For example, Aurangzeb almost never targetted temples in the Deccan, although that is where his massive army was camped for most of his reign. In the north, he did attack temples, for example the Keshava Rai Temple in Mathura. But the reason was political: the Jats of the Mathura region had revolted against the empire.
For these same reasons of statecraft, Aurangzeb also patronised temples, since Hindus who remained loyal to the state were rewarded. Also, temple destruction was a common part of Indian politics at the time and was not restricted to Muslims. Later on, Tipu renovated the temple and had the idol reinstalled. It is a powerful tale and one that could really clinch the case.
The only problem? Not only that, his patronsiation of music meant that a number of dhrupads were composed in his name.
Even further, he also seemed to be quite knowledgeable about it himself. This trend actually becomes sharper as you move up the administration. Nevertheless, almost by any standards, Aurangzeb was a pukka upper-class Hindustani a somewhat obvious point, since he was born and raised upper-class Hindustani. Azam Shah, his son, was keenly interested in Braj poetry and patronised some of the biggest names in the language such as Mahakavi Dev.
Moreover — again, this is obvious — the mother tongue of Aurangzeb and the other Mughals by then had become an early form of modern Hindi-Urdu. In a fascinating letter , written by Aurangzeb to his year old son, Azam Shah, the Emperor gifts him a fort and orders that drums be beaten in his name.
Of course, the Mughals still mostly wrote in Persian, which was the official language of the day. Abolished by Akbar and reintroduced by Aurangzeb, the jizya was a tax levied on non-Muslims in the realm over and above all other duties. Widely reviled as a religious fanatic who sought to violently oppress Hindus, he is even blamed by some for setting into motion conflicts that would result in the creation of a separate Muslim state in South Asia.
In her lively overview of his life and influence, Audrey Truschke offers a clear-eyed perspective on the public debate over Aurangzeb and makes the case for why his often-maligned legacy deserves to be reassessed. Aurangzeb was arguably the most powerful and wealthiest ruler of his day.
His nearly year reign — had a profound influence on the political landscape of early modern India, and his legacy—real and imagined—continues to loom large in India and Pakistan today. Truschke evaluates Aurangzeb not by modern standards but according to the traditions and values of his own time, painting a picture of Aurangzeb as a complex figure whose relationship to Islam was dynamic, strategic, and sometimes contradictory.
At times, Aurangzeb destroyed select temples, especially when their associates supported insurgents or otherwise undermined Mughal state interests. In total, over his nearly year rule, Aurangzeb probably destroyed a few dozen Hindu temples. At the time, people did not draw a firm line between religion and politics, and it was normal to treat temples as legitimate targets of punitive state action.
Today, however, the thought of temple-destruction enrages many people. A urangzeb bore the burden of upholding the ideal of Mughal kingship. He wrote in letters about his Mughal ancestors, seeing his kingdom as a precious gift from his forebears.
When in Delhi, Aurangzeb sat on the Peacock Throne, a symbol of Mughal kingship that dazzled onlookers with its many gems. Mughal court rituals were highly formal, and Aurangzeb wore splendid silks and jewels while nobles stood awestruck, arrayed by rank in the Mughal hierarchy.
Mughal kingship involved a great deal of latitude, and Aurangzeb availed himself of the opportunity to shape Mughal court culture to reflect his own aesthetic and religious tastes.
For example, like his forefathers, Aurangzeb devoted state financial resources to patronage. But whereas his great-grandfather was known for translating Hindu Sanskrit texts into Persian, his grandfather for his painting studio, and his father for building the Taj Mahal, Aurangzeb sponsored the Fatawa-i Alamgiri , a collection of Hanafi law codes. Aurangzeb upheld the Mughal tradition of including Hindus in the nobility.
For a century, Hindus had constituted roughly 20 per cent of all Mughal nobles. In the second half of his reign, Aurangzeb enlarged by 50 per cent the proportion of Hindus in the Mughal nobility, hardly a course of action that indicated he was bent on destroying Hindus or Hinduism.
This rise in the number of Hindu nobles did not prevent anti-Hindu policies from being enacted, such as the jizya tax on most non-Muslims that Aurangzeb began levying in , and a recall of endowed lands given to Hindus in We lack records of state revenues from the jizya , but some evidence suggests that most of the money ended up in the pockets of greedy tax-collectors rather than in the Mughal treasury.
We have better records concerning the recall of endowed lands, and the order was unenforced in many provinces of the empire. In Bengal, for instance, the Mughals actually accelerated their grants of endowed lands to Hindus after The emperor spent his 60s, 70s and 80s living out of tents while he fought for Mughal conquests in central and south India. At first, his victories were swift.
But thereafter Mughal victories lagged. The s and the first seven years of the s saw protracted sieges and weak morale among Mughal soldiers. Even as an old man, when age required that he be carried around the Deccan and south India on a palanquin, Aurangzeb often personally oversaw military activities.
Often, the true purpose of ahistorically condemning Aurangzeb is to galvanise anti-Muslim sentiments. Aurangzeb seemed to lose himself, and perhaps the Mughal empire too, in southern India. Things went poorly thereafter, however. Enemies of the Mughals grew stronger, and the state began to break apart. This debate thrives, in part, on the stunning contrasts that characterise his reign. Aurangzeb grew the Mughal empire to its greatest extent, adding four new provinces that collectively constituted more than one-quarter of the Mughal kingdom.
Yet he might have overextended imperial resources, positioning the Mughal empire to collapse after his death. He was the richest king of his day, boasting items such as the Timur ruby and the Koh-i-noor diamond. Yet Aurangzeb preferred a simpler life, reciting the Quran and knitting prayer caps by hand. However, many in modern India are uninterested in recovering the historical Aurangzeb, preferring instead to slander a distorted memory of the king.
This approach to history as a blank slate that can reflect our modern ideas — even to the extreme of entirely rewriting the past — is dangerous. We must embrace the project of understanding Aurangzeb on his own terms in order to gain a more accurate perspective on this influential emperor and the world he helped to create.
Studying Aurangzeb also helps to challenge modern ignorance and hate by presenting us with a complicated man that we cannot explain by simple reference to modern categories and biases. Space exploration. Instead of treating Mars and the Moon as sites of conquest and settlement, we need a radical new ethics of space exploration. Ramin Skibba. They are spreading like branching plants across the globe. Should we rein cities in or embrace their biomorphic potential?
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