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H-M synthesis: on becoming King, Aurangzeb composed a Hindi poem invoking blessings of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva
by Guest Sat Mar 04, 2017 11:28 am
“The Aurangzeb of popular memory bears only a faint resemblance to the historical emperor,” observes Audrey Truschke near the concluding section of Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth. This indeed is her book’s central theme. In the slim volume, Truschke seeks to sift the man from the myth that has grown around him, especially in popular imagination, over the past couple of centuries.
Truschke burst onto the horizon of medieval Indian history studies just a year ago with her major work, Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court, in which she argues that the Mughal court generally, but especially between 1560 and 1660 (comprising the reigns of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan), greatly patronised not only the Sanskrit language but Sanskrit culture as part of their vision of governance. She bases her argument on an immense amount of in-depth research. The book is clearly meant for the professional medievalist.
The book under review here, on the other hand, is not only half the size of the first but is equally clearly meant for the lay reader, lighter to read with no footnotes and no complex arguments. As a historian, she is disturbed by the distance between professional knowledge and popular image of the man and the emperor, and intervenes to minimise that distance without being an apologist for either the man or the emperor. “The multifaceted king had a complex relationship with Islam, but even so he is not reducible to his religion. In fact, little is simple about Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb was an emperor devoted to power, his vision of justice, and expansion. He was an administrator with streaks of brilliance and scores of faults. He grew the Mughal Empire to its greatest extent and may also have positioned it to break apart. No single characteristic or action can encapsulate Aurangzeb Alamgir…”
The argument that Aurangzeb’s war with his brother and rival Dara Shukoh was not a battle between orthodoxy and liberalism and that the two did not have their support base divided between the orthodox and liberals or the Muslims and the Hindus among the nobles who took sides has long been established in historiography. M. Athar Ali had demonstrated this in his book Mughal Nobility Under Aurangzeb, published in 1966. Aurangzeb had the support of 21 Hindu nobles of high ranks, including the legendary Rajputs Jai Singh and Jaswant Singh, and Dara had 24 on his side, none as grand as the two.
That Aurangzeb did not throw out all the Hindus and Shias from his court and administration on his accession or later is also commonplace among historians. That the number of Hindus in his nobility rose to the highest in Mughal history; that even as he ordered the demolition of a dozen or so temples, including those at Kashi and Mathura and built mosques on their ruins, he was also handing out lands and cash to other temples and maths and to Brahmins is also routinely recounted in history books. Aurangzeb composed a poem in Hindi in which he invokes the blessings of Vishnu, Brahma and Mahesh on his accession (see Manager Pandey, Mughal Badshahon ki Hindi Kavita).
https://thewire.in/113650/aurangzeb-audrey-truschke-review/
Truschke burst onto the horizon of medieval Indian history studies just a year ago with her major work, Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court, in which she argues that the Mughal court generally, but especially between 1560 and 1660 (comprising the reigns of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan), greatly patronised not only the Sanskrit language but Sanskrit culture as part of their vision of governance. She bases her argument on an immense amount of in-depth research. The book is clearly meant for the professional medievalist.
The book under review here, on the other hand, is not only half the size of the first but is equally clearly meant for the lay reader, lighter to read with no footnotes and no complex arguments. As a historian, she is disturbed by the distance between professional knowledge and popular image of the man and the emperor, and intervenes to minimise that distance without being an apologist for either the man or the emperor. “The multifaceted king had a complex relationship with Islam, but even so he is not reducible to his religion. In fact, little is simple about Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb was an emperor devoted to power, his vision of justice, and expansion. He was an administrator with streaks of brilliance and scores of faults. He grew the Mughal Empire to its greatest extent and may also have positioned it to break apart. No single characteristic or action can encapsulate Aurangzeb Alamgir…”
The argument that Aurangzeb’s war with his brother and rival Dara Shukoh was not a battle between orthodoxy and liberalism and that the two did not have their support base divided between the orthodox and liberals or the Muslims and the Hindus among the nobles who took sides has long been established in historiography. M. Athar Ali had demonstrated this in his book Mughal Nobility Under Aurangzeb, published in 1966. Aurangzeb had the support of 21 Hindu nobles of high ranks, including the legendary Rajputs Jai Singh and Jaswant Singh, and Dara had 24 on his side, none as grand as the two.
That Aurangzeb did not throw out all the Hindus and Shias from his court and administration on his accession or later is also commonplace among historians. That the number of Hindus in his nobility rose to the highest in Mughal history; that even as he ordered the demolition of a dozen or so temples, including those at Kashi and Mathura and built mosques on their ruins, he was also handing out lands and cash to other temples and maths and to Brahmins is also routinely recounted in history books. Aurangzeb composed a poem in Hindi in which he invokes the blessings of Vishnu, Brahma and Mahesh on his accession (see Manager Pandey, Mughal Badshahon ki Hindi Kavita).
https://thewire.in/113650/aurangzeb-audrey-truschke-review/
Guest- Guest
Re: H-M synthesis: on becoming King, Aurangzeb composed a Hindi poem invoking blessings of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva
by Guest Sat Mar 04, 2017 11:28 am
this still does not explain why jaziya was reimposed.
Guest- Guest
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