History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v1.c17.15

v1.c17.15

Shah Jahan had four sons. All of them were past youth, and all had gained experience as governors of provinces and commanders of armies. But there was no brotherly love among them, though the three younger princes,—Shuja, Aurangzib and Murad Bakhsh, were usually drawn together by a common jealousy of the eldest, Dara Shukoh, their father’s favourite and intended heir. The ill-feeling between Dara and Aurangzib in particular was so bitter and had continued growing bitterer for so many years past, that it was the talk of the whole empire, and peace had been maintained between them only by keeping Aurangzib far away from the Court and his eldest brother.[*] Everyone foreboded that the succession to Shah Jahan’s throne would be disputed, and that a universal and complicated civil war would deluge all parts of India with blood, as soon as he would close his eyes or even earlier.