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Muhyi-ud-Din AURANGZEB ALAMGIR
(r.1658-1707) |
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Prince Dara Shikoh,
Aurangzeb's
oldest brother,
was temperamentally better suited to translating the
Upanishads into
Persian
than to ruling the empire; after his execution, he was
buried in
Humayun's
tomb |
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Prince Shah Shuja, governor
of
Bengal, had
a lovely palace on the Ganges in *Rajmahal*--
before
he
tangled with Aurangzeb |
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The luckless Prince Murad
Bakhsh
sought
to claim the throne in 1657; hopelessly outmaneuvered,
he was executed
in 1658; his name lives on in *Moradabad* |
*AGRA
FORT*
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Shah
Jahan
himself lived till 1666, kept in luxurious captivity
within the
Agra Fort; his presence was a source of continuing
embarrassment to his
allegedly devoted son
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When push came to shove,
Aurangzeb
was more
than a match for his brothers, and for the East India
Company as well--
though not for *the
Marathas*,
even after Shivaji himself died in 1680
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Some portraits of Aurangzeb;
despite his
anti-artistic bias, he also created the new *Moti
Masjid* inside the Red Fort, and added the
Badshahi Masjid to the *Lahore
Fort* |
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Aurangzeb with Shaistah Khan
and
other nobles,
in a scene painted perhaps by Bichitra |
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Aurangzeb minted some truly
lovely
coins |
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Raja Karan Singh of Bikaner,
who
during
his long reign was Aurangzeb's enemy, then ally, then
enemy; and an
image
of a "courtier in the Deccan" |
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The often-rebellious Azam
Shah,
Aurangzeb's
third son, did not outlive him |
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In 1681 Aurangzeb set off to
pacify the
Deccan once and for all; as his headquarters there he
built up the city
of AURANGABAD, near the old headquarters fort of *Daulatabad* |
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In Aurangabad, the "Bibi ka
Maqbara" entombs his wife Rabia Daurani (it was built by
his son Prince
Azam Shah)
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Aurangzeb was buried in a
(relatively) simple
tomb in Khuldabad, near Aurangabad; even in death, he
never came back
from
the Deccan |
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Contemporary European
depictions
of the *Mughals*and their realm were not always
very helpful |
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And here's a contemporary
Deccani
depiction
of a young European |
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From the 1700's, we have
depictions by *PREVOST*
and others of
some of the important figures in Aurangzeb's life |
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Aurangzeb became the hero of
*a
tragedy by Dryden*, and father of the imaginary
princess *Lalla
Rookh*; modern "Mughal" images of him are still
being painted |
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