HISTORY OF AURANGZIB BY JADUNATH SARKAR VOL.1 CHAPTER - 1 - 3 Boyhood and Education, 1618-1634

Fights an elephant.

One incident of his boyhood made his fame ring throughout India, and showed what stuff he was made of. It was his encounter with a fighting elephant on 28th May, 1633. That morning Shah Jahan, who loved this sport, set two huge elephants, Sudhakar and Surat- sundar by name, to fight a combat on the level bank of the Jamuna near the mansion at Agra which he used to occupy before his accession. They ran for some distance and then grappled together just below the balcony of the morning salute in the fort. The Emperor hastened there to see the fight, his eldest three sons riding a few paces before him. Aurangzib, intent on seeing the fight, edged his way very close to the elephants.

The brutes after a while let go their grip and each stepped back a little. Sudhakar’s spirit was fully roused. Losing sight of his opponent he turned to vent his wrath on the prince standing by. Trumpeting fiercely, the moving mountain charged Aurangzib. The prince, then only fourteen years old, calmly stood his ground, kept his horse from turning back, and flung his spear at the elephant’s head. All was now confusion and alarm. The crowd swayed this way and that, men stumbling on one another in their eagerness to flee. The nobles and the servants ran about shouting, fireworks were let off to scare away the elephant, but all to no effect. The animal came on and felled Aurangzib’s horse with a sweep of his long tusk. But the prince jumped up from the ground, drew his sword, and faced the raging beast. The unequal combat would have soon ended fatally for the heroic boy, but succour was at hand. His brother Shuja forced his way through the crowd and smoke, galloped up to the elephant, and wounded it with his spear. But his horse reared and he was thrown down. Rajah Jai Singh, too, came up, and while managing his shying steed with one hand attacked the elephant with the other from the right side. Shah Jahan shouted to his own guards to run to the spot.

Just then an unlooked for diversion came to the princes’ aid. The other elephant, Surat-sundar, ran up to renew the combat, and Sudhakar, having now no stomach for the fight, or being daunted by the spear-thrusts and fireworks discharged at him, fled from the field with his rival thundering at his heels.

The danger thus passed away, and the princes were saved. Shah Jahan clasped Aurangzib to his bosom, praised his courage, gave him the title of Bahadur or ‘hero,’ and covered him with presents. The courtiers cried out that the boy had inherited his father’s reckless courage, and reminded each other how Shah Jahan in in his youth had attacked a wild tiger sword in hand before the eyes of Jahangir.*

On this occasion Aurangzib gave a foretaste of his lofty spirit and royal contempt for death, in his speech as reported by Hamid- ud-din Khan. When his father lovingly chid him for his rash courage, he replied, “If the fight had ended fatally for me it would not have been a matter of shame. Death drops the curtain even on Emperors; it is no dishonour. The shame lay in what my brothers did!’’+

Three days afterwards occurred his fifteenth birthday. The Emperor had the boy weighed against gold pieces in full Court and presented him with the amount (5000 mozars), the elephant Sudhakar, and other gifts worth two lakhs of Rupees in all. The heroic deed was celebrated in Urdu and Persian verses. The Poet Laureate, Saidai Gilani, surnamed Bedil Khan, got Rs. 5,000 for his ode. Shuja was praised for his gallant exertions. Another sum of 5,000 gold pieces was distributed by the Emperor in charity.

Thereafter we get occasional glimpses of Aurangzib. Next year the Emperor paid a visit to Kashmir. Aurangzib accompanied him, and was presented with the pargana of Lokh-bhavan near Sahibabad or Achbal (September, 1634).@

* Abdul Hamid’s Pad., I.A. 489—495. One MS. reads Madhukar for Sudhakar.

+ Hamid-ud-din Khan’s Ahkam-i-Alamgiri, or Anecdotes, § 1. Dara Shukoh is unjustly taunted with cowardice in the above speech. He was at some distance from Shuja and Aurangzib, and could not, even if he had wished it, have come to Aurangzib’s aid as the affair was over in a few minutes. Pad., L.A. 493.

@ Pad. 1. B. 52. Achbal, in the Kuthar Pargana, 75-17 E. Long. 33 -41 N. Lat., famous for its beautiful springs described by Bernier (Constable’s ed. p. 413). At the western end of the pargana and 5 miles to the s.w. of Achbalis the village of Lokh-bhavan. King Lalitaditya is said to have built a town here, A small garden-palace erected in Mughal times near the spring is partly constructed of old materials. (Stein’s Ra/atarangini, i. 50n, ii. 468.)