Aurangzeb's usurpa AURANGZEB proclaimed himself Emperor in 1658, in the room of his imprisoned father, with the title of Alamgir, the tion, 1658. Conqueror of the Universe, and reigned until 1707. Under Aurangzeb, the Mughal Empire reached its widest limits.1 But his long rule of forty-nine years merely presents on a more magnificent stage the old unhappy type of a Mughal His reign, reign. In its personal character, it commenced with his 1658-1707. rebellion against his father; consolidated itself by the murder of his brethren; and darkened to a close amid the mutinies, intrigues, and gloomy jealousies of his own sons. Its public aspects consisted of a magnificent court in Northern India; conquests of the independent Muhammadan kings in the south; and wars against the Hindu powers, which, alike in Rájputána and the Deccan, were gathering strength for the overthrow of the Mughal Empire. The chief events of the reign of Aurangzeb are summarized below. The year after his accession, he defeated and put to death his eldest brother, the noble but impetuous Dárá 1 Materials for Aurangzeb's reign : Sir Henry Elliot's Persian Historians, vols. vii, and viii.; Elphinstone, pp. 598-673. 2 REIGN OF AURANGZEB, 1658-1707 :— 1658. Deposition of Shah Jahán, and usurpation of Aurangzeb. 1659. Aurangzeb defeats his brothers Shujá and Dárá. Dárá, his flight being betrayed by a chief with whom he sought refuge, is put to death by order of Aurangzeb. 1660. Continued struggle of Aurangzeb with his brother Shujá, who 1661. Aurangzeb executes his youngest brother, Murád, in prison. 1666. Death of the deposed Emperor, Shah Jahán. War in the Deccan, 1667. Sivají makes peace on favourable terms with Aurangzeb, and obtains an extension of territory. Sivají levies tribute from Bijapur and Golconda. 1670. Sivají ravages Khándesh and the Deccan, and there levies for the first time chauth, or a contribution of one-fourth of the revenue. 1672. Defeat of the Mughals by the Maráthá Sivají. 1677. Aurangzeb revives the jaziah or poll-tax on non-Muhammadans. [Footnote continued on next page. AURANGZEB'S SOUTHERN WARS. brothers. 307 (1659). After another twelve months' struggle, he drove out of He murIndia his second brother, the self-indulgent Shujá, who perished ders his miserably among the insolent savages of Arakan (1660-61).1 His remaining brother, the brave young Murád, was executed in prison the following year (1661). Aurangzeb, having thus killed off his brethren, set up as an orthodox sovereign of the strictest sect of Islám; while his invalid father, Shah Jahán, lingered on in prison, mourning over his murdered sons, until 1666, when he died. tion of Aurangzeb continued, as Emperor, that persistent policy of Subjuga the subjugation of Southern India which he had so brilliantly Southern commenced as the lieutenant of his father, Sháh Jahán. Of India. the five Muhammadan kingdoms of the Deccan, three, namely Bidar, and Ahmadnagar-with-Elichpur, had fallen to Aurangzeb's arms before his accession to the Delhi throne.2 The two others, Bijápur and Golconda, struggled longer, but Aurangzeb was determined at any cost to annex them to the Mughal Empire. During the first half of his reign, or exactly twenty-five years, he waged war in the south by means of his generals (1658-83). A new Hindu power Rise of the had arisen in the Deccan, the Maráthás.3 The task before Aurangzeb's armies was not only the old one of subduing the Muhammadan kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda, 1679. Aurangzeb at war with the Rájputs. Rebellion of Prince Akbar, 1681. Aurangzeb has to continue the war with the Rajputs. 1683. Aurangzeb invades the Deccan in person, at the head of his Grand 1686-88. Aurangzeb conquers Bijapur and Golconda, and annexes them to the Empire (1688). 1689. Aurangzeb captures Sambhají, and barbarously puts him to death. 1692. Guerilla war with the Maráthás under independent leaders. 1698. Aurangzeb captures Jinji from the Maráthás. 1699-1701. The Maráthá war. Capture of Sátára and Maráthá forts by the Mughals under Aurangzeb. Apparent ruin of Maráthás. 1702-05. Successes of the Maráthás. 1706. Aurangzeb retreats to Ahmadnagar, and 1707. Miserably dies there (February). 1 See article AKYAB, The Imperial Gazetteer of India. 2 The five kingdoms have been described in chapter x. 3 For the rise and history of the Maráthás, see next chapter, xii. Maráthá power. Sivaji crowns himself. but also of crushing the quick growth of the Maráthá confederacy. During a quarter of a century his efforts failed. Bijápur and Golconda were not conquered. In 1670, the Maráthá leader, Sivají, levied chauth, or one-fourth of the revenues, as tribute from the Mughal Provinces in Southern India; and in 1674, enthroned himself an independent sovereign at Ráigarh. In 1680-81, Aurangzeb's rebel son, Prince Akbar, gave the prestige of his presence to the Maráthá army. Aurangzeb felt that he must either give up his magnificent life in the north for a soldier's lot in the Deccan, or he must relinquish his most cherished scheme of conquering Southern India. He accordingly prepared an expedition on an unrivalled scale Aurang- of numbers and splendour, to be led by himself. In 1683 he zeb's arrived at the head of his Grand Army in the Deccan, and southern campaign, spent the next half of his reign, or twenty-four years, in the 1683-1707. field. Golconda and Bijápur fell after another long struggle, and were finally annexed to the Mughal Empire in 1688. His 20 years' Maráthá war, 1688-1707. His 'Grand Army' worn out, 1705. Aurangzeb hemmed in. But the conquests of these two last of the five Muhammadan kingdoms of the Deccan only left the arena bare for the Maráthás. Indeed, the attacks of the Maráthás on the two Muhammadan States had prepared the way for the annexation of those States by Aurangzeb. The Emperor waged war during the remaining twenty years of his life (1688-1707) against the rising Hindu power of the Maráthás. Their first great leader, Sivají, had proclaimed himself king in 1674, and died in 1680. Aurangzeb captured his son and successor Sambhají in 1689, and cruelly put him to death; seized the Maráthá capital, with many of their forts, and seemed in the first year of the new century to have almost stamped out their existence (1701). But after a guerilla warfare, the Maráthás again sprang up into a vast fighting nation. In 1705 they recovered their forts; while Aurangzeb had exhausted his health, his treasures, and his troops, in the long and fruitless struggle. His soldiery murmured for arrears; and the Emperor, now old and peevish, told the malcontents that if they did not like his service they might quit it, while he disbanded some of his cavalry to ease his finances. Meanwhile the Maráthás were pressing hungrily on the imperial camp. The Grand Army of Aurangzeb had grown during a quarter of a century into an unwieldy capital. Its movements were slow, and incapable of concealment. If Aurangzeb sent out a rapid small expedition against the Maráthás who plundered and insulted the outskirts of his camp, AURANGZEB'S DEATH, 1707. 309 1706. they cut it to pieces. If he moved out against them in force, they vanished. His own soldiery feasted with the enemy, who prayed with mock ejaculations for the health of the Emperor as their best friend. In 1706, the Grand Army was so disor- His ganized that Aurangzeb opened negotiations with the Mar- despair, áthás. He even thought of submitting the Mughal Provinces to their tribute or chauth. But their insolent exultation broke off the treaty, and the despairing Aurangzeb, in 1706, sought shelter in Ahmadnagar, where he died the next year. Dark suspicion of his sons' loyalty, and just fears lest they should subject him to the fate which he had inflicted on his own father, left him alone in his last days. On the approach of death, he Auranggave utterance in broken sentences to his worldly counsels zeb's death, and adieus, mingled with terror and remorse, and closing 1707. in an agony of desperate resignation: 'Come what may, I have launched my vessel on the waves. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!' 1 The conquest of Southern India was the one inflexible purpose of Aurangzeb's life, and has therefore been dealt with here in a continuous narrative. In the north of India, great events had also transpired. Mír Jumlá led the imperial Mir troops as far as Assam, the extreme eastern Province of Jumla's expedition India (1662). But amid the pestilential swamps of the rainy to Assam, season, the army melted away, its supplies were cut off, and 1662. its march was harassed by swarms of natives who knew the country and defied the climate. Mír Jumlá succeeded in extricating the main body of his troops, but died of exhaustion and a broken heart before he reached Dacca. In the west of India, Aurangzeb was not more fortunate. During his time the Sikhs were growing into a power, but it was not till the succeeding reigns that they commenced the series of operations which in the end wrested the Punjab from the Mughal Empire. Aurangzeb's bigotry arrayed Aurangagainst him the Hindu princes and peoples of Northern India. zeb's bigoted He revived the jaziah or insulting poll-tax on non-Musalmáns policy. (1677), drove the Hindus out of the administration, and Oppresses oppressed the widow and children of his father's faithful Hindus. the Hindu general Jaswant Singh. A local sect of Hindus was forced into rebellion in 1676; and in 1677, the Rajput States The Rájcombined against him. The Emperor waged a protracted war puts revolt, 1 Aurangzeb's Letters form a popular Persian book in India to this day. His counsels to his sons are edifying and most pathetic; and the whole work is written in a deeply religious tone, which could scarcely have been assumed. and cannot be subdued. Aurangzeb's revenues. The land revenue, 30 to 38 millions. Maximum Mughal land-tax. against them; at one time devastating Rájputána, at another time saving himself and his army from extermination only by a stroke of genius and rare presence of mind. In 1679, his son, Prince Akbar, rebelled and joined the Rájputs with his division of the Mughal army. From that year, the permanent alienation of the Rajputs from the Mughal Empire dates; and the Hindu chivalry, which had been a source of strength to Akbar the Great, became an element of ruin to Aurangzeb and his successors. The Emperor sacked and slaughtered throughout the Rajput States of Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Udaipur. The Rájputs retaliated by ravaging the Muhammadan Provinces of Málwá, defacing the mosques, insulting the ministers of Islám, and burning the Kurán. In 1681, the Emperor patched up a peace in order to allow him to lead the Grand Army into the Deccan, from which he was destined never to return. All Northern India except Assam, and the greater part of Southern India, paid revenue to Aurangzeb. His Indian Provinces covered nearly as large an area as the British Empire at the present day, although their dependence on the central Government was less direct. From these Provinces his net land-revenue demand is returned at 30 to 38 millions sterling; a sum which represented at least three times the purchasing power of the land revenue of British India at the present day. But it is doubtful whether the enormous demand of 38 millions was fully realized during any series of years, even at the height of Aurangzeb's power before he left Delhi for his long southern wars. It was estimated at only 30 millions in the last year of his reign, after his absence of a quarter of a century in the Deccan. Fiscal oppressions led to evasions and revolts, while some or other of the Provinces were always in open war against the Emperor. The following statements exhibit the Mughal Empire in its final development, just before it began to break up. The standard return of Aurangzeb's land revenue was net £34,505,890; and this remained the nominal demand in the accounts of the central exchequer during the next half-century, notwithstanding that the Empire had fallen to pieces. When the Afghán invader, Ahmad Sháh Durání, entered Delhi in 1761, the treasury officers presented him with a statement showing the land revenue of the Empire at £34,506,640. The highest land revenue of Aurangzeb, after his annexations in Southern India, and before his final reverses, was 38 millions sterling; |