History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c49.s3: §3. Jaswant and Aurangzib.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c49.s3
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§3. Jaswant and Aurangzib.
v3.c49.s3.1
A special reason, besides its strategic importance, made the kingdom of Marwar a desirable acquisition in Aurangzib's eyes. It was the foremost Hindu State of Northern India at this time.† Its chieftain was Jaswant Singh, who enjoyed the unrivalled rank of a Maharajah and whom the death of Jai Singh thirteen years ago had left as the leading Hindu peer of the Mughal Court. If his power passed on to a worthy successor, that successor would be the pillar of the Hindus' hopes all over the empire and the centre of the Hindu opposition to the policy of temple destruction and *jaziya*.
v3.c49.s3.2
∗ Raj. Gaz., ii. 230, 263 (following Tod, ii. ch. 1 and 16).
v3.c49.s3.3
† The Maharana of Udaipur, in spite of his pre-eminent descent, was a negligible factor of the Hindu population of the Mughal world, as he hid himself among his mountain fastnesses, and never appeared in the Mughal Court or camp.
v3.c49.s3.4
We know not whether Jaswant's sins of twenty years ago,—his presumption in opposing Aurangzib at Dharmat, after all the other nobles had declined to confront a prince of the blood, his treachery at Khajwa, his coquetting with Dara on the eve of the battle of Deorai,—still rankled in Aurangzib's bosom, as Khafi Khan asserts, and he now sought to take a safe if belated vengeance. But it is clear that the success of his plan of the forcible conversion of the Hindus required that Jaswant's State should sink into a quiescent dependency or a regular province of the empire. Hindu resistance to the policy of religious persecution must be deprived of a possible efficient head.*