With these harsh words, the poem Rāj-vilās, from the Mewar kingdom of Rajasthan, condemns the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707).Footnote 2 What stands out as particularly reprehensible in the poet's mind was Aurangzeb's harsh treatment of his father Shah Jahan and other male relatives. These incidents occurred during the infamous struggle over succession to the Mughal throne that broke out when the emperor got seriously ill in September 1657.Footnote 3 Within a few months, his four sons – Dara Shikoh, Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb, and Murad Baksh – came into open conflict. Combining their forces, Aurangzeb and Murad won two major victories over armies loyal to the emperor and his designated heir, Dara Shikoh. Soon thereafter, Aurangzeb had his father incarcerated in the fort at Agra, where Shah Jahan remained until his death in 1666; Aurangzeb also imprisoned his brother Murad, who was executed in 1661. Dara Shikoh was captured and executed in 1659, while the remaining prince Shuja disappeared into the kingdom of Arakan in 1660.Footnote 4 The memory of these events had in no way diminished some twenty years later, when Mān Kavi composed Rāj-vilās in Pingal, a Rajasthani form of the vernacular language Brajbhasha.
Nor was Mān Kavi's the only voice from Aurangzeb's reign that was critical of how he obtained the throne. The powerful Safavid ruler of Iran, Shah Abbas II, was among those who castigated Aurangzeb for being disloyal to his father.Footnote 5 Even the general populace was shocked at Aurangzeb's actions, if we can believe the account of François Bernier, the well-known French traveller who was in Delhi at the time. He reports that, “The people had for some time inveighed bitterly against the unnatural conduct of Aurangzeb: the imprisonment of his father, of his son Sultan Mahmud, and of his brother Murad Baksh, filled every bosom with horror and disgust”.Footnote 6 Having observed the captive Dara Shikoh being paraded through the streets of the capital for all to see, Bernier described his subsequent execution as a “foul and unnatural murder”.Footnote 7 Historians have sometimes ascribed Aurangzeb's public piety as an emperor to the need to overcome this stain on his character.Footnote 8
Some of the criticisms of Aurangzeb advanced by Rāj-vilās and by Bernier are familiar to us today; that is, we can trace specific negative characterisations of Aurangzeb back as far as his reign. That certain images and assessments of Indian historical figures continued to be repurposed time and again is a central point that I wish to make in this paper. Not all the representations of Auranzeb were negative, of course, as other articles in this special issue clearly illustrate. But it is particularly important to identify and analyze the paths of transmissions through which aspersions on Aurangzeb have been voiced over the centuries, in different configurations and for varying purposes, if we are to understand his role in history.
While not unique in describing Aurangzeb in unflattering terms, Rāj-vilās is noteworthy for its strong language and its long-lasting impact on his image. It was one of the foremost sources of information on the history of Mewar for Colonel James Tod, the first British political agent in the region and author of the influential Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1829-32).Footnote 9 A good deal of Rāj-vilās deals with a conflict often referred to in modern historiography as the Rajput Rebellion of 1679–1681, a somewhat misleading term since the insurgency was limited to the two Rajput states of Marwar and Mewar. Nonetheless, it was a conflict that pitted a large number of Rajputs against Aurangzeb's imperial authority, just as in the War of Succession, and was likewise much commemorated in bardic literature.Footnote 10 Tod's account of the Rajput Rebellion evidently draws on Rāj-vilās, for both provide similar details about the war.Footnote 11 One reason Tod wrote about this conflict at some length may be his extreme distaste for the Mughal emperor, displayed in assessments such as “Aurangzeb accumulated on his head more crimes than any prince who ever sat on an Asiatic throne”.Footnote 12 Rāj-vilās was thus appropriated by Tod as ammunition for his campaign to defame the Mughal emperors, who were so different in character from the Rajput lords whom he considered highly honourable.Footnote 13
In this essay, I take a close look at the portrayal of Aurangzeb in Rāj-vilās, so that we may better understand the range of contemporary representations of this Mughal emperor.Footnote 14 A second major objective of this article, along with analyzing the antecedents of our modern conceptions of Aurangzeb, is to point out the diversity of representations of this Mughal emperor even during his lifetime. After describing the contents of Rāj-vilās at some length and situating the poem carefully within its socio-political context, I compare it to two other texts, Rāja-ratnākara (“Raj, the Mine of Jewels”) and Rāja-praśasti (“In Praise of Raj”), produced at the same Rajput court but at slightly different times. The fact that Rāja-ratnākara and Rāja-praśasti represent Aurangzeb in a strikingly more positive manner than does Rāj-vilās, despite their shared setting, clearly demonstrates that there were considerable variations and fluctuations in literary attitudes towards the emperor and his empire. In other words, Aurangzeb was by no means described or perceived in a single monolithic manner, even in Rajput literature from his time that was sponsored by the same patrons. By showing how works originating at a single Rajput court could differ dramatically in their portrayal of the Mughal overlord, I hope to promote interest in studying the variables leading to such differences – perhaps having to do with genre, the social background of the author, identity of patron, or the historical moment in which a text was composed. Rāj-vilās is but one among a corpus of texts produced for Rajput lords that provide us with alternative perspectives on the political culture of Mughal India and deserve far more scholarly scrutiny.
Rāj-vilās, an overview
As its title indicates, Rāj-vilās or “Adventures of Raj”, focuses on the life and accomplishments of a patron called Raj.Footnote 15 Its hero was the Rajput ruler Raj Singh (r. 1652–1680), (Maha)rana of the Mewar kingdom in southeastern Rajasthan.Footnote 16 Raj Singh's Sisodiya dynasty had a long and illustrious history, especially from the mid-fifteenth century onward when Rana Kumbha created the most powerful state in the region, with its capital at the formidable fortress of Chitor. The Sisodiyas maintained a strong political position, as well as considerable social prestige, into the early sixteenth century. When the founder of the Mughal dynasty, Babur, invaded India, his second major battle was fought at Khanwa in 1527 against a coalition of opponents led by the Mewar king, Rana Sanga (r. 1509–1529) of the Sisodiyas. Indeed, Rana Sanga is described by Babur in his memoirs as one of Hindustan's great ‘infidel’ kings, second only to the ruler of Vijayanagara in south India.Footnote 17 The Sisodiya dynasty lost ground, however, when it continued to resist the Mughals even after emperor Akbar laid waste to Chitor in 1568. Although his great-grandfather eventually capitulated to the Mughal empire in 1615, the Mewar kingdom that Raj Singh inherited was not as large as it had been in earlier times. Both he and his father, Rana Jagat Singh I (r. 1628–1652), engaged in numerous activities aimed at increasing the dynasty's power and highlighting its high status, in an effort to regain their former dominance.
Among these efforts to elevate the Sisodiyas was the writing of dynastic histories and royal biographies, a literary practice that had medieval antecedents but became especially prevalent in the seventeenth century. Rana Raj Singh was the main subject of at least three long poems, in addition to Rāj-vilās, which was composed in the literary vernacular typically used in eastern Rajasthan, Pingal.Footnote 18 Poet Mān (Mān Kavi) tells us that he began composing Rāj-vilās in 1677 ad.Footnote 19 He provides no biographical information on himself, and scholars disagree on whether he was a member of a traditional bardic community or a Jain, the two groups who along with brahmins were the main producers of ‘historical’ literature for Rajput patrons.Footnote 20 Although no completion date is cited, the events covered in the poem go up to the summer of 1680, while Raj Singh was still alive. The detailed coverage of events in 1679 and 1680 suggests that Mān Kavi may have accompanied the royal court even as it was forced to retreat from Udaipur, the capital of Mewar during Raj Singh's era, into the Aravalli hills.
The 1600 verses of Rāj-vilās follow a roughly chronological framework, starting with the legendary beginnings of the Sisodiya dynasty. The first section of the poem, comprising approximately a third of its verses, also describes some of Raj Singh's predecessors, the dynasty's two capital cities – Chitor and Udaipur – and Raj Singh's birth, childhood, and first marriage.Footnote 21 The middle portion of the poem, constituting roughly a quarter of its length, describes Raj Singh's coronation and some noteworthy events of his career.Footnote 22 Here we are told about the expedition against Malpura (modern Tonk district), a wealthy town under Mughal control that the Rana plundered for seven days; this incident occurred in May or June 1658, at the height of the War of Succession for the Mughal throne.Footnote 23 Two other aspects of Raj Singh's life that Rāj-vilās highlights are his marriage to Carumati (also known as Rupmati) of the Kishangarh kingdom and his construction of a massive reservoir called Rajsamand, completed in 1676 ad. The last and longest part of Rāj-vilās, consisting of 40 percent of its verses, covers the Rajput Rebellion of 1679–1681 and its causes.Footnote 24
This war was basically a struggle over succession to the throne of the Marwar kingdom of western Rajasthan, upon the death of Maharaja Jasvant Singh in late 1678. Although this Rathor ruler from Jodhpur had no living sons at the time of his death, two sons were born to him soon afterwards. Instead of appointing a regent to rule on their behalf, Aurangzeb put on the throne Indra Singh, the grandson of Jasvant Singh's elder brother (the infamous Amar Singh Rathor of Nagore, who killed another Mughal noble while in court and was subsequently slain on imperial command). The chiefs of Marwar went up in arms at this unilateral decision by the Mughal emperor and marshalled around Ajit Singh, the sole surviving infant son of Jasvant Singh. Durgadas Rathor and other supporters of Ajit Singh were forced to retreat to the Aravalli hills as the Mughal military presence in Rajasthan increased during the early autumn months of 1679, and turned to the neighbouring kingdom of Mewar for assistance.Footnote 25
Rana Raj Singh agreed to shelter the baby prince and his supporters, for reasons that are not entirely clear to us today, but in doing so he brought the war to Mewar.Footnote 26 After his demands that the boy be handed over to him were denied, Aurangzeb sent an army toward the Mewar kingdom in late November 1679. The Rana and his court abandoned Udaipur and moved into the hills, leaving both Udaipur and Chitor in Mughal hands by early 1680. Much of Mewar was still under Mughal control when Raj Singh died in October 1680. The new Rana of Mewar, Jai Singh (r. 1680–1698), “had become lukewarm in Ajit Singh's cause”, according to Satish Chandra, but he did support Aurangzeb's son, the Mughal prince Akbar, in his quest to usurp the imperial throne from his father.Footnote 27 However, Prince Akbar's attempt failed in January 1681, Rana Jai Singh began negotiations with the emperor, and a peace treaty was signed with Mughal prince Azam in June 1681, on the banks of Rajsamand lake.Footnote 28
Since war is a topic closely associated with the bardic literature of Rajasthan, it is perhaps not surprising that so much of Rāj-vilās is devoted to the Rajput Rebellion, a drawn-out struggle that destabilised a good part of what is today Rajasthan.Footnote 29 Its treatment of the conflict comes in two parts: Canto 9, which covers the war as it unfolded in Marwar, and Cantos 10–18, which covers the strife in Mewar. Canto 10 – the first of the Mewar cantos – opens with Aurangzeb's written commands to Rana Raj Singh, telling him to hand over Ajit Singh, the baby son of Jodhpur's Jasvant Singh. Raj Singh refuses and consults his ministers on how to prosecute the war; the Mughal army invades Mewar soon afterward. Toward the end of this canto, and in the subsequent eight short cantos, we are provided with accounts of minor skirmishes, such as a raid by the Mewar warrior Gangadas on the Mughal army near Chitor, which netted nine elephants (Rāj-vilās 14.6-41). The Mewar forces were seldom successful even in this limited form of guerilla warfare, although one would not know that from Rāj-vilās’s triumphant tone and careful recording of the names of heroic warriors. By focusing on the valour of specific Mewar warriors, exemplary in their heroism and enduring in their fame, the poet must have hoped to inspire the troops, who were still at war. The reporting in Rāj-vilās is very much from the Mewar perspective and it is highly selective – nothing is said about Mewar losses or misfortunes, and the names of only a handful of opponents are provided in contrast to the many warriors from the Mewar side who are identified.
The poet invokes a general mood of resistance against the Mughals through reference to incidents from Mewar's recent past. In perhaps the most interesting passage in Canto 10, the Rana and his advisors debate the strategy they should take in dealing with the Mughal invasion. The royal priest, Garibdas, cites past precedent, saying that the Mewaris were traditionally hill warriors, attacking their enemies at passes (ghāṭ) through the hills (Rāj-vilās 10.72). So Raj Singh, he advises, should follow the example of his predecessor Udai Singh, who retreated into the Aravalli hills when Mughal emperor Akbar invaded Mewar (in the late 1560s), or that of the celebrated Rana Pratap (son of Udai Singh), who took a stand against a Mughal army at Goghunda (in the Battle of Haldighati, 1576), or even of Amar Singh (son of Rana Pratap) in his armed resistance to the Mughals (while emperor Jahangir ruled; Rāj-vilās 10.75-77). By citing the three Sisodiya rulers – Udai Singh, Rana Pratap, and Amar Singh – who had fought against the extension of Mughal power in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Mān Kavi held up the past as a guide for action in the present moment. I have written elsewhere about the seventeenth-century Mewar court's conscious deployment of Rana Pratap's reign in the construction of a heroic past, a project in which this poem certainly participated.Footnote 30 Rāj-vilās, composed some sixty plus years after the Sisodiyas capitulated to greater Mughal might in 1615, looked back with great pride on the dynasty's earlier history of opposing the Mughals and its adoption of guerilla warfare.
Aurangzeb in Rāj-vilās
Since Rāj-vilās’s account of the actual fighting in Mewar was intended to kindle the martial spirits of the kingdom's troops, it does apply terms to the Mughal enemies that cast them as distinct “others”. The Mughal soldiers are typically referred to as asura or demon, as well as turaka (Turk) and mleccha (barbarian); all three words were widely used for Muslims in Mughal-era Rajasthan.Footnote 31 Asura is the preferred choice whenever Muslims are juxtaposed to Hindus, as when Aurangzeb is called asuresa (Skt. asureśa, lord of the asuras) in contrast to the hindū-pati, or Lord of the Hindus, Rana Raj Singh. While the pejorative implications of a label suggesting a likeness to a demon cannot be denied, Rāj-vilās was by no means exceptional in using it; nor do Cantos 10–18 make much of an attempt to blacken the reputation of the Mughal army or its leader. Aurangzeb is frequently given the acclaimed title asapati (Skt. aśvapati), or Lord of Cavalry, a title that highlighted the strong cavalries of Central Asian and Afghan rulers since at least the twelfth century. Because he retreated to Ajmer after the first three months of the Mughal occupation of Mewar, leaving the prosecution of the war largely to his sons and generals, Aurangzeb soon virtually vanishes from the poem's narrative. Despite its chronicling of warfare within the Mewar region, therefore, the level of antagonism exhibited toward the Mughals in Cantos 10–18 of Rāj-vilās is not strikingly high. Thus, the overall thrust of the section of the poem on the rebellion within Mewar is more about glorifying Raj Singh and his warriors than demeaning his adversaries.Footnote 32
However, Aurangzeb is portrayed in more unfavourable ways elsewhere in the poem. The first time is in Canto 7, which is devoted to the story of Carumati of Kishangarh, also called Rupmati, whose beauty allegedly led Aurangzeb to seek her hand. When she heard that she was slated to marry Aurangzeb and “live in a demon's house”, the princess grew dismayed. Saying that she did not want to wed an enemy of the gods (sura) whose countenance resembled that of a langur monkey, the princess wrote instead to the great Hindu emperor of illustrious ancestry, Rana Raj Singh (Rāj-vilās 7.26-29). In sending a letter to the lord of Chitor, Carumati was acting just like the legendary Rukmini had done with lord Krishna, her future husband, we are told (Rāj-vilās 7.31). Carrying the mythological references further, the poet has Carumati remind Raj Singh in her letter of how the epic hero Rama acted when Ravana absconded with Sita (Rāj-vilās 7.35). The Rana responds to this damsel in distress by rushing to Kishangarh and marrying her. Despite its portrayal of marriage to a Muslim as a terrible fate, the principal effect of this story is to eulogise Raj Singh and present him as a romantic hero.Footnote 33
The most hostile language toward Aurangzeb appears, somewhat unexpectedly, in the section preceding the account of the war within Mewar. Canto 9 is unusual in that it mainly focuses on a different region and dynasty in its description of the origin and early stages of the Rajput Rebellion, which were confined to Marwar. The verses rebuking the emperor for his cruelty toward his father and brothers, which appeared at the outset of this article, come from Canto 9, and there is more criticism along the same lines. So, for example, three verses in sequence describe Aurangzeb's armed conflicts with the imperial princes Shuja, Murad, and Dara – the co-uterine brothers whose “roots he tore up”.Footnote 34 Later in the same canto, Aurangzeb is once again castigated for killing or harming his father, brothers, and their sons.Footnote 35 In addition to the implication that it was unnatural or immoral to treat kinsmen in such a harsh manner, is the accusation that Aurangzeb accomplished his objectives through deceptive means.Footnote 36 The destruction of his brothers and father was done, claims the poet, “from within the shelter of Allah”; that is, by using his piety as an excuse for his actions.Footnote 37 Aurangzeb was duplicitous toward his kinsmen, the poet declares, “just like a snake with two tongues”.Footnote 38
Besides denouncing his personal character flaws, in Canto 9 the poet also represents Aurangzeb as a representative of an entire religious community that was perenially in conflict with Hindus. This occurs in the first few verses of the canto, which praise the greatness of Mewar's king Raj Singh. Like the Pole Star (which is fixed in place) and Mt. Meru (the axis mundi), the Rana is said to be immovable – that is, he cannot be defeated by Aurangzeb. Next we get the most overt example of a discourse of difference in the entire poem:
Here Rana Raj Singh stands as a symbol of the eternal Hindu struggle against demons, a category in which the Mughal emperor is explicitly included. A clear opposition between the Mewari hero of the poem and the current Mughal ruler is thus articulated at the very outset of Canto 9. This type of explicit invocation of religious strife or competition never figures in the cantos (10-18) on the actual fighting in Mewar, in a noteworthy contrast. Canto 9 next mention a few aspects of Aurangzeb's career.Footnote 43
The poem then shifts gears and turns its attention to the relationship between Aurangzeb and Marwar's Maharaja Jasvant Singh (r. 1638–1678) and, in a departure from the typically chronological sequence of topics, goes back to events that occurred twenty years in the past, during the War of Succession. This movement back in time is striking in that the poet sought an explanation for what was happening in his present moment in events that had occurred decades earlier. Rāj-vilās identifies the underlying cause of the Rajput Rebellion of 1679–1681 as Aurangzeb's lingering ill-will (kurasa) toward those who opposed him at the Battle of Dharmat, fought in April 1658.Footnote 44 As is well-known from a number of other contemporary texts, Maharaja Jasvant Singh's close relationship with Shah Jahan led him to support the emperor's favoured son Dara Shikoh in the succession dispute. Following the emperor's orders, Jasvant Singh and his many Rajput followers tried to stop Aurangzeb as he marched from the Deccan toward Agra. In the resulting Battle of Dharmat (called the Battle of Ujjain in Rāj-vilās), a large number of Rajputs lost their lives and Jasvant Singh was forced to flee to Jodhpur for refuge. The relationship between Jasvant Singh and Aurangzeb grew even more fraught after the Battle of Khajwa, fought between Aurangzeb and his brother Shah Shuja in January 1569. Although Jasvant Singh had earlier submitted to Aurangzeb and was supposed to fight on his behalf, instead he offered his support to Shah Shuja, looted the imperial camp, and departed for Jodhpur. Once back in Marwar, the Maharaja briefly offered succour to the desperate Dara Shikoh, before being won back over to Aurangzeb's side.Footnote 45
Even after his position as emperor was secure, according to Rāj-vilās, Aurangzeb continued to be antagonistic toward Jasvant Singh, who was a “thorn in his heart”. Enraged, Aurangzeb desired to kill this lord of the Rathor clan, like a hunter stalking a deer (Rāj-vilās 9.34-35). He tried to entice the Maharaja to come see him personally, promising great rewards, but Jasvant Singh refused to do so, even while professing loyalty to the emperor (Rāj-vilās 9.36-39). Then Aurangzeb appointed him commander of Ahmadabad and sent him a complete set of clothing (sirpāv, also khil'at), with deceitful intentions. Again, Jasvant Singh refused to submit to the emperor by donning the clothes as was expected, in a proud gesture of independence.Footnote 46 These verses apparently allude to a belief in poisoned robes as a means employed by the Mughal rulers, among others, to rid themselves of troublesome underlings.Footnote 47
Next, the poet turns briefly to the issue of religious difference, in even more pointed terms than at the beginning of Canto 9, when Mewar's Rana Raj Singh was equated to lord Vishnu and the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to one of Vishnu's demon opponents. After several verses on the incompatibility and distrust between Marwar's Maharaja Jasvant Singh and the Shah (sāhi) Aurang as individuals, the poet notes that their basic nature and religious practices are antithetical: one is a kṣatriya, the other is a Turk; one follows the Vedic injunctions, the other observes the way of the book; one's mouth recites “Rama”, the other's tongue repeats (the name of) the Prophet; one honours the eastern direction, the other bows in the western direction, and the like.Footnote 48 This seems to suggests that Jasvant Singh and Aurangzeb could not possibly have gotten along given their differing faiths, and also implies more broadly that Hindus and Muslims were fundamentally at odds.
The insistence in Rāj-vilās that Jasvant Singh never “saluted the Lord of Horses (Aurangzeb) personally, nor obeyed his commands” and never wore Aurangzeb's robes is memorable, but not entirely accurate.Footnote 49 It may be true that Jasvant Singh did not attend Aurangzeb at court for some time after his plundering of the imperial army at Khajwa in January 1659, fearing for his safety; the chronicler Khafi Khan, writing several decades later, reports that “Raja Jaswant Singh being ashamed of his crimes, which were beyond reckoning, had not enough courage to appear at the Court”.Footnote 50 However, after he was appointed governor of Gujarat in late 1659 as a reward for abandoning his support for Dara Shikoh, Jasvant Singh did accept a set of robes (khil'at) from the emperor.Footnote 51 Other contemporary accounts, mainly in Persian and reflecting imperial perspectives, report that the Maharaja met with Aurangzeb on several occasions, generally after being reassigned from one theatre of war to another, and was presented with gifts of honour including robes.Footnote 52 Rāj-vilās, on the other hand, asserts that the relationship between the Marwar king and the Mughal emperor remained fraught with tension, with Jasvant Singh refusing to ever submit to Aurangzeb in a public fashion.
In this canto, which deals primarily with Aurangzeb's relations with Marwar, the author of Rāj-vilās may have emplotted the narrative so as to accentuate the element of vengeance, a popular motif in Rajput literature. The poet points to Aurangzeb's long-standing grudge against the Jodhpur ruler as the reason for his refusal to accept the infant Ajit Singh as the Marwar king (Rāj-vilās 9.67-68). In seeking an explanation for Aurangzeb's actions subsequent to Jasvant Singh's death in late 1678, it is possible that Rāj-vilās exaggerated the state of animosity between the two men. Yet Mān Kavi was not alone in citing Jasvant Singh's earlier behaviour as a factor in Aurangzeb's decision regarding succession to the Jodhpur throne, for Khafi Khan also states that “the mind of the Emperor was already prejudiced owing to the conduct of the Rajah in the past”.Footnote 53 In any case, the Aurangzeb portrayed in Canto 9 is a notably unsympathetic character, keen on revenge and eager to take advantage of Marwar's political weakness after its Maharaja's death.
Aurangzeb avenges himself against Jasvant Singh and his former kingdom through unreasonable demands and outright deceit, according to Rāj-vilās. He first sends an envoy to Marwar's capital, Jodhpur, demanding that Jasvant Singh's retainers hand over all the late king's amassed wealth. They refuse, saying that they are Rajputs whose duty was to protect Marwar's wealth against the cruel demons (i.e., their Mughal adversaries) with their swords (Rāj-vilās 9.72-82). When the emperor hears this, he gets angry and vows to overthrow these Rajputs of the Rathor clan. Aurangzeb arrives at Ajmer, the main Mughal base in Rajasthan, and dispatches an imperial prince to Marwar with an army, but the prince is frightened away by a clever ploy on the part of the Rathor Rajputs (Rāj-vilās 9.83-118). Aurangzeb decides to try deception instead of force, and sends these Rajputs a message of reconciliation, promising to anoint Ajit Singh as the Marwar ruler once he, the emperor, had returned to Delhi. In a total breach of promise, however, Aurangzeb orders the coronation of the son of Jasvant Singh's elder brother, telling Ajit Singh's partisans that he could never support them given Jasvant Singh's arrogance in attacking him at Dharmat (Rāj-vilās 9.119-137).Footnote 54 The Rathor clan Rajputs then get mad, attack the emperor's forces, and win a victory. They return to their own territory but Aurangzeb sends a large army to attack and occupy Jodhpur (Rāj-vilās 9.138-170). This prompts Ajit Singh's Rajput followers to ask the Mewar king for help.
The poem's narrative gaze now returns to its main hero, Rana Raj Singh, who is once again praised as the lord of Hindus (hindūpati), maintainer of kṣatriya dharma, a world-renowned great king (puhavī prasiddha chatrapati), and the like. The majestic Rana and his illustrious Sisodiya dynasty are compared favourably to the villainous (pisuna) emperor of demons (asura), Aurangzeb. The Rana agrees to give refuge to Jodhpur's Ajit Singh, at least partly on the grounds of the marital ties (saggapan) between the two royal families, and provides him with 12 villages for his sustenance (Rāj-vilās 9.171-205). Then, the Rana proclaims to the Rathors of Jodhpur:
This is an explicit declaration of animosity that conflates the Mughal emperor with Islam and the Mewar Rana with Hinduism. Thus the canto ends, as it begins, with the deployment of Aurangzeb as a foil to Rana Raj Singh, whose mission it is to defend Hindus and Hindu ways. The repeated subsuming of political rivalries under the guise of religious conflict in this part of the poem may be intended to justify Raj Singh's intrusion into the internal affairs of another Rajput kingdom and mask his political ambitions.
Two features of Rāj-vilās’s representation of Aurangzeb are particularly fascinating. The first is the discrepancy in the portrayal of this Mughal emperor, who is mentioned in just a few verses before vanishing into the indistinct background of events as the invasion of Mewar by his sons and generals proceeds in Cantos 10–18. In contrast, Aurangzeb is very much in view in Canto 9, where he displays a distinctly unsavory personality as he actively engages in attempts to deceive and dupe Jasvant Singh and his followers. Little censure is directed toward Aurangzeb as the leader of the Mughal invasion of Mewar, while the emperor Aurangzeb who wreaked his revenge on Marwar for personal reasons is repeatedly denounced. By presenting the roots of the conflict as lying in the deeply stirring sentiments of honour and vengeance, Mān Kavi perhaps sought to incite a more intense antagonism toward Mughal rule among his audience of Mewar warriors, who may have wondered why they were fighting in defense of another Rajput realm.
A second conspicuous aspect of Rāj-vilās’s narrative of war is its recourse to history. When considering what strategy to take in dealing with the Mughal troops occupying their territory, the elite warriors of Mewar are counselled to consider how Mewar kings had successfully resisted the Mughals for decades, from the late 1560s to 1615. The lesson to be learned from the past was that the Mewar warriors should retreat to the hills, defend the passes, and harass the Mughal forces with raids and ambushes. This practical advice also created a sense of continuity with the past, a past in which Mewar was at war with the empire, just as it was at the current moment. Rāj-vilās thus posits resistance to the Mughals as a central element in Mewar identity through the ages. History is again employed as a means of understanding the present in Rāj-vilās' account of the causes of the Rajput Rebellion of 1679–81. Aurangzeb's policy toward Marwar after Jasvant Singh's death is traced back to his animus for the Maharaja from the time of the War of Succession, in 1658–59. Conveniently omitting mention of the many years of military service Jasvant Singh provided to the empire in the Deccan and elsewhere, as well as his very high rank at court,Footnote 58 Rāj-vilās casts the Marwar Maharaja as having always been defiant of Mughal authority. By implication, Maharaja Jasvant Singh is therefore comparable to the celebrated rulers of Mewar who also fought against the imperial overlords. Through his allusion to past hostilities, Rāj-vilās' poet thus cleverly insinuates that a state of conflict with the Mughal empire was a normal state of affairs for the Rajputs of Mewar and Marwar.
Building fame at the Mewar court
The interest in history in Rāj-vilās and other texts from the Mewar court must be viewed within the context of a larger campaign to enhance the public image of the Sisodiyas.Footnote 59 Of all the Rajput lineages, the Sisodiyas were regarded as the most prestigious, primarily due to their distinguished pedigree and long history. They had lost considerable territory, however, during their decades of resistance to Mughal rule, and had less political clout at the imperial court than other Rajput lineages such as the Kachvahas of Amer and the Rathors of Jodhpur. Both Raj Singh and his predecessor Jagat Singh I (r. 1628–1652) made considerable efforts to publicise the greatness of the Sisodiya dynasty and restore its political fortunes. A vigorous programme of building and sponsorship of the arts was among the consequences. So, for example, Rana Jagat Singh I had a large Vishnu temple constructed next to the palace in Udaipur. He also commissioned an illustrated Rāmāyaṇa epic which rivalled the lavish manuscripts produced at the Mughal court; additionally, it paralleled the Mughal stress on their Timurid ancestry by highlighting the Sisodiya's alleged descent from the god-king Rama.
Rana Raj Singh followed his father's policy of cultural competition with both the Mughals and rival Rajput courts, intended to burnish the reputation of the Sisodiyas. One of Jagat Singh I's projects continued by Raj Singh was the restoration of Chitor, the famous fortress that had long been the capital of the Mewar region. Chitor held tremendous symbolic significance as Mewar's traditional political centre and possession of it had served as an important source of royal legitimacy. Yet rebuilding the fortress had more than symbolic implications, and the Mughal court soon objected on the grounds that it violated the treaty of 1615. Accordingly, in 1654 Shah Jahan had the renovations at Chitor demolished and took away some of Raj Singh's assigned lands in punishment, in an unambiguous exercise of superior power.Footnote 60 Resentment of Shah Jahan for this humiliation over Chitor is often advanced as the reason for Raj Singh's refusal to assist the emperor's designated heir a few years later when the struggle over succession to the throne erupted.
Forced to find other avenues for accruing fame, Rana Raja Singh (r. 1652–1680) eventually decided on the project that was to become his greatest accomplishment: the construction of Rajsamand, an artificial lake located about 40 miles from Udaipur. It is a sizeable body of water, extending more than three miles in length and a mile and a half in width, constructed over the fourteen-year period from 1662 to 1676. It was a complicated project involving sixty thousand labourers: the waters of the Gomati river had to be diverted first for several years before the foundations of the main dam could even be laid, then a huge amount of earth had to be excavated in order to make the dam. In addition to the actual dam, numerous platforms, pavilions, and gateways were erected around it and a royal palace was built nearby.Footnote 61 Every stage of progress along the way was marked with ceremonies, culminating in a week-long series of events at the lake's official inauguration. During its construction, Rajsamand thus provided the Rana with many opportunities to publicly display his kingliness, and it has kept his memory alive ever since.Footnote 62
Rajsamand's creation occupies a central place in Rāja-ratnākara Footnote 63 and Rāja-praśasti,Footnote 64 two poetic biographies of Raj Singh that are extremely laudatory about the Rana, just like Rāj-vilās, but were composed in Sanskrit rather than a vernacular. Rāja-ratnākara’s poet, Sadāśiva, was a member of the Nagar brahmin community of western India, although his family had been resident in Banaras for several generations.Footnote 65 Raṇachoḍa Bhaṭṭa, author of Rāja-praśasti, was also a brahmin but not of western Indian origin. His family had come from Andhra to Mewar several generations previously and was likely associated with the Vallabhacarya or Pushtimarg sect.Footnote 66 While the figure of 46,000 cited in Rāja-praśasti (19.23) must be an exaggeration, large numbers of brahmins were involved in the ceremonies surrounding Rajsamand's inauguration, both as priests and as gift recipients. Perhaps for this reason, a little more than half of Rāja-praśasti’s 1,050 verses and Rāja-ratnākara’s 850 verses are devoted to the topic of the lake. Rāj-vilās, on the other hand, allots a paltry 35 out of 1,600 verses to Rajsamand's construction and ceremonies.
Competing perspectives on Aurangzeb
It is rare to have three poetic biographies from this era that concern the same ruler, so these works about Rana Raj Singh deserve sustained scholarly analysis. In this essay, I must confine myself to what they report about the Rana's relations with Aurangzeb and other Mughals, although several other aspects of Mewar political culture could be studied in some depth. Charitable donations and meritorious works figure much more prominently in the writings of the brahmin poets, in contrast to Mān Kavi's emphasis on military conflict. Despite the differences in the extent of their coverage, there is sufficient overlap in topics that Rāja-praśasti and Rāja-ratnākara can be usefully compared with Rāj-vilās; they offer us examples of how other poets, working in another language and from another social background, chose to interpret recent events that had affected their common patron. These two Sanskrit poems are particularly valuable in demonstrating that the vilification of Aurangzeb in Canto 9 of Rāj-vilās was not necessarily representative of the Mewar court's attitudes towards this Mughal emperor.
Rāja-ratnākara is the earlier of the two Sanskrit works for it ends with events in 1677.Footnote 67 Since the poem was completed before the Rajput Rebellion began, Aurangzeb only appears in it in the context of the War of Succession. The enemy (śatru) in Rāja-ratnākara is not Aurangzeb, in a striking divergence from Rāj-vilās, but rather his father Shah Jahan, against whom the Rana had contemplcated retaliation (pratikarma) in the past (Rāja-ratnākara 10.10). Raj Singh's animosity toward the emperor is said to have been aggravated by earlier affronts (prāg-vikriyoddīpita-vaira-bhāvaḥ) – an implicit reference to the Mughal razing of Chitor's reconstructed buildings and fortifications in 1654 (Rāja-ratnākara 10.15). When he heard about Shah Jahan's serious illness in 1657, therefore, Raj Singh went on a military campaign and attacked towns adjacent to his own kingdom. In other words, the Rana understood that the Mughal court would be preoccupied with the possibility of the emperor's imminent death, and took the opportunity to acquire plunder and territory. The Rana's marching out for battle is said to have pleased “the sons of the Chagatai sovereign who desired the kingdom (cakattādhipateḥ sutānām rājyotsukānām)”, except for the eldest son who was devoted to serving his father (Rāja-ratnākara 10.19).
This eldest son, Dara Shikoh, is featured in the next five verses of Rāja-ratnākara, providing us with an alternative perspective on a controversial figure who is often presented today as Aurangzeb's alter ego.Footnote 68 While Raj Singh was engaged in attacking neighbouring towns, an envoy from Dara Shikoh arrived with a letter. In it, the Mughal prince made this plea:
Rāja-ratnākara’s poet has here put an overtly religious appeal in Dara Shikoh's mouth, calling on Hindu rulers to support his claim to the throne because to do otherwise would be harmful to their faith. His brothers, unlike Dara Shikoh himself, are allegedly intent on suppressing Hindu ways. The poem shows us that, less than twenty years after his death, Dara Shikoh was remembered by at least some Hindus as more favourably inclined toward their “practices and scriptures” (dharmāgama) than Aurangzeb and his other brothers.
Dara Shikoh's use of religion as a means to gain support in Rāja-ratnākara does not work, however. Raj Singh proves immune to Dara Shikoh's religion-based argument and promise of future favour, despite the frequent descriptions of the Rana as the foremost lord and protector of Hindus in texts sponsored by his court.Footnote 72 Unlike the case in Rāj-vilās, therefore, a discourse of religious difference is purposely rejected in this episode of Rāja-ratnākara. Indeed, derogatory terminology for the Mughals and other Muslims is largely absent in this canto, which covers the Rana's conflict with Shah Jahan over the rebuilding of Chitor and his actions during the War of Succession. While Shah Jahan is once referred to as mleccha-pati (lord of the barbarians), the Mughal emperor is usually called the Chagatai lord in this part of the poem,Footnote 73 and the terms asura and its equivalent rākṣasa do not appear.Footnote 74 Instead of being swayed by Dara Shikoh's religion-based appeal for support, the Rana goes to the market town Malpura located outside his own territory, plunders its merchants of their considerable wealth, and then moves on to attack other towns.
In the interim, Aurangzeb is steadily growing stronger. He eliminates the opposition to his claim to the throne, as Rāja-ratnākara tells us:
Soon thereafter, Aurangzeb is said to have written to the Rana repeatedly, with great joy. Assuring the Mewar lord that he would be granted much land since “there is no one else more dear to me than you (iṣṭa-varyo na tvat-samo ‘nyo 'sti)”, Aurangzeb told the Rana to return to his capital – that is, the Rana was gently warned to stop encroaching on others’ territories (Rāja-ratnākara 10.52). After getting this friendly letter, the Rana sent his brother Ari Singh to Delhi to attend the emperor and went back to Udaipur.
Overall, the portrayal of Aurangzeb in Rāja-ratnākara is quite even-handed. As was the case in Rāj-vilās, Rāja-ratnākara recognises that Aurangzeb only gained the throne by forcibly opposing and oppressing his male relatives, but it does so in a far less negative manner than Rāj-vilās. Instead of castigating Aurangzeb for deceiving his brothers and killing them, Rāja-ratnākara merely states that he jailed his father and youngest brother (Murad), and also defeated two other brothers (Dara Shikoh and Shuja) in battle. On the more positive side, Rāja-ratnākara depicts Aurangzeb as benevolent toward Rana Raj Singh, whom he treats in a respectful manner. It is Shah Jahan who is cast as the Mughal enemy in this poem from 1677, and not Aurangzeb. This makes sense, for as Satish Chandra notes, “In the early years of Aurangzeb, Rana Raj Singh stood closer to the Mughal Emperor than any of the Rajput rulers except Jai Singh [of the Kachvaha family] and Mewar attained larger dimensions than at any time since the days of Rana Sanga”.Footnote 76 Since Raj Singh had not openly opposed Aurangzeb's bid for the throne, unlike the numerous Rajputs who joined Jasvant Singh of Marwar in staying loyal to the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, historians agree that Mewar's relationship with Aurangzeb was quite cordial prior to the outset of the rebellion in 1679. Rāja-ratnākara, completed in 1677, reflects this cordial state of affairs.
The portrayal of Aurangzeb is even more positive in Raṇachoḍa Bhaṭṭa's Rāja-praśasti, which also pays more attention to Rana Raj Singh's support for him in the War of Succession. Rāja-praśasti describes two sets of positive exchanges between the two men, once Aurangzeb gained the upper hand in the succession struggle. First, when Raj Singh found out that Aurangzeb had become lord of Delhi in June 1658, he sent his brother Ari Singh to meet with the new ruler, presumably to convey his congratulations. Aurangzeb granted Dungarpur and other places to Ari Singh, who returned to Mewar and granted them to the Rana – here, Aurangzeb is shown as giving tacit permission to Raj Singh for his raids on Malpura and other localities neighbouring Mewar (which the poem has covered in the previous canto). On a second occasion, when war broke out between Aurangzeb and his brother Shuja, the Rana sent his son Sirdar Singh to stand with Aurangzeb in battle – this is a reference to the Battle of Khajwa fought in January 1569, where Jasvant Singh became infamous for looting the imperial camp that he had pledged to support. Aurangzeb rewarded Mewar's Sirdar Singh after the battle with lands, horses, elephants etc., all of which Sirdar Singh in turn presented to his father, the Rana (Rāja-praśasti 8.1-7).
Rāja-praśasti highlights the friendly relationship between the new Mughal emperor and the Mewar kingdom in this manner. In order to do so, it elides the fact that Raj Singh remained uncommitted, despite repeated requests in writing for assistance, until Aurangzeb emerged as the likely successor following his victories in the Battles of Dharmat (or Ujjain) and Samugarh (or Dholpur) in April and May 1658.Footnote 77 Aurangzeb's benevolence to the Rana is emphasised in Rāja-praśasti, and no mention is made of Aurangzeb's cold-hearted treatment of his father and brothers, among whom only Shuja is named. The same lack of acrimony toward Aurangzeb characterises the poem's account of the Rajput Rebellion of 1679–81, even though the Mughal emperor was Mewar's enemy in this war. Rāja-praśasti merely states, in neutral language, that “the lord of Delhi came to Mewar”, without providing any explanation of what led to this Mughal invasion of Mewar (Rāja-praśasti 22.10). The emperor is usually referred to as the Lord of Delhi (Dillīśa, Dillīpati, Dillīśvara) or sometimes by his name Aurangzeb, but never by the title preferred in Rāj-vilās, lord of demons (asuresa).Footnote 78
Along the same lines, there is little indication of Hindu-Muslim animosity in Rāja-praśasti. The label mleccha or barbarian is applied to Mughal troops and nobles in a few instances, sometimes in contrast to their “Hindu” counterparts.Footnote 79 The only hints of religious discord have to do with the desecration of holy sites. At the outset of the invasion, it is said that “offenses were committed at the royal temple” at Rajsamand lake by Mughal troops.Footnote 80 When the Mewar prince Bhim launched an attack in Gujarat sometime later, he “revealed his wrath at the destruction of the temple”, by destroying one big mosque and 300 small ones there.Footnote 81 Otherwise, the enemy is mainly differentiated from the poem's heroes by geography: the opponents are repeatedly described as being from Delhi.
In its account of the Rajput Rebellion, the poem's focus is not on the adversaries but rather on the praiseworthy exploits of the brave Mewar fighters.Footnote 82 Special attention is given to a number of high-ranking warriors who are individually named and also to the two sons of the Rana. Their fierce fighting, Rāja-praśasti implies, was what led to Aurangzeb's decision to make peace (melanam) with the Rana (Rāja-praśasti 22.45). Meanwhile, Rana Raj Singh dies and his son Jai Singh ascends the throne. The two sides continue to fight each other in the Aravalli hills for some time, until negotiations for peace are eventually conducted at Rajsamand lake. The poet ends with descriptions of the participants to the peace treaty: Rana Jai Singh, the Mughal prince Azam, and their associates (Rāja-praśasti 23.34-62).
Rāja-praśasti thus goes further forward in time than does Rāj-vilās, past the death of Rana Raj Singh in October 1680, his son Jai Singh's accession to the throne, and the subsequent peace process. We are not sure exactly when the poem was begun or completed.Footnote 83 Raṇachoḍa Bhaṭṭa most probably hoped to end Rāja-praśasti on a triumphant note, with a description of the king's generosity to the many brahmins who attended Rajsamand lake's inauguration ceremony in 1676. As it stands today, however, Rājapraśasti has two more cantos covering the Rajput Rebellion and its conclusion in June 1681.Footnote 84 It seems likely that war broke out before Raṇachoḍa Bhaṭṭa had finished his biographic eulogy of Raj Singh, the intended patron.Footnote 85 This would have forced the poet to add an account of the warfare and peace negotiations, explaining the considerable praise of Jai Singh (r. 1680–1698), both as heroic prince and resplendent king, in these sections of the poem. The hundred verses of Rāja-praśasti that cover the Rajput Rebellion and its conclusion comprise roughly 10 percent of the poem's content,Footnote 86 much less than the 50 percent dedicated to Rajsamand. It was fitting, therefore, that Raj Singh's successor, Rana Jai Singh should have ordered Rāja-praśasti inscribed on 25 stone slabs that were embedded into the embankment of Rajsamand in 1687.Footnote 87
Of all three texts, Rāja-praśasti casts the relationship between Mewar and the Mughals in the best light. Rana Raj Singh is depicted as an ally whom Aurangzeb appreciated and generously rewarded as he consolidated his hold on the imperial throne. Nothing faintly critical about Aurangzeb as a person is ever insinuated in this poem – not the imprisonment of his father, not the execution of brothers, not the deceitful tactics. The only whiff of acrimony in Rāja-praśasti relates to the desecration of a temple, which the poet blames on the Mughal troops and not the emperor himself. The armed skirmishes and raids of the Rebellion are significant in the poem because they offer an opportunity to praise the bravery and prowess of the Mewar princes and nobles, rather than to denigrate the opposing side.Footnote 88 In the last thirty verses, both sides meet to exchange gifts and honour the leading chiefs of Mewar, in a scene of complete amity. Rāja-praśasti ends here, but the good relations between Rana Jai Singh and emperor Aurangzeb did not: both Jai Singh and his younger brother Bhim Singh, who spent years in the Deccan in Mughal service, held high ranks at the Mughal court.Footnote 89
Conclusion
Although Rāj-vilās and Rāja-praśasti were finished only a year or so apart, the situation of the Mewar court had undergone a sea change in the interval. When Rāj-vilās was completed, the Mewar elite were hiding out in the hills, trying to obstruct the passage of Mughal armies, while their capital city and agricultural lands were under Mughal occupation. A year later, this war originating outside of Mewar had ceased, and local chiefs could return to their homes in safety. By so strongly commending the peace negotiated with the Mughals, Rāja-praśasti validated the new Rana's leadership and conveyed a desire to maintain the peace – all this while simultaneously commemorating the old Rana who had brought the war to Mewar. This text composed after the Rajput Rebellion had been suppressed by imperial forces displays even less aversion to their emperor and his religion than does Rāja-ratnākara, written before the insurgency began. Rāj-vilās, on the other hand, was created during the war, while Mughal armies were occupying Mewar. No wonder then, that it should be the most antagonistic toward Aurangzeb (and, to a lesser extent, toward Muslims) of the three poems in praise of Raj Singh that I am surveying in this essay.
Once we approach Rāj-vilās as the product of a particular moment in time, the reason for its pejorative language and hostile rhetoric toward Aurangzeb and his army becomes obvious. Mewar was in a state of war when Mān Kavi composed this poem, which he accordingly adapted to fit the needs and circumstances of his audience. Aurangzeb's army had invaded Mewar, taken over its major settlements, and pursued local warriors into the hills: he was the enemy with whom the poet's audience was engaging in combat. Unless we situate Rajput literary works like Rāj-vilās within their precise historical contexts, we cannot appreciate the significant factors influencing their rhetoric and representations. It then becomes all too easy to take their contents at face-value as expressions of widespread and consistent attitudes.Footnote 90 This tendency is especially pernicious in relation to a place and time like Mughal-era Mewar, which has been imagined in such overly romanticised ways first by James Tod in the early nineteenth century and later by Indian nationalists during the struggle against the British Raj.Footnote 91 The sentiments expressed in Canto 9 of Rāj-vilās should not be construed as a timeless expression of Mewar's eternal resistance to foreign rule, but rather as a temporary stimulus to aggression aimed at men who were actively fighting.
We are fortunate, in the case of Rana Raj Singh, in having multiple texts that cover the same events, more or less. Comparing their contents makes it readily apparent that court poets and bards described identical historical figures and incidents in notably divergent ways, in concert with the frequent fluctuations in Mewar's relationship with the Mughal empire. This raises questions about the extent to which poets could embellish or, conversely, contort the historical realities which they were purportedly reporting.Footnote 92 What were the parameters within which poets and bards had to operate; that is, what was the range of permissible poetic strategies in representing a patron's personality and career? Why were rulers like Aurangzeb depicted so differently from text to text and even, as we have seen in the case of Rāj-vilās, within a single poem? Such issues have rarely been broached in reference to medieval and early modern Indian literature, unlike the case with European literature.Footnote 93 Scholarship on Mughal-era India is beginning to acknowledge the multitude of perspectives on the empire and its leaders, as other papers in this journal issue attest; this is the first step in a more sophisticated understanding of the poetic conventions and socio-political conditions that shape literary constructions of the past.
Among the varied assessments of powerful historical figures like Aurangzeb by their contemporaries were some highly critical views. At times these criticisms might be expressed quite overtly, seemingly without much fear of retaliation. For example, Śatruśalya-carita, a Sanskrit poem about the Hada lords of Bundi dating from ca. 1635, uses words like villain (khala) and wicked (duṣṭa) to describe the reigning emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) when he was a prince, for having rebelled against his father Jahangir.Footnote 94 The accusation that Jahangir (r. 1605–1627) had been a “drinker of alcohol” and “under the control of a woman” (referring to queen Nur Jahan's alleged influence over him) also appears in this work.Footnote 95 These sorts of aspersions about the imperial family, as well as general gossip, circulated not only among the elite but even in the bazaar, as scholars have increasingly come to appreciate. While the more scandalous allegations and unfavourable comments were never written down in Persian chronicles or memoirs, some of them have been passed down to us in the accounts of foreign travellers like Niccolao Manucci;Footnote 96 an instance of this can be witnessed in François Bernier's description of Aurangzeb as “a complete master of the art of dissimulation”,Footnote 97 an assessment that is close to Rāj-vilās’s allegations about his being “like a snake with two tongues”.Footnote 98
Rāj-vilās reveals that some common complaints about Aurangzeb found in scholarly works of the modern era were voiced as far back as the seventeenth century. This should alert us to the ways in which older ideas about historical figures can be recirculated and repurposed over the centuries. For the past few decades, as scholars became more aware both of the constructed nature of historical narratives and the problematic bases of colonial knowledge, they have often discounted the influences or repercussions of precolonial conceptions and memories into the modern era. In order to thoroughly excavate the genealogy of current historiography, however, I would argue that we need to work our way backwards at least as far as the Mughal era, for the Indo-Persian histories of that period were the main basis on which early colonial accounts of India's past were constructed.
Let us take the example of Jadunath Sarkar, a historian of the first half of the twentieth century who is often blamed for the extremely unfavourable view of Aurangzeb that is widespread today in India. Sarkar's harshest charge against Aurangzeb was that his policies were largely motivated by religion, so much so that he hoped to forcibly convert all Hindus to Islam.Footnote 99 To be sure, Sarkar's stature as a historian did ensure that his condemnation of Aurangzeb was widely circulated. Yet, the allegation that Aurangzeb sought to convert Hindus en masse had been made considerably earlier. Robert Orme claimed in his book Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, first published in 1782, that:
the hypocrisy of Aurangzebe increased with his power; and in order to palliate to his Mahomedan subjects, the crimes by which he had become their sovereign, he determined to enforce the conversion of the Hindoos throughout his empire by the severest penalties, and even threatened the sword; as if the blood of his subjects were to wash away the stains, with which he was imbrued by the blood of his family.Footnote 100
The notion that Aurangzeb needed to rehabilitate his reputation, which had been blackened by his treatment of family members, is already fully developed in Orme's writing, and is advanced as the reason for the emperor's zealous attitude toward conversion. It is quite possible that Orme acquired this view of Aurangzeb during his stay in India between 1742 and 1758, just a few decades after Aurangzeb's death in 1707.Footnote 101 Some aspects of it – the wickedness of the emperor's actions towards his brothers and father, the use of Islam as a cover or justification for his conduct, and the assertion that Aurangzeb wanted to suppress Hindu ways (put into Dara Shikoh's mouth) – can be identified in the poems dedicated to Rana Raj Singh. If so, then it is within the realm of possibility that some of his Hindu subjects believed Aurangzeb sought to convert them. Rather than being a twentieth-century fabrication, therefore, Sarkar's accusation against Aurangzeb could possibly date back to the Mughal era.
I am not suggesting that Jadunath Sarkar, Robert Orme, and Mān Kavi are accurate in their harsh criticisms of Aurangzeb, but only that we need to better understand how such ideas about historical figures were formulated, transmitted, and transformed. Unfortunately, once articulated, negative characterisations of a person – even if anomalous or atypical – become available as a resource for future generations to use as they desire. In this way, the derogatory image of Aurangzeb in works like Rāj-vilās – removed from the historical setting from which it sprang – could be appropriated time and again, by writers such as Tod, and presented as fact. The significance of the papers in this special issue lies in their problematising of our current conceptions of Aurangzeb and their call for more careful scrutiny of the wide range of literary texts and documents from his reign.
