailor, and Shah- Jahan had the baseness to try to corrupt Prince Muhammad and induce him to raise his standard against his father. But the Prince knew Aurangzib, and did not feel sure of his grandfather, so the experiment failed. After this Shah-Jahan became gradually more reconciled to his captivity, and Aurangzib did all that was possible to mitigate his distress. He was allowed every enjoy- ment that his sensuous nature demanded, loaded with presents, and supplied with such amusements as most entertained him. His daughter, the Begam Sahib, and all his numerous women, kept him compan}'. Cooks skilfully ministered to his appetite, and dancers and singing girls enlivened his senile revels. Like many another aged voluptuary, he became wondrously devout at times, and holy Mullas came and read the blessed Koran to him. Bernier, who disliked Aur- angzib, says that the indulgence and respect he showed to his captive father were exemplary. He consulted him like an oracle, and there was nothing he would not give him, except liberty. The two became partly reconciled, and the father bestowed his blessing and forgiveness on the son : but they never met. Shah- Jahan died ^ at the beginning of 1666 at the age of * There is no foundation for Mr. Talboys Wheeler's story of the Emperor's liaving been poisoned by Aurangzib, except the insinua- tions of Catrou, whose evidence deserves little credit. It is incon- 54 AVRANGZIB seventy-six. The Emperor hastened to Agra to pay respect to his obsequies, and the body was laid in a tomb near the beautiful Taj, which the late sovereign had set up in memory of his wife. The Princess Royal, who had shared his captivity with more than a daughter's devotion, was allowed to keep her state, in splendid seclusion, unmolested by the brother she had consistently opposed. ' She died with the fame of her past beauty still fresh, unmarried, at the age of sixty-seven. Her grave lies close to a saint's and to a poet's, in that camijo santo of marble lattice work, near the Hall of the Sixty Four Pillars, beyond the Delhi walls. But only a piece of pure white marble, with a little gmss piously watered, marks the Prin- cess's grave. " Let no rich canopy surmount my resting-place," was her dying injunction, inscribed on the headstone. " This grass is the best covering for the grave of a lowly heart, the humble and transitory Ornament of the World, the disciple of the Holy Man of Chist, the daughter of the Emperor Shah- Jahan ^." ' Her public memorials are the great rest-house for travellers at Delhi, and the splendid mosque of Agi^a. The fate of the other princes must be told in few words. The day after Shah-Jahan had been safely locked up, Aurangzib, who had been in camp till now, entered Agra, occupied Dara's house, seized his trea- ceivable that the death should have been kept secret for more than a year, as Mr. Wheeler would have it ; or that Aurangzib should have waited six years to perpetrate so obvious a political execution. ^ Sir W. W. Hunter, in ' Nineteenth Century/ May, 1887. THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE ^^ sure (amounting to 17 lacs of rupees), and the same day set out in pursuit of his fugitive brother. Murad- Bakhsh, who had all this time been enjoying the honours of kingship, and had revelled in the title of Hazrat, Your Majesty, which Aurangzib lav- ished upon him, accompanied the latter in all the glory of mock sovereignty and twenty-six lacs of rupees in his money bags. They had not put many miles between their camp and Agra, when Aurangzib connived in making his boorish brother disgracefully drunk, and, virtuously expressing his horror at the sight, and his conviction that so indiscreet a violator of the law of Islam could never be permitted to sit on the throne, threw him into chains (5th July). That night he was secretly conveyed to the state prison in the island fortress of Salimgarh, opposite Delhi. It needed all Aurangzib's smooth eloquence and a lavish expendi- ture of bakhshish to * square ' the army, who had all the soldier's respect for a brave officer and the sea- soned trooper's toleration of a drunken man : but it was done, and the su? 1655 30,080,000 Official returns) Aurangzib 1660 circ. 25,410,000 Bernier) >» 1666 26,700,000 (Thevenot) }* 1667 circ. 30,850.000 (Bakhtawar) i> later 40,100,000 (Official returns) )j 1697 43.5501000 (Manucci) }> 1707 33.950,000 (Ramusio) The preceding figures show a reasonable and ^ The authorities from which the returns are derived will be found fully described in the late Mr. Edward Thomas's penetrating essay The Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire in India (187 1), with the exception of those for 1628, and circa 1667, which I have taken from the Majdlis as-Saldtin of Muhammad Sharif Hanafi, and from Bakhtawar Khan, respectively. 122 AURANGZIB consistent progress in the prosperity of the Empire. The increase in 1655 is explained by the addition of the tribute from the Deccan kingdoms. The decrease in revenue about 1660 and in 1707 is satisfactorily explained by the civil war and ensuing famine which accompanied Aurangzib's accession in 1658, and the protracted campaigns and losses in the Deccan which preceded his death in 1707. The figures here given ^ are in excess of those stated by the late distinguished numismatist, Mr. Edward Thomas, in proportion as the rupee is here valued at 2s. '>^d.^ instead of at his admittedly conventional estimate of is. We may take it, therefore, that the revenue returns of the Mughal Emperors show a steady increase from about £19,000,000 towards the end of Akbar's reign, to over £40,000,000 when Aurangzib was at the height of his power. The second disputed question here arises : Do these returns include every regular source of income, or do they merely relate to the revenue from land ? The answer must be unhesitating : they represent only the land revenue, including, how- ever, the tribute which took the place of the land- tax in those half-subdued States where the imperial collector did not penetrate. Bernier and Manucci distinctly state that the returns they quote relate only to the revenue from land, and, though the Native historians do not qualify their returns by any such ^ I have neglected certain variations in the returns caused by the subtraction of the tax-gatherer's percentage, which amounted to 4 per cent, in Aurangzib's time, but was higher under Akbar. THE REVENUE 1 23 statement, it is obvious that, writing for Natives only, they would pre-suppose that the system of the imperial accounts was familiar to their readers. It is evident that, since Bernier's £25,410,000 about 1660 refers only to the land-revenue, the £24,750,000 mentioned in the Badshah-nama of 'Abd-al-Hamid Lahori in 1648 must be limited to the same class of revenue ; and by the same reasoning the £40,000,000 of the official records {daatvuv-i-aniaV) of about the middle of Aurangzib's reign cannot include a wider basis of revenue than Manucci's £43,550,000 of 1697. The whole series of returns is consistent, and the fact that two of them are distinctly restricted to the land-tax limits the whole series to the same source of revenue. The Mughal Emperors, therefore, drew from land alone a revenue rising from about 19 milJions in 1600 to 43 millions in 1 700. The Emperor was titular lord of the soil, but in practice he restricted his interest to levy- ing a tax of about one-third the gross produce. Akbar established an admirable agricultural department, and laid down rules for periodical valuations of the land, and for the allowance to be made for impoverishment, bad seasons, and the like. These rules prevailed in the reign of Aurangzib, and though they may have been largely evaded by corrupt officials in remote districts, there is no doubt that the system was equitable in theory, and was strictly enforced wherever the Emperor's influence and inspection reached. In the present day the revenue from the land is about 124 AURANGZIB 24 millions ; but the British government is contented with less than —th of the gross produce, instead of ird. Were the Mughal third exacted, the present land tax of British India (which is of course a much larger area than Mughal India) would probably amount to 80 millions. Some idea may be formed of the surplus of the land revenue over the expenses of administration, from a statement in the Mir-dt-i !A7cmi ascribed to Bakhtawar Khan or Muhammad Baka. This history fixes the revenue at 9,24,17,16,082 ddms (about £30,850,000), and adds ' out of which the Khalisa, or sum paid to the Royal Treasury, is 1,72,79,81,251 ddms, and the assignments of the jdgirddrs [or grantees of the lands], or the balance, is 7,5^,77-34,731 ddms.' There is a slight error in the arithmetic, but the important deduction may be drawn that, after paying the cost of administration, including the high salaries of the mansabdars, to whom the estates were assigned as jagirs, about a sixth to a fifth of the total land revenue accrued as surplus to the imperial exchequer. To arrive at any definite estimate of the gross revenue is impossible, owing to the fluctuating character of the taxation apart from the rent drawn from land. The Mughal Emperors were constantly remitting taxes, but it is not clear how far these rernissions were temporary, or whether their place was taken by other imposts. A list of thirty- eight taxes remitted or reduced by Akbar is given in THE REVENUE 125 the Ain-i Akhari, some of which were certainly restored or increased by the time of Aurangzib's accession. That Emperor himself began his reign by remitting nearly eighty taxes, to relieve the poverty produced by the civil war and the famine that followed it. These taxes are vaguely stated by Khafi Khan to have ' brought in crores of rupees to the public treasury ^.' But it is added that the local officials paid little heed to the imperial edict of remission. Later in the reign, all import duties on the goods of Muhammadan traders were abolished ; but this was modified in so far that the 5 p. c. duty on Hindu goods was reduced to 2^ p. c. on those of Muhammadans. It is evident that the numerous tolls, taxes, and cesses outside the land-tax were variable sources of revenue, and no returns of their totals seem to have been preserved. Again, one would expect a considerable rise in the revenue after the re-imposition of the jizya or poll-tax in or about 1675; for it is recorded that the city of Burhanptir alone paid 26,000 rupees on account of this tax, and the total for all Hindustan must have been enormous, if the tax was ever strictly enforced, which is doubt- ful. Of the sum derived from this and all other taxes, except the land-tax, the native historians give no definite account. Nor are we able to form any estimate of the amount received from the Emperor 3 title to the efiects of the mansabdars from confiscations, or from that perennial source of wealth, the constant and ^ MuntaJchabal-lubdb, in Elliot and Dowson, vol. vii. p. 247. 126 AURANGZIB costly presents of money and jewels which it was the custom of every noble, every official, every suitor, and every traveller, to offer to the Great Mogul. Ta vernier's present to Aurangzib on one single occasion amounted in value to 12,119 livres, or over £900, and this was a trifle compared with the vast sums presented by the nobles to his Majesty on his birthday and other occasions. But if detailed returns of these numerous sources of income are wanting, we have three separate state- ments by Europeans which may guide us to a rough estimate of the gross revenue. Their consistency adds to their probability ; but they are only vague guesses at the best. The first is the statement by William Hawkins, who lived on intimate terms with Jahangir from 1609 to 1 61 1, that the Emperor's revenue was fifty crores of rupees (£56,000,000). It is true he damages his evidence by saying that this was the King's 'yearly income of his crown land,' which is manifestly absurd in the face of other returns already quoted : but if the 50,00,00,000 rupees be taken to mean the gross revenue from all sources, or more than double the revenue from land, it is not perhaps much exaggerated. The second statement is that of Catrou or his authority Manucci (the two are unfortun- ately inseparable), who, referring to 1697, says that the recorded revenue of 43 1 millions is derived solely from the fruits of the earth, and that the 'casuel' or extraordinary and fluctuating revenue, ' egale, d peu pres, ou surpasse meme les immenses THE REVENUE 127 richesses qui TEmpereur per^oit des seuls fonds de terre de son Domaine ^.' This ' casuel ' consisted of the^'i^T/ct, or poll-tax on Hindus, the transport customs and port dues, the tax on the ' blanchissage de cette multitude infinie de toiles qu'on travaille aux Indes,' the royalty on diamond mines, the royal right of inherit- ance of all official estates, and the tribute of various Rajas. Catrou is not able to give details of these receipts, save in one instance. He mentions that the port dues of Surat amounted to thirty lacs, and the tax on the mint-profits of the same city to eleven lacs of rupees. In other words Surat contributed something like half-a-million sterling in addition to the land tax. At this rate it is not difficult to believe that the ' casuel ' revenue amounted to as large an income as that derived from the land. The third statement is that of Dr. Gemelli Careri, who visited Aurangzib in the Deccan in 1695, and 'was told ' that the Emperor's revenue ' from onl}^ his hereditary countries ' was eighty crores of rupees (or ninety millions of pounds). Now we have already seen that in 1697 the land revenue amounted to 43 i millions. Careri's estimate of the gross revenue is therefore equivalent to rather more than double the land tax, which accords very accurately with Catrou's statement that the 'casuel' was as much as, or more than, the land revenue, and with Hawkins' rough record of Jahangir's income of fifty crores or more than double the land tax of his * Catrou, Histoire gmerale de V Empire du Mogol, (i7i5\ p. 267. 128 AURANGZIB time. Careri's qualification that this revenue of eighty crores was derived only from Aurangzib's ' hereditary countries ' does not in any way confuse the result, for it is unlikely that he drew much from the Deccan during the stormy period of conquest and devastation, and extremely improbable that he drew even as much as the ten crores which formed the tribute from Bijapur and Golkonda in Catrou's total of 434 millions of revenue. From the three statements^ of Hawkins, Catrou, and Careri, we may conclude that the gross revenue from all sources was equal to at least double the land revenue of the Great Mogul, and to obtain the total income we must double the sums given in the returns quoted above. In other words the gross revenue of the Mughal Empire may be taken at fully £36,000,000 in 1594, and gradually rose to £90,000,000 in 1695. ^ I have not mentioned Thomas's theory that the gross income of Akbar in 1593 was (at 2s. ^A. the rupee) £36,000,000, because it is based on the assumption that the 640,00,00,000 murddi tankas of Nizam-ad-din Ahmad's return for that year (^which I have pur- posely omitted in the list given above) were equivalent to double dams. The terms dam and tcmka are interchangeable, as is proved by the inscriptions on the coins themselves, and though there were undoubtedly double dams, as well as double tankas, there is really no valid ground for assuming in this single instance a different fiscal imit from that employed in all the other returns. Thomas's doubling of the 640 crores in 1593 is, moreover, rendered still more improbable by the fact that 662 crores form the total for 1594— a perfectly possible increase. I therefore take Nizam-ad- din's return to represent £i8 000,000. Whilst disbelieving in the murddi tanka theory, however, as a ground for the higher estimate, I do not doubt that the gross revenue of Akbar in 1593 may have been quite thirty-six millions. THE REVENUE 129 ' Doubtless/ remarks Catrou, ' such prodigious wealth is amazing ; but it must be remembered that all these riches only enter the Mughal treasury to go out again, at least in part, every year, and flow again over the land. Half the empire subsists on the bounty of the Emperor or at least is in his keep. Besides the multitude of officers and soldiers who live by their pay, all the rural peasantry, who toil only for the sovereign, are supported at his cost, and almost all the artisans of the towTis, who are made to work for the Mughal, are paid out of the royal exchequer.' When it is remembered that one Mughal Amir, and that an honest one, is recorded to have saved ' nearly 5000 crowns a month,' or more than £13,000 a year, out of his allowance as 'Amir of 5000,' it will be readily understood how enormous were the outgoings of the treasury for the support of the life-peers alone. In spite of his immense revenue, the expenditure of a Mughal Emperor was so prodigious that he was able to save little. Notwithstanding all his hoardings, and his long reign of peace. Shah- Jahan ' never amassed six crores of rupees,' apart from jewels and ornaments, whilst Aurangzib left only thirteen lacs, or less than £150,000 in the treasury when he died, and was frequently hard pressed to find the money for the pay of his army. CHAPTER VIII The Hindus The expeditions into Assam and Arakan did not disturb the general peace of Hindustan. A profound tranquillity, broken by no rebellion of any political importance, reigned throughout northern India for the first twenty years of Aurangzib's rule. The Deccan troubles, which will be described later, awoke no corresponding excitement in the north. So quiet, indeed, was the country, so absolute the security of the crown, that Aurangzib was able with an easy mind to allow himself a rest and change of scene, after the dangerous illness which prostrated him in 1664. Leaving his father still a captive at Agra, but fearing no revolution in his behalf, the Emperor set out in December, 1664. upon the journey to Kashmir, of which Bernier has preserved a vivid diary. The holiday was to last eighteen months, at least six of which were consumed in coming and going. The Mughal travelled in a leisurely manner, as befitted his state, and often stopped for a few days' hunting, or deviated from the direct route to search for water. It would have been impossible to hurry with such an THE HINDUS 131 unwieldy following as always accompanied the Em- peror on his journeys. His regular body-guard of 35.000 horsemen of course went with him, besides over 10,000 infantry, and the heavy and light artillery, consisting of 100 or 120 brass pieces, some of which were dragged over the rugged places of the road with considerable difficulty. A large body of Amirs and Rajas and lesser vassals was always in close attendance on the royal person, mounted on horse- back, to their infinite disgust, instead of their usual comfortable palankins. The Emperor himself tra- velled either in a throne borne on men's shoulders, or mounted on his horse or elephant : — ' Imperial Delhi op'ning wide her Gates, Potirs out her thronging Legions, bright in Arms, And all the Pomp of War. Before them sound Clarions and Trumpets, breathing Martial Airs And bold Defiance. High upon his Throne, Borne on the Back of his proud Elephant, Sits the great Chief of Tamur's glorious Race : Sublime he sits, amid the radiant Blaze Of Gems and Gold. Omrahs about him crowd. And rein th' Arabian steed, and watch his Nod : And potent Rajahs, who themselves preside O'er Realms of wide Extent ; but here submiss Their Homage pay, alternate Kings and Slaves. Next these with prying Eunuchs girt around, The fair Sultanas of his Court ; a Troop Of chosen Beauties, but with Care concealed From each intrusive Eye ; one Look is Death ^.' The Seraglio formed a striking feature in the proces- sion, with the gilded and silken palankins and ^ Somervlle, The Chace, Bk. ii. (< Constable's Oriental Miscellany.' vol, iii. p. 208). I 2 13a AURANGZiB travelling couches of the princesses, the gorgeous litters hung between two camels or elephants, or the high howdahs loaded with eight women, and covered with rich silks and embroidery. 'I cannot avoid dwelling on this pompous procession of the Seraglio/ wrote Bernier. ' Stretch imagination to its utmost limits, and you can imagine no exhibition more grand and imposing than when Raushan-Ard Begam, mounted on a stupendous Pegu elephant, and seated in a meghdambhdr blazing with gold and azure, is followed by five or six elephants with meghdamhhdrs nearly as resplendent as her own, and filled with ladies attached to her house- hold, [and succeeded by the most distinguished ladies of the Court] until fifteen or sixteen females of quality pass with a grandeur of appearance, equipage and retinue, more or less proportionate to their rank, pay, and office. There is something very impressive of state and royalty in the march of these sixty or more elephants ; in their solemn and as it were measured steps, in the splendour of the meghdamhhdrs, and the brilliant and innumerable followers in attendance : and if I had not regarded this display of magnificence with a sort of philosophical indifierence, I should have been apt to be carried away by such flights of imagination as inspire most of the Indian poets, when they represent the elephants as conveying so many goddesses concealed from the vulgar gaze ^/ Bernier was fortunate in seeing so much of the pro- cession, for it was as much as a man's life was worth to be found too near the Seraglio, and once the French doctor had to fight his way through the eunuchs, sword in hand, to escape a merciless beating. ^ Bernier, pp. 372-3. THE HINDtJS 133 Besides these important members of his family and suite, the Emperors march was followed by an in- numerable multitude of servants and tradespeople. Indeed the whole of Delhi turned out to follow its customers, since there was no alternative but to join the procession of its sole employers or to stay at home and starve in a deserted city. The same tradesmen who kept shop in town, were obliged to keep shop in the field, while Delhi mourns Her empty and depopulated Streets. The total number of persons in the camp was estimated at between three and four hundred thousand. They had to carry all necessaries with them, except forage ; for to pillage the country they passed through, would have been to rob the Emperor, who was, at least in theory, its sole owner ; and but for the extreme simplicity of the Indian soldiers' diet and their avoidance of animal food, the camp must have exhibited a scene of appalling starvation. The usual Eastern plan of double camps was observed, one to sleep in, the other, called Paish-khdna^ to go on in front to be pitched ready for the following night. In each was pitched a travelling Audience and Presence Chamber, where the Emperor held his daily levees and councils, under silk and velvet canopies, exactly as he did at Delhi or Agra. The royal tents were red, lined with hand-painted chintz from Masulipatan, beautifully embroidered and fringed with gold and silver and silk ; and the tent poles were painted and 134 AURANGZIB gilt. Hard by the Emperor's were the Begams' tents. The whole was enclosed in a square fenced in with wooden screens ; and outside the gate were the quarters of the guard, the music, and the principal officers of state, while the smaller folk ranged their tents at proper distances, the entire camp forming a circle of about five or six miles' circumference. Over all, shone the light of the Akasdiah, or Lamp of Heaven, an imperial beacon, consisting of a lantern hanging at the top of a mast forty yards high, to guide wanderers to their tents by night, while watch-fires blazed round the camp and the sentinel paced his silent round. On his return from his long repose in Kashmir, where he seems to have spent the greater part of 1665, Aurangzib found his empire as tranquil as he had left it, and a source of danger was removed early in 1666 by the death of his father Shah-Jahan in his splendid prison at Agra. The news of Shayista Khan's successes in Arakan reached him in the same year, and the most troublesome of his antagonists in the Deccan, the Maratha Sivaji, made his submission and actually ventured to present himself at Court. Soon afterwards, in 1668, the greatest of the friendly but formidable Rajput Rajas died : Jai Singh, who had been a loyal and energetic servant of the Emperor ever since his accession, and had led many a campaign in the Deccan at the head of his valiant tribesmen. The other famous Rajput general, Jaswant Singh, was far away in his government at Kabul, and was also approaching his end. At last the Emperor was free THE HINDUS 135 to carry out the repressive policy towards the Hindus which must be the aim of every good Muslim. So far there had been no persecution, no religious dis- abihties : but there can be no doubt that Aurangzib was only nursing his zeal for the Faith, until it should be safe to display it against the unbelievers. It seems to have been in 1669 that the storm began to gather ^. In April of that year Aurangzib was in- formed that the Brahmans of Benares and other Hindu centres were in the habit of teaching their ' wicked sciences,' not only to their own people but to Muslims. This was more than the orthodox Emperor could toler- ate ; but the severity of his measures shows that he had been only waiting for a pretext to come down like a thunderbolt upon the unfortunate ' heathen.' ' The Director of the Faith,' we are told, ' issued orders to all the governors of provinces to destroy with a willing hand the schools and temples of the infidels ; and they were strictly enjoined to put an entire stop to the teaching and practising of idolatrous forms of worship.' It is not for a moment to be supposed that these orders were literally carried out. Even the English Government would not dare to risk such an experiment in India. All that was done was to make a few signal examples^ and thus to warn the Brahmans from attempting to make proselytes among the True ' The first notice of any religious persecution occurs in the Madsir-i 'Alamgiri of Musta'idd Khan, under the date 17 Zu-1-ka'da 1079 ' 18 April, 1669 ; but the dates become very hazy after Au- rangzib's prohibition of official chronicles in the eleventh year of his reign. 136 AURANGZiB Believers. With this object the temple of Vishnu at Benares was destroyed and a splendid shrine at Mathura was razed to the ground, to make room for a magnificent mosque. The idols found in the temples were brought to Agi-a and buried under the steps of the mosque, so that good Muslims might have the satisfaction of treading them under foot. Three years later the fanaticism of the Hindus found vent in an insurrection of four or five thousand devotees, who called themselves Satnamis, in Mewat, which gave the imperial officers no little trouble to subdue. The quarrel arose from a blow given by one of the Government inspectors, but the hostility of the sect must have been already at fever-heat to fire up at so slight a provocation. The Satnamis assembled in their thousands, wreaked their vengeance on the officials, occupied Narnol, and began to levy the taxes and administer the district themselves. The ordi- nary provincial forces were repeatedly worsted; even several expeditions despatched from Delhi only met the rioters to be discomfited and put to flight. ' It was said that swords, arrows, and musket balls had no effect on these men, and that every arrow and baU which they discharged brought down two or three men. Thus they were credited with magic and witch- craft, and were said to have magic wooden horses like live ones, on which their women rode as an advanced guard 1.' The neighbouring Rajputs and other Hindus began to become infected with the spirit of rebellion, ^ Khafi Khan, I. c. vol. vii. p. 295. THE HINDUS 137 and every day saw fresh additions to the strength of the rioters. Aurangzib saw that his troops were demoralized by fear of the enemy's supposed magic, and he resolved to counteract witchcraft by holy charms. He wrote some pious texts, and had them sewn to his banners. To him, the device probably meant no more than the expression of his zeal : ' In the name of the Lord will I destroy them.' But to his soldiers the blessed words from the Koran were sure amulets against the sorcery of the enemy. Led by Persian nobles, always keen to do battle with Hindus, the imperial troops fell upon the badly armed rebels like avenging zealots, and soon the conflict became a massacre. The Sat- namis fought with the courage of despair and the ex- altation of martyrs, but the end was not doubtful : thousands were slain ; and the insurrection was suppressed. It is very difficult to trace the cause and efiect of Aurangzib' s successive steps in his reactionary policy towards the Hindus. In the eleventh year of his reign he suddenly put a stop to the system of official chronicles, which had been minutely recorded by historiographers royal since the time of Akbar. Now, it was strictly forbidden to wiite any chronicles at all, and those that have come down to us were recorded in secret, or merely treasured in the memory, and have all the confusion and fragmentary character of haphazard reminiscences. There are probably several links missing in the chain of events which connected 138 AURANGZIB the first destruction of Hindu temples in 1669 with the imposition of the hated jizya or poll-tax on unbelievers, a few years later ^. The revolt of the Satnamis is one of the few links that have been pre- served by the secret chroniclers, who were naturally disinclined to soil their pens with the doings of ' unclean infidels.' Another event is the rash inter- ference of the Emperor in the matter of Jaswant Singh's children. The death of a powerful Raja would naturally lead to a fresh encroachment against the Hindus, and the desire of Aurangzib to meddle in the family affairs of the Rajputs is a sign that he felt him- self strong enough to impose a strict Muhammadan rule all over India. He was not deterred by the hostile demonstrations which the re-imposition of the hated poll-tax aroused at Delhi. In vain the people wailed and cursed around the palace. Aurangzib had by this time abandoned the salutary custom of appearing at stated hours before his subjects at the levee window: the adulation of the multitude savoured of idolatry to his puritanical mind. But seclude himself as he might — and thereby lose the sensitive touch of the populace which had been his father's strength — he could not shut his eyes to the uproar which the new enactment excited. When he ^ Dr. Fryer, writing in 1675, mentions the neiv tax on Hindus, which, he says, amounted to as much as a gold mohur, or 31s. 6rf. for a Brahman. Manucci states that the tax ranged from 3^ rupees levied on the poor to 13] on merchants, i.e. from about 85. to 305. ^d. THE HINDUS 139 went to the mosque, crowds of expostulating and even riotous Hindus blocked his way ; and though his elephants forced their way over their bodies, he could not subdue their invincible repugnance to the new instru- ment of bigotry. His dealings with the Eajput princes kindled these sparks of discontent into a flame. He endeavoured to get Jaswant Singh's two sons sent to Delhi to be educated, and doubtless made Muslims, under his own supervision. Of course the Eajputs would not hear of this : their loyalty and their pride alike forbade such ignominy to their hereditai^ chiefs. And when they learned that the bigoted Emperor had revived the ancient law of Muhammad which imposed a tax upon every soul who did not conform to Islam — a tax which Akbar liad disdained, and Shah-Jahan had not dared to think of — their indignation knew no bounds. They repudiated the religious tax. and they contrived to spirit away the infant princes of Marwar out of the Emperor's reach. It was the first serious rebellion during the reign, and its provoker little realized the effects which his fanatical policy would produce. He marched at once upon Rajputana, where he found two out of the three leading States, Udaipur (Mewar) and Jodhpur (Marwar) united against him, and only Raja Ram Singh of Jaipur (Amber) still loyal to the empire. The Rajputs kept 25.000 horse, mostly Rahtors of Jodhpur, in the field, and although frequently driven into their mountains were never really subdued. At one time they seemed to be at the point of a decisive I40 AURANGZIB victory, and the Emperor's cause appeared lost. Directing operations from Ajmir, he had placed his main body under his fourth son Akbar, at the same time calling up his elder sons Mu'azzam and A'zam with their contingents from their commands in the Deccan and Bengal. The three princes were busy ravaging the Rajput country, and Aurangzib was left at Ajmir with hardly a thousand men, when tidings came that Prince Akbar had been seduced by the diplomacy of the Rajput leaders, had gone over with the main army to the enemy, and proclaimed himself Emperor of India; nay, more, he was now marching upon his father at the head of 70,000 men. Aurangzib must have thought of the fate of Shah-Jahan, and feared that it was now his turn to make room for an ambitious son: but his presence of mind did not desert him even at this crisis. Summoning Prince Mu'azzam to come to his aid with such troops as he could gather, the Emperor essayed a counter-move in the game of diplo- macy. He wrote a letter congratulating the rebel Prince upon his success in deceiving the Rajputs and luring them on to their destruction, and con- trived that this compromising epistle should be inter- cepted by one of the rebellious Rajas ^. The effect of his plot exceeded all expectations. The Mughal deserters flocked back to the imperial standard, led ^ Khafi Khan questions the accuracy of this story. It is clear, however, that by some means Aurangzib contrived to win back the deserters, and the letter is as probable a ruse as any other. THE HINDUS 141 by their repentant general Tuhawwar Khan, who was at once decapitated ; the Rajput army melted away ; and Prince Akbar, with a following of 500 men, fled to the Deccan (June, 1681), and became the guest of the Maratha chief at Rahiri, whence he eventually sailed for Persia, and never again set foot in the realm of bis fathers. The Rajput snake was scotched, but far from killed. The insults which had been oflfered to their chiefs and their religion^ the ruthless and unneces- sary severity of Aurangzib's campaigns in their country, left a sore which never healed. A race which had been the right arm of the Mughal empire at the beginning of the reign was now hopelessly alienated, and never again served the throne without distrust. The war went on. The Mughals ravaged the rich lands of Udaipur, and the Rajputs retaliated by throwing down mosques and insulting the Muslims. The cities were indeed in the hands of Aurangzib, but the mountain defiles were thronged with implacable foes, who lost no opportunity^ of dealing a blow at the invaders. The Rana of IJdaipur, who was the chief sufferer on the Rajput side, succeeded at last in making an honourable peace with Aurangzib, who was tired of the struggle and anxious to give his whole mind to his affairs in the Deccan. The \saX^^ jizya was not even named in the treaty ; a small cession of territory was made by the Rana as an indemnity for siding with Prince Akbar ; and Jaswant Singh's son, the young Raja of Jodhpiir, was acknowledged heir to his 142 AURANGZfB father's principality. But while the treaty enabled Aurangzib to beat a fairly creditable retreat, it did not appease the indignant Rajputs of the west ; even the Rana of U daipiir soon rode his elephants through the treaty ; and all Rajputana, save Jaipur and the eastern parts, was perpetually in a state of revolt until the end of the reign. Tantum relligio pohiit ! But for his tax upon heresy, and his interference with their inborn sense of dignity and honour, Aurangzib might have still kept the Rajputs by his side as priceless allies in the long struggle in which he was now to engage in the Deccan. As it was he alienated them for ever. No Rajput Raja would again marshall his willing mountaineers to support a Mughal throne, as had been seen in the days of Jai Singh. So long as the great Puritan sat on the throne of Akbar, not a Rajput would stir a finger to save him. Aurangzib had to fight his southern foes with the loss of his right arm. CHAPTER IX The Deccan ' Delhi is distant,' says an old Deccan proverb, and many an Indian king has realized its force, when grappling with the ineradicable contumacy of his southern province. The Deccan (Dakhin, Dak-han, ' the South') was never intended by nature to have any connexion with Hindustan. The Vindhya and Satpura mountains and the Narbada river form a triple line of natural barricades, which divide the high table-land of Central India from the plains of the Ganges and its tributaries, and should have warned the sovereigns of Delhi that it was wiser to keep to their own country. But the Deccan lands were fertile ; their wealth in gold and diamonds was fabulous ; and every great ruler of the northern plains has turned his eyes to the mountain barriers and longed to enter the land of promise beyond. They entered, however, at their peril. To conquer the Deccan was another phrase for risking the loss of Hindustan ; for he who invaded the southern people who dwelt between the Ghats was in danger of teaching them the road to the north. 144 AURANGZIB The first Muhammadan sovereign who brought the whole of the Deccan under the sway of Delhi was Muhammad ibn Taghlak, in the fourteenth century. His sagacity and eccentricity were equally displayed in his choice of a new capital and in his singular mode of supplying it with a ready-made population. He wisely fixed upon Deogiri, on account of its central situation — for in those days, at least, before railways and telegraphs, he who would rule the Deccan must live there ; — and he ruthlessly trans- ported the whole population of Delhi backwards and forwards, between his old and his new capital, hence- forth to be known as Daulatabad, or ' Empire-city.' His death put an end to the dominion of the north over the south, and a great Afghan dynasty, the Bahmani kings, took possession of the Deccan. About the close of the fifteenth century their broad dominions were split up into five distinct kingdoms, of which the most important were those of the Kutb Shah dynasty at Golkonda, the Adil Shahs of Bijapur (Vijayapura), and the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar. Upon these rich States the Mughal emperors often cast longing eyes ; but it was reserved for Aurangzib to be the first to set foot in their prostrate cities. Akbar was too wise to meddle seriously in Deccan politics. All he wanted was to secure himself against invasion from the south ; and with this view he annexed the rugged borderland of Khand^sh, and used its capital, Burhanpiir, with the rocky fastness of Asirgarh, as outposts to defend his southern frontier. THE DECCAN 145 He also subdued Berar, and took the fortress of Ahmadnagar. So long as his reign lasted, no harm came of this forward policy : the kings of Bijapur and Golkonda were impressed by his boldness, sent embassies to assure him of their admiring goodwill, and consented to pay him tribute. It may be doubted, however, whether he would not have been wiser to draw his scientific frontier at the Narbada, He set an example which led his successors on to further aggression, and for more than a century the governor of what was known as the suhah of the Deccan, which included Burhanpur and the country round about, was perpetually striving to enlarge his borders at the expense of the dominions of the Nizam, 'Adil, ur Kutb Shah of the period, wdth the result that tranquillity was unknown to the inhabitants of the marches. During the reign of Jahangir the struggle went on without advantage to the Mughals ; Ahmad- nagar was lost and regained ; and when Shah-Jahan ascended the Peacock Throne, the three southern dynasties held most of their old territory, whilst the Mughal province consisted of little more than part of Khandesh and Berar with the fort of Ahmad- nagar as a lonely outpost. The new Emperor, who had shown his prowess as a general in the Deccan in his younger days, renewed the contest, extin- guished the Nizam Shah's line, and compelled the kings of Golkonda and Bijapur once more to pay homage in the form of a usually unpunctual annual tribute. Prince Aurangzib was Viceroy of the Deccan at the K 146 AURANGZIB time when these important successes were completed. As has been seen, he was appointed to this, his first official post, on the loth of May, 1636, when in his eighteenth year. The war was practically over before he arrived on the scene, and all he had to do was to receive the last representative of the Nizam dynasty, and send him to join others of his kindred in the for- tress of Gwalior. The province of the Deccan at this time is described as containing sixty-four forts, fifty- three of which were in the hills, and it was divided into four provinces : — Daulatabad, including Ahmadnagar, its old capital ; Telingana ; Khand^sh ; and Berar (capital, Elichpur). The revenue of the whole was reckoned at five crores, or more than five and a half million pounds. The only addition made during Aurangzib's first government was the reduction of the territory of Baglana, between Khand^sh and the Western Ghats, to the position of a tributary State in the winter of 1637-8. In June, 1643, the Viceroy adopted the profession of a fakir, and was deprived of his office. Twelve years passed before Aurangzib returned to the Deccan. The campaigns in Afghanistan had di- verted his energies, and the interval had passed peace- fully in the south. Shah-Jahan's officers were busily employed in completing the revenue survey of the Deccan provinces, and the kings of Bijaptir and Gol- konda were quite content to let well alone, so long as the Mughals observed the same maxim. They paid their tribute, as a rule, and in return only asked to be THE DECCAN I47 left in peace. This was just what the new Viceroy was least disposed to grant. He had done with his dream of a hermit^s contemplative life, and his experience of war in Afghanistan had roused all his inborn passion for conquest. The fact that the Deccan kings were of the heretical sect of the Shi'a, or followers of 'Ali, gave his designs the sacred character oisi Jihad. From this time to his dying day he never for a moment lost sight of his ambition to recover the empire which had once belonged to Muhammad ibn Taorhlak. At last his ambition led him on and on, till for twenty-six years he never set foot in Hindustan, and finally found the grave of his hopes, as of his body, in the land which even his iron will could not subdue. His first decided step towards the goal he was fated never to reach was an unprovoked attack upon 'Abdallah^ the King of Golkonda. The pretext was an internal dispute with which the Mughals had no concern, but it served their purpose. Mir Jumla, the vizier of Golkonda, was by bu'th a Persian, and a diamond merchant by trade, who had risen to his high office as much by transcendent ability as by fabulous wealth. He was wont to reckon the pro- duce of his diamond mines by the sackful, and used his riches as a serviceable grease to the wheels of success. But he was also a brilliant general, and his campaigns in the Carnatic had brought him fame as well as treasure. In pursuit of both he had shown himself a very scourge of idolatry, and plundered temples and violated idols thi-oughout the peninsula K 2 148 AURANGZtB bore witness to his iconoclastic zeal. With such a man Aurangzib had many grounds of sympathy ; and when Mir Jumla fell out with his King, and threw himself upon the protection of the Mughal, it is not surprising that he was welcomed with effusion, and accorded the rank of a 'Commander of 5000.' Having secured this valuable ally, Aurangzib warmly espoused his cause and set about redressing his wrongs. He sent his eldest son, that ' tender sapling in the garden of success,' Prince Muhammad, to demand justice for Mir Jumla from his former sovereign (Jan., 1656), and took so much pains to disguise his intentions that the astonished King had barely time to escape from his capital, Bhagnagar, afterwards called Haidarabad, to the neighbouring fortress of Golkonda, before his enemies were in the city ^. Aurangzib then advanced in person, and laid siege to Golkonda, where he repulsed the King's first sally with a furious charge of the Mughal horse, leading the way on his war-elephant. In vain 'Abdallah sent baskets of gems and gorgeously caparisoned chargers and elephants to appease the besieger: Aurangzib would listen to no terms ; and when the King, as a last resource, begged to be allowed to send his mother as a mediator, the Prince refused to see her. Driven to bay, the King fought hard, but the siege was pressed harder, and when Shayista Khan came up at the * So Bernier : Khafi Khan says nothing of this deceit ; Catrou on the other hand, more suo, dilates upon it with his usual enthusiasm in detraction. THE DECCAN 149 head of the nobles of Malwa to reinforce the Prince, 'Abdallah submitted to the humiliating terms of the conqueror. He consented to engrave Shah-Jahan s name on his coins, in token of vassalage, to give his daughter in marriage to Aurangzib's eldest son, with some fortresses to her dowry, and to pay a crore of rupees, or more than a million sterling, in annual tribute to the Emperor. These terms would never have been offered had Aurangzib had his own way. But Shah- Jahan was growing jealous of his son's success, and dreaded the consequences of his increased power in the distant provinces of the south ; while Dara, ever envious of his brother's renown, and anxious to curb his ambitious spirit, exerted all his great influence over his aged father to excite his too-ready suspicions of his other sons. Peremptory orders arrived for Aurangzib to retire from Golkonda, the motive of which the Prince perfectly understood, though he did not feel that the moment for resistance had yet come. But for this interference, Golkonda would have been incorporated in the Mughal Empire in 1656, instead of thirty years later, and much subsequent bloodshed and disorder would have been avoided. As it was, Aurangzib came to terms with the King on the eve of victory, and withdrew to Aurangabad, which he had made the capital of his province, to nurse his grudge against Dara, and to plot further schemes of conquest with Mir Jumla. The result of their deliberations was that Mir Jumla, who now received the title of Mu'azzam Khan, went 150 AURANGZIB to Agra, and pleaded the cause of Deccan aggrandize- ment with Shah-Jahan himself. He told the Great Mogul of the wealth and treasures of the south, de- scribed the decrepit kingdoms that invited annihilation, and in glowing colours painted the glory that would redound to the name of his most religious Majesty from the extirpation of the effete colony of Portuguese infidels on the Malabar coast. The Mughal, he said, should never rest till his sway was supreme from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. The crafty Persian did not trust to argument alone : he brought the Emperor a priceless diamond, from the mine of Kollur on the Kistna, no less a stone than the famous Koh-i-nur or ' Peak of Light ' ; which, after adorning the ' Great Mogul,' was carried away to Persia by Nadir Shah, brought back to Afghanistan by Ahmad Durrani, and eventually came into the possession of Eanjit Singh, from whom it was transferred to the regalia of England on the annexation of the Punjab in 1 849 ^. Fortified by so splendid a gift, Mir Jumla's arguments prevailed, and Shah-Jahan authorized a further reinforcement of the army of the Deccan with a view to a spirited foreign policy. Dara fought to the last against this strength- ening of his brother's hand, but all he could obtain was the stipulation that Mil- Jumla, and not Aurangzib, should have the command of the new army of aggres- sion, and that the general should leave his family at ' The history of this celebrated diamond, and its identity with Mir Jumla's gift, have been conclusively traced by Dr. Ball, in his edition of Ta vernier's Travels, vol. ii. App. I. THE DECCAN 15 1 Agi'a as hostages for his loyalty. The change of com- mand made no difference, as it happened ; for Jumla at once joined his troops to Aurangzib's, in close alliance, and the two proceeded to wrench the castle of Bidar from the possession of 'Adil Shah of Bijapiir. Kaliani and Kulbarga were then taken, and the con- quest of Bijapur itself seemed imminent, when the serious illness of Shah-Jahan summoned Aurangzlb away to graver matters ^. Seven years passed before the troubles in* the north, the war of succession, and the initial dijficulties of settling his kingdom, left the new Emperor leisure to attend to the affairs of the Deccan. Meanwhile a new power had arisen in the south, a power which sprang from such needy and insignificant beginnings that no one could have foretold its future malignant domina- tion. The Marathas began to make themselves felt. This notorious Hindu people inhabited the country lying between the Indian Ocean and the river Warda \ their northern boundary was the Satpura range, and on the west coast they extended as far south as Goa. Their strength lay in the inaccessible fastnesses of the Western Ghats, which climb precipitously to the great plateau that stretches right across the Deccan to the Bay of Bengal. ' The whole of the Ghats and neighbouring mountains often terminate towards the top in a wall of smooth rock, the highest points of which, as well as detached portions on * See above, p. 35. 152 AURANGZtB insulated hills, form natural fortresses, where the only labour required is to get access to the level space, which genierally lies on the summit. Various princes at different times have profited by these positions. They have cut flights of steps or winding roads up the rocks, fortified the entrance with a succession of gateways, and erected towers to command the approaches ; and then studded the whole region about the Ghats and their branches with forts, which, but for frequent experience, would be deemed impregnable ^.' Between the Ghats and the sea lies the narrow strip of rugged country called the Konkan. Here deep valleys and torrent-beds lead from the rocks and forests of the mountain ridge to the fertile plains of the humid tract near the sea, where the torrents merge in sandy creeks among thickets of mangroves. ' The broken and contorted land, writhing from the rugged and indented sea- margin, shoots aloft in steep and terrific cliffs and craggy summits, whose beauty and majesty must be seen to be understood. Magnificent forests clothe these elevations, and spread far down into the wild country below, and extend their mysterious and treacherous shade for many a mile along the table-land above. Impetuous torrents leap from the mountain sides, rive, in their headlong career sea- ward, the uneven and craggy surface of the coastland; and the hollow nullas of the dry season are, on the ap- proach of rain, transformed in a few hours into deep, furious, and impassable cataracts. The thunderstorms of these regions are terrific : the deluges of rain, violent, copious, and frequent, beyond all comparison elsewhere in India. Roads throughout the greater part of the country ^ Elphinstone, History of India, 5th ed. (1866), p. 615. THE DECCAN 153 there are none; the character of the ground and the luxuriance of the forest jungles alike preclude them \' The Ghats and the Konkan were the safe retreats of wild beasts and wiry Marathas. These people had never made any mark in history before the reign of Aurangzib. They had been peace- ful, frugal husbandmen, like the mass of the lower orders of Hindus, and had given no trouble to their rulers. Their chiefs, or village headmen, were Stidras, of the lowest of the four castes, like their people, though they pretended to trace their pedigree to the Rajputs, and thus connect themselves with the noble caste of Kshatriyas. In the silent times of peace, the Marathas enjoyed the happiness of the nation that has no history. War brought out their dormant capacities, and their daggers soon cut their name deep in the annals of India. ' They are small, sturdy men,' says Elphinstone, * well made, though not handsome. They are all active, laborious, hardy, and persevering. If they have none of the pride and dignity of the E-ajputs, they have none of their indolence or their want of worldly wisdom. A Rajput warrior, as long as he does not dishonour his race, seems almost indifferent to the result of any contest he is engaged in. A Maratha thinks of nothing hut the result, and cares little for the means, if he can attain his object. For this purpose he will strain his wits, renounce his pleasures, and hazard his person ; but he has not a conception of sacrificing his life, or even his ^ Sidney Owen, India on the Eve of the British Conquest (1872), p. 22. Dr. Fryer has given a vivid account of his ascent of the Ghats in his Xew Account 0/ India (1698), Letter III, ch. iv. 154 AURANGZIB interest, for a point of honour. This difference of sentiment effects the outward appearance of the two nations : there is something noble in the carriage even of an ordinary Eajput, and something vulgar in that of the most distinguished Maratha.' The vulgar Maratha, nevertheless, gave more trouble to the rulers of Hindustan, whether Mughal or Eng- lish, than even the proud dynasties of the Rajputs. The King of Bijapur was responsible for the disas- trous policy of educating this hardy race for their career of rapine. They formed a large proportion of his subjects, and their language, a pecuhar offshoot of Sanskrit, became the official script of the revenue department of his kingdom. Gradually they came to be employed in his army, first in garrison duty, and then in the light cavalry, a branch of service for which they displayed extraordinary aptitude. Some of them rose to offices of some importance at Bijapur and Golkonda.. One of the most distinguished of these officers, Shahji Bhosla, governor of Poona and Bangalore, was the father of Sivaji, the founder of the Maratha power. CHAPTER X SiVA.ji THE MaRATHA SiVAJi was born in May, 1627, and was thus eight years younger than his great adversary Aurangzib. He was brought up at his fa therms jagir of Poona, where he was noted for his courage and shrewdness, while ' for craft and trickery he was reckoned a sharp son of the Devil, the Father of Fraud.' He mixed with the wild highlanders of the neighbouring Ghats, and listening to their native ballads and tales of adventure, soon fell in love with their free and reck- less mode of life. If he did not join them in their robber raids, at least he hunted through their country, and learnt every turn and path of the Ghats. He found that the hill forts were utterly neglected or miserably garrisoned by the Bijapur government, and he resolved upon seizing them, and inaugurating an era of brigandage on a heroic scale. He began by surprising the fort of Torna, some twenty miles from Poona, and after adding fortress to fortress at the expense of the Bijapur kingdom, without attracting much notice, crowned his iniquity in 1648 by making a convoy of royal treasure ' bail up,' and by occupying 156 AURANGZIB the whole of the northern Konkan. A few years later he caused the governor of the more southern region of the Ghats to be assassinated, annexed the whole territory, captured the existing forts, and built new strongholds. Like Albuquerque, but with better reason, he posed as the protector of the Hindus against the Musalmans, whom he really hated with a righteous hatred; and his policy and his superstitious piety alike recommended him to the people, and, in spite of his heavy blackmail, secured their adhesion. So far Sivaji had confined his depredations to the dominions of the King of Bijapur. The Mughal terri- tory had been uniformly respected, and in 1649 ^^^ Maratha had shown his political sagacity, and prevented active retaliation on the part of the 'Adil Shah, by actually ofiering his services to Shah-Jahan, who had been pleased to appoint him to the rank of a ' Mansabdar of 5000.' The freebooter fell indeed under the tempta- tion set before him by the war between Aurangzib and the Deccan Kings in 1656, and profited by the preoccupation of both sides to make a raid upon Junir. But Aurangzib's successes soon convinced him that he had made a false move, and he hastened to offer his apologies, which were accepted. Aurangzib was then marching north to secure his crown, and could not pause to chastise a ridiculously insignificant marauder. During the years of civil war and ensuing reorgani- zation in Hindustan, Sivaji made the best of his opportunities. The young king Sikandar, who had SIVAJI THE MARATHA 157 lately succeeded to the throne of Bijapur, in vain sought to quell the audacious rebel. An expedition sent against him about 1658 was doomed to ignomin- ious failure, and its commander met a treacherous fate. Sivaji knew better than to meet a powerful army in the field ; he understood the precise point where courage must give place to cunning, and in dealing with a Muslim foe he had no scruples of honour. When Afzal Khan advanced to the forts and forests of the Ghats at the head of a strong force, the Maratha hastened to humble himself and tender his profuse apologies, and the better to show his sub- missive spirit he begged for a private audience, man to man, with the general. The story is typical of the method by which the Marathas acquired their extra- ordinary ascendency. Afzal Khan, completely de- luded by Sivaji's protestations, and mollified by his presents, consented to the interview. Sure of his enemy's good faith, he went unarmed to the rendezvous below the Maratha fortress, and leaving his attend- ants a long bowshot behind, advanced to meet the suppliant. Sivaji was seen descending from the fort, alone, cringing and crouching in abject fear. Every few steps he paused and quavered forth a trembling confession of his offences aorainst the Kinsf his lord. o o The frightened creature dared not come near till Afzal Khan had sent his palankin bearers to a distance, and stood quite solitary in the forest clearing. The soldier had no fear of the puny quaking figure that came weeping to his feet. He raised him up, and was 158 AURANGZIB about to embrace him round the shoulder in the friendly oriental way, when he was suddenly clutched with fingers of steel. The Maratha's hands were armed with ' tiger's claws ' — steel nails as sharp as razors — and his embrace was as deadly as the Scottish 'Maiden's.' Afzal died without a groan. Then the Maratha trumpet sounded the attack, and from every rock and tree armed ruffians fell upon the Bijapuris, who were awaiting the return of their general in care- less security. There was no time to think of fighting, it was a case of mMve qui _pet6^. They found they had to deal with a lenient foe, however. Sivaji had gained his object, and he never indulged in useless bloodshed. He offered quarter, and gained the sub- dued troopers over to his own standard. It was enough for him to have secured all the baggage, stores, treasure, horses, and elephants of the enemy, without slaking an unprofitable thirst for blood. Once more the forces of Bijapiir came out to crush him, and again they retreated in confusion. After this the Deccan sovereign left him unmolested to gather fresh recruits, build new forts, and plunder as he pleased. His brigandage was colossal, but it was conducted under strict rules. He seized caravans and convoys and appropriated their treasure, but he per- mitted no sacrilege to mosques and no dishonouring of women. If a Koran were taken, he gave it reverently to some Muhammadan. If women were captured, he protected them till they were ransomed. There was nothing of the libertine or brute about Sivaji. In the SIVAJI THE MARATHA 159 appropriation of booty, however^ he was inexorable. Common goods belonged to the finder, but treasure, gold, silver, gems, and satins, must be surrendered untouched to the State ^. Sivaji's rule now extended on the sea coast from Kalyini in the north to the neighbourhood of Portu- guese Goa, a distance of over 250 miles ; east of the Ghats it reached from Poona down to Mirich on the Kistna ; and its breadth in some parts was as much as 100 miles. It was not a vast dominion, but it sup- ported an army of over 50,000 men, and it had been built up with incredible patience and daring. Like the tiger of his own highland forests, Sivaji had crouched and waited until the moment came for the deadly spring. He owed his success as much to feline cunning as to boldness in attack. He was freed from anxiety on the score of his eastern neighbour the King of Bijapur, whose lands he had plundered at his will, and he now longed for fresh fields of rapine. The Hindus had become his friends, or bought his favour, and ofi'ered few occasions for pillage. He therefore turned to the Mughal territory to the north. Hitherto he had been careful to avoid giving offence to his adopted suzerain, but now he felt himself strong enough to risk a quarrel. His irrepressible thirst for plunder found ample exer- cise in the Mughal districts, and though he deprecated an assault upon the capital, lest he should provoke the Emperor to a war of extermination, he pushed * Khafi Khan, I. c, vol. vii. pp. 260-1. 1 6o A URANGZIB his raids almost to the gates of the ' Throne-City,' Aurangabad, which was now the metropolis of the Mughal power in the Deccan. Aurangzib's uncle, Shayista Khan, then Viceroy of the Deccan, was ordered to put a stop to these disturbances, and accordingly proceeded, in 1660, to occupy the Maratha country. He found that the task of putting down the robbers was not so easy as it looked, even with the best troops in India at his back. Every foi-t had to be reduced by siege, and the defence was heroic. A typical instance may be read in Khafi Khan's de- scription of the attack on the stronghold of Chakna, one of Sivaji's chief forts: — ' Then the royal armies marched to the fort of Chakna, and after examining its bastions and walls, they opened trenches, erected batteries, threw up intrenchments round their own position, and began to drive mines under the fort. Thus having invested the place, they used their best efforts to reduce it. The rains in that country last nearly five months, so that people cannot put their heads out of their houses. The heavy masses cf clouds change day into night, so that lamps are often needed, for without them one man cannot see another man of a party. But for all the muskets were rendered useless, the powder spoilt, and the bows bereft of their strings, the siege was vigorously pressed, and the walls of the fortress were breached by the fire of the guns. The garrison were hard pressed and troubled, but on dark nights they sallied forth into the trenches and fought with surprising boldness. Sometimes the forces of the free- booter on the outside combined with those inside in making a simultaneous attack in broad daylight, and placed the trenches in great danger. After the siege had lasted fifty or SIVAJI THE MARATHA i6i sixty days, a bastion which had been mined was blown up, and stones, bricks, and men flew into the air like pigeons. The brave soldiers of Isldm, trusting in God, and placing their shields before them, rushed to the assault and fought with great determination. But the infidels had thrown up a barrier of earth inside the fortress, and had made intrenchments and plans of defence in many parts. All the day passed in fight- ing, and many of the assailants were killed. But the brave warriors disdained to retreat, and passed the night without food or rest amid the ruins and the blood. As soon as the sun rose, they renewed their attacks, and after putting many of the garrison to the sword, by dint of great exertion and determination they carried the place. The survivors of the garrison retired into the citadel. In this assault 300 of the royal army were slain, besides sappers and others engaged in the work of the siege. Six or seven hundred horse and foot were wounded by stones and bullets, arrows and swords.' Eventually the citadel surrendered, and Chakna was re-christened. ' Islamabad ' : but assaults and sieges like this cost more than the conquest was worth. Even when the Mughals seemed to have brought the northern part of the Maratha country under control, and Sivaji had buried himself in the hills, a fresh outrage dis- pelled the illusion. Shayista Khan was carousing one night in fancied security in his winter quarters at Poona. Suddenly the sounds of slaughter broke upon the ears of the midnight banqueters, who were regaling themselves after the day's fast, for it was the month of Ramazan. The Marathas were butchering Shayista's household. They got into the guard-house^ and killed every one they found on his L l6i2i AURANGZIB pillow, crying, ' This is how they keep watch ! ' Then they beat the Mughal drums so that nobody could hear his own voice. Shayista's son was killed in the scuffle, and the general himself was dragged away by some of his faithful slave girls, and with difficulty escaped by a window. This happened in 1663, after the Mughal army had been occupied for three years in subduing the robbers. The prospect was not encouraging, and to make matters worse the Mughal general laid the blame of the midnight surprise upon the treachery of his Eaj- put colleague Jaswant Singh. The Raja had played the traitor before : he had tried to desert to Shuja' on the eve of the most decisive battle in Bengal ; he had pledged himself to Dara, and then thrown the unfor- tunate Prince over for Aurangzib ; and he was sus- pected of being peculiarly susceptible to monetary arguments. Nothing, however, was proved against him in the Poona affair^ and Aurangzib found his military science and his gallant following of Rajputs too valuable to be lightly discarded. Accordingly, Shayista was recalled and transferred to Bengal ^, and Prince Mu'azzam, the Emperor's second son, was ap- pointed to the command in the Deccan, with the Raja Jaswant Singh as his colleague. Sivaji celebrated the occasion by sacking Siirat for (Fryer says) forty days (Jan. — Feb. 1664) : Su' George Oxindon indeed repulsed him from the English factory with much credit, but he carried off a splendid booty from the ^ See p. 117. He died in Bengal in 1694, aged 93. SIVAJI THE MArAtHA 163 city. Nothing more outrageous in the eyes of a good Muslim could be conceived than this insult to Surat, the ' Gate of the Pilmmage ' until the sacrileo-e was eclipsed by the fleet which Sivaji fitted out at forts which he had built on the coast, for the express purpose of intercepting Mughal ships, many of which were full of pilgrims on their way to or from the Holy City of Mecca. It seemed as though there were no limits to the audacity of this upstart robber, who, now that his father was dead, presumed to style him- self Raja, low caste Maratha though he was, and to coin money as an independent sovereign. A fresh change of generals was tried. Jaswant Singh's previous record justified the suspicion that he had turned a blind eye to the doings of his fellow Hindus, the violators of Surat. He was superseded, and Raja Jai Singh and Dilir Khan were appointed joint-commanders in the Deccan. Aurangzib never trusted one man to act alone ; a colleague was always sent as a check upon him ; and the divided command generally produced vacillating half-hearted action. In the present instance, however, Jai Singh and his colleague appear to have displayed commendable energy. Five months they spent in taking forts and devastating the country, and at length Sivaji, driven to earth, opened negotiations w^ith Jai Singh, which ended in an extraordinary sensation : the Maratha chief not only agreed to surrender the majorit}^ of his strongholds, and to become once more the vassal of the Emperor, but actually went to Delhi and appeared L % i64 AURANGZIB in person at the Court of the Great Mogul, to do homage to his suzerain for no less a feof than the Viceroyalty of the Deccan. No more amazing ap- parition than this sturdy little ' mountain rat ' among the stately grandeur of a gorgeous Court could be imagined. The visit was not a success. Aurangzib clearly did not understand the man he had to deal with, and showed a curious lack of political sagacity in his reception of the Maratha. N o prince or general in all India could render the Emperor such aid in his designs against the Deccan kingdoms as the rude highlander who had at last come to his feet. A good many points might well be stretched to secure so valuable an ally. But Aurangzib was a bigot, and inclined to be fastidious in some things. He could not forget that Sivaji was a fanatical Hindu, and a vulgar brigand to boot. He set himself the task of showing the Maratha his real place, and, far from recognizing him as Viceroy of the Deccan, let him stand unnoticed among third rank officers in the splendid assembly that daily gathered before the throne in the great Hall of Audience ^ Deeply ^ There is some mystery about this interview. Khafi Khan says, with little probability, that Aurangzib was not aware of the lavish promises which had been made to Sivaji in his name by Jai Singh. Bernier and Fryer explain Aui-angzib's coldness by the clamour of the women, who, like Shayista's wife, had lost their sons by the hands of the Marathas. The risk of assassination by the injured relatives of his victims may well have given Sivaji a motive for escape from Delhi, but the vengeful appeals of the women could not have dictated Aurangzib's policy. He never budged an inch from SIVAJI THE MARATHA 165 affronted, the little Maratha, pale and sick with shame and fury, quitted the presence without taking ceremonious leave. Instead of securing an important ally, Aurangzib had made an implacable enemy. He soon realized his mistake when Sivaji, after escaping, concealed in a hamper, from the guards who watched his house, resumed his old sway in the Ghats at the close of 1666, nine months after he had set forth on his unlucky visit to Court. He found that the Mughals had almost abandoned the forts in the Ghats, in order to prosecute a fruitless siege of Bijapur, and he immediately re-occupied all his old posts of vantage. No punishment followed upon this act of defiance, for Jaswant Singh, the friend of Hindus and affable pocketer of bribes, once more commanded in the Deccan, and the result of his mediation was a fresh treaty, by which Sivaji was acknowledged as a Raja, and permitted to enjoy a large amount of territory together with a new jagir in Berar. The kings of Bijapur and Golkonda hastened to follow the amicable lead of the Mughal, and purchased their immunity from the Marathas by paying an annual tribute. Deprived of the excitements of war and brigandage, Sivaji fixed his capital in the lofty crag of Rahiri, bis set purpose to gratify a woman's wish. The rumour that he connived at Sivaji's escape, as mentioned by Fryer, in order to make a friend of the man whose life he thus saved, is improbable. Aurangzib certainly believed that he had more to gain by Sivaji's death than by his friendship, which he despised ; and subsequent events showed that the Maratha did not consider himself at all beholden to the Emperor for his safety. 1 66 AURANGZIB afterwards Raigarh, due east of Jinjara, and devoted himself to the consolidation of his dominion. His arm}^ was admirably organized and officered, and the men were highly paid, not by feudal chiefs, but by the government, while all treasure trove in their raids had to be surrendered to the State. His civil officials were educated Brahmans, since the Marathas were illiterate. Economy in the army and govern- ment, and justice and honesty in the local adminis- tration, characterized the strict and able rule of this remarkable man. Aurangzib's brief attempt at conciliation — if indeed it were such — was soon exchanged for open hostility. He had, perhaps, employed Jaswant Singh in the hope of again luring Sivaji into his power ; in any case the plot had failed. Henceforth he recognized the deadly enemy he had made by his impolitic hauteur at Delhi. The Maratha, for his part, was nothing loth to resume his old depredations. He recovered most of his old forts, sacked Stirat a second time in 1671, sent his nimble horsemen on raids into Khandesh, even defeated a Mughal army in the open field, brought all the southei*n Konkan — except the ports and territory held by the English, Portuguese, and Abyssinians — under his sway, and began to levy the famous Maratha cltauth or blackmail, amounting to one-fourth of the revenue of each place, as the price of immunity from brigandage. He even carried his ravages as far north as Baroch, where the Marathas set an ominous precedent by crossing the Narbada SIVAJI THE MARAT HA ^6-/ (1675). Then he turned to his father's old jaglr in the south, which extended as far as Tanjore, and was now held for the King of Bijapur by Sivaji's younger brother. After forminor an alliance with the Kinor o o of Golkonda, who was jealous of the predominance of Bijapur, and after visiting him at the head of 30.000 horsemen and 40,000 foot, Sivaji marched south to conquer the outlying possessions of the common enemy, and to bring his brother to a sense of fraternal duty. He passed close to Madras in 1677, captured Jinji (600 miles from the Konkan) and Vellor and Arni, and took possession of all his father's estates, though he afterwards shared the revenue with his brother. On his return to the Ghats, after an absence of eighteen months, he compelled the Mughals to raise the siege of Bijapur, in return for large cessions on the part of the besieged government. Just as he was meditating still greater aggrandizement, a sudden illness put an end to his extraordinary^ career in 1680, when he was not quite fifty-three years of age. The date of his death is found in the words Kdfir he- jahannaon raft, ' The Infidel went to Hell ^.' ' Though the son of a powerful chief, he had begun life as a daring and artful captain of banditti, had ripened into a skilful general and an able statesman, and left a character which has never since been equalled or approached by any of his countrymen. The distracted state of the neighbouring ^ Khafi Khan is proud to be the discoverer of this chronogram. It is, of course, to be interpreted by the numerical values of the consonants : K 20, Alif i, F 80, R 200, B 2, J 3, H 5, N N 50, 50, R 200, F 80, T 400 = 1091 A. H. ,1680). l68 AURANGZIB countries presented openings by which an inferior leader might have profited ; but it required a genius like his to avail himself as he did of the mistakes of Aurangzib, by kindling a zeal for religion, and, through that, a national spirit among the Marathds. It was by these feelings that his government was upheld after it had passed into feeble hands, and was kept together, in spite of numerous internal disorders, until it had established its supremacy over the greater part of India. Though a predatory war, such as he conducted, must necessarily inflict extensile misery, his enemies bear witness to his anxiety to mitigate the evils of it by humane regulations, which were strictly enforced. His devotion latterly degenerated into extravagances of superstition and austerity, but seems never to have obscured his talents or soured his temper \' ' Sivaji always strove to maintain the honour of the people in his territories,' says a Muhammadan histo- rian. ' He persisted in rebellion, plundering caravans, and troubling mankind. But he was absolutely guilt- less of baser sins, and was scrupulous of the honour of women and childi'en of the Muslims when they fell into his hands.' Aurangzib himself admitted that his foe was 'a great captain'; and added 'My armies have been employed against him for nineteen years, and nevertheless his State has been always in- Elphinstone, History of India, 5th ed. (1866), p. 647. CHAPTER XI The Fall of Golkonda AuEANGziB had been badly served by his generals in the Deccan: but the fault was his own. His morbid distrust had thwarted their efforts ; the com- mand had been divided between jealous rivals ; the forces at their disposal had been insufficient to crush Sivaji or subdue the southern kings ; and the com- manders had been too frequently superseded to permit of connected and prolonged energy. It is possible that the languid progress of his arms in the Deccan was not wholly undesigned by the Emperor. He may have intended to give the rival forces in the south time to destroy each other, and anticipated an easy triumph over a disorganized and exhausted enemy. So far as the two kingdoms of Bijapur ^nd Golkonda were concerned, his forecast was accurate enough. Their armies seem to have melted away ; they had fallen so low as to pay blackmail to the Marathas ; Golkonda had already grovelled before the Mughals, and it was only owing to the interference of Sivaji that Bijapur had not become a Mughal city in 1679. But the weakenino; of the old Deccan kingdoms had 170 AURANGZIB been procured at the expense of strengthening the Marathas. Sivaji had annexed all the southern terri- tory which his father had lately won for the King of Bijapui'j he had full possession of the western Ghats and Konkan ; and his forts continually sent out armed expeditions to harry the country north and east, wherever the blackmail had not been humbly paid. The 'gi'eat Captain', indeed, was dead, but his genius lived in the nation he had created. Aurangzib could not realize the power of these freebooters. He under- stood the solid weisjht of orojanized states and dis- ciplined armies ; but he never estimated the irregular domination of the Marathas at its true value, until years of fruitless contest had seared the truth upon his mind and spread its witnesses in the starved and butchered corpses of his Grand Army through the length and breadth of the peninsula. However little he may have appreciated the gravity of the situation which he had suffered to grow up in the Deccan, Aurangzib saw that the time had come for decisive action. He had by this time come to terms with the Rajputs of Udaipur^, and abandoned a vain attempt to subdue the irrepressible tribes of Afghanistan ; and, though in neither case could he feel satisfied with the makeshifts he had been obliged to adopt, he felt himself free for a while to dismiss Rajput and Afghan affairs from his mind, and to take the Deccan imbroglio into his own hand. At the close of 1 68 1, Aurangzib arrived at Burhanpur, and took ^ See above, p. 141. THE FALL OF GOLKONDA 171 tjommand of the army. He little thought that he should never see Delhi again ; that after twenty-six years of stubborn warfare he should die among the ruins of his hopes in the land where he had first held government. Forty-five years before, in 1636, he had come to Khandesh a youthful devotee of seventeen. As a man in the prime of life, he had gone near to conquering the coveted kingdoms (1656). And now at the age of sixty-three he resumed his old work with all his former energy. He could not foresee that a quarter of a century later, a weary old man on the verge of ninety, he would still be there, still fighting the same foe, still endurino^ the same fatio:ues and ex- erting the same iron will, tiJl the worn out frame at last gave way, and the indomitable soul fled to its rest. The Emperor's first step was to endeavour to strike awe into the Marathas by sending his sons, the Princes Mu'azzam and A'zam, to scour the country. It was a useless proceeding. The Marathas offered no opposi- tion, and left their rugged country to punish the in- vaders. Prince Mu'azzam accordingly marched through the w^hole Konkan, and laid it waste, and w^hen he reached the end he found that he had hardly a horse fit to carry him, and that his men were marching afoot, half-starving. The enemy had cut down the grass, so that no fodder could be obtained : the Mughal troopers 'had no food but cocoa-nuts, and the grain called kudiin, which acted like poison upon them. Great numbers of men and horses died. Those who escaped death dragged on a half-existence, and with 172 AURANGZIB crying and groaning felt as if every breath they drew was their last. There was not a noble who had a horse in his stable fit to use \' When they tried to victual the army by sea, the enemy intercepted the corn ships. The rocks and forests of the Ghat country had been quite as destructive to the cavalry as the spears of the Marathas could have been. Fighting torrents and precipices, and enduring an unhealthy climate and scarcity of food, was an unprofitable business ; and the Princes were ordered to converge upon Bijapur, whilst Aurangzib pushed forward to Ahmadnagar. As soon as the enemy's back was turned, Sivaji's son, Sambhaji, swiftly led his active little horsemen behind their flank, and crossing over to Khand^sh burned Burhanpur and set the whole country side in a blaze. Before the Mughals could get at them, they were safe again in their fastnesses in the Ghats. This stroke is typical of the Maratha method of warfare. They never risked an engagement in the open field unless their numbers made victory a certainty. When the heavy Mughal cavalry attacked them, the hardy little warriors, mounted on wiry steeds as inured to fatigue as themselves, and splendidly broken in for their tactics, would instantly scatter in all directions, and observe the enemy from a neighbouring hill or wood, ready to cut ofi* solitary horsemen, or surprise small parties in ambush; and then, if the pursuers gave up the useless chase, in a moment the Marathas were upon them, hanging on their flanks, ^ Khafi Khan, I. c, vol. vii. p. 314. THE FALL OF GOLKONDA 173 despatching stragglers, and fii'ing at close quarters into the unwieldy mass. To fight such people was to do battle with the air or to strike blows upon water: like wind or waves they scattered and bent before the blow, only to close in again the moment the pressure was taken off. They would dash down from their mountain retreats and intercept a rich convoy of treasure ; and before the Mughals could get near them they were back in their rocky forts. Even if pursued to theii' lair and smoked out, so to speak, they only went to some equally convenient and almost inaccessible stronghold to resume their usual trade of plunder, in which they took unfeigned delight. It is true they had no longer a leader of Sivaji's capacity, for his son was an idle dissolute sot, whose spasmodic days of daring rapine were separated by long intervals of languid inaction. But the time when a leader was essential was over. Sivaji had converted an easy- going race of peasants into a nation of banditti, fired by a universal love of plunder, and inspired by a universal hatred of the Muslim. The Marathas were no longer the fairly disciplined army that Sivaji had organized ; they had become independent bands of brigands, each acting for itself, and grasping all that came within reach. But the effect was the same as if they had still formed one force under one leader. Each man fought and trapped and pillaged in the same common cause — the national war against Muham- madan aliens — and their separate efforts produced a sufficiently alarming collective result. Like other 174 • aurangzIb brigands, however, they were good to their friends. Those who paid the stipulated blackmail had nothing to fear from their raiding parties. They were conse- quently popular enough with the country-folk, who regarded them as national heroes, and as their defenders against the inroads of the infidels, and were always eager to keep them informed of the movements of the enemy and to warn them of any approaching danger. It is not too much to say that, except the large cities, and the spots where the Mughal armies were actually encamped, the Deccan was practically under the control of these highland robbers. A good deal of this must have been apparent to the keen glance of Aurangzib, as soon as he had come into personal relations with the Marathas ; but he was not to be turned from the course he had set before him. The religious bigotry of the enemy only inflamed his own puritanical zeal, and he was imprudent enough to insist on the strict levying of his poll-tax on Hindus — which had considerably helped the popularity of the Marathas — in the very country where it was most important to lay aside Muhammadan prejudices. His first step on arriving in the Deccan was to issue stringent orders for the collection of the hated jizya. The people and their headmen resisted and rioted in vain. A tried officer was detached with a force of horse and foot to extort the poll-tax and punish the recusants. It is significant that in three months this sagacious officer reported that he had collected the poll-tax of Eui'hanpur for the past year (R36,ooo), and THE FALL OF GOLKONDA 175 begged the Emperor to appoint some one else to carry on the unpleasant business ^. Later on a proclamation was issued that no Hindu should ride in a palankin or mount an Arab horse without special permission. The inevitable result of these impolitic measures was to throw the whole Hindu population into the arms of their friends the Maratbas, who indeed exacted a heavy blackmail, but made no invidious distinction of creed in their rough and ready system of taxation. Aurangzib's plan seems to have been, first, to cut off the sources of the Maratha revenue, by extir- minating the kingdoms of Golkonda and Bijapur, which paid tribute to the brigands ; and then to ferret the ' mountain rats ' out of their holes. He clearly thought that the two kingdoms formed his real point of attack, and that after their fall it would be easy to deal with the Marathas. Evidently he did not know his men. The fii'st part of his programme was the less diffi- cult to carry out. The old Deccan kingdoms were in no condition to offer serious resistance to Aurangzib's Grand Army. They might have been annexed long before, but for the selfish indolence of the Mughal generals. The truth is, as Bernier ^ shrewdly remarks, that these commanders enjoyed their almost royal dignity so much, while at the head of large armies ^ Khafi Khan, Z.c, vol. vii. pp. 310, 311. 2 Bernier was at Golkonda in 1667, and has left on record a singular penetrating survey of the political condition of the Deccan kingdoms and their relations with the Mughals [Travels, pp. 191- 198;. lyS AURANGZIB in a province far distant from the imperial control, that they thought only of keeping their posts, and took very little trouble to bring the enemy to their knees. ' They conduct every operation with languor, and avail themselves of any pretext for the pro- longation of war, which is alike the source of their emolument and dignity. It is become a proverbial saying that the Deccan is the bread and support of the soldiers of Hindustan.' Golkonda was the weaker of the two kingdoms. It had always pushed forward its neighbour Bijapur as a buffer to deaden the shock of the Mughal assaults. It had secretly subsidized its neighbour to enable it to defend itself against the Mughals, and at the same time bribed the Imperial officers to attack Bijapur rather than itself. In spite of its ingenuity, however, Golkonda had bowed the knee before Aurangzib in 1656, and had been growing more and more demoral- ized in the quarter of a century which had rolled by uneasily since then. It was practically a province of the Mughal empire. Its King, Abu-1-Hasan, had never recovered from the shock of that early humiliation. He had become a mere tributary vassal, and had ceased to take any public part in the government of his kingdom. He never appeared in audience, or presided over a court of justice. In 1667 he lived strictly secluded in the fortress of Golkonda, and abandoned himself to debauchery. Meanwhile his metropolis, Haidarabad, was a prey to anarchy and misrule. Relieved from the smallest fear or respect THE FALL OF GOLKONDA T77 for the King, the nobles tyrannized over the people at their will, and the lower classes would sooner have submitted to Aurangzib's just governance than con- tinue to endure the oppression of their many masters. Indeed, the rule of the Mughal may almost be said to have been established at Haidarabad from the date of the treaty of 1656, for Aurangzib's Kesident there was accustomed to ' issue his commands, grant passports, menace and ill-treat the people, and in short speak and act with the uncontrolled authority of an absolute sovereign.' Mir Jumla's son, Muhammad Amin Khan, exercised practically royal powers at the principal port, Masulipatan ; and Mughals, Dutch, and Portu- guese had only to prefer their demands, sure of the fulfilment of the prophecy, ' Ask, and it shall be given unto you.' It seemed hardly worth while to subdue still further an already prostrate kingdom : but the anarchical state of the government might well invite and even require forcible intervention. When Aurangzib learnt that two Hindus had possessed themselves of the chief power in Haidarabad, and were oppressing and per- secuting the Musalmans, he felt that the time for intervention had come. A disordered State was an eyesore on his borders ; a tributary State where the true believers were persecuted for righteousness' sake was intolerable. Accordingly, in 1684, Prince Mu'azzam was despatched with Khan-Jahan Bahadur Kokaltash to reform the government of Golkonda. The prince and the general appear to have fallen M 178 AURANGZIB victims to the indolence which was the besetting sin of Mughal commanders in the Deccan. Mu'azzam was a mild and dutiful son, whose gentle docility laid him perpetually open to the suspicion of designing subtlet3\ His father had suspected him of ambitions which were wholly foreign to his placid nature, and few princes have won credit for so much devilry as Mu'azzam acquired by the consistent practice of all the iimocent virtues. Aurangzib had not forgotten that his own blameless youth had veiled the fiercest ambition, and his other son, Prince A'zam, was not slow to point the precedent to the case of Mu'azzam. He was * too good to be true,' evidently. He was certainly too just and humane to be sent to wage a pitiless war. Instead of attacking Haidarabad and Golkonda with the energy which his father expected, the Prince strove in every way to avert hostilities, and then, after some futile skirmishing, for four or five months he remained motionless. It is not surpris- ing to hear that Aurangzib administered a trenchant reprimand, which ' incensed ' the blameless Prince, but induced him at length to fight. Even when he had beaten the enemy and pursued them into their camp, he gave them a truce for the alleged purpose of removing their women to safety, and was rewarded by renewed resistance. He then threw out an imbe- cile proposal that the dispute should be settled by a combat between two or three heroes on either side, the Horatii and Curiatii of Delhi and Golkonda I This does not seem to have been taken up, and at last THE FALL OF GOLKONDA 179 the Prince di-ew near to Haidarabad, where he ought to have been six months before. On his tardy approach, the greatest terror and con- fusion prevailed in the city. The Hindus accused the Muhammadans of betraj^ing their country, and the Muhammadan general went over to the Mughals. The King fled to the fortress of Golkonda, and the city was given over to rival bands of rioters, who plundered and raped and destroyed at their pleasure. There was a stampede to Golkonda, and many thousand gentle- men, unable to save their property or find horses, took their wives and children by the hand, and led them, without veils and scantily clothed, to the pro- tection of the fort. * Before break of day, the imperial forces attacked the city, and a frightful scene of plunder and destruction followed, for in every part and road and market there were lacs upon lacs of money, stuffs, carpets, horses, and elephants, belonging to Abu-1-Hasan and his nobles. Words cannot express how many women and children of Musalmans and Hindds were made prisoners, or how many women of high and low degree were dishonoured. Carpets of great value, which were too heavy to carry, were cut to pieces with swords and daggers, and every bit was struggled for. The Prince appointed officers to prevent the plunder, and they did their best to restrain it, but in vain \' After all these hoiTors, Prince Mu'azzam, or as he was now styled, Shah-'Alam (' King of the World ') made peace (1685), on the King's agreeing to pay an ^ Khafi Khan, I. c, vol. vii. p. 320. M 2 l8o AURANGZIB indemnity of about a million and a quarter, to sur- render certain districts, and to imprison the two Hindu ministers — who in the meanwhile were murdered by the slaves of the harim. Aurangzib must have gnashed his teeth when he heard that his son had tamely sur- rendered the fruits of his victory : but he pretended to approve the terms of peace, whilst privately telling Shah-'Alam what he thought of him. The Prince was recalled. Aurangzib, however, was not, perhaps, sorry to leave Golkonda alone for awhile, as he was now fully occu- pied with his invasion of Eijaptir. This kingdom, though more important, and far less accessible, by reason of its fortified mountain passes and the scarcity of forage and water, was in little better case for re- sistance than its sister State. Its outlying cities had already fallen to the Mughals, and its western districts were in the greedy hands of the Marathas, who, never- theless, had been a chief cause why it had not so far succumbed to the imperial attacks. Now that Sivaji was dead, this source of protection had vanished, and Prince A'zam was deputed to achieve the long deferred conquest. The Bijapiiris, however, resorted to their usual tactics - they laid waste all the country round the capital, till the Mughal army was half famished, and they hovered about its flanks and harassed its movements with a pertinacity woi-thy of Sivaji himself. In August, 1685, however, Aurangzib, appeared upon the scene in person. Under his search- ing eye the work of intrenching and mining round the THE FALL OF GOLKONDA i8l six miles of ramparts went on heartily. A close blockade was established, and at last after more than a year's labour the besieged were starved out, and the keys of Bijapur were delivered to the Emperor in November, 1686. The old capital of the 'Adil Shahs, once full of splendid palaces, became the home of the owl and jackal. It stands yet, a melancholy silent ruin. Its beautiful mosques still raise their minarets above the stone walls, which are even now so inviolate that one might fancy one gazed upon a living city. Within, all is solitude and desolation. The ' Visiapur' which astounded so many travellers by its wealth and magnificence, was trampled under the foot of the Puritan Emperor, and fell to rise no more. Golkonda soon felt the loss of her protecting sister. In spite of the treaty concluded in 1685, Aurangzib resolved to make an end of the Kutb Shah dynasty. His sole justification seems to be that the King had failed to pay the stipulated tribute ; but instead of plainly setting foi-th this ground of complaint, he acted with a dissimulation which was as unnecessary as it was unworthy. Under cover of a pilgrimage to a holy shrine, he marched to Kulbarga, half-way to Golkonda. His agent at Haidarabad was instructed meanwhile to extort the tribute from the King. Abu-1-Hasan collected all the jewels he could lay hands on, and deposited them in baskets at the Mughal Legation by way of security for his debt. Then news came that the Emperor had left Kulbarga and was marching on the capital. His hostile inten- l82 AURANGZIB tions were unmistakable. The King was naturally indignant at the breach of faith, demanded his jewels back, and placed the Mughal Resident under arrest ; but on the latter pointing out the inevitable vengeance that would follow any injury offered to Aurangzib's representative, and proffering his mediation with his master, Abu-1-Hasan restored him to liberty. The Mughal army was at his gates, and the wretched King knew that his fall was at hand. In vain he sent submissive messages to the Emperor, and laid his humble protestations of obedience at his feet. Aurangzib's reply was uncompromising : — ' The evil deeds of this wicked man pass the bounds of writing, but to mention one out of a hundred and a little out of much will give some idea of them. He has given the reins of government into the hands of vile tyrannical infidels ; oppressed the holy men of Islam; and abandoned himself openly to reckless debauchery and vice, indulging in drunken- ness and lewdness day and night. He makes no distinction between infidelity and Islam, tyranny and justice, depravity and devotion. He has waged war on behalf of infidels, and disobeyed the laws of God, which forbid the aiding of the enemies of Islam, by which disobedience he has cast reproach upon the Holy Book in the sight of God and man. Letters of warning and counsel have repeatedly been sent to him by the hands of discreet messengers, but he has paid no heed. Only recently he has sent a lac of pagodas to the wicked Sambhaji. In all this insolence and vice and depravity, he has shown no shame for his infamous offences, and no hope of amendment in this world or the next.' Seeing that there was no hope of mercy, the King THE FALL OF GOLKONDA 183 of Golkonda prepared to die like a soldier. He cast off his sloth and luxury of life, and set about ordering his army and making ready for the siege of his citadel. In January, 1687, the enemy took ground at gunshot range, and the leaguer began. Day by day and week by week the approaches were pushed forward under the command of Ghazi-ad-din Fi'roz Jang. Abu-1-Hasan had forty or fifty thousand horse outside the walls which continually harassed the engineers, and the garrison plied their cannon and rockets with deadly effect upon the trenches. The defence was heroic ; fre- quent and deadly were the sallies of the besieged. The fortress was well found in ammunition and provisions, and a ceaseless fire was kept up night and day from the gates and towers and ramparts. Not a day passed without loss to the assailants. At last the lines were pushed up to the fosse, and Aurangzib himself sewed the first sack that was to be filled with earth and thrown into the ditch. Heavy guns were mounted on earthworks to keep back the defenders, and an attempt was made to scale the walls by night. Some of the besiegers had already gained the ramparts, when a dog gave the alarm, and the garrison speedily des- patched the climbers and threw down the ladders. The dog was rewarded with a golden collar. Meanwhile famine was reducing the Mughal army to extremities. The friends of Golkonda, and espe- cially the Maiathas of 'that hell-dog' Sambhaji, had laid the country waste ; the season was dry ; and there was a terrible scarcity of rice, grain, and fodder. l84 AURANGZIB Plague broke out in the camp, and many of the soldiers, worn out with hunger and misery, deserted to the enemy. When the rain came at last, it fell in torrents for three days, and washed away much of the entrenchments : upon which the besieged sallied out in force and killed many of the Mughals, and took prisoners. The occasion seemed favourable for over- tures of peace. Abu-1-Hasan showed his prisoners the heaps of corn and treasure in the fort, and offered to pay an indemnity, and to supply the besieging army with grain, if the siege were raised. Aurangzib's answer was full of his old proud inflexible resolve : 'Abu-1-Hasan must come to me with clasped hands, or he shall come bound before me. I will then con- sider what mercy I can show him.' Forthwith he ordered 50,000 sacks from Berar to fill the moat. In June the mines were ready to be fired. A feint attack was made to draw oflf the garrison from the expected breach, and the fuse was applied. The result was disastrous to the Mughals ; the defenders had skilfully countermined, and drawn the powder from one mine, and poured water into the others. The only part that exploded was that nearest to the be- siegers, who were wounded and buried by the falling stones, and had scarcely recovered from the shock when the garrison were upon them slaying all who were found in the trenches. ' Great wailings and complaints arose from the troops,' and the cannonade from the castle grew hotter as the besiegers' courage waned. Aurangzib was enraged at the obstinacy of THE FALL OF GOLKONDA 185 the defence, and commanded an assault to be made under his own eyes. ' Prodigies of valour were exhibited. But a storm of wiud and rain arose and obstinicted the progress of the assailants, and they were forced to fall back drenched with rain. The garrison again made a sally, took possession of the trenches, spiked the heavy guns, and carried away all that was port- able. They pulled out of the moat the logs of wood and the many thousands of bags which had been used to fill it up, and us(d them to repair the breaches made by the mines \' Where courage and perseverance failed, treason succeeded. Mines and assaults had been vainly tried against the heroic defenders of Golkonda : money and promises at last won the day. Many of the nobles of Golkonda had from time to time gone over to the enemy, and at length only two chiefs remained loyal to the King, 'Abd-ar-Kazzak and 'Abdallah Khan. Both had been plied with rich promises by Aurangzib. 'Abd-ar-Razzak, 'ungracious faithful fellow,' as his friend the historian relates, 'taking no heed of his own interest and life,' showed the Emperor's letter to the men in his bastion, and tore it to shreds before them. He told the spy who brought it to make answer that he would fight to the death, even as they fought who did battle for the blessed Husain at Kerbela. But his colleague, 'Abdallah Khan, was open to a bribe. He had charge of a postern gate, and admitted the enemy. The Mughals poured into * Khafi Khan, I. c, vol. vii. p. 331. 1 86 AURANGZIB the fortress, and raised a shout of triumph. 'Abd-ar- Razzak heard it, and leaping on a barebacked horse, followed by a dozen retainers^ galloped to the gate, through which the enemy were rushing in. He threw himself alone into their midst, crjdng that he would die for Abu-1-Hasan. Covered with blood and reeling in his saddle, he fought his way out, and they found him next day lying senseless under a cocoa-nut tree, with more than seventy wounds. Meanwhile the King had heard the shouts and groans, and knew that the hour was come. He went into the harim and tried to comfort the women, and then asking their pardon for his faults he bade them farewell, and taking his seat in the audience chamber, waited calmly for his unbidden guests. He would not suffer his dinner hour to be postponed for such a trifle as the Mughal triumph. When the officers of Aurangzib appeared, he saluted them as became a King, received them courteously, and spoke to them in choice Persian. He then called for his horse and rode with them to Prince A'zam, who presented him to Aurangzib. The Great Mogul treated him with grave courtesy, as King to King, for the gallantry of his defence of Golkonda atoned for many sins of his licentious past. Then he was sent a prisoner to Daulatabad, where his brother of Bijapur was already a captive, and both their dynasties disappear from history. Aurangzib appropriated some seven millions sterling from the royal property of Golkonda. The hero of the siege was 'Abd-ar-Razzak. Au- THE FALL OF GOLKONDA 187 rangzib said that had Abu-1-Hasaii possessed but one more servant as loyal as this, the siege might have gone on much longer. He sent a European and a Hindu surgeon to attend to the wounded man, and rejoiced when after sixteen days he at last opened his eyes. He showered favours upon the hero's sons, but nothing could shake the loyalty of the father. Lying on his sick bed, he said that ' no man who had eaten the salt of Abu-1-Hasan could enter the service of Aurangzib.' Among the universal self-seeking of the Mughal Court, such faithfulness was rare indeed, and no one honoured it more sincerely than the Emperor who had never been disloyal to his standard of duty. CHAPTER XII The Ruin o? Aurangzib With the conquest of Golkonda and Bijapur, Aurangzlb considered himself master of the Deccan. Yet the direct result of this destruction of the only powers that made for order and some sort of settled government in the peninsula was to strengthen the hands of the Marathas. The check exercised upon these free-lances by the two Kingdoms may have been weak and hesitating, but it had its eflfect in somewhat restraining their audacity. Now this check was abolished ; the social organization which hung upon the two governments was broken up ; and anarchy reigned in its stead. The majority of the vanquished armies naturally joined the Marathas and adopted the calling of the road. The local officials set themselves up as petty sovereigns, and gave their support to the Marathas as the party most likely to promote a golden age of plunder. Thus the bulk of the popula- tion of the two dissolved States went to swell the power of Sambhaji and his highlanders, and the disastrous results of this revolution in Deccan politics were felt for more than a century. The anarchy THE RUIN OF AURANGZIB 189 which desolated the Deccan was the direct forerunner of the havoc wrought by the Marathas in Delhi in the time of Shah-'Alam and Wellesley. The evil effects of the conquest were not immediately apparent. Aurangzib's armies seemed to carry all before them, and the work of taking possession of the whole territory of the vanished kingdoms, even as far south as Shahji's old government in Mysore, was swiftly accomplished. Sivaji's brother was hemmed in at Tanjore, and the Marathas were every w^here driven away to their mountain foi'ts. To crown these suc- cesses, Sambhaji was captured by some enterprising Mughals at a moment of careless self-indulgence. Brought before Aurangzib, the loathly savage dis- played his talents for vituperation and blasphemy to such a degree that he was put to death with circum- stances of exceptional barbarity {1689). His brother, Raja Ram, fled to Jinji in the Carnatic, as remote as possible from the Mughal head-quarters. For the moment, the Maratha power seemed to have come to an end. The brigands were awed awhile by the com- manding personality and irresistible force of the Great Mogul. Had terms with such an enemy been possible or in any degree binding, Aurangzib might well have accepted some form of tributary homage, and retired to Delhi with all the honours of the war. But the Emperor was not the man to look back when once his hand was set to the plough. He had accomplished a military occupation not merely of the Deccan, but of the whole peninsula, save the extreme 190 AURANGZIB point south of Trichinopoly, and the marginal posses- sions of the Portuguese and other foreign nations. Military occupation, however, was not enough ; he would make the southern provinces an integral part of his settled Empire, as finally and organically a member of it as the Punjab or Bengal. With this aim he stayed on and on, till a hope and will unquenchable in life were stilled in death. The exasperating struggle lasted seventeen years after the execution of Sambhaji and the capture of his chief stronghold : and at the end success was as far oft* as ever. ' But it was the will of God that the stock of this turbulent family should not be rooted out of the Deccan, and that King Aurangzib should spend the rest of his life in the work of repressing them.' The explanation of this colossal failure is to be found partly in the contrast between the characters of the invaders and the defenders. Had the Mughals been the same hardy warriors that Babar led from the valleys of the Hindu Kush, or had the Rajputs been the loyal protagonists that had so often courted destruc- tion in their devoted service of earlier emperors, the Marathas would have been allowed but a short shrift. But Aurangzib had alienated the Rajputs for ever, and they could not be trusted to risk their lives for him in the questionable work of exterminating a people who were Hindus, however inferior in caste and dignity. As for the Mughals, three or four gener- ations of court-life had ruined their ancient manliness. Babar would have scorned to command such officers THE RUIN OF AURANGZIB 191 as surrounded Aurangzib in his gigantic camp at Pairampur. Instead of hai'dy swordsmen, they had become padded dandies. They wore wadding under their heavy armour, and instead of a plain soldierly bearing they luxuriated in comfortable saddles, and velvet housinors, and bells and ornaments on their chargers. They were adorned for a procession, when they should have been in rough campaigning outfit. Their camp was as splendid and luxurious as if they were on guard at the palace at Delhi. The very rank and file grumbled if their tents were not furnished as comfortably as in quarters at Agra, and their re- quirements attracted an immense crowd of camp followers, twenty times as numerous as the eflfective strength. An eye-witness describes Aurangzib's camp at Galgala in 1 695 as enormous : the royal tents alone occupied a circuit of three miles, defended all round with palisades and ditches and 500 falconets : — ' I was told,' he says, ' that the forces in this camp amounted to 60,000 horse and 100,000 on foot, for whose baggage there were 50.000 camels and 3000 elephants ; but that the sutlers, merchants and artificers were much more numerous, the whole camp being a moving city con- taining five millions of souls, and abounding not only in provisions, but in all things that could be desired. There were 250 bazars or markets, every Amir or general having one to serve his men. In short the whole camp was thirty miles about ^' 1 Dr. J. F. Gemelli Careri, Voyage Bound the World, Churchill Col- lection of Voyages and Travels,, vol.. iv. p. 221 (1745^ He adds that the total army amounted to 300,000 horse and 400,000 foot. He l^'i AURANGZIB So vast a host was like a plague of locusts in a country : it devoured everything ; and though at times it was richly provisioned, at others the Marathas cut off communications with the base of supplies in the north, and a famine speedily ensued. The effeminacy of the Mughal soldiers was en- couraged by the dilatory tactics of their generals. The best of all Aurangzib's officers, Zii-l-Fikar, held treasonable parley with the enemy and intentionally delayed a siege, in the expectation that the aged Emperor would die at any moment and leave him in command of the troops. Such generals and such- soldiers were no match for the hardy Marathas, who were inspired to a man with a burning desire to extirpate the Musalmans and plunder everything they possessed. The Mughals had numbers and weight; in a pitched battle they were almost always success- ful, and their sieges, skilfully conducted, were in- variably crowned with the capture of the fort. But these forts were innumerable ; and each demanded months of labour before it would surrender ; and in an Indian climate there are not many consecutive months in which siege operations can be carried on without severe hardships. We constantly hear of marches during the height of the rains, the Emperor leading the way in his uncomplaining stoical fashion, and many of the nobles trudging on foot through the mud. In a single campaign no less than 4000 miles doubtless fell into the common error of including a large proportion of camp followers in the infantry. THE RUIN OF AURANGZIB 193 were covered, with immense loss in elephants, horses, and camels. Against such hardships the effeminate soldiers rebelled. They were continually crying for 'the flesh-pots of Egypt,' the comfortable tents and cookery of their cantonment at Bairampur. The Marathas, on the other hand, cared nothing for luxuries : hard work and hard fare were their accus- tomed diet, and a cake of millet sufficed them for a meal, with perhaps an onion for ' point.' They defended a fort to the last, and then defended another fort. They were pursued from place to place, but were never daunted, and they filled up the intervals of sieges by harassing the Mughal armies, stopping convoys of supplies, and laying the country waste in the path of the enemy. There was no bringing them to a decisive engagement. It was one long series of petty victories followed by larger losses. To narrate the events of the guerilla warfare, which filled the whole twenty years which elapsed between the conquest of Golkonda and the death of Aurangzib, would be to wi'ite a cataloo^ue of mountain sies^es and an inventory of raids. Nothing was gained that was worth the labour ; the Marathas became increasingly objects of dread to the demoralized Mughal army ; and the country, exasperated by the sufferings of a pro- longed occupation by an alien and licentious soldiery, became more and more devoted to the cause of the intrepid bandits, which they identified as their own. An extract from the Muhammadan historian, Khafi Khan, who is loth to record disaster to his sovereign's N 194 AURANGZIB araiSj will give a sufficient idea of the state of the war in 1702. At this time Tara Bai, the widow of Ram Raja, was queen-regent of the Marathas, as Sambhaji's son was a captive in the hands of Aurangzib. Tara Bai deserves a place among the great women of history : — * She took vigorous measures for ravaging the imperial territory, and sent armies to plunder the six provinces of the Deccan as far as Sironj. Mandisor, and Malwa. She won the hearts of her officers, and for all the struggles and schemes, the campaigns and sieges of Aurangzib, up to the end of his reign, the power of the Marathds increased day by day. By hard fighting, by the expenditure of the vast treasures accumulated by Sh^h-Jaban, and by the sacrifice of many thousands of men, he had penetrated into their wretched country, had subdued their lofty forts, and had driven them from house and home; still their daring increased, and they penetrated into the old territories of the imperial throne, plundering and destroying wherever they went. . . . Whenever the commander of the army hears of a large caravan, he takes six or seven thousand men and goes to plunder it. If the collector cannot levy the chauth, the general destroys the towns. The head men of the villages, abetted by the Marathds, make their own terms with the imperial revenue-officers. They attack and destroy the country as far as the borders of Ahmaddb^d and the districts of Malwa, and spread their devastations through the pro- vinces of the Deccan to the environs of Ujjain. They fall upon and plunder caravans within ten or twelve kos of the imperial camp, and have even liad the hardihood to attack the royal treasure \' * See Elliot and Dowson, vol. vii. p. 375. THE RUIN OF AURAXGZIB 195 They carried off the imperial elephants within hail of the cantonments, and even shut the Emperor up in his own trenches, so that 'not a single person durst venture out of the camp ^.' The marvellous thing about this wearisome cam- paign of twenty years is the way in which the brave old Emperor endured its many hardships and dis- appointments. ' He was nearly sixty-five when he crossed the Narbada to begin on this long war, and had attained his eighty-first year before he quitted his cantonment at Bairami)ur [to make liis last grand sweep over the Maratha country]. The fatigues of marches and sieges were little suited to such an age ; and in spite of the display of luxury in his camp equipage, he suffered hardships that would have tried the constitution of a younger man. While he was yet at Bairampur, a sudden flood of theBhima overwhelmed his cantonment in the darkness of the night, and during the violence of one of those falls of rain which are only seen in tropical climates : a great portion of the cantonment was swept away, and the rest laid untler water; the alarm and confusion increased the evil : 12,000 persons are said to have perished, and horses, camels, and cattle without number. The Emperor himself was in danger, the inundation rising over the elevated spot which he occupied, when it was arrested (as his courtiers averred) by the efficacy of his prayers. A similar disaster was produced by the descent of a torrent during the siege of Parli ; and, indeed, the storms of that inclement region must have exposed him to many sufferings during the numerous rainy seasons he spent within it. The impassable streams, tlie flooded valleys, the miry bottoms, and narrow ways, caused * Bundela officer's narrative, in Scott's Deccan, pp. 109, 116. N 2 196 aurangz/b still greater difficulties when he was in motion ; compelled him to halt where no provisions were to be had ; and were so destinictive to his cattle as sometimes entirely to cripple his army. The violent heats, in tents, and during marches, were distressing at other seasons, and often rendered over- powering by the failure of water : general famines and pesti- lences came more than once, in addition to the scarcity and sickness to which his own camp w^as often liable ; and all was aggravated by the accounts of the havoc and destruction committed by the enemy in the countries beyond the reach of these visitations \' In the midst of these manifold discouragements Aurangzib displayed all his ancient energy. It was he who planned every campaign, issued all the general orders, selected the points for attack and the lines of entrenchment, and controlled every movement of his various divisions in the Deccan. He conducted many of the sieges in person, and when a mine exploded on the besiegers at Sattara, in 1699, and general de- sjDondency fell on the army, the octogenarian mounted his horse and rode to the scene of disaster ' as if in search of death.' He piled the bodies of the dead into a human ravelin, and was with difficulty prevented from leading the assault himself. He was still the man who chained his elephant at the battle of Samti- garh. Nor was his energy confined to the over- whelming: anxieties of the war. His orders extended to affairs in Afghanistan, and disturbances at Agra ; he even thought of retaking Kandahar. Not an ^ Elphinstone (1866 , pp. 665, 666. THE RUIN OF AURANGZIB 197 officer^ not a government clerk, was appointed with- out his knowledge, and the conduct of the whole official staff was vigilantly scrutinized with the aid of an army of spies. We are fortunate in possessing a portrait ^ of Aurangzib, as he appeared in the midst of his Deccan campaigns. On Monday the 21st of March, 1695, Dr. Gemelli Careri was admitted to an audience of the Emperor in his quarters, called ' Gulalbar,' at the camp of Galgala. He saw an old man with a white beard, trimmed round, contrasting vividly with his olive skin ; ^ he was of low stature, with a large nose ; slender and stooping with age.' Sitting upon rich carpets, and leaning against gold-embroidered cush- ions, he received the Neapolitan courteously, asked his business in the camp, and, being told of Careri 's travels in Turkey, made inquiries about the war then raging between the Sultan and the princes of Hungary. The doctor saw him again at the public audience in the great tent within a court enclosed by screens of painted calico. The Mughal appeared leaning on a crutched statf, preceded by several nobles. He was simply attired in a white robe, tied under the right arm, with a silk sash, from which his dagger huno^. On his head was a white turban bound with a gold web, ' on which an emeraud of a vast bigness appear'd amidst four little ones. His shoes were after the Moorish fashion, and his legs naked without ' Gemelli Careri, Voxjage, Round the World, Churchill Coll., vol. iv. pp. 222, 223. 198 AURANGZIB hose.' He took his seat upon a square gilt throne raised two steps above the dais, inclosed with silver banisters ; three brocaded pillow^s formed the sides and back, and in front was a little silver footstool. Over his head a servant held a green umbrella to keep off the sun, whilst two others whisked the flies away with loDor white horsetails. ' When he was seated they gave him his scimitar and buckler, which he laid down on his left side within the throne. Then h<- made a sign with his hand for those that had business to draw near ; who being come up, two secretaries, standing, took their petitions, which they delivered to the King, telling him the contents. I admir'd to see him indorse them with his own hand, without spectacles, and by his cheerful smiling countenance seem to be pleased with the employment.' One likes to think of Aurangzib as the Neapolitan doctor saw him, simply dignified, cheerfully busy, leading his austere life of devotion and asceticism in the midst of his great camp in the Deccan. It is a wonderful picture of the vigorous old age of one who allowed no faculty of his active mind to rust, no spring of his spare frame to relax. But behind that serene mask lay a gloomy, lonely soul. It was the tragical fate of the Mughal Emperor to live and die alone. Solitary state was the heritage of his rank, and his natural bent of mind widened the breach that severed him from those around him. The fate of Shah-Jahan preyed upon his mind. He was wont to remind his sons that he was not one to be treated THE RUIN OF AURANGZIB 199 as he had used his own father. His eldest son had paid the penalty of his brief and flighty treason by a life-long captivity; and Aurangzib had early impressed the lesson upon the second brother. ' The art of reigning,' he told Mu'azzam, ' is so delicate, that a king must be jealous of his own shadow. Be wise, or a fate like your brother's will befall you also.' Mu'azzam had been docility personified, but his father's suspicion had been aroused more than once, and his next brother A'zam had shown a strictly Mughal spirit in fanning the sombre glow, till the exemplary heir was thrown into prison, where he en- dured a rigorous captivity for seven years (1687-94). On his release, A'zam became in turn the object of jealousy, perhaps with better reason, and a curious story is told of the way in which the Emperor con- vinced his son of the futility of conspiracy : — ' Having imbibed a suspicion that this Prince was meditating independence, he sent for him to Court ; and as the Prince made excuses and showed alarm, he offered to meet him slightly attended on a hunting-part}'. A'zam on this set out, and Aurangzib secretly surrounded the place of meeting with chosen troops : as the Prince got more and more within his toils, the old Emperor found a succession of pretences for requiring him gradually to diminish the number of his attendants, until, when they reached the place where his father was, they were reduced to three persons. As nobody offered to undertake the duty, he was obliged to leave two of his companions to hold his horses ; and he and the remaining attendant were disarmed before they were admitted to the royal presence. On this he gave himself up 200 AURANGZIB for lost, and had no doubt that he was doomed to a long or perpetual imprisonment. But when he was introduced to his father, he was received with an affectionate embrace : Aurangzib, who was prepared for shooting, gave his loaded gun for him to hold, and then led him into a retired tent, where he showed him a curious family sword, and put it naked into his hand that he might examine it ; after which he threw open his vest, on pretence of heat, but really to show that he had no hidden armour. After this display of confidence, he loaded A'zam with presents, and at last said he had better think of retiring, or his people would be alarmed at his detention. This advice was not prematui*e : A'zam, on his return, found his whole camp on the point of break- ing up, and his women weeping and lamenting his supposed fate. Whether he felt grateful for his easy dismission does not appear ; but it is recorded that he never after received a letter from his father without turning pale ^' One son after another was tried and found wanting by his jealous father. Mu'azzam after his seven years' captivity was sent away to govern the distant province of Kabul. A'zam, who had shown con- siderable zeal in the Deccan wars, was dismissed to the government of Gujarat. Aurangzib, though pain- fully conciliatory to these two sons, and lavish of presents and kind words, seems never to have won their love. At one time he showed a preference for Prince Akbar, whose insurrection among the Rajputs soured his fatherly aflfection and increased his dread of his sons' ambition. Towards the close of his life he was drawn closer to his youngest son, Kam-Bakhsh, * Elphinstone (1866 , pp. 667, 668. THE RUIN OF AURANGZIB 201 whose mother, Udaiptiri Bai, was the only woman for whom the Emperor enteitained anything approaching to passionate love ^. The young Prince was suspected of trafficking the imperial honour with the Marathas, and placed under temporary arrest, but his father forgave or acquitted him, and his last letters breathe a tone of tender afiection which contradicts the tenour of his domestic life. His officers were treated with the same considera- tion, and the same distrust, as his elder sons. To judge from his correspondence, there never were generals more highly thought of by theii* 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 in- fluence. It would be a gross injustice to ascribe his universal graciousness to calculating diplomacy, though his general leniency and dislike to severe punishments, * Aurangzib's wives played but a small part in his life. Accord- ing to Manucci the chief wife was a Rajput 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. Udaipuri, the mother of Kam-Bakhsh, was a Christian from Georgia, and had been purchased by Dura, on whose execution she passed to the harim of Aurangzib. 203 AURANGZIB save when his religion or his throne was at stake, were no doubt partly due to a politic desire to avoid making needless enemies. Aurangzib was naturally clement, just, and benevolent: but all his really kind actions were marred by the taint of suspicion, and lacked the quickening touch of trusting love. He never made a friend. The end of the lonely unloved life was approaching. Failure stamped every effort of the final years. The Emperor^s long absence had given the rein to dis- orders in the north ; the Rajputs were in open re- bellion, the Jats had risen about Agra, and the Sikhs began to make their name notorious in Multan. The Deccan was a desert, where the track of the Marathas was traced by pillaged towns, ravaged fields, and smok- ing villages. The Mughal army was enfeebled and de- moralized, ' those infernal foot-soldiers ' were croaking like rooks in an invaded rookery, clamouring for their arrears of pay. The finances were in hopeless confusion, and Aurangzib refused to be pestered about them. The Marathas became so bold that they plun- dered on the skirts of the Grand Army, and openly scoffed at the Emperor, and no man dared leave the Mughal lines without a strong escort. There was even a talk of making terms with the insolent bandits. At last the Emperor led the dejected remnant of his once powerful army, in confusion and alarm, pursued by skirmishing bodies of exultant Marathas, back to Ahmadnagar, whence, more than twenty years before, he had set out full of sanguine hope, and at THE RUIN OF AURANGZIB 203 the head of a splendid and invincible host. His long privations had at length told upon his health, and when he entered the city he said that his journeys were over. Even when convinced that the end was near, his invincible suspicions still mastered his natural affections. He kept all his sons away, lest they should do even as he had done to his own father. Alone he had lived, and alone he made ready to die. He had all the Puritan's sense of sin and unworthiness, and his morbid creed inspired a terrible dread of death. He poured out his troubled heart to his sons in letters which show the love which all his suspicion could not uproot. ' Peace be with you and yours,' he wrote to Prince A'zam, ' I am grown very old and weak, and my limbs are feeble. Many were around me when I was born, but now I am going alone. I know not why I am or wherefore I came into the world. I bewail the moments which I have spent forgetful of God's worship. I have not done well by the country or its people. My years have gone by profitless. God has been in my heart, yet my darkened eyes have not recognized his light. Life is transient, and the lost moment never comes l)ack. There is no hope for me in the future. The fever is gone : but only skin and dried flesh are mine. . . . The army is confounded and without heart or help, even as I am : apart from God, with no rest for the heart. They know not whether they have a King or not. Nothing brought I into this world, but I carry away with me the burthen of my sins. I know not what punishment be in store for me to suffer. Though my trust is in the mercy and goodness of God, I deplore my sins. When I have lost hope in myself, how can I hope in others ? Come what will, I have 204 AURANGZIB launched my bark upon the waters. . . . Farewell ! Fare- well ! Farewell ! ' To his favourite Kam-Bakhsh he wrote : — ' Soul of my soul . . . Now I am going alone. I grieve for your helj^lessness. But what is the use % Every torment I have inflicted, every sin I have committed, every wrong I have done, I carry the consequences with me. Strange that I came with nothing into the world, and now go away with this stupendous caravan of sin ! . . . Wherever I look I see only God. ... I have greatly sinned, and I know not what torment awaits me. . . . Let not Muslims be slain and the reproach fall upon my useless head. I commit you and your sons to God's care, and bid you farewell. I am sorely troubled. Your sick mother, Udaipiiri, would fain die with me . . . Peace ! ' On Friday, the 4th of March, 1707, in the fiftieth year of his reign, and the eighty-ninth of his life, after performing the morning prayers and repeating the creed, the Emperor Aurangzib gave up the ghost. In accordance with his command, ' Carry this creature of dust to the nearest burial-place, and lay him in the earth with no useless coffin,' he was buried simply near Daulatabad beside the tombs of Muslim saints. ' Every plan that he formed came to little good ; every enterprise failed : ' such is the comment of the Muhammadan historian on the career of the sovereign whom he j ustly extols for his ' devotion, austerity, and justice,' and his ' incomparable courage, long-suffering, and judgment.' Aurangzib's life had been a vast failure, indeed, but he had failed grandly. He had pitted his conscience against the world, and the world THE RUIN OF AURAXGZIB 205 had triuinphed over it. He had marked out a path of duty and had steadfastly pursued it^ in spite of its utter impracticability. The man of the world smiles at his shortsighted policy, his ascetic ideal, his zeal for the truth as he saw it. Aurangzib would have found his way smooth and strewn with roses had he been able to become a man of the world. His glory is that he could not force his soul, that he d-ared not desert the colours of his faith. He lived and died in leading a forlorn hope, and if ever the cross of heroic devotion to a lost cause belonged to mortal man, it was his. The great Puritan of India was of such stuff as wins the martyr's crown. His glory is for himself alone. The triumph of character ennobled only himself. To his great empire his devoted zeal was an unmitigated curse. In his last letters he besought his sons not to strive against each other. Yet ' I foresee,' he wrote, ' that there will be much bloodshed. May God, the Ruler of hearts, implant in yours the will to succour your subjects, and give you wisdom in the governance of the people.' His foresight presaged something of the evil that was to come, the fratricidal struggle, the sufferings of the people. But the reality was worse than his worst fears. It was happy for him that a veil concealed from his dying eyes the shame and ignominy of tho long line of impotent successors that desecrated his throne, the swelling tide of barbarous invaders from the south, the ravages of Persian and Afghan armies from the north, and the final triumph of the infidel 206 AURANGZIB traders upon whose small beginnings in the east and west of his wide dominions he had hardly condescended to bestow a glance. When Lord Lake entered Delhi in 1803, he was shown a miserable blind old imbecile, sitting under a tattered canopy. It was Shah-'Alam, ' King of the World,' but captive of the Marathas, a wretched travesty of the Emperor of India. The British General gravely saluted the shadow of the Great Mogul. To such a pass had the empire of Akbar been brought by the fatal conscience of Au- rangzib. The hidibrium rerum humanaruon was never more pathetically played. No curtain ever dropped on a more woeful tragedy. Yet Akbar' s Dream has not wholly failed of its fulfilment. The heroic bigotry of Aurangzib might indeed for a while destroy those bright hopes of tolerant wisdom, but the ruin was not for ever. In the progress of the ages the ' vision glorious' has found its accomplishment, and the desire of the great Emperor has been attained. Let Akbar speak in the latest words of our own lost Poet : — 'Me too the black- winged Azrael overcame, But Death hath ears and eyes ; I watched my son, And those that foUow'd, loosen, stone from stone, All my fair work ; and from the ruin arose The shriek and curse of trampled millions, even As in the time before ; but while I groan' d, From out the sunset pour'd an alien race, Who fitted stone to stone again, and Tr\ith, Peace, Love and Justice came and dwelt therein.' INDEX. 'Abd-al-Hamid Lahori's JSdd- shdhnd ma quoted, 121, 123. 'Abdallah, King of Golkonda, 147-149. 'Abd-ab-Razzak, 185-187. Abu-l-Fazl, 9, 121. Abu-l-Hasan, King of Golkonda, ,176-187. 'Adil Shah, dynasty of Bijflpur, 144, 151, 156, 180: seeBijapiir. Administration, 15, 82, 106/. Afghanistan, 31-33, 170, 196. ArzAL Khan, 157. Agra, 14, 89, 95, 96, 116, 196. Ahmadabad, 38, 56. Ahmadnagar, 144, 145, 146, 202. Ajmib, 56, 140. Akasdiah, 134. Akbae, his empire, 7 : statesman- ship, 7, 8 : conciliation of Hiu- dij's, 8: taxation, 8, 122, 123: religion, 8, 9 : toleration, 10 : life-peerages, 1 1 : rebellion of his son, 1 7 : views on art, 94, 95 : portrait, 95 : conquests in the Deccan, 144, I45. Akbar, Prince, 86, 140, 141, 200. 'ALf MardIn, 15, 30-32. Allahabad, 58. Amber, 139. Amir. See Omrah. Am-Khas Hall of Audience), 91, 96-104, 164. Abakan, 58, 115-117. Aristocracy, ii, 91, 97-99: see Mansabdae, Omrah. Arms, Mughal and Rijput, 46. Army, 44, 108-112, 191. Art, 10, 13, 93-96. Artillery, 32, 33, 46, 112, 131. A8AF Khan, 13, 15, 51, 96. Asceticism, 28, 29, 87. Asirgarh, 144. Assam Campaign, 115, Astrakhan dynasty, 30. Astrologers, 92. Audience, Hall of, 91, 96-104. 164. AURANGABAD, J 49, 160. AuRANGZiB, 8, 22: birth, 26: a hostage, 26 : childhood and education, 27 : governor of the Deccan, 27 : puritanism, 27 : becomes a fakir, 28 : returns to public life, 29 : communds at Balkh, 30 : retreat, 31 : sieges of Kandahiir, 31, 32 : generalship, 33: courage, 33, 71-74: again governor of the Deccan, 35 : policy in the war of succession, 38, 39 : joins Murad-Bakhsh, 40 : victory at Dharmatpur, 41 , 43 : defeats Dara at Samiigarh, 45-50: fruits of victory, 51 : captivity of Shah-Jahan, 52, 53 : Agra occupied, 54 : pursuit and execution of Dara, 55-58 : de- feat of Shuja', 58 : extinction of all rivals, 58, 59 : coronation of Aurangzib, 59 : assumes title 'Alanigir, 60 : character, 60-87 : comparison with Cromwell, 60, 64 : necessity of fratricide, 61- 63: puritanism, 64: a^ceticism, 65 : a strict Muslim, 66 : Ovington's testimony, 66 : char- acter drawn by a Muhain- uiadan historian, 66-68 : and by European travellers, 68, 69 : consistency, 70 : standard of kingly duty and education, 75- 80 : carried into practice, 80 : 2oB INDEX. justice, 80, 81 : benevolence, 81 : remission of taxes, 81 : mild government, 82 : consequent local oppression, 82: suspicious nature, 83: system of provincial reporters, 84: distrust of officials and princes, 85, ^^'. austerity, 86, 87 : essentially a puritan, 87 : his court, 88, 89 : state recep- tion.", 98^. : weighing, 100 : ab- horrence of music and dancing, loi, 102: reviews, 103: visit to mosque, 104 : government, 106 ff. : standing anny, 108- 112: civil administration, 112- 115: revenue, 119^: journey to Kashmir, 130-134: persecu- tion of Hindus, 135 : the Sat- nami revolt, 136, 137: sup- pression of official chronicles, 137 : reimposition of the jizya or poll-tax on infidels, 138, 1 39 : interference with Rajputs, 139 : war in Rajput^na, 139-142 : treason of Prince Akbar, 140, 141: effects of intolerance, 141, 142 : early government in the Deccan, 145, 146 : second Deccan goverament, 146-151 : war with Golkonda, 147-149 : conquest of Bidar and Kul- barga, 151 : policy towards Sivajl, 156, 160-166 : Aurang- zib personally assumes com- mand in the Deccan, 1 70 : at- tack on Mar^thas, 171 : col- lection of jizya, 174, 175 ; pro- clamations against Hindus, 1 75 : plan of war in Deccan, 1 75 : attack on Golkonda, and treaty, 177-180 : conquest of Bijapvir, 180, 181 : advance on Gol- konda, 181, 182 : siege, 183- 186: fall of Golkonda, 186: treatment of the King and his general, 186, 187 : effect of these successes on the Mara- thas, 188, 189 : Aurangzib's army and camp, 190-192 : guerilla warfare, 193-195 : AuranLizlb's heroism and en- durance as an octogenarian, 195, 196 : Careri's description of the Emperor in 1695, ^97« 198: loneliness, 198: suspi- cious jealousy of his sons, 199, 200: favourite wife and child, 200-201 : treatment of his officers, 201, 202; failure of the war with the Marath^s, 202 : retreat to Ahmadnagar, 202 : dread of death, 203 : letters to his sons, 203, 204 : death of Aurangzib, 204 : failure of his career, 204: heroism of his char- acter, 205 : ruin of his empire under his successors, 205, 206. Aureole in Mughal portraits, 96. A'zAM, Prince, 86, 140, 171, 178, 180, 186, 199, 200, 203. Bi.BAR, 19, 25, 30. Badakhshan, 30. Badshahnama. See 'Abd-al- Hamid. Baglana, 146. Bahadur Khan, 46. Bairampijr, 191, 193, 195. Bakhtawar Khan, quoted, 121. Balkh, 30, 71. Ball, Dr. V., 150 n. : fee Ta- VERNIER. Bang, 49. Baboch, 166. Battle, order of, 46. Bazar at Delhi, 92 : in the Seraglio, 100. Benares, 40^ 58, 135. Berar, 145, 146, 165. Bernier's Trai-eh (ed. Constable, 1891) quoted, 17, 22, 24, 37, 38, 56, 57. 63, 72, 73, 75-80, 88, 90-105, 120-123, 130, 132, 164, 174. Betel, 91. Bhagnagar (Haidar£ibad), 14S, 176-181. Bhima, flood of, 195. Bidar. 151. BiJAPUR (Vijayapura), 14, 35, 144, 145, 146, 151, 154, 155- IXDEX. 209 159, 165, 167, 169, 172, 175, 176, 180, 181, 186. Bkahmans, 23, P.RiriSH Ml SEUM, Catalogue of Indian Coins, quoted, 11 n. BuLAKi i;Dawar Bakhsh), 14. BoNDELA Officek, quoted, 195. BURHANPUR, 41, 125, 144, 145, 170, 172, 174. BuzEE, Father, 23, 92. Calcutta, foundation of, 117. Camel Corps, 46, 47. Camp, 134, 191, 192. Camp-followers, 112, 191, 192. Careri, Dr. Gemelli, Voyage round the World (ed. 1745,, quoted 81, 82, 127, 191, 197. Catrou, Hist, ffenerale de Vem- pireduMogol (ed. 1715), quoted, 53, 64, 102, 126-129. Cavalry, 109-111. Chakxa, Siege of, 160, 161. Chambal, 44, 45. Charms, Koranic, 137. Charnock. Job, 117. Chauth, 166. Children of Aurangzib, 21, 22 n. Chitor, princess of, 43, Chittagong, 117. Christian Art in India, 10, 13, 95. 96. Chronicles, forbidden by Au- rangzib, 137. Chronogram, 167. Civil Administration, 112-115. Coinage, 38, 59. Constable, Archibald, 88, 95 ; see Bernier, Deyden, Someevile. Court, 88-105. Crafts, 93, 94. Cboke, 41 n. Crown, rights of inheritance, 85, III. Custom Dues, 125. Dam, 121, 128 n. Danishmand Khan, 73. Daniyal, son of Akbar, 12. Dara Shukoh, an emancipated agnostic, 22, 23 : hostage, 26 : his siege of Kandahar, 33 : in- fluence at Court, 36, 37, 149 : civil war, 39 ff. : defeat at Samugarh, 45-50 : flight, 50, 55-57 ; execution, 57, 5"8. Dastur-i-'amal, 123. Daulatabad (Deoglri), 144, 146, 186, 204. Dawar-Bakhsh, 14. Deccan, 14, 26,27,35,65,143-202. Deccan, .Subah of the, 145, 146. Delhi, Xew, 1 r Shahjahanabad, 15, 89-105, 133. Deugiri. b'ee Daulatabad. Dharmatpur, battle, 41. DiLiR Khan, 163. Drunkenness among Mughals, 12, 18, 25. Dryden, Aiireng-Zthe (ed. Con- stable's Or. Misc. 1892), quoted, 17, 18.95. Dutch, 117. Education of Aurangzib, 27; his views on the education of princes, 75-8. Elephant fiL^hts, 100, 101 ; in- spection, 102, 103. Elichpur, 146. Elliot and Dowson, Hist, of India us told hi/ its own his- torians, quoted, 66, 82, &c. iSee Khafi Khan. Elphinstone, Hist, of India (ed. 1866), quoted, 152, 16S, 195, 196, 200. Fairs, Si, 100. Fakir, Aurangzib becomes a, 146. Fathabad, battle, 45. Festivals, 97-101. Feudal system in India, 11, 108- 113. Fleet, Marathjt, 163. Forts, sieges of, 160, 161, 163, 173, 183-186, 192, 196. Fratricide, policy of, 61-64. l^YER, Dr. John, New account of India (ed. 1698), quoted, 28, 85, 153, 1^2, 164. 210 INDEX. Galgala, camp, 191, 197. GhIts, 28, 151-153, i55#v 165, 172. GHAZf-AD-DIX, 183. Ghuzl-khaxa, 103. Goldsmiths, 94. GOLKONDA, I4, 35, T44, 145, 146, i47-i49> 154/165, 167, 169, 175-187. Government, 82, 106^. Guard, 91, 96, 104. GwALiOK, prison, 58, 146. Haidababad, 148, 1 76-1 8 1. Hanna, Col. H. B., collection of Indian paintings, 95, 96. Hawkins, William, 126-128. Hazabas, 30. Hindu Kush, 30-33. Hindus, 8, 9, 13, 14, 106-108, ii4» i34#- HiSTOBiOGBAPHEES ro3'al, 137. Hugli, 58, 116, 117. Hunter, Sir W. W., quoted, 9, 54. Infantby, 112. Inheeitance of lands by crown, 85, III. Islamabad (Chittagong), 117: Jagtr, 109, 124. Jahan-Aba, Begam Sahib, 16, 25, 26, 53, 54. Jahangib, rebellion against Ak- bar, 17: character, 11, 12, 37: intemperance, 12: policy, 13: patron of art, 13, 95 : his queen Niir-Jahan, 13, 14: tomb, 96: revenue, 126. Jai Mal, Eaja, 93. Jaipub, 139, 142. Jai Sixgh, Raja, 32, 39, 51, 71-73, 134, 163. Jami' Masjid, 104. Jamna, 90. Jaswant Singh, Mahtlraja of Marwar, 24, 39, 41-43, 51, 58, 72, 134, 138,139, 141, 162, 163, 165. Jats, 202. Jesuits, 10, 14, 23, 95, 96. Jewels, 36, 98. Jhabukha, or levee window, 97, 102. Jinghiz Khan, 30. JiNJi, 167, 189. Jizya, or poll-tax on unbelievers, II, 125, 138, 139, 141, 174. Joan, Fra, 116. Jodhpur, 139. Jumla, Mir, 41, 58, 115, 147-151. JuNiR, 156. Justice, 80, 103, 113, 198. Kabul, 31, 32, 134, 200. Kachh, 57. Kalendak, 74. Kaliani, 151, 159. Kam-Bakhsh, 200, 201, 204. Kandahab, 14, 15, 31-33, 197. Kashmir, inscription, 9 ; Mughal summer residence, 14; journey to, 130-134. Kasim Khan, 39, 43, Keene, H. G., 120. • Khafi Khan's Mantakhah-al- luhdh, quoted, 82, 102, 125, 136, 140, 159, 160, 161, 164, 167, 172, i74» i79> 185, 193. 194- Khalifs of Baghdad, 24, 84, loS. Khalil-Allah Khan, 46, 49. Khandesh, 144-146, 166,171,172. Khan-Jahan Kokaltash, 177. Khueram, 13, 14, iSee Shah Jahan. KiNCHENS, or nautch girls, loi. Kingship, Aurangzlb's ideal of, 75-80.^ KoH-i-NUR diamond, 150. Kollue diamond mine^, 1 50. KoNKAN, 152, 153, 166, 171. Kulbarga, 151, 181. Kutb Shah, dynasty of Golkonda, 144, 181. See Golkonda. Lac, 41 n. Lahore, 96. Letters of Aurangzib, 78-80, 203. Levees, 36. LivRE, 120, 121, LuNAE year revived, 74. INDEX, 211 Madonna, pictures of, 13. Mahabat Khan, 56. Mahall, 92, 93. Mamluks, 109. Manrique, Itinerario (ed. 1649), quoted, 96. Maxsabdars, II, 91, 109-115. Mansur, A1-, the Khalif, 24. Manucci, 86, 120-122, 126, 201. See Catroc. Marathas, 141, 151-202, Marriages, mixed, 10, 14, loS, 201 n. Marwar, 14, 139. See Jaswant Singh. Masulipatan, 177. Meghdambhar, 132. Me WAR, 139. Mew AT, 136. Miniature painting, 95, 96. Mir-dt-i 'Alam, quoted, 66. MiKicH, 159. Mosque, 104. Mu'azzam, Prince (Shah-'Alam), 140, 162, 171, 177-180, 199, 200. MuGHALS, degeneracy of, 18, 191 ; mixed blood. 19. Muhammad Amin Khan, 177. Muhammad ibn Taghlak, 144. Muhammad, Prince, 46, 52, 53, 59, 148. Muhammad Sharif Hanafi, quoted, 121. Mumtaz-Mahall, queen of Shah Jah^n, 14, 16, 22 n. Murad, son of Akbar, 12. Murad-Bakhsh, 22, 24, 30, 36, 38, 40, 46, 48, 49, 55, 59. Music, 97, loi, 102. Musta'idd Khan, Madsir-i 'Alamgiri, quoted, 135. Narbada, battle near the, 41-43, 145, 166. Narnol, 136. Nauroz abolished, 74. Kautch, 101. Nizam Shah, dynasty of Ahmad- nagar, 144-146. Nur-Jahan, Empress, 13, 27. Omrah, 72 «., 85, 91, 94, 98, 99, 109. Ovington, Rev. J., Voyage to Suratt (ed. 1696), quoted 66, 80, 81, 83. OxiNDON, Sir George, 162. Owen, Sidney, India on the eve of the British Conqiieat (1872), quoted, 153. Painting, 94-96. Paish-khana, 133. Palace at Delhi, 92 ff. Patta, Raja, 93. Pedigree of Aurangzib, 21. Persecution of Hindus, 135-142, 175. Persians, 73, 106. PlKDAN, 91. Pilgrims, 163. Piracy, 58, 116, 117, 163. Poll-tax on infidels. See Jizta. PooNA, 154, 155, 159, 161. Portraits of Aurangzib, Shah- Jahan, and Akbar, 95 n. Portuguese, 10, 58, 92, 94-96, 116, 117. Presents, 14, 100, 126. Princesses, Mughal, t6, 21, 22 w., 25, 26, 29, 200, 201. Prostration, 16. Puritanism, 87. Rahiri, 141, 165. Rahtors, 48, 139. Rajgarh, 165. Rajputs, i^i, 19. 31, 32, 43, 46- 50, 91, 106-108, III, 134, 136, 138-142, 153, 170, 190, 202. Rameses the Great, 44. Ram, Raja, 189. Ram Singh, 48. Rantela, 48. Rausandars. 1 10. Raushan-Aka Begam, 26, 52, 57. Rebellions of Mughalprinces,i7. Reporters, official, 84. Revenue of Mughal Empire, 119- 129. Reviews, 102, 103. Rup Singh, 48. O 2 212 INDEX, Rupee, value of, 41 n., 120, 121. KusTAM KhAn, 46, 49. Sa'at, 92. Sa'd-Allah 'Allami, 15, 32. SA'Df, 78. Salimgakh, prison, 55. SAMBHAji, 64 n., 172-173, 183, 188, 189. Samugakh, battle of, 45. Sandip, 116. Satnamis, revolt of the, 136, 137. Sattaea, 197. Sekaglio, 92, 93, 131-132. Shah-'Alam, 206. iSee Mu'azzam. Shah-Jahan (Khurram) rebels against Jabangir, 13, 17, 26: accession, 14: Indian blood, 14 : orthodoxy, 14 : statesman- ship, 14 : attacks Portuguese, 116: prosperity of the reign, 15 : palaces, 15 : popularity, 16, 86 : decay, 16 : illness, 17, 35 : changes in the empire, 18 : his family, 21-26: captivity, 52: death, 53 : treasure, 129 : policy in the Deccan, 149^. Shahjahanabad (New Delhi), 15, 89-105. Shahji Bhosla, 154. ShahriyIr, 62. Shalimar Garden, 59. Shayista Khan, 51, 117, 134, 148, 160, 161, 162, 164 n. Shi'a, 73, 106, 108, 147. ShujA', 22, 23, 24, 36, 38, 39, 40, 58, 117. Siege-train, 32, 33. iSiKANDAR, King of Bijapiir, 157. Sikhs, 202. SiPiHR Shukoh, 46, 58. SiVAji, 134, 154-170^ 173, i8o- Somervile's Chace (ed.Constable's Or. Misc. 1892), quoted, 95, »3i, 133- Statesmen, Mughal, 15, 30. Succession, war of, Zbff- SuLAiMAN Shukoh, 39, 44, 58. SuN-woKSHip, 10. Surat, 38, 127, 162, 163, 166. Taj Mahall, 14, 54. Tanjore, 167, 1 89. Tanka, 128 11. Tara Bai, 194. Taster, 83. Tavernier's Travels (ed. Ball, 18S9), quoted, 15, 65, 67, 96, 98, 126. Taxation, it, 81, 122-128. Tennyson's ATchars Dream (1 892), quoted, 10, 29, 206. Tents, travelling, 16, 133. Thevenot, 120, 121. Thomas, Edwai-d, 121, 122, 128. Throne, Peacock, 98. 'Tiger's claws,' 158. T^mariots, 109. TiMUR , Tamerlane), 30, 79. ToDAR Mal, 107. Toleration, 10, 11. Torn A, 155. Trichinopoly, 190. TuHAWWAR Khan, 141. Turmeric, 48. Udaipt^r, 13Q, 141, 142, 170. Udaipuri Bai, wife of Aurangzlb, 200, 204. Ujjain, 41. UzBEGS, 30, 31, 33, 48, 71. ViziAPUR, 181. See Bijapur. Waki' NAvis, 84. Warpaint of Rajputs, 48. Weighing the Great Mogul, 16, 99, 100. Wheeler, Mr. Talboys, 53. Wives of Aurangzib, 201. Zi;-L-FiKAR, 192. The End. Corrigendum. — P. 90, 1. 16, /or towns read towers. RULERS OP INDIA: THE CLABENDON PS ESS SERIES OF INDIAN HISTOEICAL RETROSPECTS. Edited by Sir W. W. Huntee, K.C.S.I., CLE. Price 2s. 6d. each. The following volumes have been arranged for up to March, 1893 : — I. AKBAR : and the Rise of the Mughal Empire, by Colonel Malleson, C.S.I., Author of A History of the Indian Mntiny; The History of Afghanistan ; Herat, d-c. [Published.] Third thousand. II. ALBUqUEBQUE : and the Early Portuguese Settlements in India, by H. Morse Stephens, Esq., Balliol College, Lecturer on Indian History at Cambridge, Autlior of The French Ber olid ion; The Story of Portugal, S(c. [Published.] III. AUEANGZIB : and the Decay of the Mughal Empire, by Stanley Lane Poole, Ej-q., B.A., Author of The Coins of the Mughal Emperors ; The Life of Stratford Canning ; Catalogue of Indian Coins in the British Museum, &c. [Published.] IV. MADE A VA BA SINDHIA : and the Hindu Eeconquest of India, by H. G. Keene, Esq., M.A., CLE., Author of The Moghul Empire, die. [Published.] V. LORD CLIVE: and the Estahlishment of the English in India, by Colonel Malleson, C.S.I. [In the Press.] VI. DUPLEIX : and the Struggle for India hy the European Nations, by Colonel Malleson, C.S.I. , Author of The History of the French in India, dc. [Published.] VII. WABREN HASTINGS: and the Founding of the British Administration, by Captain L. J. Trotter, Author oi India under Victoria, dx. [Published.] Third thousand VIII. THE MARQUESS CORNWALLIS : and the Consolida- tion of British Rule, by W. S. Seton-Karr, Esq., sometime Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, Author of Selections from the Calcutta Gazettes, 3 vols, (i 784-1 805). [Published.] IX. THE MARQUESS WELLES LEY : and the Development of the Com,pany into the Supreme Power in India, by the Rev. W. H. Hutton, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. [In the Press. 1 X. THE MARQUESS OF HASTINGS : and the Final Overthrow of the Mardthd Power, by Major Ross of Bladensburg, C.B., Coldstream Guards; F.R.G.S. [Published.] XL MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE : and the Making of South-Western India, by J. S. Cotton, Esq., M.A., formerly Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, Author of The Decennial Statement of the Moral and Material Progress and ConditUm of India, presented to Parliament ( 1 885), &c. [Published.] XII. SIR THOMAS MUNBO : and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency, by John Bradshaw, Esq., M.A., LL.D., H.M.'s Inspector of Schools, Madras. [In the Press.] XIII. EARL AMHERST : and the British Advance eastwards^ to Burma, cliiefly from unpublished papers of the Auckland family, by T. Vv. Richmond Ritchie, Esq., of the India Office. Rulers of India Series (continued), XIY.LORD WILLIAM BEN TIN CK: and the Company as a Governing and Non-trading Power, by Demetrius Boulger, Esq., Author of England and Russia in Central Asia : The History of China, &c. [Published.] I XY.EARL OF AUCKLAND : and the First Afghan War, by Captain L. J. Trotter, Author of India under Victoria, &c. [Immediately,] XVI. VISCOUNT HARBIN GE : and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Panjah, by his Son and Private Secretary, the Right Hon. Viscount Hardinge. [Published.] XVII. RAN JIT SINGH : and the Sikh Barrier hettoeen oar Growing Eminre and Central Asia, by Sir liEPEL Griffin, K.C.S.I., Author of The Punjab Chiefs, &c. Fourth thousand. 'XNlll. THE MARQUESS OF DALHOUSIE : and the Final Development of the Company s Rale,hj Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I., M.A. [Published.] Fourth thousand. XIX. CLYDE AND STRATHNAIRN : and the Suppression of the Great Revolt, by Major-General Sir Owen Tudor BuRNE, K. C.S.I. , sometime Military Secretary to the Com- mander-in-Chief in India. [Published.] Third thousand. XX. EARL CANNING: and the Transfer of India from the Company to the Croivn, by Sir Henry S. Cunningham, K.C.I.E., M.A., Author of British India and its Rulers, &c. [Published.] XXI. LORD LA WRENCE : and the Reconstruction of India under the Crown, by Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison, K.C.S.I., LL.D., formerly Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, and late Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab. [Published.] XXII. rS^ EARL OF MAYO: and the Consolidation of the Queen's Rule in India, by Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I., M.A. [Published.] Fourth thousand. Supplementary Volumes. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INDIAN PEOPLES, by Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I. Twentieth Edition ; 78 th thousand. Price 3s. 6d. JAMES THOMASON : and the British Settlement of North- Western India, by Sir Eichard Temple, Bart., M.P., formerly Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and Governor of Bombay. Priceis. 6d. [Published.] ©pinions of tfte Press ON SIR WILLIAM HUNTER'S 'DALHOUSIE.' * An interesting and exceedingly readable volume Sir William Hunter has produced a valuable work about an important epoch in English history in India, and he has given us a pleasing insight into the character of a remarkable Englishman. The " Rulers of India" series, which he has initiated, thus makes a successful beginning in his hands with one who ranks among the greatest of the great names which will be associated with the subject.' — The Times. OPINIONS OF TEEPEESS ON 'DALHOUSIE' [continue^. *To no one is the credit for the improved condition of public intelli- gence [regarding India] more due than to Sir ^Yilliam Hunter. From the beginning of his career as an Indian Civilian he has devoted a rare literary faculty to the task of enlightening his countrymen on the subject of England's greatest dependency .... By inspiring a small army of fellow-labourers with his own spirit, by inducing them to conform to his own method, and shaping a huge agglomeration of facts into a lucid and intelligible system, Sir W. Hunter has brought India and its innumer- able interests within the pale of achievable knowledge, and has given definite shape to the truths which its historj' establishes and the problems which it suggests. . . . Such contributions to literature are apt to be taken as a matter of course, because their highest merit is to conceal the labour, and skill, and knowledge involved in their production ; but they raise the whole level of public intelligence, and generate an atmosphere in which the baleful influences of fully, ignorance, prejudice, and presumption dwindle and disappear. . . . No one we think, who fairly studies Sir W. Hunter's exact and lucid narrative of these transactions, can question the result which he seeks to establish — namely, that Lord Dalhousie merely carried out with moderation and skill a policy deliberately adopted by the Government before his arrival in the country — a policy the strict legality of which cannot be disputed, and which was inspired by the growing sense that sovereigns exist, not for their own enjoyment, but for the happiness of their subjects.' — Saturday Beview, ' Admirably calculated to impart in a concise and agreeableform a clear general outline of the history of our great Indian Empire.' — Economic. ' A skilful and most attractive picture. . . . The author has made good use of public and private documents, and has enjoyed the privilege of being aided by the deceased statesman's family. His little work is, consequently, a valuable contribution to modern history.' — Academy. ' The book should command a wide circle of readers, not only for its author s sake and that of its subject, but partly at least on account of the very attractive way in which it has been published at the moderate price of half-a-crown. But it is, of course, by its intrinsic merits alone that a work of this nature should be judged. And those merits are everywhere conspicuous. ... A writer whose thorough mastery of all Indian subjects has been acquired by years of practical experience and patient research,' — The AthencEum. ' Never have we been so much impressed by the great literary abilities of Sir William Hunter as we have been by the perusal of "The Marquess of Dalhousie." . . . The knowledge displayed by the writer of the motives of Lord Dalhousie's action, of the inner working of his mind, is so com- plete, that Lord Dalhousie himself, were he living, could not state them more clearly. . . . Sir "William Hunter's style is so clear, his language so vivid, and yet so simple, conveying the impressions he wishes so per- spicuously that they cannot but be understood, that the work must have a place in every library, in every home, we might say indeed every cottage.' — Evening Neics. ' Sir William Hunter has written an admirable little volume on * The Marquess of Dalhousie " for his series of the " Rulers of India." It can be read at a sitting, yet its references — expressed or implied — suggest the study and observation of half a life-time.' — The Daily News, fiDpinions of tbe Pre00 ON SIR WILLIAM HUNTER'S *LORD MAYO.' ' Sir William W. Hniiter has contributed a brief but admirable biography of the Earl of Mayo to the series entitled " Rulers of India," edited by himself (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press).' — The l^imes. ' In telling this story in the monograph before us, Sir William Hunter has combined his well-known literary skill with an earnest sympathy and fulness of knowledge which are worthy of all commenda- tion. . . . The world is indebted to the author for a fit and attractive record of what was eminently a noble life.' — The Acadeviy. 'The sketch of The Man is full of interest, drawn as it is with com- plete sympathy, understanding, and appreciation. But more valuable is the account of his administration. No one can show so well and clearly as Sir William Hunter does what the policy of Lord Mayo con- tributed to the making of the Indian Empire of to-day.' — The Scotsman. ' Sir William Hunter has given us a monograph in which there is a happy combination of the essay and the biography. We are presented with the main features of Lord Mayo's administration unencumbered with tedious details which would interest none but the most official of Anglo-Indians ; while in the biography the man is brought before us, not analytically, but in a life-like portrait.' — Vanity Fair. * The story of his life Sir W. W. Hunter tells in well-chosen language — clear, succinct, and manly. Sir W. W. Hunter is in sympathy with his subject, and does full justice to Mayo's strong, genuine nature. Without exaggeration and in a direct, unaffected style, as befits his theme, he brings the man and his work vividly before us.' — The Glasgow Herald. ' All the knowledge acquired by personal association, familiarity with administrative details of the Indian Government, and a strong grasp of the vast problems to be dealt with, is utilised in this presentation of Lord Mayo's personality and career. Sir W. Hunter, however, never overloads his pages, and the outlines of the sketch are clear and firm.* — The Manchester Express. * This is another of the " Rulers of India " series, and it will be hard to beat. . . . Sir William Hunter's perception and expression are here at their very best.' — The Pall Mall Q-azette. 'The latest addition to the " Rulers of India " series yields to none of its predecessors in attractiveness, vigour, and artistic portraiture. . . . The final chapter must either be copied verbally and literally — which the space at our disposal will not permit — or be left to the sorrowful perusal of the reader. The man is not to be envied who can read it with dry eyes.' — Allen's Indian Mail. ' The little volume which has just been brought out is a study of Lord Mayo's career by one who knew all about it and was in full sympathy with it. . . . Some of these chapters are full of spirit and fire. The closing passages, the picture of the Viceroy's assassination, cannot fail to make any reader hold his breath. We know what is going to happen, but we are thrilled as if we did not know it, and were still held in suspense. The event itself was so terribly tragic that any ordinary description might seem feeble and laggard. But in this volume we are made to feel as we must have felt if we had been on the spot and seen the murderer " fastened like a tiger " on the back of the Viceroy.' — Daily New.f, Leading Article. ©pinions of tf)e Press MR.W.S.SETON-KARR'S'COIlNWALLIS.' • This new volume of the " Rulers of India " series keeps up to the high standard set by tlie author of " The Marquess of Dalhousie." For dealing with the salient passages in Lord Comwallis's Indian career no one could have been better qualified than the whilom foreign secretary to Lord Lawrence.' — The Athenceum. ' Lord Cornwallis has been very properly included in the list of those "Rulers of India" whose biographies are calculated to illustrate the past growth and present development of the English administration in that country. His name is connected with several great measures. which more, perhaps, than any others have given a special colour to our rule, have influenced the course of subsequent legislation, and have made the Civil Service what it at present is. He completed the administrative fabric of which Warren Hastings, in the midst of unexampled difficulties and vicissitudes, had laid the foundation.' — The Saturday Bevieic. ' We hope that the volumes on the " Rulers of India " which are being published by the Clarendon Press are carefully read by a large section of the public. There is a dense wall of ignorance still standing between the average Englishman and the greatest dependency of the Crown ; although we can scarcely hope to see it broken down altogether, some of these admirable biographies cannot fail to lower it a little. . . . Mr. Seton-Karr has succeeded in the task, and he has not only pre- sented a large mass of information, but he has brought it together in an attractive form. . . . We strongly recommend the book to all who wish to enlarge the area of their knowledge with reference to India.' — Neio York Herald. ' The ** Rulers of India " series. This outcome of the Clarendon Press grows in value as it proceeds. The account of Cornwallis is from the pen of Mr. W. Seton-Karr, who was formerly Eoreign Secretary to the Government of India, and whose acquaintance with Eastern afl^airg has been of obvious service to him in the compilation of this useful manual.' — The Globe. ' One might almost .say that the history of our great Indian Empire might be read with comparative ease in the exceUent " Rulers of India Series," published at the Clarendon Press at Oxford. ... Of Cornwallis it might be said he transformed the E;ist India Company's servants from merchants to administrators, and determined to place them above jobbery, which he despised.' — The Independent. * We have already expressed our sense of the value and timeliness of the series of Indian historical retrospects now issuing, under the editor- ship of Sir W. W. Hunter, from the Clarendon Press. It is somewhat le.ss than fair to say of Mr. Seton-Karr's monograph upon Cornwallis that it reaches the high standard of literary workmanship whicli that series has maintained. . . . His accurate and lucid sumuiary of the necessi- ties which dictated Comwallis's policy, and the methods by which he initiated and, to a great extent, effected, the transformation of our rule in India from the lines of an Oriental despotism to those with which we are now familiar, is as attractive as it is instruclive.' — The Literary World. ©pinions of tfte Iptess ON COLONEL MALLESON'S 'DUPLEIX.' ' In the character of Dupleix there was the element of greatness that contact with India seems to have generated in so many European minds, French as well as English, and a broad capacity for govern- ment, which, if suffered to have full play, might have ended in giving the whole of Southern India to France. Even as it was, Colonel Malleson shows how narrowly the prize slipped from French grasp. In 1783 the Treaty of Versailles arrived just in time to save the British power from extinction.' — Times. * One of the best of Sir W. Hunter's interesting and valuable series. Colonel Malleson writes out of the fulness of familiarity, moving with ease over a field which he had long ago surveyed in every nook and corner. To do a small book as well as this on Dupleix has been done, will be recognised by competent judges as no small achievement. When one considers the bulk of the material out of which the little volume has been distilled, one can still better appreciate the labour and dexterity involved in the performance.' — Academy. ' A most compact and effective history of the French in India in a little handbook of 180 pages.' — Nonconformist. 'Well arranged, lucid and eminently readable, an excellent addition to a most useful series.' — Record. COLONEL MALLESON'S *AKBAR.' * Colonel Malleson's interesting monograph on Akbar in the "Rulers of India" (Clarendon Press) should more than satisfy the general reader. Colonel Malleson traces the origin and foundation of the Mughal Empire ; and, as an introduction to the history of Muhamma- dan India, the book leaves nothing to be desired.' — St. James's Gazette, * This volume will, no doubt, be welcomed, even by experts in Indian history, in the light of a new, clear, and terse rendering of an old, but not worn-out theme. It is a worthy and valuable addition to Sir W. Hunter's promising series.' — Athenceum. * Colonel Malleson has broken ground new to the general reader. The story of Akbar is briefly but clearly told, with an account of what he was and what he did, and how he found and how he left India. . . . The native chronicles of the reign are many, and from theiu it is still possible, as Colonel Malleson has shown, to construct a living portrait of this great and mighty potentate.' — Scots Observer. ' The brilliant historian of the Indian Mutiny has been assigned in this volume of the series an important epoch and a strong personality for critical study, and he has admirably fulfilled his task. . . . Alike in dress and style, this volume is a fit companion for its predecessor.' — Manchester Guardian, SDpimoRS of tfte lPre0S ON CAPTAIH TROTTER'S 'WARREN HASTIlf&S.' ' The publication, recently noticed in this place, of the " Letters, Despatches, and other State Papers preserved in the Foreign Depart- ment of the Government of India, 177 2-1 785," has thrown entirely new light from the most authentic sources on the whole history of Warren Hastings and his government of India. Captain L. J. Trotter's Warren Hastings, a volume of the '• Rulers of India " series, edited by Sir W. Hunter (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), is accordingly neither inopportune nor devoid of an adequate raison fVetre. " The present volume," says a brief preface, " endeavours to exhibit for the first time the actual work of that great Governor-General, as reviewed from the firm stand-point of the original records now made available to the students of Indian history." Captain Trotter is well known as a competent and attractive writer on Indian history, and this is not the first time that Warren Hastings has supplied him with a theme.' — The Times. ' He has put his best work into this memoir . . . Captain Trotter's memoir is more valuable [than Sir A. Lyall's] from a strictly historical point of view. It contains more of the history of the period, and it embraces the very latest information that casts light on Hastings' re- markable career . . . His work too is of distinct literary merit, and is worthy of a theme than which British history presents none nobler. It is a distinct gain to the British race to be enabled, as it now may, to count the great Governor-General among those heroes for whom it need not blush.* — Scotsman. ' Captain Trotter has done his work well, and his volume deserves to stand with that on Dalhousie by Sir William Hunter. Higher praise it would be hard to give it.' — New York Herald, ' This is an able book, written with candour and discrimination.' — Leeds Mercury. * Captain Trotter has done full justice to the fascinating story of the splendid achievements of a great Englishman.' — Manchester Guardian. * This neat little volume contains a brief but admirable biography of the first Governor-General of India. Tlie author has been fortunate in having had access to State papers which cover the period of the entire rule of WaiTen Hastings.' — The Newcastle Chronicle. * In preparing this sketch for " The Rulers of India," Captain Trotter has had the advantage of consulting the " Letters, Despatches, and other State Papers preserved in the Foreign Department of the Government of India, 1772-85," a period which covers the entire administration of Warren Hastings. The present volume, therefore, may truly claim that it " exhibits for the first time the actual work of the great Governor-General, as reviewed from the firm stand-point of original records." It is a book which all must peruse who desire to be " up to date " on the subject.' — The Globe. 2Dpmion0 of tfte press ON TISCOMT HAEDIN&E'S 'LORD HARLIU&E.' ' An exception to the rule that biographies ought not to be entrusted to near relatives. Lord Hardinge, a scholar and an artist, has given us; an accurate record of his father's long and distinguished services. There is no filial exaggeration. The author has dealt with some con- troversial matters with skill, and has managed to combine truth witli tact and regard for the feelings of others.' — The Saturday Review. 'This interesting life reveals the first Lord Hardinge as a brave, just, able man, the very soul of honour, admired and trusted equally by friends and political opponents. The biographer . . . has produced a jnost engaging volume, which is enriched by many private and ofiicial documents that have not before seen the light.' — The Anti- Jacobin. * Lord Hardinge has accomplished a grateful, no doubt, but, from the abundance of material and delicacy of certain matters, a very difficult task in a workmanlike manner, marked by restraint and lucidity.'— I'Ae Fall Mall Gazette. * His son and biographer has done his work with a true appreciation of proportion, and has added substantially to our knowledge of the Sutlej Campaign.' — Vanity Fair. ' The present Lord Hardinge is in some respects exceptionally well qualified to tell the tale of the eventful four years of his father's Governor-Generalship.' — The Times. ' It contains a full account of everything of importance in Lord Hardinge's military and political career ; it is arranged ... so as to bring into special prominence his government of India ; and it gives a lifelike and striking picture of the man.' — Academy. ' The style is clear, the treatment dispassionate, and the total result a manual which does credit to the interesting series in which it figures.' —The Globe. * The concise and vivid account which the son has given of his father's career will interest many readers.' — The Morning Post. ' Eminently readable for everybody. The history is given succinctly, and the unpublished letters quoted are of real value.' — The Colonies and India. ' Compiled from public documents, family papers, and letters, this brief biography gives the reader a clear idea of what Hardinge was, both as a soldier and as an administrator.' — The Manchester Examiner. ' An admirable sketch.' — The New York Herald. ' The Memoir is well and concisely written, and is accompanied by an excellent likeness after the portrait by Sir Francis Grant.' — The Queen, ©pinions of tf)e press ON MAJOR-GENERAL SIR OWEN BURNE'S * CLYDE AND STRATHNAIRN.' * In " Clyde and Sti'athnairn," a contribution to Sir \Yilliam Hunter's excellent "Rulers of India" series (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), Sir Owen Burne gives a lucid sketch of the military history of the Indian Mutiny and its suppression by the two great soldiers who give their names to his book. The space is limited for so large a theme, but Sir Owen Burne skilfully adjusts his treatment to his limits, and rarely violates the conditions of proportion imposed upon him.' . . , ' Sir Owen Burne does not confine himself exclusively to the military narrative. He gives a brief sketch of the rise and progress of the Mutiny, and devotes a chapter to the Reconstruction which followed its suppression.' . . . ' — well written, well proportioned, and eminently worthy of the series to which it belongs.' — The Times. ' Sir Owen Burne who, by association, experience, and relations with one of these generals, is well qualified for the task, writes with know- ledge, perspicuity, and fairness.' — Saturday Review. 'As a brief record of a momentous epoch in India this little book is a remarkable piece of clear, concise, and interesting writing.' — The Colonies and India. 'Sir Owen Burne has written this book carefully, brightly, and with excellent judgment, and we in India cannot read such a bo<>k Avithout feeling that he has powerfully aided the accomplished editor of the series in a truly patriotic enterprise.' — Bombay Gazette. 'The volume on "Clyde and Strathnaim " has just appeared and proves to be a really valuable addition to the series. Considering its size and the extent of ground it covers it is one of the best books about the Indian Mutiny of which we know.' — Englisliman. ' Sir Owen Burne, who has written the latest volume for Sir William Hunter's "Rulers of India" series, is better qualified than any living person to narrate, from a military standpoint, the story of the suppres- sion of the Indian Mutiny.' — Daily Telegraph. ' Sir Owen Burne s book on " Clyde and Strathnaim " is worthy to rank with the best in the admirable series to which it belongs.' — Manchester Examiner. 'The book is admirably written; and there is probably no better sketch, equally brief, of the stirring events with which it deals.' iScoisman. ' Sir Owen Burne, from the part he played in the Indian Mutiny, and from his long connexion with the Government of India, and from the fact that he was military secretary of Lord Strathnaim both in India and in Ireland, is well qualified for the task which he has undertaken.' — The Athenaeum. ©pinions of tfte Press ON MR. EEEIfE'S