The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c19.19

v4.c19.19

Dārā, accompanied by his family and only 2000 troops, moved towards Ahmadābād by rapid marches, undergoing extreme misery from the heat and dust and the death of transport animals. On the way he learnt that that city had turned against him and he would not find any safe refuge in Gujarāt. After a scene of unspeakable agony, so pathetically described by Bernier who was attending his sick wife, the prince, now "reduced to the poorest and sorriest dress, his retinue shrunk to a few men", fled to Kāthiāwār, crossed the terrible Rann again and entered Sind a second time (middle of May). A strong imperial detachment under Jay Singh and Bahādur Khān pursued him all the way with equal speed. In Sind Aurangzīb's local officers had closed Dārā's path to the north and the east. So he fled westwards, crossed the Indus and entered Sehwān, intending to flee to Persia by way of the Bolān pass and Qandahār. But his beloved wife Nādira Bānū died of illness and privations, and Dārā, now almost mad with grief and despair, sent away all his remaining troopers and his most devoted officer with her corpse to Lahore for burial in the graveyard of his patron saint Miān Mīr. He then accepted the offered hospitality of Malik Jīvan, the chieftain of Dādar (nine miles east of the Bolān pass), and was seized by this Baloch traitor (19 June) and delivered to Aurangzīb's general.