The Emperor Who Never Was
Page 29
At times the Sirr-i akbar blends its very own interpretive comments into the translation. For instance, it remarks on the horse sacrifice (ashvamedha yagna) discussed at the beginning of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. In ancient India, this sacrifice came to be associated with rites of sovereignty. The Brihadaranyaka allegorizes this sacrifice by identifying the sacrificial horse with the universe. The Sirr-i akbar adds this explanation: “Ashmed is a famous sacrifice (jag), not in the way that the literalists [view it] that a horse having been brought, must be sacrificed. Rather, ashmed connotes this meditative practice (mashghuli): that one considers oneself to be just as this horse that is going to be sacrificed.…”62 Like a Sufi commentary on the Quran, the Sirr-i akbar distinguishes between an interpretation that only looks at the text’s external, literal meaning, and one that reveals its inner, hidden essence. By reshaping the horse sacrifice as an interior spiritual practice, this passage also reflects how Dara Shukoh sees these sacred Indic texts as offering a path to liberation.
Dara Shukoh’s Upanishad project cemented Kavindracharya’s role as a leader amongst his Brahmin peers, and a mediator of Indic knowledge for non-Hindus. A few years later, the French traveler François Bernier sat down with a group of six pandits in Benares in his own quest to understand Indian philosophy and religion. A prominent pandit arranged this meeting. Though Bernier does not name him, this was almost certainly Kavindra, whom Bernier describes as the “chief” of the pandits. These Brahmin scholars discussed religious matters with Bernier, explaining that when they worship images in a temple, their prayers are actually offered to the divine and not to the idols, the images serving merely to focus their devotions to God “who is the absolute master and the only almighty.”63 Bernier does not doubt their sincerity, though he also suspected that the explanation was part of an effort to make the veneration of idols more palatable to Christian doctrine. One might conceive that such an approach helped Dara Shukoh derive a strong monotheistic message from texts about multiple deities.
In the course of his own study of Indic texts, which he conducted in Persian, as he did not know Sanskrit, Bernier worked with one of the most renowned pandits of India. Again, this may have been Kavindra, for Bernier notes that his Indian companion and teacher for some three years had earlier been in Dara Shukoh’s employ. Indeed, Bernier’s presentation of the Vedas and the antiquity of Sanskrit have notable parallels with Dara Shukoh’s earlier explanations in the Sirr-i akbar, drawn from his own engagements with pandits.64
As for Kavindra, he became enormously popular amongst his fellow Brahmin scholars, who composed two anthologies of verses praising him—one largely in Sanskrit, and the other in Hindavi.65 According to their accounts, he had successfully convinced the emperor to abolish a tax on Hindu pilgrims visiting the holy cities of Benares and Allahabad. In these eulogies, he becomes a hero, journeying to the court to give an eloquent discourse, stunning the diverse audience of nobles. There were present Iraqis, Khurasanis, Abyssinians, Badakhshanis, Multanis, Balkhis, and others, says the poet Hirarama. No promises of wealth could tempt the Brahmin to temper his stand; he insisted that the tax be repealed.66 Hirarama elides the fact that Kavindra had long been the recipient of imperial largesse.
Shah Jahan’s Persian chronicles remain silent on this incident. They also do not mention any tax imposed on Hindu pilgrims. Whatever the actual details of this event, we can assume that something must have taken place for Kavindra to be lauded thus by his peers. Nonetheless, the question of its timing remains unresolved. As Kavindra only seems to have enjoyed imperial attention after 1650, it is likely that he extracted this favor from Shah Jahan in the 1650s and not earlier. The Kavindrachandrodaya notes that the pandit managed to win the tax relief on the day of a Hindu festival dedicated to the sun deity, Surya, which occurs in January.67 The last recorded monetary gift that Kavindra received at the court was in January 1657, before the Sirr-i akbar was completed. The occasion was the emperor’s solar weighing, when scholars, poets, and others would customarily receive imperial largesse.68 Though it is tempting to imagine that lifting the tax may have constituted a preemptive reward of sorts for Kavindra’s work on the Upanishads, the story seems to have been more complicated. Evidence from Kavindra’s own poetic composition, the Kavindrakalpalata, suggests that the tax may have been lifted earlier.69
Nevertheless, after the Sirr-i akbar’s completion, there would have been little opportunity for bestowing imperial favors. Shah Jahan soon fell seriously ill, and Dara Shukoh was consumed with his care.
9
SUCCESSION
1657–1659
SHAH JAHAN WAS TOO ILL to leave his bedchamber in the Red Fort—an inlaid and gilded marble structure where carved lattices filtered light and air and hanging blinds sealed the open archways. While the emperor ailed, Dara Shukoh guarded him fiercely. Shah Jahan’s condition worsened day by day, relates the chronicler Muhammad Salih Kamboh, who lived through this period. The emperor was afflicted with strangury, or urination that was both excruciating and incomplete. Along with this, he suffered dehydration, swelling below the navel, and fever. In modern medical terminology, he would likely have had an acute bacterial prostate infection. Such illnesses could be especially serious in an age before antibiotics.1 Medical doctors including the renowned Hakim Daud, known by the title Muqarrab Khan, as well as other unnamed “Christian physicians,” strove to cure the emperor. Dara Shukoh tended to his father constantly, staying with him in his private apartments.2
Rumors surged out of Shahjahanabad to the rest of the empire. Many people thought that the emperor was dead and that Dara was keeping the news a secret. In truth, there was not much he could have done to avert the gossip. An emperor’s illness was a calamity, toppling the equilibrium of humors that was thought to maintain the kingdom’s health as well as his own. Shuja’s retainer, Mir Muhammad Masum (fl. 1660), who felt the repercussions in distant Bengal, emphasized the importance of the emperor’s well-being with a verse: “As long as the incomparable Shah’s elements are healthy / The constitution of the age achieves balance.”3
Masum was right about the empire’s stability being threatened. Shah Jahan’s ailment unleashed a series of events that would pit Dara Shukoh against his brothers. In an attempt to quell hearsay and speculation, Dara blocked most courtiers from all access to the emperor or his news, also detaining his brothers’ agents at court. Masum claims Dara ordered for Mir Abu-l-Hasan, Shuja’s representative, to be shackled and pilloried, and even threatened to rend the man’s limbs. Such acts, according to Masum, planted in the kingdom’s soil the seed of fasad, a word connoting corruption, sedition, and chaos, a threat to the state and to order.4
The events that took place soon afterward convulsed Hindustan. Eventually, more authors would write about the struggle for succession between Shah Jahan’s sons than probably any other event in the dynasty’s history before the 1857 rebellion against British colonial rule. But with the breakdown of power at the center, we have few substantial official accounts favoring Shah Jahan’s or Dara Shukoh’s perspectives.5 And the prince, experiencing the biggest crisis of his life, would hardly find the opportunity to pursue his own writing. It is conceivable that many sources did not survive the ravages of time. Only a few of Dara’s letters and decrees from this period remain.
Writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the court administrator Muhammad Faiz Bakhsh (fl. 1818) quotes in the course of his history from an unnamed report, which he claims was written by Dara Shukoh’s private secretary.6 But by all measures this source does not appear to survive independently. We are left with a shifting kaleidoscope of reports and anecdotes that take us further from Dara Shukoh and the perspective of his inner circle. Among the cacophony of voices, three chronicles stand out, each written by a partisan of a different prince. The Waqiat-i Alamgiri, composed after the events by a votary of Aurangzeb, is attributed to the poet Mir Askari Razi (d. 1696/7), who later received the title of Aqil Khan. Murad Bakhsh’s tut
or, Bihishti, an Iranian litterateur, composed the Ashob-i Hindustan, a versified synopsis of the turmoil in the late 1650s. Shah Shuja’s retainer, Muhammad Masum, wrote a history of the succession wars, into which he sometimes inserts his own personal narratives as an eyewitness. Masum’s history is known simply as the Tarikh-i Shah Shujai. Taken together, these three accounts offer valuable early insight into the momentous aftermath of Shah Jahan’s illness.
Within a week, on September 24, 1657, the emperor had recovered enough to appear at the viewing balcony near his bedchamber, where Mughal emperors since the time of Akbar had customarily showed themselves to their subjects. His courtiers offered kornish obeisances. This was the occasion of an important proclamation. Dara Shukoh would have his rank increased to 50,000, with 40,000 cavalry. His annual income would also rise. With these gifts came an understanding that the heir would now be responsible for the affairs of state. By the end of October, the emperor’s health had improved enough for him to travel to Agra for a change of air. This would now be their new base of operations. Care was taken to weed out potential traitors. Muazzam Khan, already summoned from the Deccan, was removed from the post of prime minister. The Shahjahanabad Fort was left in the care of Khalilullah Khan. The other nobles recalled from the Deccan, Mir Jumla, Mahabat Khan, and Rao Sattarsal, would now report to the court in Agra.7
All the while, writes Masum, the times were as agitated as the tortuous “ringlets of moon-faced beauties.”8 As Dara’s brothers’ informants were prevented from sending reports, news of the emperor’s recovery may not have reached the other princes. Or, they did not trust what their agents conveyed. Shuja, believing the emperor to be dead, enthroned himself as emperor. He included in his grandiose title the epithet “Third Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction,” after Shah Jahan and Timur. He also added the phrase “Second Alexander,” after the Macedonian world conqueror, Alexander, the quintessential philosopher-king in Persian literature and a model for Mughal rule. Then, he loaded his army onto boats and headed upstream toward Shahjahanabad. On the tenth of December, Dara Shukoh prevailed upon Shah Jahan to send the twenty-two-year-old Sulaiman Shukoh to counter Shuja with an army of twenty thousand cavalry. The experienced Mirza Raja Jai Singh, who had now become Sulaiman Shukoh’s relative by marriage, accompanied the young prince.9
The currents of the Ganges moved the imperial forces swiftly eastward. But uncertainty beset Mirza Raja Jai Singh, who preferred to tread cautiously. He was seemingly reluctant to anger the emperor, whom he thought might favor striking a deal with Shuja. It seems that his relationship with Sulaiman soured during their journey. Dara Shukoh and Nadira took quick action to appease the raja. Dara assured him that Sulaiman’s reports would now be routed directly through Jai Singh. A communication from Nadira encourages the raja to spare no efforts toward victory and informs him that the emperor had granted him a generous monetary gift.10 Soon afterward, Dara Shukoh urges Jai Singh to bring back Shuja’s head.11
The imperial army pitched camp at Bahadurpur, near Benares. Shuja’s army was nearby, in a secluded spot with easy access to the river for transport and supplies. Dara Shukoh wrote Jai Singh urging him to attack.12 On February 24, 1658, the imperial forces stormed Shuja’s camp.
Sulaiman Shukoh realized that the men under Shuja’s command had been negligent in their surveillance, writes Masum. Apparently, over the past twenty-five years in Bengal, Shuja’s soldiers had grown accustomed to sleeping in until the day’s second watch, or noon. The morning of the attack, they were comfortably supine atop their charpoys, shielded by mosquito nets. When the invaders streamed into their camp, they drowsily rubbed their eyes awake. There was no time even to put on their armor or fasten their weapons. Shuja was nowhere on the scene. In Masum’s words, “the Sultan of the horizons, too, by the dictates of fate, was at that time in a state of repose.” When eventually he did emerge, having clambered onto an elephant, it was too late.13
It was an easy victory for the imperial army, but Shuja managed to escape. He and some of his men fled by boat to Patna and, from there, to the fort of Mungir, where he hoped to withstand a siege. Sulaiman Shukoh went in hot pursuit of Shuja. Raja Jai Singh, on the other hand, took his time in arriving.14
About a month later, the imperial court obtained news of the successful campaign at Bahadurpur. It provided some comfort. The Mirza Raja and Sulaiman Shukoh received increases in their ranks. Dara Shukoh took care to congratulate Jai Singh after the Bahadurpur victory, even though it was largely Sulaiman Shukoh’s operation. It was the biggest military success the subcontinent had seen in over a century, the prince said.15 He fondly addressed the raja as “Dada bhai” to reflect their recent kinship ties after Sulaiman’s marriage.16 But Dara Shukoh and Shah Jahan already had to deal with other new crises raging in Gujarat and the Deccan. There was still no resolution to Shuja’s rebellion.
* * *
UPON HEARING OF SHAH JAHAN’S ILLNESS, Murad Bakhsh sprung into action. He put to death his diwan, Ali Naqi, whom he suspected of harboring sympathies for Dara Shukoh. Next, with the help of the eunuch Shahbaz Khan, he besieged and plundered the fort at the port city of Surat, extracting six lakh rupees. He also disobeyed the imperial order (via Dara Shukoh) to transfer to Berar, which was actually under Aurangzeb’s governance. After this groundwork, he proclaimed himself emperor on the fifteenth of December 1657. Murad even had a poet to sing his praises—Bihishti of Shiraz, who was the prince’s former tutor.17 Bihishti extols the grand celebrations during Murad’s enthronement, which, according to him, lasted for twenty days: “In that gathering, from one end to another / The air turned into jewel-scattering clouds / Gold, gems and silver, in the capital / Rained down like blossoms from a tree // Inasmuch as gold and silver were scattered / Hands refrained from collecting it.”18 Such rich detail was a feature of the epic poetry genre and not necessarily meant to reflect reality.
But since October, Murad, Aurangzeb, and Shuja had started corresponding with each other. What began as polite salutations discussing their father’s illness became full-fledged conspiracies, complete with veiled language and arrangements to bypass imperial spies. If Murad’s imperial aspirations troubled Aurangzeb, he hid it well. But Aurangzeb did take the lead in formulating a plan of action. In a letter to Murad, he mentions that a secret code would be sent subsequently. All further correspondence must be conducted using the code, Aurangzeb instructs.19
At the same time, reports Aqil Khan, Aurangzeb plied Shah Jahan with a stream of letters and gifts of grapes, no doubt attempting to dispel suspicion. Dara Shukoh, for his part, tried to preempt a third claimant to the throne. In Aqil Khan’s account, Dara naively sent Aurangzeb’s agent Isa Beg back to the Deccan, to convince the younger prince of the emperor’s good health. This move backfired. Instead, Isa Beg persuaded Aurangzeb that Shah Jahan was too feeble to rule effectively and that Dara Shukoh had appropriated the reins of power.20
Aurangzeb could not afford to fight battles on multiple fronts. His strategy was to appease both Murad Bakhsh and Shuja, ignoring their recent betrayals of his previous agreements with them. As communications with Shuja would have to pass through imperial territory, Aurangzeb and Murad, it appears, exchanged more letters with each other than with Shuja. At this point, the correspondence between Murad and Aurangzeb seems mainly concerned with logistics and plans. Murad is eager to attack Agra immediately. Aurangzeb stresses the wisdom of biding their time, even suggesting that they invite the Iranian ruler Shah Abbas to attack from the west so that the imperial forces could be even further dispersed.21
These exchanges are occasionally tinged with religious undertones, at least in the forms in which they exist today. The letters of the imperial siblings have come down to us in various collections compiled much after they were written, and it could be that they bear the imprint of these later times. In early 1658, Aurangzeb was ready to march toward Agra. Appended to a letter to Murad that he wrote before going to war is an agreement (ahad-nama), if an offer with an impl
ied stick accompanying it could be called one. Apparently, it also included Aurangzeb’s signature and hand impression, to underscore its seriousness and authenticity.22
The kernel of this agreement was this: Aurangzeb would ascend the throne, but he would share the empire with Murad. The terms of this arrangement are left conveniently vague. If Murad offered his full cooperation, and made Aurangzeb’s “friends his friends” and his brother’s “enemies his enemies,” then he would receive all the empire’s western territories, including the Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Sindh.23 Aqil Khan also discusses the details of the agreement but leaves out any suggestion of sectarian or religious motivations from his history. He does, however, repeatedly refer to Murad and Dara as “foolish” and “idiots without reason,” quick to be duped by Aurangzeb’s stratagems, but he gives no hint of religious animus.24
There is more to this document, though. The letter resounds with the bombast of religious war. Aurangzeb begins by announcing the main goal of his campaign, which is, “with the endeavors of the victorious standard’s religious warriors, and the force of the victory-culminating forearms of the jihad-wagers, to pluck out the thorn of apostasy and heresy from the ever-blooming rose garden of the lands of Islam.” He also wishes that the “leader of the apostates, together with his followers and partisans, would become nothing and non-existent.” Later, he refers again to Dara as a “godforsaken apostate.” From being a jealous, unjust brother, Dara Shukoh has now become an apostate from Islam. The charge of apostasy meant that not only would Dara be an illegitimate claimant to the throne but that his killing, too, would be justified.25