History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c80.s4.17

v5.c80.s4.17

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.