and two daughters—Padishah and Kashnara. To his sister Kashnara Aurungzebe is said to have been indebted for much of his success in his struggles with the other members of the imperial family.
The first period of Aurungzebe's career extends from his entrance on public life, at the age of fourteen, to the year 1657, during which he bore the title of Shahzadeh, or prince imperial. He appears early to have conceived the project of seating himself on the throne, and to have made such preparations as could not fail to be serviceable, if the chapter of accidents—seldom wanting in an eastern dynasty—were to present the fitting occasion to his ready ambition. He therefore was temperate as became a Mahomedan, subtle as became a schemer, active as became an aspiring prince, brave as became an ambitious soldier. But his qualities were devoted to the ends and purposes of his own advancement, and he made use of them like tools to make or to mend his fortune. He enlisted the bigot in his service by a close attention to the stricter rules of his faith, and caught the priesthood by the simple art which has seldom been known to fail—the promise of their supremacy over heretics or infidels. The prudent ranged themselves on his side from his apparent sagacity and extreme deference of manner. Like Absalom, he stole the hearts of the people, and made a powerful party in circumstances where there was no Joab. His elder brother Dara was the advocate of liberal opinions, and held that the differences between the Hindoos and the Mahomedans were of minor importance, and need not interfere with the political equality of those who professed the faith of Brahmah. Aurungzebe thereupon stood forth as the champion of the Moslem faith in all its purity and exclusiveness. His next brother, Shujah, was a wine drinker—a latitudinarian in the ceremonies and practices as Dara was in the creed. Aurungzebe therefore drew the bands of his ceremonialism as tight as the dogmas of his belief. His third brother Murad was a sensualist. Aurungzebe therefore appeared as the purist in morals. His policy was based upon a knowlege of human nature, and it led to personal success. In 1657, when Aurungzebe was nearly forty years of age, the Emperor Shah-Djehan was seized with an illness which held out little prospect of recovery, and the princes commenced their strife. Dara was at Delhi. Shujah was governor of Bengal; Aurungzebe, of the Deccan; and Murad, of Guzerat. The imperial authority fell, of course, into the hands of Dara, and he exercised it in a manner which soon provoked hostilities. He interdicted all communication with his three brothers; seized at the capital their papers, their agents, and their goods; and showed that he was prepared to reduce them to submission to himself, if not even to suspend and supersede their power. Shujah at once took arms, and Aurungzebe prudently watched the result, thinking it better to allow his elder brothers to exhaust their forces in the first place. With his younger brother he temporized, leading Murad to suppose that his ambition was rather that of the saint than of the sovereign, and that he would help Murad to the throne. The armies of the two elder brothers met at Mongeer, and Shujah was defeated; Dara's army being commanded by his eldest son, Suliman. Aurungzebe and Murad then advanced with their joint forces, and gave battle to the victors, defeating the young general. Dara then appeared in person with his whole force; but Aurungzebe had gained over the generals of the imperial party, and Dara was compelled to take to flight, seeking refuge in Agra. Shah-Djehan, however, was still alive, and he made overtures to Aurungzebe, expecting to draw him into his power by proffers of peace. The trap was too apparent, but the prince accepted it, and used it for the capture of his father, whom he thenceforth detained a prisoner, but at the same time lavished on the old Mogul all the luxuries of an eastern palace. Aurungzebe's power was now indisputable, and he was crowned in the garden of Izzabad, near Delhi, 2nd August, 1658. Dara and Murad were put to death, and Shujah after many adventures came to a violent end in Arracan.
Aurungzebe's long reign was more remarkable for its internal policy than for its outward events. In some respects it may be compared to the reign of Louis XIV. of France. Both reigns were of unusual duration and of unquestionable brilliancy. In both the monarch was a personage of note, endowed with qualities that leave their traces in the annals of courts. In both there appeared to be a culmination—but a culmination which was only the precursor to extensive changes. Both monarchs framed their policy upon a strict adherence to their own form of religion, and, by so doing, sowed the seeds of national convulsion or national decay. They were the monarchs of sects rather than of nations; and if it be true that Louis XIV. by the obliteration of the protestants of France, prepared the way for the after revolution, it may also be said that Aurungzebe, by his exclusive adherence to his Mahomedan faith, prepared the way for the downfall of the Mogul dominion. The first years of his reign were years of peace and of apparent prosperity. But even then the Mahratta power was beginning to acquire strength under the guidance of the chief Sewadji, who had been insulted by Aurungzebe, and who ever after maintained a hostile front to the Mussulman emperor of Delhi. The Rajpoots also, a race of high caste Hindoos from whom the Sepoy troops of Bengal in after years derived a large portion of their recruits, were alienated by the distinctions of religion enforced by the emperor; and the Hindoos at large were exasperated by the imposition of the jezia or capitation tax, and by the Mahomedan outrages on their idolatrous temples and the edifices devoted to their Hindoo superstitions. But nevertheless, Aurungzebe was an able administrator, and possessed those characteristics which have left to certain Mahomedan princes the reputation of rectitude and discrimination. In time of famine he remitted the taxes of the husbandmen and cultivators of the soil; conveyed grain to destitute districts; opened his treasury to the national necessities, and set the example of rigid economy by curtailing the luxuries of the court. But his virtues, like his vices, were those that may be found in the history of princes, only half-way on the road to civilization. They look picturesque at a distance, but they combine with the crimes that never fail to appear in the annals of Mahomedan despotism.
In 1663 Aurungzebe attempted the conquest of Assam by his general the Ameer Jamla, of whom he entertained a certain amount of jealousy, and who had been one of his firmest adherents. The expedition was at first successful, and amassed a considerable amount of plunder; but the rainy season came on, and brought with it a destructive fever which thinned the ranks of the Mongols and forced them to retire. Jamla was carried off by the disease, and the emperor, according to Bernier, remarked to the son of the general, "You have lost a father, and I the greatest and most redoubtable of my friends." In the following year he resorted to the valley of Cashmere for the restoration of his health, and it was during this period that Sewadji pillaged the city of Surat, captured some vessels intended for the pilgrims to Mecca, and commenced his predatory war which was to develope the Mahratta power. In 1666 the old emperor Shah-Djehan died, and it has been inferred that Aurungzebe must have poisoned him; but the insinuation is not supported by contemporary authority, nor does there appear to have been a motive for the superfluous murder. After the year 1670 the Mongol power was more severely tried, and the Mahrattas even gained a victory over their Mussulman foes in a pitched battle fought in 1672. The Affghans also showed a hostile disposition, and the emperor was obliged to head his forces against the mountaineers. In 1676 Aurungzebe commenced his attack upon the Hindoos by the vexatious and impolitic measures which divided his subjects into favoured and unfavoured sects. In 1679 the capitation tax was enforced, and the Rajpoots were arrayed against the throne. In 1680 Sewadji died, and was succeeded by his son, who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the emperor, and was put to death with great cruelty. After 1688 Aurungzebe made himself master of the kingdoms of Golconda and Bejapoor, with the intention of devoting his energies to the subjugation of the Mahrattas, and this struggle occupied him to the end of his life. As he grew old he grew suspicious, and not without reason. He was apprehensive that his father's fate might be his own, and that his son might play over again the usual course of eastern ambition. Thoughts of Dara and Murad would perpetually recur, and his correspondence reveals the vanity and vexation of his existence. Endowed with a comparatively high intelligence, he had seen the empire of Akbar beginning to fade, and to crumble under the policy which he had inaugurated, and which a long reign had enabled him to bring to perfection. The Mussulmans of India regard him as the greatest of their sovereigns; and in a region where perpetual war is only to be averted by the substitution of despotism, he is perhaps entitled to the honour of administering the affairs of Hindostan with less than the usual rapacity and bloodshed. But
