India: A History. Revised and Updated (63 page)

Another Red Fort, that in Agra, retains more of the flavour of the age. Most of it is as Shah Jahan rebuilt it, including the great pillared hall of the
Diwan-i-Am
and the whole sequence of white marble chambers and pavilions which encrust the fort’s upper storey. There, immured in his own creation and increasingly decrepit, the emperor would shuffle away his final years as Aurangzeb’s prisoner. And thence, squinting into the morning sun, he would famously gaze down the Jamuna river to the great white cloud which, moored in marble on the riverbank, housed the remains of his beloved consort and wherein he would himself be laid to rest by her side.

The Taj Mahal was commissioned, and named, for Mumtaz (Mumtaj) Mahal (literally ‘the Palace favourite’), who was the daughter of Asaf Khan and niece of Nur Jahan. She had shared the emperor’s troubled years on the run and become his dearest associate in power. When she died in 1631 while giving birth to their fourteenth child, the emperor was distraught. Her tomb was begun in the following year. ‘He intends it shall excell all other,’ reported Peter Mundy, an employee of the English East India Company who passed through Agra in the 1630s. ‘The building goes on with excessive labour and cost, prosecuted with extraordinary diligence, gold and silver [being] esteemed common metall, and marble but as ordinarie
stone.’
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Completed in 1643, it was instantly acknowledged as a masterpiece. Bernier thought it one of the wonders of the world, James Fergusson, the pioneer of architectural study in India, rated its combination of beauties ‘unsurpassable’, and both Kipling and Tagore ventured a stab at its profound emotional appeal; to the first it was ‘the ivory gate through which all dreams pass’, to the second ‘a tear on the face of eternity’. Combining the bulb-like dome of Humayun’s tomb and the marble and inlay of Itimad-ud-Daula’s with the theatrical staging of Akbar’s and the landscaping of Jahangir’s gardens, it represented a triumphant summation of Mughal taste. Its symbolism, with a setting evocative of paradise and the great white tomb as an image of the Throne of God, is purely Islamic. But in its sculptural conception and in its execution many have recognised an essentially Indian aesthetic and ancient Indian skills.

The site on which the Taj stands was provided, at a price, by Raja Jai Singh, the Kacchwaha successor of that loyal rajput
amir
, Man Singh of Amber. From the Kacchwaha quarries at Makrana in Rajasthan also came its acres of white marble. The genius of the Mughals, in empire-building as in architecture, is often said to have lain in their synthesis of Indian and Islamic traditions and their eagerness to enlist the support of Hindu subjects, like the rajput princes, as well as that of fellow Muslims. Similarly, although the official language of the Mughal court was still Persian,
urdu
(literally ‘camp’), a hybrid tongue which had developed in the military encampments of the empire, was winning a wider currency. Written in the Perso-Arabic script, much of its syntax and vocabulary was borrowed from the Sanskritic derivatives of northern India. Poetry, painting and music benefited from the same synthesis and flourished under the same catholic patronage.

Aurangzeb would not conform in this respect. Discrimination against Hindus and the active promotion of Islamic values were about to be revived. Simultaneously the great tradition of Mughal building virtually ceased. Aurangzeb would have little use for the worldly ostentation of his predecessors. Shah Jahan’s expenditure on architecture is thought to have run to twenty-nine million rupees. Compared to the costs of war and the alienation of revenue to support the army, it was probably not significant.
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But having inherited an empire crippled by the crisis of his own succession and beset by still greater military priorities, Aurangzeb would be reluctant to squander even the smallest portion of his colossal revenues on monumental extravagances.

CONQUEROR OF THE UNIVERSE

The popularity of the dome as an architectural feature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries extended beyond Mughal India. Far outspanning the Taj Mahal or Sir Christopher Wren’s slightly later St Paul’s, indeed second only to Michelangelo’s somewhat earlier St Peter’s, is an unsung edifice of still impressive integrity known as the Gol Gumbaz of Bijapur.

As if to match the Mughals mosque for mosque and tomb for tomb, the Deccani sultans of Bijapur – and to a slightly lesser extent their neighbours in Golconda – had been busy building since the 1570s; and just as Agra’s architecture climaxed with the Taj so did Bijapur’s with the Gol Gumbaz. Four-square with pagoda-like towers, seven storeys high, at each corner, the Gol Gumbaz (‘Round Dome’) displays a refreshing simplicity combined with extraordinary technical expertise. A finish of pale stucco imparts a certain warmth, but the emphasis is on strength, with the great dome in no way disparaging the sturdy castellate structure on which it sits. If the Taj, as befits the tomb of a queen, has a feminine delicacy, the Gol Gumbaz, the tomb of a sultan, is all masculine virility.

It was completed in 1659 for Sultan Muhammad Adil Shah who had died two years earlier after a reign of thirty years. His father, Ibrahim Adil Shah II, had reigned for forty-seven years (1580–1627) in the nearest thing to a golden age which strife-torn Bijapur would ever know. As a patron of the arts and a tolerant Sunni who allowed both his Shia and Hindu subjects to worship as they pleased, Ibrahim boosted the reputation of the Deccan sultanates for enlightened rule. ‘Nor was he fond of unnecessary war,’ says Ferishta, who under Ibrahim’s protection wrote his great
History of the Rise of Mohammedan Power
. The
History
ends rather abruptly with Akbar’s invasion of Ahmadnagar in 1600. Ibrahim had been drawn into this struggle, and wars, necessary and otherwise, now intensified. Under Muhammad Adil Shah, Bijapur had been obliged to acknowledge Mughal supremacy but found compensation in conquests in Mysore and Tamil Nadu. Bijapur’s rule eventually spanned the peninsula from the Konkan and Malabar coasts in the west to the southern Coromandel coast in the east. There the triple fort of Jinji (Gingee, near Pondicherry) was taken and the nayaks of both Madurai and Tanjore acknowledged Muhammad Adil Shah.

It was, though, a fragile empire. The southern conquests had been achieved thanks to the tactical skills of Maratha units like that of Shahji Bhonsle, the latter-day champion of the Ahmadnagar sultanate who had since transferred his loyalties to Bijapur. Shahji, despite securing an extensive fief in the south, would remain loyal to Bijapur. But not so his son,
the great Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha kingdom. As early as 1647 the seventeen-year-old Shivaji had begun subverting Bijapur’s authority in the north-west of the state. With ingenuity and a cut-throat nonchalance he first stormed and tricked his way into the forts of neighbouring
deshmukhs
(landed nobles) in the Maratha homeland of the Western Ghats to carve out an independent Maratha zone around Pune (Poona). This was difficult terrain and with a status to match. It had previously been part of Ahmadnagar but was then transferred to Bijapur when the latter accepted Mughal suzerainty. It was also adjacent to the now directly-administered Mughal province of the Deccan. Maratha activities were therefore of as much concern to the Mughal emperor as to the Bijapur sultan. Equally, the ambiguity of the situation meant that the ever-plausible Shivaji could play off these Islamic superiors and rivals one against the other.

In 1652 Shah Jahan, still the reigning emperor, had reappointed his third son, Aurangzeb, to the governorship of the Deccan province. Aurangzeb, an able administrator and experienced commander who was already in his mid-thirties, quickly adopted a forward policy in respect of the Deccan sultanates. Twenty years of Mughal suzerainty over the sultanates had brought only disturbance and defiance. Additionally, their large Shi’ite communities and Hinduised ceremonial were deeply unacceptable to an orthodox Sunni as devout as Aurangzeb. Annexation rather than overlordship was the only solution, and to this end Aurangzeb began intriguing with Mir Jumla, a Persian adventurer in the service of the Golconda sultanate who had risen to a position of immense power as the conqueror of the northern Tamil country. Becoming in the process something of a merchant-prince, Mir Jumla had latterly attracted the suspicions of the Golconda sultan. The mir therefore took little persuading that his wealth and authority would be better protected by Mughal recognition. In return for a guarantee of his territorial possessions and a top ranking in the Mughal military hierarchy he agreed to join Prince Aurangzeb in a two-pronged attack on Golconda.

This took place in 1656. Hyderabad was taken and the sultan was besieged behind the great walls of Golconda fort. Then orders arrived from Shah Jahan for a Mughal withdrawal. Apparently the Golconda sultan had appealed to Delhi where Dara Shikoh, Aurangzeb’s eldest brother and deadly rival, had persuaded Shah Jahan to abort the campaign. Deeply disappointed, Aurangzeb extracted only territory and a hefty indemnity.

Next year almost exactly the same situation developed when Aurangzeb invaded Bijapur. Taking advantage of the death of Muhammad Adil Shah – he who was laid to rest in the mighty Gol Gumbaz – the Mughal–Mir
Jumla forces ravaged Bijapur’s northern cities and were poised to tackle Bijapur itself when once more came the order to desist. Again Dara Shikoh, anxious to thwart his brother’s chances of succeeding, had intervened; again a frustrated Aurangzeb had to be content with an indemnity plus territory. The latter in this case included the Maratha homeland and part of the Konkan coast. Shivaji was now very definitely a Mughal problem.

But it was a problem that would have to wait. Back in Delhi, in September 1657, Shah Jahan was suddenly taken ill with acute constipation. His limbs swelled, his palate dried, and fever developed.
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Although he would partially recover, rumours of his death or incapacity spread, and the scare was enough to send potential successors rushing to arms. Aurangzeb bided his time. But as governor of Bengal Prince Shuja, another brother, was quickly in the field after a hasty coronation. And in Gujarat the fourth brother, Murad Baksh, followed suit. These two, Shuja and Murad, would prove to be the outsiders. Shuja’s advance up the Ganga was halted by defeat near Varanasi at the hands of an imperial army under Jai Singh, the Kacchwaha rajput. Meanwhile Murad, the youngest and least effectual brother, rested his hopes on joint action with Aurangzeb. Garnering troops and plundering the port of Surat for funds, he waited impatiently for Aurangzeb to move north from the Deccan.

At this stage the front-runner was undoubtedly Dara Shikoh. As the eldest brother, Shah Jahan’s favourite, his designated mouthpiece and heir, and the only Delhi-based contender with the reins of imperial patronage and power at his disposal, Dara looked unbeatable. His one fault was that, like Akbar, he inspired deep suspicion amongst orthodox Muslims and especially the religious
ulema.
A scholar of some repute, he consorted with Sufis, Hindus and Christians; he had translated the
Upanisads
into Persian; he even advanced the idea ‘that the essential nature of Hinduism was identical with that of Islam’.
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This was heresy by any orthodox standard. Aurangzeb’s contention that in resorting to arms he was aiming to save the empire from idolatry and apostasy was no sanctimonious affectation. To a devout Muslim of simple habits, blameless lifestyle and sincere conviction Dara’s free-thinking was anathema. The contest was therefore as much about ideology as power. Many saw Aurangzeb’s cause as the more righteous and so his claim as the more legitimate.

In February 1658, having commandeered Mir Jumla’s troops including a strong detachment of artillery under European direction, and having partially realised the cash indemnities outstanding from Golconda and Bijapur, Aurangzeb moved north into Malwa with a force of thirty thousand. There he met up with Murad and near Ujjain defeated an army sent
south to intercept him by Shah Jahan. Heavy rajput casualties in Shah Jahan’s army, but comparatively few amongst its Muslim component, suggest that Aurangzeb’s cause already commanded sympathy across the filial divide. The victors continued north. They were within eight miles of Agra before they encountered Dara.

At the head of an impressive army somewhat larger than that of his brothers, Dara still looked to hold the advantage. But the best Mughal units had been sent east to oppose Shuja; Dara’s dazzling array, in which rajput contingents were again prominent, also included slippered courtiers and bazaar recruits who quickly wilted in the furnace temperatures of late May. They were no more a match for the dust-smothered veterans from the Deccan than was the dilettante Dara for the resolute Aurangzeb. In battle, despite more rajput heroics, Aurangzeb’s Deccan army stood its ground while the gunners did their work. Victory turned to rout when Dara chose premature flight. Like Khusrau fleeing from Jahangir in 1605, he paused in Agra only to gather funds and family, then took the loser’s well-worn road north through Delhi to Lahore. Aurangzeb occupied Agra. The contest, if not the empire, was won. Dropping all pretence of rescuing Shah Jahan from the infidel influence of Dara, he besieged and then confined the ailing emperor amongst the marble terraces of his Agra fort. There he would remain, a semi-senile spectre of his former glory, until he died eight years later.

Aurangzeb’s victory would be complete only with the elimination of his rivals. Each was now hunted down in turn. The feckless Murad, his ally thus far, was easily dealt with. At Mathura, while heading north in pursuit of Dara, Aurangzeb inveigled Murad into his camp and took him prisoner; he would later be beheaded. Shuja, re-emerging from Bengal, was a second time defeated and sent fleeing back to the east. But Dara continued to elude capture as he flitted from the Panjab to Sind and from Sind to Gujarat. At the head of a new army marching north from Gujarat, he was eventually engaged near Ajmer. Again he escaped, but only to be betrayed and turned over to Aurangzeb. Still a popular figure especially with Delhi’s non-Muslims, Dara’s public humiliation was mercifully brief. After being carried through the streets in chains, he was condemned and cut to pieces. Some say that his body was then again paraded through the streets. ‘So once alive and once dead he was exposed to the eyes of all men, and many wept over his fate.’
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