The Emperor Who Never Was

by Supriya Gandhi

  Dara penned a hopeful letter to Rana Raj Singh as he approached Ajmer. “I’ve thrown my honor in with all descendants of Rajputs. I’ve come as the guest of all Rajputs.” He mentioned, too, that Jaswant Singh, the “cream of Rajput rulers,” was supporting him.111 There was no movement from Raj Singh’s side.

  As Dara Shukoh drew near, he sent a messenger to Jaswant Singh in Jodhpur. The Rajput ruler gave an evasive reply, so the prince waited longer. Eventually, he sent Sipihr Shukoh to meet Jaswant Singh. The raja finally, eyes averted, gave a clear answer: “I’m a loyal servant in the court of the World’s Refuge and it would be beyond reason and wisdom to expect any help from me.”112

  By now, Dara Shukoh was a seasoned warrior. He secured his army in trenches protected on either side by a long, narrow mountain range.113 Eventually, though, his troops proved no match for a constellation of Mughal India’s powerful commanders: Aurangzeb, fresh from a victory over Shuja; Shaista Khan; Mirza Raja Jai Singh; Raja Rajrup; and Shaikh Mir, who lost his life to Dara’s men. The empire’s most prominent Hindu nobles now either joined Aurangzeb or, like Raj Singh and Jaswant Singh, stayed away from the fray. After Dara’s defeat, the imperial army looted his soldiers and raided his coffers. He fled west and then south, traveling separately with Sipihr Shukoh before meeting up with the women in his family.

  They kept going, with Jai Singh and others in swift pursuit, but they had nowhere to find refuge. Dara had less than two thousand soldiers to begin with. Bandits attacked the men, and their animals, famished and dehydrated, dropped dead along the way. Near Ahmedabad, Dara ran into the French physician Francois Bernier, who had only reached India earlier that year. Dara persuaded Bernier to join them, as they were without a medical doctor. The prince insisted that Bernier sleep in his caravanserai. There, the physician noticed that the women of his household did not even have a tent. These princesses, who would ordinarily maintain strict seclusion, now slept behind flimsy fabric screens tied to the wheels of their cart. The next morning, they discovered that the governor had barred them from entering Ahmedabad, where they had only recently found welcome. When these women heard this news, “they broke out at once into cries and lamentations so strange and pitiful that they brought tears to the eyes,” recalls Bernier.114 The party headed northwest, toward Sindh. Dara’s army shrank rapidly to a few hundred soldiers. The desert sun blazed so fiercely, it killed an ox pulling Bernier’s cart. Dara pressed Bernier to stay—one of his wives, Nadira, perhaps, had a festering wound on her leg—but could find no mount for his transport. Bernier parted ways with them. With that, he would have no more direct contact with Dara and his family.

  The royal entourage traveled farther west, losing more men along the way. By now Nadira was gravely ill with dysentery. Her body succumbed, Masum reports, to “grief from the separation from her older son, Sulaiman Shukoh, and other endless tribulations.” Young Sipihr Shukoh, whose recent life was a rude departure from his upbringing in an atmosphere of privilege and abundance, was beside himself with worry. He wanted to stay put so that they could adequately treat his mother’s illness, but fate did not cooperate. “Agonized and stupefied,” the small group straggled toward the general direction of Iran.115

  Between Multan and Qandahar as the crow flies, near the Bolan pass cleaving Mughal Baluchistan from the Iranian dominions, lay a territory ruled by a landowner called Malik Jivan. A while before, Jivan, after being convicted of a crime, was sentenced to a gory death under the feet of stampeding elephants. Jivan knew someone who was very close to one of Dara Shukoh’s servants and managed, through him, to elicit the prince’s sympathy. Dara intervened with the emperor and saved the landowner’s life. He thought that perhaps now Jivan would be able to repay his obligation. As they drew close to Jivan’s lands, Nadira, “out of misery and illness, became veiled by the curtain of God’s forgiveness.” She had breathed her last. Dara Shukoh’s “light-filled eyes clouded over with darkness,” and he grew crazed with grief.116

  Jivan learned of Dara Shukoh’s arrival and invited him to be his guest for a short while, so that he could recover from the fatigue of his journey, and figure out his next steps. Nadira’s death had “broken the back” of Dara’s “forbearance and strength.” Sipihr Shukoh and the prince’s well-wishers in his group tried to talk him out of accepting Jivan’s invitation, saying that the landowner was a notorious villain. Dara Shukoh stubbornly insisted on taking him up on it. He sent Nadira’s body back to be buried in Lahore and allowed his few remaining servants to go. His other wives may also have gone with them, because we do not hear about them staying with Jivan. Dara was left with his son and two daughters. Jivan promptly dispatched a fast courier with a message to Jai Singh and Bahadur Khan: “I’ve trapped the golden-winged bird.”117

  The next day, the pursuing army arrived and surrounded Jivan’s home. When Dara was captured, writes Bihishti, his daughter tore out: “When that flower blown onto the dirt by the wind / Fell, in that manner, at Jivan’s feet.” She begged the “stone-hearted” landowner to free her father. Even if that meant enslaving her:

  Bring me, with countless gold and jewels

  Into the train of maidservants in your kitchen

  My mother is the daughter of Parwez Shah

  My father is Timur’s descendant, possessor of glory

  Exhibit me to the world in the position of a maidservant

  Release the fetters from Dara’s legs.118

  Malik Jivan remained unmoved. Dara’s elder daughter, Paknihad Bano, may indeed have pleaded with Jivan thus, though for Bihishti this anecdote has a function beyond veracity. By giving this unnamed daughter a voice and filling it with verse, Bihishti accentuates the pathos of Dara’s capture.

  Jivan, newly rewarded with the title Bakhtiyar Khan, together with Bahadur Khan hustled Dara Shukoh and his family to Shahjahanabad. It was thought that Dara might thereafter be imprisoned in Gwalior’s infamous fort, just like his brother Murad, who still languished there.119 First, in a display of the new dispensation’s power, Dara Shukoh and Sipihr Shukoh, their clothes in tatters, were paraded around the city on a filthy elephant.120 Bernier found a place where he could have a good view. The spectacle triggered widespread mourning and protest. He remarks that Dara “was very much beloved by the masses (du menu peuble) who cried forcefully against the cruelty and tyranny of Aurangzeb for imprisoning his father, his own son Sultan Mahmoud (sic), and his brother Morad-Bakche.” Wailing and heaving, the crowd of onlookers swelled. Bernier, who expected to witness an execution, reports that some “fakires and poor people from the Bazaar” began hurling stones at Jivan and cursing him, but none found the courage to draw a sword. Aurangzeb’s advisors warned of a dangerous insurrection.121

  In Bihishti’s lament on Hindustan, it is precisely the public outpouring of sympathy for the captive prince and the anger at Jivan that swayed Aurangzeb’s decision to put his brother to death:

  In this way, inside the capital it happened thus

  The ill fated Jivan had his face blackened

  From every quarter, roof and door without pause

  They caught him with curses and stones

  From every corner the loud mayhem arising

  Threw the emperor into apprehension

  He asked, “What is this noise and rioting?

  Who is the weaver of this sedition?”

  It was submitted to him, “O ruler,

  This chaos and evil has become manifest because of Dara”

  The people are all praising him

  They are badmouthing the emperor

  When Aurang Shah heard these words

  He trembled with zeal for himself

  He said to himself, As long as Dara lives

  Our world-rulership will not have stability

  He wiped off the reflection of affection and loyalty from his heart

  That moment he signaled for his (Dara’s) killing.122

  In contrast to the rioting throngs of Bihishti’s lamentation, Masum’s narra
tive does not mention the public protests. Instead, it lays the blame on Roshanara and other well-wishers who encouraged Aurangzeb to eliminate Dara for good.123 But it is Bernier who gives us the idea of an actual assembly convened to decide Dara’s fate. Though he could not have possibly been at the events as he describes them for he was far from inner Aurangzeb’s inner circle, Bernier brings us close into deliberations of the council. Here, he says, Shaista Khan, Khalilullah Khan, and Roshanara were present. It would be unusual, though, if she had been physically there with the other men. In Bernier’s version, by far the most strident voice against Dara was that of Shah Jahan’s former physician, Hakim Daud, also known by his title Taqarrub Khan. In his telling, Hakim Daud, a “villainous man (méchant homme),” rose up before the full assembly, shouting that it was “expedient for the safety of the State to put [the prince] to death immediately.” The Hakim argued that Dara’s death was warranted, for he “had ceased to be a Musulman” having rather “long since become a Kafier, an idolater, without religion.”124 Taken together, these accounts go some measure in exonerating Aurangzeb from the singular responsibility of ordering his brother’s death. They shift the blame to his sister or the Iranian physician. Surely, Aurangzeb would benefit from the idea that Dara’s execution was a considered decision, made under the guidance of the emperor’s close advisors.

  In Bernier’s report of Hakim Daud’s words lie the tiniest seeds of the stories that later took root: that a council of ulama determined the firstborn prince’s fate and even that they tried him for heresy and proclaimed him guilty. It would take a while for the murmurs about Dara’s heresy and apostasy to turn into a detailed indictment. Almost thirty years later, Aurangzeb’s official historian, Muhammad Kazim, would write the following condemnation of Dara Shukoh:

  [N]ot content with displaying the degrees of permissiveness and apostasy that were fixed in his nature, which he named tasawwuf, he developed an inclination for the religion (din) of the Hindus, and the traditions and institutions of those people of bad faith. He always had affection for brahmins, jogis and sanyasis, and considered that wayward, misleading and false group to be perfect spiritual guides and gnostics united with the truth. He thought that their books, which they call Veda (bed) were the word of God revealed in heaven, and he called them “eternal codex” and “noble book.”125 Because of the false belief he reposed in the fruitless Veda, he gathered together sanyasis and brahmins from various areas for a mammoth effort, and with great patronage, to help in translating it. His time was constantly spent on this immoral task and in thinking and meditating on the misguided contents of this book. Instead of the Beautiful Names of God, he etched a Hindu name, which Hindus called Prabhu, on his ringstones of diamond, ruby, emerald and other gems, which he wore.126

  Kazim objects to Dara Shukoh’s (in his view blasphemous) engagement with Indic thought, but not to Sufism as such. He refers to the prince’s project of translating the Upanishads, which he represents as Dara’s main preoccupation. In reality, of course, this translation capped a lifetime of diverse activities and spiritual endeavors. Kazim also cites Dara’s rings inscribed with the name “Prabhu.” The prince does not mention these rings in his own writings, but if he did have them made, they would not have been such a radical innovation in the Mughal court. Akbar, the great-grandfather of both Dara and Aurangzeb, commissioned rings on which “Allahu akbar” was carved. This phrase signified not merely divine praise uttered during ritual devotion affirming the transcendence of God, for it also was a play on words hinting at the emperor’s own divinity. These rings were then bestowed on the emperor’s select disciples.127 Seen in this context, Dara’s rings, alluded to here, could well invoke Akbar’s earlier tradition of elect discipleship. The prince may have given them to a chosen few who would understand that “Prabhu” was only a different name for the one God.

  Despite these more specific accusations against Dara Shukoh, Kazim’s account, too, acknowledges the role of the crowds in the prince’s subsequent execution. Dara’s heresies provided justification enough for his death—he was a “barren date-palm” whose only fruits were “leaves of sedition and corruption” and “thorns of deviance and apostasy.” But “the flame of corruption was about to flare up” when the masses rose up to attack Bakhtiyar Khan (Jivan) with sticks and stones, and Aurangzeb had to take quick action for the sake of the empire’s “peace and security (amn o aman).”128

  It is Kazim’s account that endures—not the vague stabs at pinning the label “heretic” or “apostate” on Dara that we see through the unofficial chronicles of the succession war. Modern writers, novelists, and playwrights often quote this first passage from Kazim’s Alamgir-nama almost verbatim, as though it is an open window onto Dara’s inner life and not a retrospective spin to justify the prince’s murder. But while Dara Shukoh was alive, these aspersions had yet to coalesce into a coherent narrative.

  The accounts of Masum, Bihishti, and other observers of the battle for succession, as well as Aurangzeb’s correspondences with his family, reveal a rich, complex set of ideas about what it meant to live as a Muslim. In these texts, Islam is not merely a checklist of religious observances. Islam is also how you treat your parents and siblings—recall Jahanara’s admonishment of Aurangzeb. To be a Muslim is to honor your agreements, as Masum has Murad Bakhsh declare. To be religious is to have hope in adverse times, as Daud Khan reminds Dara in Masum’s narration. And, Bihishti informs us, contrary to what Aurangzeb’s chroniclers would write, that Dara Shukoh, till his dying breath, never renounced Islam: “When his killer brought the cup of poison / saying, ‘Quaff it by the order of the emperor of the age’ // He refused and said, ‘First of all / I’ve had true faith in God // I’m a Muslim and a follower of Mustafa (the Chosen Prophet) / why sacrifice myself like the unbelievers? / My heart has grown cold to life / by whatever means you know, slaughter me.’ ”129

  Masum has a more intricate description of the prince’s final hours. Once Aurangzeb decided that Dara must die, the emperor summoned Saif Khan, his chela, an Indic word meaning “a guru’s disciple.” Ever since Akbar’s reign, an emperor’s close servants were called chelas, explains Masum, though it was more common in the Mughal court to call them murids, disciples of a Sufi shaikh. Saif Khan’s father Tarbiyat Khan had a distinguished record of imperial service and had been Shah Jahan’s paymaster. “Go at this instance,” commanded Aurangzeb, “and separate Sultan Dara Shukoh’s son from his father.” After that, Aurangzeb continued, Saif Khan was to carry out God’s will.

  The chelas reached the place where Dara was held. When he saw them, he sprang up. “Have you been sent to kill?” he asked. “We really know nothing about killing anyone,” they replied. “The order has come that your son be separated from you and kept under guard in another place. We’ve come to take him.” Sipihr Shukoh and his father were sitting close to each other. “Get up,” ordered Nazar Beg, harshly. Sipihr Shukoh lost his mind, and sobbing and wailing, clutched hold of his father’s legs. Father and son embraced tightly, weeping. “Get up,” the chelas ordered Sipihr Shukoh, threatening to drag him away otherwise.

  Dara Shukoh wiped his tears and pleaded with the chelas that they ask Aurangzeb to spare his own nephew. In Masum’s account, Dara recited a verse by the Persian poet and moralist Saadi, which he hoped would inspire Aurangzeb’s future actions: “It’s easy to retaliate with bad for bad / If you’re a man, ‘Do good to the one who harms you.’ ”130 The verse is from a story in Saadi’s Bustan about a magnanimous king, and it weaves in an Arabic quote from the Prophet’s nephew Ali ibn Abi Talib.

  “We’re nobody’s messengers,” the chelas replied. “We need to carry out our orders.” Saying this, they violently snatched Sipihr Shukoh from his father’s arms and took him away. Earlier Dara, having realized that his end was near, had hidden in a pillow a small folding penknife used for sharpening reed pens. He whipped it out of the pillow cover and stabbed the chela who was about to seize him. The tiny knife got stuck in h
is victim’s bone. Dara tried unsuccessfully to pull it out. He then used his fist to land some blows. The chelas, acting in unison, pounced on the prince. Sipihr Shukoh was being held nearby. The last sounds Dara Shukoh heard were his son’s piercing cries.131

  The story soon circulated that Dara’s severed head uttered the Muslim declaration of faith (shahada), the miraculous sign of a righteous martyr (shahid), who even after death bears witness to the oneness of God. The chelas brought the head to Aurangzeb, who appeared reluctant to actually look at it. “I never saw the face of that faith-forsaker when alive and have no wish to do so now,” Masum quotes him saying.132 Here Aurangzeb is permitted some reticence, and revulsion, to distance himself from the act. The new emperor did order that Dara’s head be reattached to his body, so that he could be interred.

  But Manucci’s account is gorier—the emperor stabs his dead brother’s face thrice, the head laughs eerily, and he then sends it to Shah Jahan as though offering a gift, leaving his father, the former emperor, shocked and his eldest daughter utterly distraught. To memorialize this gruesome event, Manucci included among the miniatures he had commissioned in India a painting of Aurangzeb receiving Dara’s severed head—a scene which is otherwise absent from the repertoire of the imperial atelier. Just as with Masum, there are reasons to be a bit suspicious of Manucci, despite his abiding sympathies for the prince. On Manucci’s page, Dara dies a Christian martyr, by rejecting the Prophet while steadfastly professing devotion to Christ in the face of certain death. Here Dara calls out for a priest to hear his last words, but to no avail, “Muhammad kills me and the son of God will give me life.”133 But this version, which is meant to endear Dara to Manucci’s Christian readers, serves a very practical purpose: it lends even greater tragedy to the events, while accentuating the tyranny of Aurangzeb, a figure who Manucci consistently vilifies as a duplicitous zealot.