History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c80.s4: § 8. Illness of Aurangzib at Devapur.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c80.s4
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§ 8. Illness of Aurangzib at Devapur.
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At Devapur the soldiers had just recovered a little from their campaigning hardships of the last six years, when the whole camp was thrown into the greatest alarm and distress by the Emperor's illness. His spare frame had been enabled by regular habits and a sober life to stand incessant work and rigorous marching for well-nigh ninety years marvellously well; but at last it seemed to have been worn out. And if he died, the only bond that held the empire together, the single force that guided and protected the lives of hundreds of millions, would be dissolved, and the North-Indian army, girt round by countless ill-subdued enemies in that far-off southern land of hills and jungles and strange peoples, would perish helplessly. Despair seized all men, from the highest officers to the humblest tent-pitcher, when Aurangzib fell ill and took to his bed.
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∗ This western gate (8 feet by 11) bears his inscription: "By command of the Emperor...Aurangzib...under the management of...Hafiz Masaud, built on 1st Rajab 1117 A. H, 49th year of the reign" = 8 Oct. 1705.
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At first he had courageously struggled with disease, and had through sheer strength of mind continued for some days to transact business as usual and even to peep out of his bed-room window to reassure the public that he was alive. Though he could not hold public Court, "he received petitions from all who had business with him; and wrote answers and orders on them with his own hand with great firmness." [M.A. 508.] But the strain of this work only increased his malady, till he was seized with great pain, which at times made him senseless. Then the terror and agitation of the camp reached the extreme, and the wildest rumours spread about his death, wars among his sons, and usurpation of power by his generals ambitious of creating independent principalities for themselves.
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The Emperor lay in this state for ten or twelve days, and then he began to rally, but slowly, and still feeling very weak. At this time, one day in extreme agony he muttered these verses of Shaikh Ganja :
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“By the time you have reached your 80th
or 90th year,
You must have met with many a hard blow
from the hand of Time ;
And when from that point you reach the
stage of a hundred,
Death will put on the garb of your life.”
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Amir Khan, who was in attendance by the sick-bed, tried to console the sufferer, saying “Peace be on your Majesty! Shaikh Ganja composed those verses merely as introductory to the following couplet :—
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Then, it is better for you to be cheerful,
Because, being cheerful you can remember
God!”
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The Emperor had the couplet recited to him again and again and read it written down on a piece of paper, and received divinely sent comfort and strength in his troubles.* The next morning he left his bed and visited the Court of Justice. "The people got back their lives." [M. A. 509-510.]
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∗ The royal physician Haziq Khan, who had effected the cure by means of the China root (Smilax China) was weighed against gold.
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§ 9. Imperial camp marches to Ahmadnagar, 1706.
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On 23rd October, 1705, Aurangzib broke up the encampment at Devapur and set out northwards in a *palki*. Travelling slowly by easy stages, in a month and a half he reached Bahadurgarh, on the Bhima, on 6th December. Here a halt of 40 days was made for passing the month of fasting (6 Dec. —4 Jan.) and the days of religious celebration following it. Then resuming his march on 14th January, 1706, he reached Ahmadnagar, 50 miles northwards, on the 20th, after an interval of 23 years since the time when he had started from it to begin his Deccan conquests.
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This place he recognised as his "journey's end," [K. K. ii. 541 ; *Ahkam* § 56], and here he lived till death overtook him on 20th February 1707.
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At Ahmadnagar Prince Muhammad Azam arrived on 25th March. On hearing of the Emperor's illness at Devapur last year, he had begged hard to be allowed to come to his side, but Aurangzib had refused permission: he did not wish to suffer the fate of Shah Jahan at the hands of his ambitious and powerful sons in his sickness and old age [K. K. ii. 541.] Furthermore, he wanted to keep poor weak Kam Bakhsh at a safe distance from Azam's unscrupulous ambition. But at last he had yielded to repeated entreaty and allowed Azam to come to him. Bidar Bakht was sent to take charge of the province of Gujrat vacated by his father, pending the arrival of the new subahdar Ibrahim Khan from Kashmir (who, however, died on the way). Malwa and Khandesh were placed under Khan-i-Alam and Najabat Khan respectively, while Bijapur continued to be governed by Chin Qalich Khan. [M. A. 512.]
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§ 10. Sorrow and despair of Aurangzib’s last years.
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The last years of Aurangzib’s life were inexpressibly sad. On the political side he found that his lifelong endeavour to govern India justly and strongly had ended in anarchy and disruption throughout the empire. His own health had broken down, and the Court news-letters every now and then give us pathetic glimpses of the weak old Emperor ordering the screen of his bedroom tent to be drawn aside a little, while officers, horses &c. were passed in the courtyard below, as if presented to him for inspection. In this way did he keep up the form of holding public darbars daily, to which he had been devoted for fifty years.
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A sense of unutterable loneliness haunted the heart of Aurangzib in his old age. One by one all the older nobles had died out, and the sole personal friend and survivor of the generation in which his youth had been nurtured that was now left to Aurangzib was Asad Khan the wazir, and even he was some five years his junior. As the aged monarch looked round his Court circle he only found on all sides younger men, timid sycophants, afraid of responsibility, afraid to tell the truth, and eternally intriguing in a mean spirit of personal greed and mutual jealousy. His Puritan austerity had, at all times, chilled the advances of other men towards him, but its effect was intensified by the reputation of being a miracle-working saint (*Alamgir, zinda pir*) which grew on him with each succeeding year. Men shrank in almost supernatural dread from one who was above the joys and sorrows, weakness and pity of mortals, one who seemed to have hardly any element of common humanity in him, who lived in the world but did not seem to be of it. The genial human heart was not touched in others by Aurangzib, and therefore his own heart's hunger could not be satisfied. His sole companions, when free from the ever-engrossing State affairs, were his daughter Zinat-un-nissa, already an old maid, and his last wife Udipuri, a low animal type of partner, whose son Kam Bakhsh broke his imperial father's heart by his freaks of insane folly and passion.
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His domestic life was darkened, as bereavements thickened round his closing eyes. His best-loved daughter-in-law, Jahanzeb Banu, died in Gujrat in March 1705. His rebel son Akbar had died in exile in a foreign soil in 1704, but the authentic news of it reached him only in 1705. Still earlier, his gifted daughter, the poetess Zeb-un-nissa had ended her days in the prison of Delhi (1702). And now Gauhar-ara Begam, the sole survivor among his numerous brothers and sisters, died in 1706, and the news of it dragged out of his heart the pathetic cry, which he repeated again and again, "She and I alone were left among Shah Jahan's children." [M. A. 513.] In May 1706, his daughter Mihr-un-nissa and her husband Izid Bakhsh (Murad's son) both died together in Delhi, and next month Buland Akhtar, the son of Akbar. Two of his grand-children died shortly before his own death (1707), but his ministers mercifully withheld the news from the sinking man.
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§ 11. Imperial dominions harassed by Marathas, 1706-1707.
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Aurangzib had left desolation and anarchy behind him when he set out for Ahmadnagar. But his retreat to this city did not bring rest to his army or peace to his empire. In April or May 1706, a vast Maratha army under all their great generals,—Dhana Jadav, Nima Sindhia, Dado Malhar, Rambhā Nimbālkar* and others,—appeared four miles from the imperial encampment and threatened it. Aurangzib sent Khan-i-Alam and other officers to drive them away, but this force was hopelessly outnumbered and had to be strongly reinforced before it could succeed, after a long and severe contest, in repulsing the Marathas from the neighbourhood. [Dil. ii. 155b.]
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In Gujrat, the interval between Azam's departure and Bidar Bakht's arrival was marked by a terrible disaster to the imperialists. Inu Mänd, a former brewer of Khandesh, who had taken to a very profitable course of highway robbery, gathered a band of followers and made a league with the Maratha generals. Inviting Dhana Jadav and his army, he sacked the large and rich trading centre of Baroda (Mar. 1706). Nazar Ali, the faujdar of the place, was defeated by the Marathas and captured with his men; other imperial officers fled to Broach; and the raiders retired in safety with a vast booty* [Dil. ii. 156a.]
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∗ The Pesian MS. reads Navalkar.
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Similarly, the province of Aurangabad was frequently ravaged by the Maratha bands under Dhana Jadav and other leaders. The Emperor ordered Nusrat Jang to punish the enemy. Leaving his baggage in Ahmadnagar (May 1706), he rapidly advanced to Tisgaon (24 m. e.) and thence followed the trail of the ever-shifting Marathas to Bir (65 m. e. of Ahmadnagar). The pursuit was closely kept up. The Marathas fled by way of the Dharampuri ghat, Purley (13 m.n.e. of Ambajogai), Ausa, Tuljapur and Parenda, and then across the Bhima to their refuge in the Mahadev hills. Nusrat Jang came back to the imperial camp, but was soon afterwards sent against Dhana, who was now reported as roving near Miraj. The latter retired beyond the Krishna, and the Khan halted for the rainy season 24 miles from Miraj. In his recent forced marches nearly all of his horses and transport-cattle had perished through scarcity of fodder. Grain and fodder continued to be very scarce in his camp even during this monsoon halt; the soldiers were greatly distressed and the horses lost condition. [Dil. ii. 156b 157a; M. A. 515.]
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∗ Khafi Khan (ii. 518) wrongly says that this invasion took place just after the death of Shujaet Kh. (June 1701.) But Mirat-i-Ahmadi gives the exact date 4th March 1706 (i. 383.) A very long account of this series of battles, fought at Ratanpur on the Narmada, is given in Mirat (i. 379-388), and very briefly in Khafi Khan (ii. 518-519) and Manucci (iv. 246.)
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§ 12. Notable Maratha victories, 1706.
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In July Maratha activity near Wagingera forced the Emperor to detach Tarbiyat Khan to that region to punish them. [M. A. 516.] Pidia Berad, in alliance with Hindu Rao, gained Penu-konda, "the key of both the Karnataks," by bribing its Mughal qiladar, who had been starving from his salary being left in arrears.* Flushed with their gain of such a fort, the Marathas turned to Sera, the capital of Bijapuri Karnatak Uplands, the district round which they had plundered before, in June 1704. [Storia, iii. 506.] Daud Khan, the faujdar of Karnatak, afterwards recovered Penu-konda. [Dil. ii. 157a.] Siadat Khan, an officer of the Court, was wounded in both eyes by musket-shot, captured, and held to ransom by the enemy. [*Ibid.*] They also recovered Basantgarh from the imperialists about this time. [*Ibid*, 156b.]
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∗ Storia, iv. 249, 251 (details); Dil. ii. 156b. The qiladar was, however, taken prisoner and held to ransom by the Marathas.
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When the rainy season ended (Sep. 1706), Maratha activity was renewed with tenfold intensity. Muhammad Amin Khan was detached against their bands in the Ahmadnagar district and returned after driving them away and taking some spoils. (Nov.) [*M.A.* 518.] Dhana Jadav now made a dash for the old dominions, Berar and Khandesh; but Nusrat Jang, leaving his camp near Miraj, headed him off into Bijapur and thence beyond the Krishna. The Berads had seized the fort of Allur (28 m. n. w. of Kulbarga), but Tarbiyat Khan reconquered it. A long train of caravans coming from Aurangabad to the imperial camp was plundered of everything near Chandā, 24 m. from Ahmadnagar. [*Dil.* ii. 157.]
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Chin Qalich Khan, the subahdar of Bijapur, having been summoned to Court (Dec. 1706), Nusrat Jang marched from Miraj and guarded the environs of Bijapur. (Jan—Feb. 1707.) At this time Tara Bai, the Maratha Queen Regent, sent Dhana to arrest Baharji Ghorpare. The latter took refuge in fort Kurkal,* but all his property and animals were captured by Dhana, who besieged him in a fort. Baharji begged succour from Nusrat Jang, offering to enter the Emperor's service. The Mughal general advanced across the Bhima river and the Raichur Doab to the bank of the Tungabhadra, to attack Dhana, who fled away to Mysore at the news of it. But Baharji, thus delivered from danger, retired to his home in fort Sindur (18 m. s. of the ruins of Vijaynagar) and evaded coming over to Nusrat Jang. [Dil. ii. 158.]
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∗ *Dil.* places this fort 14 kos from Adoni. There is a Kupgal, 35 m. s. w. of Adoni, and a Kudikul, 75 m. n. (not likely.) N. J. had left his heavy baggage in fort Sindanur, 35 m. n. w. of Adoni, and 12 m. n. of the Tungabhadra, while Baharji's Sindur is 18 m. s. of that river.
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§ 13. Azam's plan for murdering Kam Bakhsh.
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While dangers were thus thickening round Aurangzib's forces, the internal troubles of his camp became even more ominous. Muhammad Azam's inordinate vanity and ambition urged him to secure the succession for himself. Confident of his valour and of the money and men he had gathered when in Gujrat, and eager to increase them by seizing the treasure and troops in the imperial camp at the moment of his father's death,—he considered himself as senior to his elder brother Muazzam and regarded poor young Kam Bakhsh as "non-existent." In view of the Emperor's frequent fits of illness, Azam planned to remove all his rivals from his path. So, he poisoned the ears of the Emperor against Azim-ush-shan, the able third son of Muazzam and had him recalled from the government of Patna, where he was rumoured to have amassed a vast treasure. He also drew over to his side the prime minister Asad Khan and some other nobles. Then he looked out for an opportunity to make a sudden attack on Kam Bakhsh and kill him. Every day Azam's hostile designs against Kam Bakhsh became more evident, and therefore the Emperor appointed the brave and faithful Sultan Husain (Mir Malang) paymaster of Kam Bakhsh's forces, and charged him with that prince's defence. Whenever Kam Bakhsh came to his father's Court, Sultan Husain attended him with a strong body of comrades fully armed, and also stood guard round his tent day and night. Azam complained of these acts to the Emperor, but the latter gave no reply, till at last Azam wrote his grievances to his younger sister Zinat-un-nissa, saying, "Though it would not be very hard for me to punish the insolence of this rude fellow, yet respect for His Majesty hinders me from doing it." The letter was shown to Aurangzib, who wrote across it with his own hand, "The power of Husain is well-known, and yet you are overcome with so much terror and suspicion about him! I shall send away Kam Bakhsh elsewhere." The irony of the reply stung Azam, but he had no help except to wait patiently for the end. [K. K. ii. 546—548.]
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§ 14. Emperor sends his sons away from him.
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That end was not long in coming. Early in February 1707, Aurangzib had one more of the attacks of languor and ill-health which had become rather frequent of late. He recovered for a time and began once more to hold public darbars and do business of the State. But he felt that this time the inevitable could not be far off, and that the peace of his camp and the safety of the vast host assembled there were threatened by Azam's growing impatience and violent ambition which might break bounds any day. So he appointed Kam Bakhsh subahdar of Bijapur and sent him away with a large force to his charge on 9th February. The leave-taking from this Benjamin of his old age, whom he felt he would never see again, broke the Emperor's heart; he burst into tears as he gave the prince the parting embrace and sent him away with the band playing from the gate of the imperial tent-enclosure (gulal-bar.) [Dil. ii. 158a.]
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Four days later, (13th Feb.) Md. Azam was despatched to Malwa as its governor; but the cunning prince, knowing his father's death to be very near, marched slowly, halting every other day, so that he had passed only 50 miles when he received the news that Aurangzib was no more.