History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c36.s4.1

v3.c36.s4.1

During these early years passed at *Delhi*, when there was no cloud on the horizon of the frontiers, Aurangzib often devoted himself to the pleasures of the chase in the neighbourhood of the capital or in the Doab, though in old age he condemned *shikar* as the business of the idle (*bekar*). The Court chronicles have preserved full descriptions of the imperial hunt.* Thus we read that in January 1660 he shot five tigers in one day near Garh Mukteshwar; in December 1661 he killed two fighting nilgaus with two successive shots, near Palam and set up three stone monuments (*takhtgah*) on the scenes of this feat of marksmanship; and in September 1663 he bagged two tigresses in one day on the bank of the Chinab at the foot of the Jammu hills. In hawking, too, he was equally successful: in 1660 in about a month the falcons slipped by him killed 258 small bustards besides waterfowl on the Ganges, while in the season 1662 they struck down 150 herons (*kulang*). Another favourite game was the *qamurgha* hunting of the Turks. A large circle of beaters drove the game into the centre, where 355 deer were crowded together (1662). The Emperor himself shot down eight of them (six with matchlocks and two with the bow) and his companions forty others; 31 were captured alive and the rest were set free. At first nearly a thousand more had been enclosed, but even the deer can fight when driven at bay; they fell in a body on the beaters, gored five of the men (two fatally) and, breaking the cordon, escaped.