No More Learning

Fickle troops at
once joined Aurangzib and their leaders accepted rich gifts.
Meanwhile Dara, who had seized Delhi in his first flight and had
begun to collect a fresh army, soon realised that he could not hope
to resist Aurangzib there. He therefore pressed on to Lahore, leaving
guards on the Sutlej and striving to increase his own forces and to
corrupt the generals of his brother. There was reason to hope that
the fatigue of Aurangzib's army would allow him time to organise a
successful resistance.
By the confinement of Murad Bakhsh Aurangzib was now relieved
of immediate anxiety, and he marched on to Delhi, where he rapidly
matured his plans. One force was sent at once after Dara, and another
was despatched east to capture Allahabad as a bulwark against
Sulaiman Shukoh and the possibility of action by Shah Shuja'. For
three weeks he halted, busy with the details of civil administration,
Here he finally achieved his original plan and assumed the imperial
title, though with scanty pomp, taking the additional name of
‘Alamgir (universe grasper). Thus ended the reign of Shah Jahan,
who spent the remaining years of his life a prisoner in the fort of
Agra. " Here he was confined in the gilded marble palace he had
built, from which he could gaze down the Jumna with its arid dusty
banks to the magnificent tomb he was building for his wife-and
himself.
By race Shah Jahan was three-quarters Indian, both his mother
and grandmother having been Rajput ladies of high birth, and the
failure of his sons and army in the enterprise against Balkh showed
that the Mughul line in India was no longer able to cope with the
hardy and turbulent tribesmen beyond the Hindu Kush. Each of
the Mughul emperors from Akbar to Aurangzib seemed to realise
and avoid the faults of his predecessor more diligently than to emulate
any good qualities that existed. As a youth Shah Jahan was accus-
tomed to see his father indulging to excess in drink, and Jahangir
himself records that he was unable to persuade his son even to taste
liquor till he was twenty-four. And throughout his life, while his
marriage to Mumtaz Mahall proved a pleasing example of conjugal
1 While at this period Roe states that both father and son were fond of red
wine it is clear that Shah Jahan never became a drunkard.


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216
SHAH JAHAN
happiness for nearly twenty years, and later he became addicted to
sensual pleasures, he never subordinated his own judgement to female
influences as Jahangir did.
Even during boyhood the restless uncertainty as to their hopes
of a crown that always obsessed the sons of an oriental ruler was
forced upon him. The dispute with his elder brother Khusrav over
the elephant fight which disturbed the last days of his grandfather
Akbar occurred when he was not fourteen, and shortly afterwards
he saw Khusrav try to wrest the throne from their father. During a
stay of over three years (1615-19) in India Sir Thomas Roe was at
the court for long periods and his business brought him into contact
with Shah Jahan, who was then governor of Gujarat and thus of
great importance to the British ambassador endeavouring to establish
trade. The grievances of the English traders naturally prejudiced
.
Roe against the man whom he believed to be responsible for not
righting them. Moreover, the prince disliked Roe, who insisted on
being treated with the dignity due to his office as ambassador and
could not be cajoled or brow-beaten. Roe's allowances from the com-
pany did not permit him to offer presents so costly as those of the
Portuguese who were his competitors for favour. Allowing for these
sources of bias Roe's judgement of the prince is confirmed by other.
sources. He found Shah Jahan at the age of twenty-four already
mature, and writes :
I never saw so settled a countenance, nor any man keepe so constant a
gravety, never smiling, nor in face showing any respect or difference of men;
but mingled with extreme pride and contempt of all. Yet I found some inward
trouble now and then assayle him, and a kind of brokennes and distraction in
his thoughts, unprovidedly and amasedly answering sutors, or not hearing. 1
Elsewhere he describes the prince as “proud naturally” and as
intolerant and more favourable to the Portuguese than to the English,
which was natural, as the English were newcomers of whom nothing
was known in India while the Portuguese had already established
some dominion there.
When he came to the throne Shah Jahan was nearly thirty-six,
and his character had mellowed. He had disposed of all possible
rivals of the blood royal and the people at large were prepared to
welcome a ruler who had shown ability as general and administrator
after the impotent government of his father. Nor were they dis-
appointed, as Shah Jahan, at last relieved from the long anxiety about
his position, showed that he had unexpected geniality and modera-
tion. His careful handling of the Afghan tribes round the Khyber
pass who commanded the line of communications with Kabul and
are even still a menace to civilised administration shows this. ? These
1 Shah Jahan was just about to leave for the Deccan, having superseded his
brother Parviz, of whom he was jealous.
2 C. E. Biddulph, Afghan Poetry (1890), p. xiv.


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SHAH JAHAN'S RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE 217
qualities, however, did not permit toleration of abuses and negligence
of their duties by the officials of the empire, and there were notable
instances of local administrators being removed for such faults.
Though in matters of religion his plain straightforward creed per-
mitted no licence, he never degenerated into the bigot that his suc-
cessor became. With the latitude of Akbar's religious beliefs and
practices, and the looseness of Jahangir's court, he had no sympathy,
and his objects were primarily to restore the strict profession of Islam
rather than to persecute believers in other religions. Thus he soon
abolished the ceremonial prostration before the throne which had
been instituted by Akbar and maintained by Jahangir, and in its
place prescribed forms which savoured less of divine worship. The
ostentatious use of the divine era instituted by Akbar ceased so far
as the record of months on the coinage was concerned a few years
after Shah Jahan's accession, except in one or two outlying places,
though the practical value of a calendar of solar months led to their
continued use (but not invariably) for fiscal purposes.
In 1633 Shah Jahan ordered the demolition of Hindu temples
which had been begun in the previous reign, especially at Benares,
and many were demolished. These orders were followed by a pro-
hibition of the erection of new shrines or the repair of older buildings.
Intermarriage between Hindus and Muslims, which had been com-
mon in the Punjab and Kashmir, was forbidden in 1634. Hindus
were directed to keep to their own style of dress, and to discontinue
practices which were offensive to the tenets of Islam, such as crema-
tion or the burning of widows near a Muslim cemetery, or the sale
of intoxicating liquor. Mass conversions of Hindus to Islam were
also encouraged, and in some cases were forcibly effected. All these
acts, however, were dictated rather by the desire to maintain the
strict tenets of Islam than to pursue the course of iconoclasm which
was adopted by Aurangzib. Thus the demolition of new temples was
not followed by the erection of mosques on their sites. In his later
years Shah Jahan appears to have left Dara unchecked in his studies
of Hinduism, which led him to seek for common truths underlying
two faiths differing so much in their external practices. 2
For the expedition against the Portuguese at Hooghly there were
grounds other than those of religious intolerance. But the small band
of captives who eventually reached Agra alive were severely treated
in the hope of obtaining their conversion. Those who accepted Islam
1
1 A Hindu ordinarily fastens his upper garment on the left, and a Muslim
on the right.
2 "Les entretiens de Lahore" (entre le prince impérial Dara Shikuh et
l'ascète Hindou Baba La'l Das] by Cl. Huart and L. Massignon, Revue du
monde musulman, 1926, p. 285. Jahangir described the ascetic Chid Rup as
one who had thoroughly mastered the science of the Vedanta, which is the
science of Sufism ; Memoirs, I, 355. See also J. A. S. B. 1870, p. 273 and Sarkar,
History of Aurangzib, I, 296.


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218
SHAH JAHAN
a
were more kindly dealt with, and employment was found for them.
The buildings and land of the mission at Agra were taken over, but
two years later were restored. Although it was ordered that the
church should first be dismantled the materials were left with the
priests, who were permitted to build a house and to baptize children
of Christians, and perform marriages, to visit the sick, to hold services
for their congregations, and to use the cemetery which had been
granted by Jahangir and contains the oldest Christian tombs in
northern India. Churches in other parts of the Mughul dominions
were also demolished, but in 1641 Manrique was successful in
obtaining a grant for the restoration of the church in Sind, and also
secured the release of one of the priests who had been taken prisoner
at Hooghly.
The reign shows no new developments in administrative matters.
Under Jahangir both finance and general administration had de-
teriorated and Shah Jahan was largely occupied in restoring stability
and efficiency. His chief measure was a reduction in the gross
emoluments of the higher officials coupled with a clearer definition
of the number of troops they were required to maintain, and its
effect seems to have been to produce a real force instead of one merely
on paper, while it left the officials with a better margin of pay.
Shah Jahan's mind was orderly but not inventive. The court
historians and foreign travellers praise his diligence in affairs of state,
and the records of his military enterprises show the attention with
which he controlled them. State revenues increased, in spite of the
disastrous famine of 1630, owing to better supervision over officials
and greater security of life. In Bengal Shah Shuja' during his long
term as governor made progress in the detailed assessments of land,
which had been summary on the first conquest by Akbar. And in
the Deccan a Persian named Murshid Quli Khan, who had entered
Mughul service with 'Ali Mardan Khan, performed a similar task
after peace had been established. Trade, in spite of the edicts issued
by Akbar and Jahangir, was subject to constant restrictions dictated
by the theory that government should gain the highest possible
revenue from it, rather than that it should foster its improvement.
In 1633 Shah Jahan declared a royal monopoly in indigo, and ordered
that the sale of indigo throughout the Mughul dominions should be
effected only through a certain Hindu merchant, who was to receive
a loan from the treasury and share the profit. ? The monopoly
included the supplies in Gujarat as well as those round Agra, and
it failed, though it had the support of Mir Jumla, only because the
Dutch and Portuguese, who were large buyers, combined to keep
off the market. Commerce was much impeded by similar mono-
polies established by local governors, which were apparently un-
1 For the grant of these privileges see Journal, Punjab Historical Society, vta,
W. Foster, The English Factories in India (1630-33), p. xxxiv.
25


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FOREIGN POLICY
219
checked by the central government. "
In his relations with other powers Shah Jahan's diplomacy usually
consisted of attempts to dazzle by exaggerating his own prowess
against the small kingdoms of the Deccan, and it was marked by no
great statesmanship. Communications with Turkey were opened by
the despatch of a horse dealer who also took presents, and for some
years envoys were exchanged. A Turkish officer who arrived in 1653
brought a letter which mentioned the complaints made by Nazr
Muhammad, and Shah Jahan's reply, in which he taunted the Sultan
with his youth and the incapacity of his councillors, closed the
exchange of communication, which had been purely ceremonial. As
a good Muslim Shah Jahan frequently sent presents to the harif
of Mecca and gifts for the poor in the towns of Mecca and Medina.
With European nations the intercourse was less formal and em-
bassies were not contemplated. Portuguese influence, in spite of the
possession of territory, was waning, and that of the Dutch and English,
though it increased, was still directed to mercantile affairs and had
not achieved a political status. The Portuguese in 1630 attempted to
get the English and Dutch ousted from Surat and offered to settle
and trade there. They captured a Mughul ship to put pressure on
the Mughuls, but an English fleet came to the governor's assistance,
and later Shah Jahan was able to induce Bijapur to blockade Goa
and the Portuguese were glad to restore the ship and waive their
demands. In 1634 Methwold, the president at Surat, was able to
arrange a convention with the viceroy at Goa with beneficial results.
Rivalry between the Dutch and English continued, and Shah Jahan
offered concessions to the Dutch if they would expel the Portuguese
from Daman and Diu, but the proposal was not accepted by the
Dutch governor-general at Batavia. The persistence of the traders,
both English and Dutch, and the profits arising from their operations
gradually led to the grant of more privileges, though progress was
chequered and factors were sometimes subjected to imprisonment.
Shah Jahan had inherited some of the artistic taste of his father.
His practical, more business-like nature, however, diverted this from
the cultivation of painting and the accumulation of jewels and
curiosities to bolder and more striking developments of art. On his
accession he had taken from his treasury a large store of precious
stones and gold and ordered the construction of the peacock throne
with a canopy supported on twelve pillars adorned with enamel and
jewels. Seven years later, at the celebration of the vernal equinox,
he took his seat on it and the throne remained for a century one of
the glories of the Mughul dynasty till Nadir Shah after sacking Delhi
took it away. ”
1 W. H. Moreland, From Akbar to Aurangzeb, pp. 146 sqq.
2 For a picture of Shah Jahan seated on the throne with Asaf Khan present-
ing pearls see British Museum MS. , Add. 20,734, folios 689, 690.


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220
SHAH JAHAN
It was, however, in the field of architecture that the reign was
most distinguished. Indian art had still retained its faculty of learning
from foreign influence but making its own treatment and stamping
its productions with the marks of an indigenous culture. Shah Jahan
had a strong interest in the designs and plans of buildings and per-
sonally discussed and revised them. When he ordered the construc-
tion of the peacock throne he also began to rebuild most of the
existing palaces and apartments in the fort at Agra to make a setting
for it. Of the most conspicuous erections of which he was the
founder, the first to be begun (in 1632) was the Taj at Agra, to
contain the tomb of his wife. 2
While the Taj is conspicuous, not only for its grandeur of concep-
tion and delicate profusions of detail, the pearl mosque in the fort
at Delhi, constructed in 1646-53, delights the eye by its majestic
simplicity. Of the splendours of the fort at Delhi and the new city
founded there in 1639 much has been written. 3 The verse inscribed
round the cornice of the hall of private audience declaring that if
there is a heaven on earth it is here is less hyperbolical than the
boasts of many great builders. In size alone the palace exceeds
anything of the kind in Europe, covering an area more than double
that of the Escurial. The main street of the city is nearly a mile long
and very wide. The canals originally made for irrigation were
extended to supply the city and palace with water, and the chronicle
records that there was not a room in the palace nor a lane in the city
to which the supply did not reach.
Shah Jahan's activities in building were not confined to the centres
of government alone. In 1644 he ordered the construction of a
mosque at Tatta as a recognition of the welcome held out to him
by the inhabitants during his rebellion against Jahangir, while a
mosque near the tomb of Shaikh Salim Chisti and a pavilion on the
bank of the Ana Sagar at Ajmer also date from this reign.
In literature the cultivation of the vernacular, with which Shah
Jahan was familiar, was notable. Persian naturally maintained the
chief place and a court laureate named Abu-'l-Talib, who came from
Kashan in Persia and took the pen-name Kalim, versified the official
chronicle in a simpler style than the ornate poetry of the Indian
Muslims. Hajji Muhammad Jan also wrote a chronicle in poetry
and a description of the gardens of Kashmir and the buildings for
which Shah Jahan was responsible. A Brahman of the Punjab named
Chandra Bhan, who was employed by prince Dara Shukoh, also
wrote Persian poetry and prose. Among the writers in vernacular
1 "The Agra fort and its building", Arch. Survey India (1903-4), pp. 164 sqq.
2 The first part of her title “Mumtaz Mahall” has been corrupted into Taj.
For a description see chap. XVIII, pp. 561 sqq.
3 Fergusson, History of Indian and Oriental Architecture (1891), p. 591. For
specimens of the coloured inlay work see Preservation of National Monuments
in India (1896); plate 32, and of painting, plate 33. See also chap. XVII, p. 564.


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VERNACULAR LITERATURE
221
Sundar Das, a Brahman of Gwalior, was especially honoured, and
received the title of Maha Kavi Rai or great poet leader. Writing
in the Braj dialect of Hindi he produced a great work on composition,
besides a philosophical treatise and translations from the Sanskrit.
Chintamani of Cawnpore district, who composed a version of the
Ramayana and a treatise on prosody, was also patronised by the
emperor An even more distinguished writer in Hindu estimation
was Deb Dat, also a Brahman, from the present Mainpuri district,
who produced many works of religious poetry besides a treatise on
prosody and rhetoric and a play.
While these Brahmans under the influence of court patronage were
producing works of literary merit, men of other castes were com-
posing hymns which have done so much to deepen the spiritual life
of the masses and to inculcate faith and devotion in place of philo-
sophical abstraction. Pran Nath, a Chhattri of Panna in Bundel-
khand, wrote a number of poems which attempt to reconcile Hindu-
ism and Islam, their language itself being marked by a grammatical
basis of Hindi with a vocabulary Persian and Arabic words. A
cotton carder of Ahmadabad named Dadu, who lived most of his
life in Rajputana, was a prolific hymn writer and has many followers.
These authors were the founders of sects which still exist, known as
the Prannathis and Dadupanthis. Still greater · influence has been
exerted by Tukaram, a grain seller of low caste born near Poona,
whose hymns became so popular that he was persecuted by the
Brahmans as one who had no right to be a religious teacher.


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CHAPTER VIII
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
AURANGZIB'S conduct during the war of succession was marked
by rapidity of movement, wise distribution and exact co-ordination
of forces, and quick-eyed generalship in the field. When to these
factors we add the previous war-experience of his troops and their
training in concerted action under his eyes, as well as his royal gift
of judging the character of men at sight and choosing worthy and
faithful agents, we can easily understand his unbroken success in
his war against three rivals of equal rank and resources, none of
whom was a coward or imbecile. He had opened the campaign on
30 March, 1658, when he set out for Delhi from Burhanpur. In less
than three months from that day, he had crossed two large rivers,
won two severely contested battles, captured the capital, and im-
prisoned the sovereign (18 June). The administration of the empir
now naturally passed into his strong and capable hands, and his
supreme position was freed from all rivalry after his treacherous
arrest of his discontented and jealous partner Murad Bakhsh (5 July).
The cloak of legality was thrown over his usurped authority when
he crowned himself emperor at Delhi on 31 July, 1658, with the title
of Abu-'l-Muzaffar Muhiy-ud-din Muhammad Aurangzib Bahadur
Alamgir Padishah Ghazi.
But he had two large enemy forces still to dispose of before his
throne could be considered secure. Dara Shukoh had escaped from
the ruin of his hopes at Samogarh (8 June), first to Delhi and then
to the Punjab, where he was raising an army, while Dara's eldest
son Sulaiman Shukoh, after defeating his uncle Shuja' (at Bahadur-
pur on 24 February) and dictating peace to him (at Monghyr about
17 May), was advancing towards Agra with his victorious troops.
An eastward march of Dara would have ensured the combination of
the father and the son and created a serious danger for Aurangzib.
But the luckless Dara had turned to the Punjab, as that province
was held for him by trusty deputies, its people were mostly attached
to him, and large numbers of recruits could be had at call among
its martial population. This move ruined Dara's cause. Aurangzib
inserted himself like a wedge between the father and the son and
rendered the junction of their forces impossible except by following
a wide loop to the north, of which he held the short chord in strength.
On hearing of this blocking of their westward route, Sulaiman
Shukoh's army rapidly melted away, his captains openly deserted


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PURSUIT OF DARA SHUKOH
223
him for their homes or for Aurangzib's standard, and within two
days of the arrival of the news of Samogarh and Dara's flight to the
north-west, Sulaiman's army shrank from 20,000 men to less than
6000. Aurangzib, holding the inner line, moved his divisions with
great ease and rapidity and blocked every ferry by which Sulaiman
tried to reach the Punjab by skirting the foot of the central Himalayas,
so that the young prince became in effect a hunted fugitive.
Thus, freed for the time being from all danger on the east,
Aurangzib turned his undivided attention to the pursuit of Dara.
That luckless aspirant to the throne was neither a general himself,
nor had he the wisdom of being guided by veteran generals whose
devotion to him was manifest. His sole strategy was to flee before
Aurangzib's forces, however small, without hazarding any action.
His timid and contradictory orders took the heart out of such of his
subordinates as were prepared to hold up the advancing vanguard
of the pursuers at the rivers of the Punjab, which are so admirably
situated to favour a defence by delaying tactics. The result was that
Dara, in spite of his getting possession of the imperial treasuries at
Delhi and Lahore (the latter estimated to contain ten million
rupees), besides the money and jewels that Shah Jahan had sent to
him from Agra, could not get time enough to give cohesion and
training to the 20,000 soldiers that he had gathered together at
Lahore. He merely fled from town to town down the Punjab river
at the first news of the arrival of Aurangzib's troops behind him.
The only difficulties of the pursuers came from the heat of the season,
the rapidity of the marches they had to make (which led to large
numbers of soldiers lagging behind), the exhaustion and death of
their horses and camels, and their inability to overtake the enemy
and bring him to a decisive action. Dara had left Delhi on 22 June,
1658, and reached Lahore on 13 July. His rear-guard, holding the
Sutlej at Talwandi and Rupar, had its left turned by Bahadur Khan's
crossing the river at Rupar on 15 August and fell back on the Beas
at Govindwal and finally on Lahore. Once more Dara's genius
quailed before that of Aurangzib; he despaired of success, and his
despair infected his troops.
Leaving Lahore on 28 August, at the head of 14,000 men, the fugi-
tive prince reached Multan on 15 September with his army reduced
to one-half by desertion. Eight days afterwards he vacated this city
and fled down the Indus towards the sea, finding rest nowhere and
daily losing men. Finally, he left the province of Sind at Badin (4
December) and entered the Rann of Cutch, at the news of which his
pursuers turned back from Tatta on 15 December.
Meanwhile, Aurangzib himself had given up the chase from Multan
(10 October) and hastened to Delhi by rapid marches, because a
new storm-cloud was reported to be gathering in the east. Shuja'
was making preparations for a second advance on Agra. The deposi-


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224
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
tion of Shah Jahan and the imprisonment of the once-beloved ally
Murad Bakhsh had taught him the true value of Aurangzib's solemn
promise to let Shuja' enjoy Bengal and Bihar in full sovereignty
unmolested. At Monghyr he heard of Aurangzib's march in full force
to the Punjab and imagined the road to Agra to be open. Now was
the opportunity to seize the capital and release his father.
So, early in November, 1658, Shuja' had advanced from Patna
with 25,000 cavalry and a good train of artillery, got easy possession
of the forts on the way up to Allahabad, and arrived at Khajuha
(in the Fatehpur district), ninety-five miles west of Allahabad, on
9 January, 1659. Here he was held up by an imperial army under
Aurangzib's eldest son, Muhammad Sultan.
That emperor had reached the environs of Delhi from Multan
on 20 November and repeatedly sent detachments to strengthen his
army near Allahabad so as to close Shuja''s path effectively. But
as the latter had not given up his ambitious movement, Aurangzib
had made a rapid march from Soron and reached Kora, eight miles
west of Shuja''s position, on 12 January, 1659. Here Mir Jumla,
released from his collusive imprisonment in Daulatabad fort, joined
him on that day.
The decisive battle took place on the 14th. But the night before
it, Maharaja Jasvant Singh, who commanded Aurangzib's right wing,
made a treacherous and quite unexpected attack on his master,
plundered the camp of prince Muhammad Sultan and also much
of Aurangzib's baggage, and then fled to his own country with his
Rajput contingent (14,000 strong). Aurangzib's cool courage and
strict discipline in making the other divisions keep their own places
during this night of alarm, prevented the confusion and panic from
spreading and saved his army from further loss. With daylight many
of his dispersed troops returned to his standard, and he advanced
to the attack at the head of 50,000 to 55,000 men, as against Shuja''s
23,000.
With great judgement, Shuja' tried to make up for his hopeless
inferiority in numbers by drawing up his troops not in the usual
six divisions of Mughul battle-array but in one long line behind his
artillery and taking the offensive himself. His right wing under
Sayyid ‘Alam charged the imperial left and after scattering it feil
upon the centre, driving in front three furious war elephants, each
brandishing a heavy iron chain with its trunk, before which no man
or horse could stand. At the same time the imperial right wing was
assailed and partly dispersed by Shuja''s vanguard and left under
prince Buland Akhtar. A false rumour spread through the field
that Aurangzib himself had been slain, and many of his followers
fled away. One of these Bengal elephants, maddened by wounds,
approached the emperor's elephant. If the latter had turned back,
the entire imperial army would have broken and run away at the


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STRUGGLE WITH SHUJA
225
sight of it.
But in the crisis, Aurangzib's cool courage and power of
quick decision saved the situation : he stood like a rock, chaining the
legs of his elephant to prevent its flight, and soon the attacking
beast's driver was shot down and it was brought under control by
an imperial mahout. Sayyid 'Alam was at last repulsed with woefully
thinned ranks. His centre thus saved, Aurangzib turned to succour
his hard-pressed right wing, which on being rallied and reinforced
made a counter-charge and swept away the enemy divisions before
it with great carnage. Meanwhile, the imperial vanguard had ad-
vanced, shaking the front line of Shuja'. And now, emitting a thick
shower of cannon-balls and bullets, Aurangzib's entire army made
a simultaneous advance and enveloped the centre, which alone
remained of Shuja''s host. That prince saved his life only by dis-
mounting from his elephant and galloping away on a fleet horse.
His army at once broke and fled, giving up its entire camp and
baggage, artillery (114 pieces) and elephants to the conqueror.
From the field of victory Aurangzib sent a division, 30,000 strong,
under his son Muhammad Sultan and Mir Jumla in pursuit of
Shuja', who fled eastwards, making a stand only at Monghyr and
again at Sahibganj (near the Sakrigali or Teliyagarhi pass) by
blocking the narrow road there. But at each of these places Mir
Jumla turned his left by making a détour through the jungles under
the guidance of the local zamindars. Finally, after a short halt at
Rajmahal, Shuja' evacuated the right bank of the Ganges and crossed
over to the Malda district. The imperialists immediately occupied
Rajmahal (23 April, 1659).
In the campaign that ensued, Shuja' was hopelessly inferior on
land, his regular troops having shrunk to 5000 men, while Mir
Jumla's army was five times as large and man for man superior in
fighting capacity. But the imperialists were a purely land force,
with few pieces of cannon and not a single boat for operations in this
land of waterways. On the other hand, Shuja' had an artillery of
big guns admirably served by European and half-breed gunners, and
the entire flotilla (navvara) of Bengal was at his disposal, which gave
wonderful mobility to his army and multiplied its striking force,
while the lack of boats at first paralysed Mir Jumla's efforts.
Shuja', making Tanda (four miles west of the old fort of Gaur)
his base, entrenched various places on the eastern bank of the Ganges
to prevent the enemy from crossing. But Mir Jumla with great
diligence procured a small number of boats from remote places, and
making the best use of them twice surprised and defeated Shuja''s
advanced outposts, but his third coup (13 May) failed with heavy
loss, as the enemy had prepared an ambush for him. On 18 June,
prince Muhammad Sultan, chafing under Mir Jumla's tutelage, was
lured by the offer of the hand of Shuja''s daughter and secretly went
over to his uncle. But Mir Jumla restored order and control among
15


## p. 226 (#260) ############################################

226
AURANGZIB (1658-1681).
.
the prince's leaderless troops, and at a council of war all the other
generals agreed to obey him as their leader. Next, during the tor-
rential rains of Bengal, while the city of Rajmahal was completely
girt round by water, its grain supply was cut off by the Bengal
flotilla and Shuja' by a sudden attack recovered it, the surprised
imperial division of the city fleeing away (1 September).
In the following December Shuja' resumed operations on land and
twice attacked Mir Jumla, whose inferiority in artillery forced him
to fall back from Belghata towards Murshidabad. But Daud Khan,
the governor of Patna, with a second army and plenty of boats and
artillery, was advancing along the Ganges to co-operate with Mir
Jumla, and on hearing of this Shuja' evacuated Rajmahal and fell
back on Tanda. Thus, the whole country west of the Ganges was
finally lost to Shuja' (21 January 1660), who, however, held a line
from opposite Rajmahal to Tanda. Mir Jumla easily crossed the
Ganges with the help of the 160 boats received from Patna and then
made a wide circuit round the north of Shuja''s position, reaching
Malda on 16 March. A month before this prince Muhammad Sultan
had left Shuja' and returned to the imperial camp, but only to be
sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of his life. On 15 April, Mir
Jumla crossed the Mahananda and threatened to complete a circle
round Shuja', who could no longer resist, but fled precipitately with
his family to Dacca, abandoning all his soldiers, servants and pro-
perty in Tanda to the imperialists. Only sixty boats accompanied
him, while 402 became the victor's prize.
But even at Dacca Shuja' could make no stand. The zamindars
rose against him, and Mir Jumla arrived there hard on his heels.
So, the prince finally abandoned Bengal on 22 May, 1660, and sailed
for Chittagong to seek an asylum with the Magh Raja of Arakan.
Here his unquiet ambition brought him to a tragic end. With the
help of the Musalman settlers in Arakan he planned to seize the
throne of his protector and then advance once more for the recovery
of Bengal. But the conspiracy was betrayed and the Mughul prince
in trying to escape was pursued and cut down in the jungle (January,
1661).
We now turn to the last days of Dara Shukoh. After leaving Sind
(early in December, 1658), with the small remnant of his army, he
received help from the Rajas of Cutch and Navanagar, and reached
Ahmadabad at the head of 3000 men. Here Shah Navaz Khan, the
governor of the province, joined him and opened the royal treasury
to him (January, 1659). Dara now raised his army to 22,000 men,
took away the artillery of Surat castle, and, learning that Shuja'
had advanced beyond Allahabad to attack Aurangzib, he made a dash
towards Agra. On the way he turned towards Ajmer on receiving
an invitation from Jasvant Singh, who promised to join him with
1 See also chap. -XVII, p. 480.
9


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END OF DARA SHUKOH
227
all the Rajputs. But in the meantime Aurangzib had crushed Shuja',
and he now won Jasvant over by mingled threats of invasion and
promises of favour, and arrived near Ajmer with his victorious army.
Thus, Dara had no alternative but to fight. He entrenched the pass of
Deorai, four miles south of Ajmer, his flanks protected by the hills of
Bithli and Gokla and his front by a low wall bristling with guns.
Aurangzib attacked this formidable position from the south, suf-
fering heavy losses on account of the low and exposed position of his
troops. In the evening of the third day (24 March, 1659), under
cover of a furious massed attack on Dara's left wing and a general
cannonade along his entire front, a body of hillmen belonging to
Raja Rajrup of Jammu climbed the back of the Gokla hill unper-
ceived and thus seized the rear of Dara's left wing. Then these
trenches were stormed, the general in command, Shah Navaz Khan,
was killed, and shortly after nightfall Dara fled from the field.
When these facts became known the rest of his troops submitted to
Aurangzib.
Dara, accompanied by his family and only 2000 troops, moved
towards Ahmadabad by rapid marches, undergoing extreme misery
from the heat and dust and the death of transport animals. On the
way he learnt that that city had turned against him and he would
not find any safe refuge in Gujarat. After a scene of unspeakable
agony, so pathetically described by Bernier who was attending his
sick wife, the prince, now "reduced to the poorest and sorriest dress,
his retinue shrunk to a few men”, fled to Kathiawar, crossed the
terrible Rann again and entered Sind a second time (middle of May).
A strong imperial detachment under Jay Singh and Bahadur Khan
pursued him all the way with equal speed. In Sind Aurangzib's
local officers had closed Dara's path to the north and the east. So
he fled westwards, crossed the Indus and entered Sehwan, intending
to flee to Persia by way of the Bolan pass and Qandahar. But his
beloved wife Nadira Banu died of illness and privations, and Dara,
now almost mad with grief and despair, sent away all his remaining
troopers and his most devoted officer with her corpse to Lahore for
burial in the graveyard of his patron saint Mian Mir. He then
accepted the offered hospitality of Malik Jivan, the chieftain of Dadar
(nine miles east of the Bolan pass), and was seized by this Baloch
traitor (19 June) and delivered to Aurangzib's general.
Arrived at Delhi, Dara and his second son Sipihr Shukoh were
paraded through the streets with disgrace. He was put to death
on the charge of apostasy from Islam by the sentence of Aurangzib's
court theologians (9 September). His remains were buried in a vault
of Humayun's tomb.
Dara's eldest son, Sulaiman Shukoh, on his way back from the
war with Shuja', had heard of the disaster to his father at Samogarh,
and on being deserted by most of his troops and headed off by


## p. 228 (#262) ############################################

228
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
Aurangzib's forces from the west, he failed to reach his father in the
Punjab. He therefore sought refuge with the Raja of Srinagar in the
Garhwal hills, who gave him a royal welcome. But a year later
(July, 1659) Aurangzib sent a force to coerce or bribe the raja into
giving up the refugee. Sulaiman was delivered up by his host and
brought to Delhi on 12 January, 1661. He was ordered to be con-
fined in the fort of Gwalior and was there done to death (May, 1662)
with overdoses of opium. In the same state prison, Murad Bakhsh
was beheaded (14 December, 1661) under judicial sentence for the
murder of 'Ali Naqi, his divan in Gujarat, whose son, instigated by
Aurangzib, insisted on the retaliation of blood for blood allowed by
Islamic law. The very young sons of Dara and Murad were spared,
nly to be kept in prison for life. Thus, all possible rivals having
been removed from his path, Aurangzib became the indisputable lord
and master of Mughul India.
In four severely contested battles for the throne, fought in the
course of less than a year in widely separated provinces, Aurangzib
had marched rapidly and triumphed uniformly at the total cost of
only two generals killed and one dead from sunstroke, while his
opponents were crushed with terrible carnage among officers and
privates alike. There could be no greater proof of his genius and
efficiency than this.
The reign of Aurangzib naturally falls into two equal divisions of
about twenty-five years each, the first of which he passed in northern
India and the second in the Deccan. During the earlier half of his
reign the centre of interest lies unmistakably in the north, because
the most important developments, civil and military, concerned this
region. In the second half, the situation is reversed : all the resources
of the empire are concentrated in the Deccan; the emperor, his court
and family, the bulk of his army, and all his best officers live there,
and Hindustan sinks back to a place of secondary importance; the
administration in northern India grows weak and corrupt at the
withdrawal of the master's eye and all the ablest officers; the upper
classes decline in morals, culture, and useful activity; and finally
lawlessness breaks out in most parts, dimly heralding the great
anarchy which covered the eighteenth century.
After his final victory over Dara, Aurangzib celebrated his grand
coronation on 15 June, 1659,1 in the first month of his second regnal
year, at Delhi, with prolonged rejoicings. Thereafter he lived for
nearly twenty years at Delhi and Agra, making only a trip to Kashmir
which kept him away for one year (1663) and an eighteen months'
halt at Hasan Abdal (1674-75) to direct operations against the
frontier tribes. Early in 1679 he went to Ajmer to annex Marwar,
and thus became involved for the next two years and a half in the
1 The official date was put twenty-three days earlier on the 1st Ramazan,
A. H. 1068.


## p. 229 (#263) ############################################

FOREIGN EMBASSIES TO AURANGZIB
229
Rajput war, whose strange sequel drew him to the Deccan, there to
pass the last quarter century of his life in strenuous but unavailing toil.
During the years 1661-67, Aurangzib received complimentary
embassies from many foreign Muslim powers, such as the Sharif of
Mecca, the kings of Persia, Balkh, Bukhara, Kashghar, Urganj
(Khiva) and Shahr-i-nau, the Turkish governors of Basra, Hadra-
maut, Yaman and Mocha, the ruler of Barbary, and the king of
Abyssinia. The only embassy from Constantinople in his reign arrived
in 1690, charged with a letter for him. His policy was to dazzle the
eyes of these princes by the lavish gift of presents to them and to
their envoys, and thus induce the outer Muslim world to forget his
treatment of his father and brothers. The fame of India as a soft
cow spread throughout the middle and near East, and the
minor embassies were merely begging expeditions, as Bernier
shrewdly noted. The Sharif of Mecca in particular used to send his
agents to the Delhi court every year with the object of levying con-
tributions in the name of the Prophet, till at last the emperor's
patience was worn out and he refused to make the Sharif his almoner
at the holy city, but began to send his gifts to its scholars and mendi-
cants through his own agents. On the embassies received and the
return-embassies sent out Aurangzib spent in presents nearly three
million rupees in the course of seven years, besides the large sums
which he annually distributed at Mecca and the gift of a million to
'Abdullah Khan, the deposed king of Kashghar, who had taken refuge
in India in 1668 and died at Delhi in 1675.
The grandest and most costly of these diplomatic intercourses was
with Persia. But the overweening pride of Shah 'Abbas II, who could
not forget how the Mughul emperor Humayun had been a suppliant
before. his ancestor, how Shah Jahan had thrice failed to recover
Qandahar, and how a petty chief like Shivaji had sacked the greatest
port of the Mughul empire with impunity, led to a rupture between
the two sovereigns, which was aggravated by the Shah's exaltation
of the Shiah religion in his letters to an orthodox Sunni like Aurang-
zib. At last after sending two insulting letters to Aurangzib and
barbarously humiliating the Indian ambassador at the Persian court
(Tarbiyat Khan), Shah 'Abbas threatened an invasion of India, but
his death (August, 1667) dispersed the war clouds, and the Persian
monarchy soon afterwards sank into sloth and decay, to the immense
reltef of the Delhi court.
Many minor conquests were made in the outskirts of the empire
during the first half of Aurangzib's reign, the most valuable of which
were the annexations of Palamau (in south Bihar) by Daud Khan
the governor of Patna in 1661 and of Chittagong by Shayista Khan
the governor of Bengal in 1666. A more romantic success was that
of a mission from the province of Kashmir (1665) which forced the
ruler of Tibet (evidently little Tibet or Ladakh) to acknowledge the


## p. 230 (#264) ############################################

230
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
suzerainty of Aurangzib, stamp coins in his name, and build a mosque
at his capital where the Islamic call to prayer had never been heard
before. The conquests in Assam made early in the reign were all
lost by the year 1681.
The disturbances of internal peace during this earlier period were
neither very important nor successful. The outbreaks which inevitably
followed the collapse of civil authority during a war of succession
subsided with Aurangzib's assertion of his mastery. The Hindu risings
against his policy of religious persecution will be described later.
The vassal princes who revolted were all crushed like Champat Rai
Bundela (1661) and Rai Singh the usurper of Navanagar in Kathia-
war (1663), or forced to sue for pardon like Rao Karan of Bikaner
(1660). In fact, these few and strictly localised tumults hardly
disturbed the profound internal peace which northern India enjoyed
during the first half of this reign.
Aurangzib had claimed the throne as the champion of pure Islam
against the heretical practices and opinions of Dara Shukoh. Soon
after his grand coronation (June, 1659), he issued a number of
ordinances for restoring the orthodox rules of conduct taught by the
Quran. He abolished his ancestors' practices of stamping the kalima
(the Muslim credo) on their coins and of observing the nauruz or
New Year's day of the pagan Persians; forbade the cultivation of
bhang (Cannabis indica) throughout his realm; and appointed a censor
of public morals (Muhtasib) in every large city to enforce the Prophet's
laws and put down forbidden practices, such as drinking, gambling
and the illicit commerce of the sexes. The punishment of heretical
opinions, blasphemy and omission of the five daily prayers or of the
Ramazan fast by Muslims lay within the province of this officer.
His puritanical rigour grew with age. In the eleventh year of his
reign (1668) he forbade music at his court and pensioned off the
state musicians and singers, many of whom had enjoyed honour and
high rank under the preceding sovereigns. The royal band was, how-
ever, retained. The ceremony of weighing (wazan) the emperor's
person on his birthday against gold and silver, which were then given
away in charity, was discontinued; and so also the custom of the
emperor applying a spot of sandal paste (tika) to the foreheads of
the great rajas when newly investing them (1679), and the ceremony
of the emperor showing himself every morning at an outer balcony
of the palace for his subjects to look at him (darshan)-because all
these were Hindu practices.
Gradually the festivities which used to be held on his birthday
and the anniversary of his coronation were abolished (1677); only
"betel leaves and scents were distributed among those present at
court”, and the grandees were forbidden to make the customary
presents to the emperor. In many other minute points a literal
compliance with the practice of early Islam was enjoined.


## p. 231 (#265) ############################################

SOCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS
231
But this attempt to elevate mankind by one stroke of the official
pen failed, as Akbar's social reforms had failed before. Aurangzib's
government made itself ridiculous by violently enforcing for a time,
then relaxing, and finally abandoning a code of puritanical morals
opposed to the feelings of the entire population, without first trying
to educate them to a higher level of thought. As Manucci observed,
there were few who did not drink secretly, and even the ministers and
qazis loved to get drunk at home. Gambling continued to be practised
in his camp, and his order to all the courtesans and dancing girls to
marry or leave the realm remained a dead letter. In 1664 he issued
an edict forbidding sati (the voluntary burning of Hindu widows),
but his government was powerless to enforce the prohibition every
where in the face of popular opposition. The castration of children
for sale as eunuchs, though again and again denounced by him,
continued in certain provinces.
Nevertheless much good was done in the economic sphere by the
pious emperor's determined opposition to uncanonical taxes and
illegal exactions (abwab). Immediately after his second enthrone-
ment (1659) he gave prompt and much needed relief to his subjects
in the scarcity which followed from the disturbances of the civil war
by abolishing the inland transport duty (rahdari), amounting to
10 per cent. ad valorem, and the octroi (pandari) on all articles of
food and drink brought from outside for sale in the larger cities.
This was done in the crown lands by the emperor's order (at a loss
of 212 million rupees per annum under rahdari alone), while the
jagirdars (assignees) and zamindars (landholders) were requested to
do the same in their estates.
The abwab or exactions made under various pretexts, in addition
to the regular land revenue or custom duty, were a prolific source
of oppression to the people, and were more burdensome in their
operation in proportion as their victims were poor and uninfluential
and distant from the imperial headquarters. These imposts were
again and again declared illegal and forbidden by Muslim sovereigns
of Delhi like Firuz Shah Tughluq (1375), Akbar (c. 1590) and
Jahangir (1605), but they invariably managed to reappear after a
short time. These abwab i included duties on the local sale of pro-
duce (i. e. octroi), perquisites exacted by the officials for their own
benefit, as well as fees and commissions levied on behalf of the state
on almost every conceivable occasion, licence tax for plying certain
trades, forced subscriptions, and gifts to officers, and special imposts
on the Hindus. Among the last were taxes on bathing in the
sacred waters (e. g. 644 rupees on every pilgrim at Allahabad) and a
fee charged on the bones of dead Hindus carried for being thrown
into the Ganges. As a tax was also levied on the father for the
birth of a male child, we may say that under the Mughuls illegal
1 The subject has been treated in detail in my Mughal Administration, chap. V.


## p. 232 (#266) ############################################

232
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
cesses pursued a man from birth to death. Aurangzib's edicts for
their abolition are dated 20 November, 1665, 29 April, 1673, and 1682.
But the timidity of the common people, the weakness of the central
government in the provinces and its lack of an adequate number of
reliable agents left the Indian population helpless under official
extortion, in spite of benevolent paper edicts from the court.
In the course of his enforcement of orthodoxy, Aurangzib's hand
did not spare the heretics of Islam. Even several Sufi philosophers
did not feel themselves safe, as their elastic pantheism was suspected
to be a coquetry with Hinduism and a veiled abjuration of the pure
dogmas of Islam. The emperor's accession was followed by the per-
secution of several holy men of liberal views but professed Muslims
whom Dara had favoured. The most notable victim of this class was
Sarmad, a Jew of Kashan (in Persia) converted to Islam, who com-
posed many smooth-flowing verses breathing the ardent mystical
fervour of the Sufi and the spirit of lofty catholicity which recognised
the truth inherent in all great creeds. Sarmad used to go about
absolutely naked, because like an uncompromising monist he denied
the existence of matter and felt no shame about anything pertaining
to the material body. He is said to have blessed Dara's banners in
the civil war, and was beheaded on the charge of heresy soon after
Aurangzib's accession. We also read of the execution of Shiahs for
cursing the first three Khalifs, and of converts to Islam for returning
to their old faith. The Isma'ilia (or Bohra) heretics of Gujarat were
subjected to bloody persecution by order of Aurangzib.
So long as Shah Jahan lived as a captive in Agra, Aurangzib
never visited that capital, for his relations with his deposed father
were extremely bitter and became the subject of public condemna-
tion throughout India and even outside. The court theologians,
particularly 'Abdul-Wahhab (who was rewarded with the chief
justiceship of the empire), justified his usurpation of a loving father's
throne on the ground that the old emperor had grown infirm and
intellectually unfit for governing the realm, and, therefore, the pro-
tection of the faithful required government by a pious and vigorous
man like Aurangzib. But the rest of the world denounced
Aurangzib's treatment of his father as an outrage on justice and
decorum.
A very acrimonious correspondence that plassed between father
and son during the earlier days of Shah Jahan's captive life can be
still followed in Aurangzib's replies, though Shah Jahan's letters to
him are lost. The ex-emperor's futile attempts to correspond with
Dara and Shuja' only led to an increase in the rigour of his captivity,
under Mu'tamid, the harsh eunuch in charge, who "sometimes
allowed it to be seen that he treated Shah Jahan as a miserable
captive" (Manucci). There were also disputes about the crown


## p. 233 (#267) ############################################

SHAH JAHAN'S LAST DAYS
233
jewels and Dara's property lodged in Agra fort, which Shah Jahan
tried in vain to withhold from the victor. Then he wrote bitter letters
charging Aurangzib with being an unnatural son and a rebel subject,
a robber of other people's property and a hypocrite. The latter
replied in a lofty tone of self-righteousness, posing as the champion
of pure Islam and of good government, and the humble but favourite
instrument of God in the work of moral reform and popular bene-
ficence, which had been endangered by his father's incompetence,
sloth and unjust rule : "Kingship means the protection of the realm
and the guardianship of the people. . . . A king is merely God's
elected custodian and the trustee of His money for the benefit of
the subjects” (Adab-i-'Alamgiri). Worsted in this contest with the
pen, Shah Jahan resigned himself to his fate and prepared for the
next world under the religious ministration of Sayyid Muhammad
Qanauji and the tender nursing of his eldest daughter Jahanara,
the Mughul Antigone. "All the ex-emperor's time was divided bet-
ween professing obedience to God, prayer, performance of all the
religious services, reading the Quran and listening to the histories
of the great men of the past. ” Seven and a half years passed in this
way, and then he died on 1 February, 1666, aged seventy-four,
The first great war of Aurangzib's reign was the invasion of
Assam. Early in the sixteenth century a Mongoloid soldier of fortune
had founded a kingdom in Cooch Behar, north of Bengal. Lakshmi
Narayan, the third king of this dynasty (r. 1584-1622), had professed
allegiance to Akbar. A younger branch of the family had been
installed over its eastern districts or Kamrup, i. e. the country between
the Sankosh and Bar Nadi rivers, which the Muslim writers called
Kuch Hajo. In 1612, taking advantage of a contest between the
two branches, the Mughuls conquered and annexed Kuch Hajo, but
this brought them into collision with the Ahoms. These Ahoms were
a branch of the Shan race, who had crossed the Patkai range in
the thirteenth century and established a kingdom of their own over
eastern and central Assam. They were a hardy race of demon-
worshippers, expert in building stockades, plying boats, and making
night attacks. Their society was organised on a feudal basis, under
a number of official nobles, who cultivated their estates by slave
labour. Their army consisted entirely of infantry, stiffened with
elephants; but during their wars with Bengal they had learnt the
use of firearms. Their king was the patriarch of the clan and was
venerated as a semi-divine being. After much desultory fighting with
.
the Mughuls of Kuch Hajo, the Ahom king made peace in 1638,
recognising the boundary line of the Bar Nadi.
During the war of succession, when Bengal was depleted of soldiers
and left without a governor, the Rajas of Cooch Benar and Assam
had sent troops from the west and the east respectively to seize the
Mughul district of Kamrup lying between their realms. The Muslim


## p. 234 (#268) ############################################

234
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
local officers had fled away from their charge, and the Ahoms had
occupied Gauhati and plundered the whole district, driving out the
Cooch Behar forces. When the civil war ended, Mir Jumla was
appointed viceroy of Bengal (June, 1660), with orders to punish these
rebel rajas. Leaving Dacca on 11 November, 1661, with an army of
12,000 horse and 30,000 foot, and a flotilla of 323 vessels of different
classes, Mir Jumla captured the capital of Cooch Behar (29 Decem-
ber) without a blow, as the raja and his officers had vacated it in
terror. The kingdom was annexed to the Mughul empire, and then
the general set out (14 January, 1662) on the invasion of Assam.
His men had to undergo unspeakable hardship in making their way
through the dense jungle and across numberless streams, but all their
sufferings were shared by their chief. The Ahom army offered
feeble resistance and kept retreating up the Brahmaputra, so that
the imperialists captured the successive forts on the way-Jogigupha,
Gauhati, Srighat, Pandu, Beltala, Kajali, Samdhara and Simla-garh.
In a naval battle fought on 13 March Mir Jumla annihilated the
enemy's naval power, and finally on 17 March entered their deserted
capital Garhgaon. The spoils taken were immense : 82 elephants,
three hundred thousand rupees, 675 pieces of artillery, 1345 zam-
buraks (swivels), 6750 matchlocks, and 1000 odd boats, besides much
gun-powder and paddy.
The Raja of Assam and his nobles having fled far away to the
hills, Mir Jumla could not conclude any treaty with them, but
decided to hold the country during the coming rainy season. The
Ahom capital, containing all the artillery, elephants, stores and
property of the Mughul army, was occupied by a strong garrison,
while the general himself went into quarters at Mathurapur, a high-
lying village, seven miles south-east of it. Many outposts were set
up for guarding the routes. The fleet could not sail up to Garhgaon,
on account of the shallowness of the river near that city; it, therefore,
anchored at Lakhau, some eighteen miles north-west. This was the
fatal weakness of the imperialists' position.
During the rainy season, from May to October, the country was
flooded, the movement of troops by land became impossible, the
imperial outposts were isolated, and the Mughul army in Assam
had to live in a state of siege. No provisions or news could come
from Bengal or from the fleet, as the gun-boats were too heavy to
navigate the shallow river near Garhgaon and the roads were sub-
merged. For lack of proper food, cavalry horses and draught cattle
perished by the thousand. On 20 May the Ahoms captured the
outposts at Gajpur and thus cut off communications between the
Mughul army and navy. Around Garhgaon they concentrated and
kept the garrison in perpetual alarm by attacks almost every night.
Several assaults in force were delivered, and in one of them the
bamboo fence of the fort was pierced and half the enclosure seized.
1
1


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MIR JUMLA IN ASSAM
233
But all these attacks were finally defeated by the exertion of every
man in the garrison.
In August a terrible epidemic broke out in Mir Jumla's camp at
Mathurapur. Fever and flux carried off hundreds daily, reducing the
army to nearly a quarter of its strength; no suitable diet or comfort
was available for the sick.