Birth and childhood.
Muhi-ud-din Muhammad Aurangzib, who ascended the throne of Delhi as Alamgir I, was the sixth child of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, the royal couple who lie buried in the famous Taj Mahal. His grandfather, the Emperor Jahangir, after putting down one of Malik Ambar’s attempts to revive the Ahmadnagar kingship, was leisurely making a royal progress from Gujrat to Agra, with Shah Jahan and his family in his train, when at Dohad,* on the way to Ujjain, Aurangzib was born, in the night of 15th Ziqada, 1027 A H. (or, according to European calculation, the night preceding Sunday, 24th October, 1618 A.D., Old Style). A few days afterwards when the imperial Court reached Ujjain, the capital of Malwa, the princely infant’s birth was celebrated with befitting splendour. [Tuzuk, 250- 251.)
Aurangzib cherished an affectionate memory of the place of his birth; we find him in his old age writing to his son Muhammad Azam, “‘Noble son, the village of Dohad, in the province of Gujrat, is the birth-place of this sinner. Deem it proper to treat its inhabitants with kindness. Conciliate and retain at his post the old man who has been its faujdar for a long time past.” [Rugaat, No. 31.]
Shah Jahan was intensely devoted to his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and never in her life parted from her in weal or woe. Wherever he moved, whether marching on a campaign, visiting different pro- vinces, or, in Jahangir’s later years, fleeing from his father’s wrath through the wilderness of Telingana to Bengal, —his wife always bore him company. Thus, Aurangzib was born on the return march from the Deccan and Murad Bakhsh in the fort of Rohtas in South Bihar.
From 1622 till almost the end of his father’s reign, Shah Jahan was under a cloud; the infatuated old Emperor, entirely dominated by his selfish and imperious consort Nur Jahan, deprived Shah Jahan of his posts and fiefs, and at last drove him into rebellion in self-defence. But the prince’s efforts were in general unsuccessful, and he had to flee by way of Telingana, Orissa and Bengal to Jaun- pur and back again to the Deccan by the same wild and terrible route, his wife and children accompanying him. At last he had no help but to submit to his father and give up his young sons, Dara and Aurangzib, as hostages. These two reached Jahangir’s Court at Lahor in June 1626, [Tuzuk, 380-391, 397, 410] and remained under the care of Nur Jahan. Shortly afterwards Jahangir died, Shah Jahan ascended the throne, and the two boys were escorted by Asaf Khan to Agra, where a most pathetic scene was acted: their eagerly expectant mother clasped her long lost darlings to her bosom and poured out all her pent up affection for them (26 February, 1628). Aurangzib’s daily allowance was now fixed at Rs. 500. [Abd. Hamid’s Padishahnamah, 1.A. 70, 97, 177.]
*Dohad (22 ‘50 N. 74:20 E., Indian Atlas, sheet 36 s.w.) is a subdivision of the Panch Mahal district in the Bombay Presidency, and the town stands just south of the Dohad Station on the Western Railway.
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