Indian Antiquary Vol 40

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 83

MARCE, 1911.)
THE EMPEROR AURANGZEB ALAMGIR
The death of the deposed emperor Shābjabān, who had been kept in close though honorable captivity at Agrah, occurred on the 26th Rajab 1076 H. (Feb. 1st, 1666), in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
During these early years of the reign, there were long continued disturbances on the northwestern frontier, arising from the turbulence of the Pathān tribes. The then governor of Kabul, Muhammad Amin Khan, son of Mir Gumlah, was badly defeated and his family made prisoners, 1667. Other incidents unfavourable to the Mughal arms continued to take place; and on April 22nd 1674, Aurangzēb left Dehli and moved to Hasan Abdal (Rāwiłpindi district) to watch the frontier, and he remained there for over eighteen months. He was there from the 12th Rabi II, 1085 H. (July 16th, 1674), to the 15th Zül Qa'dah 1686 H. (January 31st, 1676).
In 1672 a new Hindu sect arose, called the Satnamis, and inspired by an old woman who told them that they were invulnerable, they attempted a march on Debli. Before they could be suppressed, the emperor was forced to take the field in person. From this time Aurangzēb's personal devotion to his religion began to colour more and more openly his public acts. All his rules and regulations were modelled as closely as possible on those prevailing in the early days of Islam and expounded in the treatises of its learned men. Hindu temples, at Matburā and Banāras were destroyed and the sites used for the erection of mosques; while the poll-tax or jizyah, an imposition extremely odious to the Hindūs, was put in force. It was about this time, too, that Tegh Babūdur, Gurú or spiritual head of the Sikhs, was seized by the faujdar of Sahrind while passing Rupar on the Sutlaj, being then on his way to bathe in the Ganges; and as he refused to accept Islam, he was executed on Nov. 13th, 1675.
A combination of events intensified this tendency to intolerancy, leading to an invasion of Rājputānnh and an attempt to absorb the quasi independent Hindū states of that region. Rajah Jagwant Singh, Rathor, had been from the first somewhat of a thorn in the side of Aurangzēb, and to keep him out of mischief he was sent across the Indus (1671) to be faujdar of Jamrüd at the mouth of the Khaibar Pass. There be died on the 6th Zü,1 Qu'dah 1089 H. (Dec. 18th, 1678), and his family was sent back to India. At Labor two of bis widows gave birth to poethamons sons; and when they arrived at Debli on their way home to Jodhpur, the emperor made an attempt to seize these infants. By the valour of their Rajput escort, commanded by the heroic Durgā Dāk, one of the infants was saved. This outrage rankled in the bosoms, not only of the Rathors, but of all the Rājput clans. The Kachbwāhah rajah of Amber alone remained neutral; but the powerful Lisadiyah Rână of Udepur, the head of all the Rajpats, espoused the Räthor quarrel. In India, the transfer of rule upon the death of a king or chief is always selected as a favourable time for encroachments, or the resumption of territory. Aurangzeb was not slow to seize the opening given by Jaswant Sing's death for the incorporation of Jodhpur, and with good fortune to help, perhaps Udepur, too, might be annexed, if the Rānā were also attacked.
Aurangzēb chose Ajmer as a central point for his headquarters and arrived there on the 29th Sha'bân 1090 H. (Oct. 5th, 1679). Prince Ma'azzam was ordered up from the Dakhin, and the third son, A'zam Shāh, was despatched from Ajmer at the head of an army. Ūdepur was occupied and the Rānā fled ; hundreds of temples were destroyed and Aurangzēb paid a visit to the scene of his triumph (Feb. 1680). But his fourth son, Akbar, a restless and ambitious young man, bad been successfully tampered with by Durga Das and the Rathors. He fled to them, 26th Zū,1 Hijjah 1091 H. (January 18th, 1681), and set up the standard of revolt; and one of his Mahomedan adherents penetrated to Aurangzēb's tent and made a bold attempt to assassinate him, January 24th 1681. Muazzam and A'gam barried to Ajmer and Akbar, who had come to within three miles of his father's camp, tled during the night of the 6th Moharram 1092 H. (January 25th, 1681). Muazzam started in purgoit, and Akbar, leaving his family in the hands of