History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v1.c3.10

v1.c3.10

Next come a class of private histories, like those of Masum, Aqil Khan, and Khafi Khan. These were written by officials, but, not having been meant for the Emperor’s eyes, they supply us with many of the facts suppressed in the court annals, though their dates and names are sometimes inaccurate and their descriptions meagre. They, however, contain many personal traits and graphic touches which the more formal official histories have excluded. Khafi Khan, who has been mainly relied on by European writers, completed his work twenty-six years after the death of Aurangzib. His history is professedly an abridgement of the Court annals for the entire reign of Shah Jahan and the earlier part of that of Aurangzib, But he begins to speak with personal knowledge from about 1688 and often quotes what he had gathered from his father and his friends, who had witnessed earlier scenes. In the same class must be placed the biographical dictionary of the peers of the Mughal empire, the *Masir-ul-umara*, written in 1780 on the basis of the existing Persian annals, but giving many characteristic anecdotes from tradition and throwing many side-lights on the manners of past generations.