History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c39.s3: §3. Interchange of embassies and letters with the Shah of Persia.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c39.s3
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§3. Interchange of embassies and letters with the Shah of Persia.
v3.c39.s3.1
We have seen how the Shah of Persia had intrigued with Dara and Murad during the War of Succession and had also written to the two Shia rulers of the Deccan urging them to assert themselves while the Mughal empire was torn by quarrels among the princes. But when Aurangzib made himself undisputed master of the throne, Shah Abbas II. sent a grand embassy under Budaq Beg, the captain of his musketeers, to congratulate him on his accession and to wish him a long reign.
v3.c39.s3.2
The Persians have been rightly called the Frenchmen of Asia. Their country has been the spring-head of the culture thought and fashion of the entire Islamic world. Persian influence has moulded the poetry of all Muslim lands, and Persian manners and taste have been laboriously, if sometimes clumsily, imitated by all Muhammadan Courts from Cordova and Constantinople to Delhi and Seringapatam. To gain a word of praise from the countrymen of Firdausi and Hafiz has been the dream of all writers in the predominant literary language of Asia, and every historian and letter-writer in Persian has trembled in fear till his work has received the seal of approbation from the fastidious judges of Iran. Kings have dreaded the sharpness of a Persian satirist's pen more than their enemies' swords.
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∗ Mecca embassies.—Bernier, 133; Storia ii. 115; A. N., 449-450, 627, 882, 886, 977; K.K., ii. 412 (1692-93 A.D.); M. A., 76, 108, 140, 251, 285 (probably Ali Aqa of p. 285 was the same man as Ahmad Aqa of p. 271), 364. With I.O.L. Pers. MS. 3172 are bound up several Arabic letters from the Sharif of Mecca to Shah Jahan and his sons (mostly formal).
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The news that a Persian mission was coming caused a flutter in the Mughal Court. Every one from the Emperor down to the meanest guardsman felt that he and his country were on their trial. His manners and conduct would be judged by the masters of social decorum in all Asia, and if he was found wanting in correctness of taste and proper dignity in the least particular, he would be made the laughing-stock of the entire Muslim world. This natural anxiety was aggravated by the large number of Persian refugees serving in India who gave highly coloured pictures of the power and civilization of the Court of Iran and sneered at the Indo-Musalmans as half-polished barbarians. There was the greatest fear that the Persian envoy would not observe the Indian Court etiquette at his presentation, but cleverly put some mark of inferiority or some slight on the Mughal Emperor, who had a hereditary rivalry with the royal house of Persia for social predominance.
v3.c39.s3.5
Budaq Beg's forerunner came on 24th March, 1661 and presented his country's famous melons (*kharbuza*) and other fruits, receiving Rs. 2,500 in return.* The ambassador himself reached Delhi by way of Baluchistan and Multan and had his first audience on 22nd May. A right royal welcome was accorded to him. "Soldiers were posted on both sides of the street, a league in length, through which the ambassador would pass. The principal streets were decorated with rich stuffs, both in the shops and also at the windows, and the ambassador was brought through them, escorted by a number of officers, with music, drums, pipes and trumpets. On his entering the fort, or royal palace, he was saluted by all the artillery....It was a fine sight to see the ambassador followed by his 500 horsemen, almost all of the same height and appearance, large-limbed and handsome men, with huge moustaches, and riding excellent and well-equipped horses." (*Storia*, ii. 49, 53.)
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The gifts from Persia consisted of 66 swift Iraqi horses and a round pearl weighing 37 carats and valued at Rs. 60,000,—the whole being worth Rs. 4,22,000. The Shah in his letter congratulated Aurangzib on his accession and offered his friendly help whenever the Mughal Emperor would need it; he referred to the long-standing friendship between the royal houses of Persia and India, made much of Shah Tahmasp's assistance to Humayun in recovering his throne, went through the history of Qandahar, remarking how he had most reluctantly used force in taking it from Shah Jahan's hands, and concluded by wishing that the relations between them might continue friendly in future in spite of his retaining that fort.
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∗ He was probably the bearer of the shorter letter of congratulation from the Shah given in *Ruqat-i-Shah Abbas Sani*, pp. 28-33, while the longer one (pp. 71-81) was delivered by Budaq Beg.
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Budaq Beg reported to his master his satisfaction at the princely treatment accorded to him. The Shah having expressed a wish to taste the betel leaf (pan) which is universally chewed in India, quantities of the rarest variety of the leaf were sent to him repeatedly. He now acknowledged them and also granted Aurangzib's request that Burhan-ud-din, the son-in-law of his minister Fazil Khan, might be allowed to emigrate to India. The royal letter from Persia told the envoy, evidently for communication to Aurangzib as an instance of his master's power, that the Shah had recently reduced to submission Tahmuras Khan the Prince of Georgia, who had defied Persian arms for two generations.
v3.c39.s3.9
On 27th July the envoy was given leave to depart. On him and his entourage the Emperor conferred gifts worth Rs. 5,35,000.* The despatch of a return embassy charged with a reply to Shah Abbas's letter, was delayed by the Emperor's illness and his visit to Kashmir. Tarbiyat Khan, the governor of Multan and a Commander of 4000 Horse, was selected for the mission and sent off from the Court on 2nd November, 1663, with presents worth more than seven lakhs of Rupees, and a letter drafted by Danishmand Khan, the scholarly Persian courtier known to readers of Bernier's *Travels* as the French doctor's patron. We possess this letter in which, as was the literary usage in such compositions, the sense is buried under piled up flowers of rhetoric and an endless succession of epithets. The patronizing tone in which the Shah had offered his friendly help and probably also his reference to Qandahar where Aurangzib had twice failed and the Persian arms had triumphed, galled the spirit of the Mughal Emperor. He replied by thanking the Shah for his friendly views, but declared in a lofty tone that he needed no *man's* help as he depended solely on God’s favour; his astonishing victories were a proof of God’s abounding grace on him. Then he naturally glided into a long and exultant narrative of his triumphs over his brothers, and concluded with a self-righteous declaration that he was devoting every hour of his life to doing good to his subjects, promoting peace and prosperity in the land, and advancing the cause of Islam. (Bahar-i-sakhun.)
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∗ Budaq Beg's name is given as *Buadaq Sultan, Tufangchi Aqasi*, in the *Ruqat-i-Shah Abbas Sani*. For his embassy, A. N. 609, 614, 621, 628, 664; *Storia*, ii. 47-54; Bernier, 146-151; *Ruqat-i-Shah Abbas Sani*, 156-162 (Shah to his envoy in India), 28-33 and 71-81. Br. Mus. Or. 1641, *f.* 72a-73b gives details and valuation of the presents from the Shah and his envoy.