The Emperor Who Never Was

by Supriya Gandhi

  32. Translation from Sheldon Pollock, “Death of Sanskrit,” 409.

  33. Kshitimohan Sen, Medieval Mysticism of India (London: Luzac, 1929), 189–190.

  34. For instance, V. A. Ramaswamy Sastri, Jagannātha Paṇḍita (Annamalainagar: Annamalai University Press, 1942), 21; cited in Sheldon Pollock, “Sanskrit Literary Culture,” 98n125.

  35. François Bernier, Voyages, 337, letter to Jean Chapelain, October 4, 1667.

  36. Inayat Khan, Mulakhkhas, 572; translation, 495. See also Visheshwar Sarup Bhargava, Marwar and the Mughal Emperors, 1526–1748 (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966), 86.

  37. For Jaswant Singh’s writings, see Jaswant Singh, Jasavantasimha granthavali, ed. Vishwanathprasad Mishra (Varanasi: Nagari Pracarini Sabha, 1972); Chandramohan Singh Ravat, Maharaj Jasvantasimh aur unka sahitya (Delhi: Samuhik Prakashan, 2010).

  38. Bernier, Voyages, 46–47, from his Histoire de la dernière révolution de états du grand mogol (Paris: Claude Barbin, 1670).

  39.Dabistan-i mazahib, ed. Rahim Raza-zada Malik, 2 vols. (Tehran: Kitabkhana-i Tahuri, 1983), 1: 215.

  40. Bernier, Voyages, 318, letter to Jean Chapelain, October 4, 1667.

  41. “Dar Kaaba o butkhana sang u shud o chob u shud / yakja hajar-ul-aswad yakja but-i Hindu shud,” Dabistan, 1: 216.

  42. “Ma anchih khwanda-im faramosh karda-im / illa hadis-i dost kih takrar mikunim,” Maulavi Abdul Wali, “Sketch of the Life of Sarmad,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 20 (1924): 111–122, 117–118. Abdul Wali translates this exchange, though the translations provided here are mine.

  43.Dabistan, 1: 218–223.

  44. See Christopher Minkowski, “Advaita Vedānta in Early Modern History,” South Asian History and Culture 2.2 (2011): 205–231.

  45. Inayat Khan, Mulakhkhas, 582; translation, 504.

  46. My discussion of Roth draws on Arnulf Camps, “Introduction” in Heinrich Roth, The Sanskrit Grammar and Manuscripts of Father Heinrich Roth S. J. (1620–1668), ed. Arnulf Camps and Jean-Claude Muller (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998), 1–25.

  47. For the Vaisheshika in early modern India, see Jonardan Ganeri, The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in Early Modern India 1450–1700 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), esp. chaps. 4 and 5.

  48. Jan Gonda, Der Religionen Indiens, 3 vols. (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1960–1964), 2: 91, cited in Camps, “Introduction,” 18.

  49. Another example of this genre is Dharmaraja’s Vedantaparibhasa, composed in the seventeenth century.

  50. Kamboh, Amal-i Salih, 3: 200.

  51. “[D]e sorte que c’estoit presque deux Roys ensemble,” Bernier, Voyages, 53, from the Histoire, 31.

  52. Dara Shukoh’s colophon records the date of completion as 1065 AH (1064 / 5), noted as his forty-second year. As Dara was born on Safar 29, 1024 AH (March 30, 1615), his forty-second year would begin from the day he turned forty-one, which would date the completion of the work to some point after Safar 29, 1065 AH (January 8, 1655).

  53. For the claim that Dara Shukoh’s work “is an attempt to reconcile Hinduism and Islam,” see Mahfuz al-Haq, “Introduction,” in Dara Shukoh, The Mingling of the Two Oceans, ed. Mahfuz al-Haq (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1929), 27.

  54. Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic and Theological Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1996), 39. On the early exegetical tradition and associations with the Ancient Near East, see Brannon Wheeler, Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis (London: Routledge, 2002), 10–36.

  55. On these connotations raised by the title of the Majma-ul-bahrain, I draw on Carl Ernst “Muslim Studies of Hinduism? A Reconstruction of Arabic and Persian Translations from Indian Languages,” Iranian Studies 36.2 (2003): 173–195, 186.

  56. “Kufr o islam dar rahish puyan / wahdahu la sharika lahu guyan,” Dara Shukoh, Majma-ul-bahrain, ed. Muhammad Reza Jalali-Naini (Tehran: Nashr-i Nuqrah, 1987 / 8), 1.

  57. Noted by Ernst, “Muslim Studies,” 187n54. See Abu-l-Majd Sanai, Hadiqat-ul-haqaiq, partial ed. and trans. John Stephenson (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1910), 1 (Persian); Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, Fihi ma fi, ed. Badi-uz-Zaman Furuzanfar (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1969), 229; and for the variant “kufr o islam,” Ala-ud-Din Juwaini (d. 1283), Tarikh-i Jahangusha, ed. Mirza Muhammad Qazwini, 3 vols. (London: Luzac, 1912–1937), 1: 111.

  58. “Law kushshifa-l-ghita ma azdadtu yaqinan,” quoted and translated in Reza Shah Kazemi, Justice and Remembrance: Introducing the Spirituality of Imam ‘Alī (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 153.

  59. Dara Shukoh, Majma, 2. The Sanskrit translation mentions specifically “Babalal,” or Baba Lal Das, Samudrasamgama, Sanskrit 1.

  60. The Arabic phrase at the end runs, “at-tasawwufu [huwa] l-insafu wa-t-tasawwufu tarku-t-takalluf,” Dara Shukoh, Majma, 2. Here insaf has the sense of both justice and equity, as in treating equitably two sides.

  61. Dara Shukoh, Majma, 2.

  62. The text of the Samudrasangama mentions that it was composed in 1655. This might just be a copy of the Majma-ul-bahrain’s date of composition. But given the deliberate nature of the Samudrasangama’s translation of the Persian text, I would argue that it was indeed composed concurrently with the Majma. The manuscript tradition unfortunately does not provide further clues as to its date. The sole dated manuscript, located at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, MS 1043 / 1891–1895, is dated through its colophon to the Agrahayana month of Samvat 1765 or 1708 CE, that is, roughly half a century after Dara’s death. It is this manuscript that forms the basis for subsequent editions of the text, including a translation and edition by Roma Chaudhuri and Jatindra Bimal Chaudhuri. Another, undated, manuscript of the Samudrasangama is located at the Deccan College, MS 7756. The Deccan College manuscript was identified by Christopher Minkowski, who presented an unpublished paper on it at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society in 1997.

  63. This last example is in the context of Quran 18:110, “Qul innama ana basharun mithlakum,” which Dara translates as “Say Muhammad, is it not that I too am human, like you?” The Majma interpolates into the translation the name of the Prophet Muhammad, who in traditional exegesis is understood to be the addressee of the verse. The Samudrasamgama has “Mahasiddha,” meaning great adept, or perfect yogin, instead of Muhammad. Dara Shukoh, A Critical Study of Dārā Shikūh’s Samudra-Saṇgama, eds. and trans. Roma Chaudhuri and Jatindra Bimal Chaudhuri (Calcutta: Sanskrita Siksa, 1954), Sanskrit, 3; translation, 131.

  64. Dara Shukoh, Samudrasamgama, Sanskrit, 6; translation, 124.

  65. For instance, Rosalind O’Hanlon, “Letters Home: Banaras Pandits and the Maratha Regions in Early Modern India,” Modern Asian Studies 44: 2 (2010): 201–240.

  66. Dara Shukoh, Samudrasangama, 8.

  67. Chandarbhan Brahman (attributed), Gosht-i Baba Lal, edited and translated as “Les entretiens de Lahore (entre le prince impérial Dârâ Shikûh et l’ascète hindou Baba La‘l Das),” eds. and trans. Clément Huart and Louis Massignon, Journal asiatique 209 (1926): 285–334, 307–308 (Persian text); Dara Shukoh, Majma, 3.

  68. Dara Shukoh, Majma, on four worlds and sound, 15–18; on light, 19–21; on prophethood, 25–29; on liberation, 40–46. See also Bhagavata Purana = The Bhagavata (Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana), ed. H. G. Shastri (Ahmedabad: B. J. Institute of Learning and Research, 1996), 156, verse 2.1.26.

  69. “Dunyadaran-i dakhin,” Aurangzeb’s letter to Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 1: 106, §43.

  70. Ibrahim Adil Shah, Kitab-i-Nauras, ed. and trans. Nazir Ahmad (New Delhi: Bharatiya Kala Kendra, 1956), 95, translation, 128.

  71. Françoise ‘Nalini’ Delvoye, “The Verbal Content of Dhrupad Songs from the Earliest Collections,” Dhrupad Annual 5 (1990): 93–109, 99–101. The song collection has an anonymous Persian preface. There are multiple manuscripts of the text. I have consulted Sahas Ras, Cambridge University, MS Kings 218.

  72. Nur-ud-Din Zuhuri, “Sih Nasr-i Zuhuri,” ed. Muhammad Yunus Jaffery, in Qand-i Parsi, 63 / 64 (2014
): 199–256, 222. I have altered the translation of the same text found in Muhammad Abdul Ghani, A History of Persian Language and Literature at the Mughal Court (Allahabad: The Indian Press, 1930), 366–367.

  73. For a description of Nur-ud-din Muhammad Zuhuri, Diwan, see Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, 2 vols. (Oxford: Horace Hart, 1903–1937), 1: 820–822.

  8. The Greatest Secret, 1656–1657

  1. For overviews of the topic of dreams in Islamic traditions, see Toufic Fahd, “The Dream in Medieval Islamic Society,” in The Dream and Human Societies, ed. Gustave Edmund von Grunebaum (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 351–363; John Lamoreaux, The Early Muslim Tradition of Dream Interpretation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002); and Nile Green, “The Religious and Cultural Role of Dreams and Visions in Islam,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 13.3 (2003): 287–313. For dreams in earlier Arabic writings of the self, see also Dwight Reynolds, “Arabic Autobiography and the Literary Portrayal of the Self,” in Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition, ed. Dwight Reynolds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 72–103, 88–93.

  2. For Busiri, see Suzanne Stetkevych, The Mantle Odes, Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muḥammad (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 82–88; for the caliph Mamun, see Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid Society, 2nd–4th / 8th–10th Centuries (London: Routledge, 1998), 101–103.

  3. Sufi Sharif, Atwar fi hall-il-asrar, British Library, MS Or. 1883, fol. 272a.

  4. Abhinanda (attributed), Laghuyogavasisthah, ed. Vasudeva Sharma (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985); Jürgen Hanneder, “Mokṣopāya: An Introduction,” in The Mokṣopāya, Yoga Vāsiṣṭha and Related Texts, ed. Jürgen Hanneder (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2005), 9–21, 14; Walter Slaje, “Locating the Mokṣopāya,” in The Mokṣopāya, Yogavāsiṣṭha and Related Texts, ed. Jürgen Hanneder (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2005), 21–35; John Brockington and Anna King, The Intimate Other: Love Divine in Indic Religions (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2005), 40.

  5. Peter Thomi, “The Yogavāsiṣṭha in its Longer and Shorter Version,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 11.1 (1983): 107–116.

  6. Dara Shukoh, Jog Basisht, eds. Sayyid Amir Hasan Abidi and Tara Chand (Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University, 1998), 4.

  7. Nizam Panipati, Jog Basisht, eds. Muhammad Reza Jalali-Naini and Narayan Shanker Shukla (Tehran: Iqbal, 1981). This translation of the Yogavasishtha is examined in Shankar Nair, Translating Wisdom (forthcoming).

  8. Heike Franke, “Akbar’s Yogavāsiṣṭha at the Chester Beatty Library,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 161.2 (2011): 359–375. For another examination of this question, see Muzaffar Alam, “In Search of a Sacred King: Da-ra- Shukoh and the Yogava-sis.t.has of Mughal India,” History of Religions 55.4 (2016): 429–459.

  9. For instance, Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, 2 vols. (Oxford: India Office, 1903–1937), 1: 1100–1101, §§1971–1973. See also MS 39 in the Aligarh Muslim University Library, microfilmed by the Noor International Microfilm Center, Delhi, as Microfilm no. 638, catalogued online at: www.indianislamicmanuscript.com (accessed October 8, 2018).

  10. In his translation of the Sanskrit play Prabodhacandrodaya, titled Gulzar-i Hal, Banwalidas mentions relying on the help of one Bhawanidas, who helped him read the text in the vernacular of Gwalior. This translation, too, is thus based on a Hindavi translation of the Sanskrit and is not directly from the Sanskrit. See R. S. McGregor, “A Brajbhasa Adaptation of the Drama Prabodhacandrodaya by Nanddas of the Sect of Vallabha,” in Perspectives in Indian Religion, Papers in Honour of Karel Werner, ed. Peter Connolly (New Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1986), 135–144, 143.

  11. See Aditya Behl and Simon Weightman, “Introduction” in Manjhan, Madhumalati: An Indian Sufi Romance, trans. Aditya Behl and Simon Weightman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), xi–xlvi.

  12. “Kunam ishq-i Manohar kitabi / diham az nam-i Mihr an ra khitabi / nawa-yi husn-i Madhumalat sarayam / dili dar parda-yi mahash numayam,” quoted in Muhammad Amin Amir, “Sahm-i Aqil Khan Razi dar adabiyat-i farsi ba ahd-i Aurangzeb,” Qand-i Parsi 69 / 70 (2015): 109–127, 110.

  13. See Hamid ibn Fazlullah Jamali (d. 1517), Masnavi-i mihr va mah, ed. Husam-ud-Din Rashidi (Ravalpindi: Markaz-i Tahqiqat-i Farsi-i Iran va Pakistan, 1974).

  14. P. K. Gode, “Date of Nīlakaṇṭha, author of Cimanīcarita,” Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 9.2 / 4 (1928): 331–332.

  15. Nilakantha Shukla, Chimanicharitam: Premakavyam, ed. Prabhat Shastri et al. (Prayagah: Devabhashaprakashanam, 1976), 25, verse 87.

  16. “Ut bhasha mahram sab koi / padhai jo matlab samjhe soi // tis karan yah prem-kahani / purab di bhasha bich ani,” quoted in Moti Chand, “Kavi Surdas krit Naldaman kavya,” Nagarini Pracharini Patrika 43.2 (1938 / 9): 121–138, 122. This Surdas is not to be confused with the famed fifteenth-century poet-saint of the same name.

  17. The date of composition is Samvat 1714, corresponding to 1656. See Rahurkar’s introduction to Kavindracharya, The Bhasayogavasisthasara (Jnanasara) of Kavindracarya Sarasvati, ed. V. G. Rahurkar (Puna: Bharatavani-Prakashanamala, 1969), 33.

  18. Rahurkar, for instance, speculates that this might have been the case; Kavindracharya, Bhasayogavasisthasara, 3.

  19.Ashtavakra Gita, Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, MS Sprenger 1661 is an anonymous text. In 2009, I examined the Osmania University manuscript of the text attributed to Jadun Das, but was not permitted to obtain a digital copy for further study.

  20. See Dara Shukoh, Bhagvad Gita: Surud-i ilahi, ed. Muhammad Reza Jalali Naini (Tehran: Kitabkhana-i Tahuri, 1970).

  21. Abu-l-Faiz Faizi, Shri Bhagvad gita farsi (Jalandhar: Munshi Ram, 1901). For instance, the Sirr-i akbar, housed in the Khuda Bakhsh Library, Patna, MS HL 2747, is attributed to Faizi but authored by Dara Shukoh.

  22. Abd-ur-Rahman Chishti, Mirat-ul-haqaiq, British Library, MS Or. 1883, fols. 257a–271a.

  23. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, no. IS. 94–1965. Art historians have dated this to the first half of the 1650s on stylistic grounds. Elinor Gadon, “Note on Frontispiece,” in The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India, eds. Karine Schomer and W. H. Mcleod (Berkeley: Berkeley Religious Studies Series, 1987), 415–421, 420. In an in-person communication on September 18, 2008, Susan Stronge, curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, noted that she agreed with Elinor Gadon’s dating of the work.

  24. For details regarding the writings of Varan Kavi and Sai, see D. N. Marshall, Mughals in India: A Bibliographical Survey (London: Mansell, 1985), 474, 562–563, §§1622A, 1824.

  25. For instance, Sadiq Isfahani, Shahid-i sadiq, British Library, I.O. Islamic 1537, fols. 36a–38a. For the geographical section, see Sadiq Isfahani, Khatima-i Shahid-i Sadiq: dar zabt-i asma-i jughrafiyai, ed. Mir Hashim Muhaddis (Tehran: Majlis-i Shura-i Islami, 1998 / 9); the atlas is preserved in British Library, MS I.O. Egerton 1016, fols. 335a–359a. See broadly, Nazir Ahmad, “Muhammad Sadiq Isfahani, an Official of Bengal of Shah Jahan’s Time,” Indo-Iranica 24 (1972): 103–125; S. N. H. Rizvi, “Literary Extracts from Kitab Subh Sadiq,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Pakistan 16.1 (1971): 1–61. For more on Sadiq’s contribution to geography, see Irfan Habib, “Cartography in Mughal India,” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 35 (1974): 150–162, 151–155.

  26. Muhammad Bakhtawar Khan, Mirat-ul-alam, ed. Sajida Alvi, 2 vols. (Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, University of Punjab, 1979), 2: 415.

  27. “Kamarikai mange baksis karai pamarike / hay mange hathi det hira det hansime,” Kavindracharya Sarasvati, Kavindrakalpalata, ed. Lakshmikumari Chundavat (Jaipur: Puratattvanveshana Mandir, 1958).

  28. Tabatabai, Dasturnama-i Kisrawi, Oxford University, Bodleian Library, MS Ouseley 135; described in Eduard Sachau and Hermann Ethé,
Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî and Pushtû Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1889), 897–898, §1470.

  29. For examples of Said’s poetry, see Mohammad Quamruddin, Life and Times of Murad Bakhsh, 1624–1661 (Calcutta: Quamruddin, 1974), 163 and 173.

  30. Quamruddin, Murad Bakhsh, 168.

  31. Marshall, Mughals in India, 467, §1797.

  32. See chap. 9, 222.

  33. Munshi Shaikh Abu-l-Fath Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, ed. Abd-ul-Ghafur Chaudhari, 2 vols. (Lahore: Idara-i Tahqiqat-i Pakistan, 1971), 1: 232n4, §101; partial translation in Vincent Flynn, An English Translation of the Ādāb-i-Ālamgīrī. The Period before the War of Succession (PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1974), 341, §97.

  34. Letter of Prince Sultan Dara Shikoh to Abdullah Qutb Shah, in K. K. Basu, “The Golconda Court Letters,” Journal of the Bihar Research Society 26.4 (1940): 271–298, 294–295.