Later Mughals v1.c8.s19.11

v1.c8.s19.11

Character. His character has been perhaps sufficiently disclosed in the course of our story, and it hardly needs further elucidation. In his earlier years, in the Dakhin and during his government of Multan, he seems to have been a fairly active soldier. It is said that, during the struggle for the throne after Alamgir's death, the only thing that Azam Shah feared was Muizz-ud-din's soldierly qualities. But Jahandar Shah's acquisition of the crown was more due to happy accidents than to his own exertions; and his conduct during his few months of power showed him to be quite unfitted to hold rule over others, being unable, even according to the somewhat lax Eastern standard, to govern himself. He was the first sovereign of the house of Taimur who proved himself absolutely unfitted to rule. The only good quality left to him, in popular estimation, was his liking for and liberality to religious mendicants. In company with Lal Kunwar, he visited them and 'kissed their feet'. He was also fond of watching the fighting of elephants. He delighted in illuminations and fire-works, himself setting fire to the *Lanka*, the mimic fortress of Ravan, the ravisher of Sita. The cause of his fall is likened by Warid truly enough to the case of the exiled monarch, who attributed his ruin to morning slumbering and midnight carousing. [Warid 140b, Yahya 119a.]