Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 42.13.1

42.13.1

Such was that glorious Emperor's character in public. But so many blemishes and so many ugly actions are to be found in his private life likewise, that one would be apt to think that there is no wretch upon earth, but who with a little common sense would not have behaved with more caution. Most of those actions are recorded by Naamet-qhan-aaly, one of the Lords of his Court, in those elegant and sarcastical memoirs he has left us of what passed under his eyes. But as we have been speaking so often of the wars with the Kingdoms of Haiderabad and Bidja-p8r, it is but proper that we should recount some of the events relative to them, that the many examples, which our illustrious readers shall meet in them, may serve to put them upon their own guards. The Emperor Aoreng-zib, whose ambition and covetousness knew no bounds, having formed the design of conquering the Kingdom of Bidja-p8r from the Monarch of the Adel-shahi Dynasty, and that of Haider-abad from Soltan Ab8l-hassen, the last of the House of C8t8b-shah, he was looking out for some pretences to commence a war, but wished that the subject of discord might arise from those Princes themselves. He, therefore, commenced by writing a haughty letter to Soltan Ab8l-hassen, in which he reproached him for his keeping, as his Prime Minister, a Gentoo (the Brahmin Madina), and requested his dismissing that man from the Ministry, in order to remove thereby the scandal it gave to religious Mussulmans.