The Emperor Who Never Was
Page 44
60. Shahnawaz Khan, Maasir, 2: 686.
61. Shahnawaz Khan, Maasir, 2: 566–568.
62. Shahnawaz Khan, Maasir, 1: 235–241.
63. Shahnawaz Khan, Maasir, 3: 943–946.
64. Shahnawaz Khan, Maasir, 1: 252–253.
65. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 95a; Storia, 1: 122; translation, 1: 273–274.
66. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 96a; Storia, 1: 126; translation, 1: 276–277.
67. Masum, Tarikh, 92.
68. Masum, Tarikh, 93.
69. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 95b; Storia, 1: 128; translation, 1: 278.
70. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 97b; Storia, 1: 132–133; translation, 1: 281–282.
71. Masum, Tarikh, 94.
72. Payag (attributed), Harvard University Art Museums, 1999.298.
73. Masum, Tarikh, 94–95.
74. Masum, Tarikh, 137.
75. Masum, Tarikh, 96; Manucci, Voyage, fol. 100a; translation, 1: 288. This section is not included in the partial Italian edition.
76. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 67–68.
77. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 69–75.
78. Masum, Tarikh, 97–99.
79. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 80–81.
80. Masum, Tarikh, 100.
81. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, no. IS. 12–1962. For further information, see Robert Skelton, The Shah Jahan Cup (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1969).
82. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 81.
83. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 84.
84. Bihishti, Ashob, 166.
85. Jonathan Scott (d. 1829), Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters (Shrewsbury: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1800), 389–390.
86. Tirmizi, Mughal Documents, 2: 136.
87. Qanungo, Dara Shukoh, 192.
88. Masum, Tarikh, 109.
89. Bihishti, Ashob, 161.
90. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 87–88.
91. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 90.
92. Masum, Tarikh, 111; Bihishti, Ashob, 180–181. According to Manucci, though, he resisted the slave girl’s attentions and instead got his own eunuch, Shahbaz Khan, to rub his feet. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 104a; translation, 1: 302.
93. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 93.
94. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 104b; translation, 1: 303.
95. Masum, Tarikh, 112–113.
96. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 105b; translation 1: 306; Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 98.
97. Qanungo, “Prince Muhammad Dara Shikoh,” 93. I am reading Chetpur for Jitpur as transcribed by Qanungo.
98. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 106b; translation, 1: 309.
99. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 107a; translation, 1: 310.
100. Masum mentions two daughters with Dara during his exile. For the possibility of another daughter named Amal-un-Nisa Begam, see Qanungo, Dara Shukoh, 166.
101. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 114a; Storia, translation, 1: 326.
102. Masum, Tarikh, 116, 118.
103. Manucci, Voyage, fols. 107a–b; translation, 1: 311. Manucci cites two successive letters.
104. Masum, Tarikh, 119.
105. Masum, Tarikh, 122. Masum states here that Daud Khan murdered the women of his harem in a show of his loyalty to Dara, but it was to no avail.
106. Masum, Tarikh, 123–133.
107. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 111b; translation, 1: 320.
108. Manucci, Storia, fol. 114b; translation, 1: 325n2. See the portrayal of Shahnawaz Khan as betraying Dara in François Bernier, Un libertin dans l’Inde moghole: les Voyages de François Bernier (1656–1669), ed. Frédéric Tinguely, Adrien Paschoud, and Charles-Antoine Chamay (Paris: Chandeigne, 2008), 101–102.
109. Masum, Tarikh, 162.
110. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 113.
111. Syamaladas, Vira vinod, 2: 432–433.
112. Aqil Khan, Waqiat, 114–115.
113. This battle position was “admirably chosen” according to Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 2: 152.
114. See Bernier, Voyages, 114–115.
115. Masum, Tarikh, 163.
116. Masum, Tarikh, 164.
117. Masum, Tarikh, 164–165.
118. “Chu an gul kih bar khak uftad zi bad / bidan guna dar pay-i Jivan uftad … mara ba zar o zewar-i be shumar / ba silk-i kanizan-i matbakh dar ar // mara dukht-i Parwez Shah madar ast / pidar al-i Taimur sahib-i farr ast / ba dunya ba jay-i kanizam numay / zi pa band-i zanjir-i Dara gushay,” Bihishti, Ashob, 214–215.
119. Masum, Tarikh, 166.
120. Bernier, Voyages, 120–121.
121. Bernier, Voyages, 122.
122. “Bidinsan chu shud dakhil-i paytakht / siyah ruy shud Jivan-i shor bakht // zi har barzan o bam o dar be dirang / giriftand u ra ba dushnam o sang / zi afghan-i bad tinat-i ru siyah / basi sar zi tan rekht dar khak-i rah // zi bas shud zi har gosha ghogha buland / shahinshah ra dar tawahhum fikand // bipursid kin shor o ghoghay chist / tirazanda-yi in hama fitna kist // ba arzash risandand kay shahryar / zi Dara shud in shor o sharr ashkar // mar u ra sitayand khalqan tamam / shahinshah ba zishti bar awurda nam / chun bishanid Aurang Shah in sukhan / zi ghairat balarzid bar khweshtan // ba khud guft Darast ta dar hayat / jahanbani-yi ma nadarad sabat // zi dil aks-i mihr o wafa ra zibud / hamandam ba qatlash isharat namud,” Bihishti, Ashob, 216–217.
123. Masum, Tarikh, 166.
124. “Qu’il n’estoit point Musulman, qu’il y avoit long-temps qu’il estoit devenu Kafier, Idolatre, sans Religion,” Bernier, Histoire, 240–241; Voyages, 122–123.
125. That is, the Vedas. The shift from / v / to / b / was a characteristic of some North Indian forms of Hindavi. This form was commonly used in Indic words transliterated in the Perso-Arabic script, suggesting the role of Hindavi in mediating the translation of Sanskrit learning into Persian. Muhammad Kazim’s reference to the Vedas most likely refers to Dara Shukoh’s translation of roughly fifty Upanisads, conflated here with the Vedas. A similar misidentification is found in the manuscript tradition of the Upanisad translations. For instance, I have seen manuscripts in the Andhra Pradesh Government Oriental Manuscripts Library purport to be translations of the Rig Veda, Sama Veda, and Atharva Veda; however, upon inspection, they appear to be compilations of Persian Upanishad translations from Dara’s Sirr-i Akbar, rearranged according to their associated Vedas.
126. Muhammad Kazim, Alamgir-nama, eds. Khadim Husain and Abd al-Hayy (Calcutta: College Press, 1868), 34–35.
127. For the use of rings in Akbar’s court for imperial discipleship, see Makhanlal Roychoudhury, The Din-i-Ilahi or The Religion of Akbar, 2nd ed. (Calcutta: Das Gupta, 1952), Din-i Ilahi, 285–287.
128. Kazim, Alamgir-nama, 432.
129. “Risanid chun qatilash jam-i zahar / kih dar kish ba hukm-i shahinshah-i dahar // aba kard o gufta mara az nakhust / buwad ba khuda itiqad-i durust // musalmanam o payrow-i Mustafa / chu kuffar jan ra siparam chira / shuda sard az zindagani dilam // ba har nau dani bokun bismilam,” Bihishti, Ashob, 217.
130. “Badi ra badi sahl bashad jaza / agar mardi ahsin ila man asa,” Masum, Tarikh, 168.
131. However, contra Masum, Manucci notes that Sipihr Shukoh was already taken to the Gwalior prison. Manucci, Voyage, fol. 129b; Storia, 1: 154; translation, 1: 356.
132. Masum, Tarikh, 169.
133. To lend veracity to the account, Manucci provides a Persian transcription of what he purports to be Dara’s last words, which he translates into Portuguese with a subtle pun on Dara’s name, “Mahamed me mata, e o Filho de Deos me dara a vida,” Manucci, Voyage, fol. 129b; Storia, 1: 154; translation 1: 357.
134. Shuja’s death is discussed in Rishad Choudhury, “An Eventful Politics of Difference and Its Afterlife: Chittagong Frontier, Bengal, c. 1657–1757,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 52.3 (2015): 271–296.
135. Saqi Mustad Khan, Maasir-i Alamgiri, trans. Jadunath Sarkar (Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1947), 323.
136.Maasir-i Alamgiri, 77.
137.Maasir-i Alamgiri, 73.
138.Maasir-i Alamgiri, 49.
139. Jahanara, Ayat-i bayyinat, Aligarh Muslim University, Maulana Azad Library
, Habibganj Collection, MS 1 / 55, fols. 38b–39b (Quran 17: 23–24). Completed at the end of Rajab 1073 AH (March 1663). See Travis Zadeh, The Vernacular Qur’an: Translation and the Rise of Persian Exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University, 2012), 589n75. Compare with the autograph colophon of Jahanara, Munis-ul-arwah, British Library, Or. 5637, fols. 122b–123a.
Conclusion
1. Muhammad Fayz Bakhsh, Tarikh-i Farahbakhsh, translated as Memoirs of Delhi and Faizabad, trans. William Hoey, 2 vols. (Allahabad: Government Press, Northwestern Provinces and Oudh, 1888–1889), 1: 114.
2. Muhammad Kazim, Alamgir-nama, 1: 433.
3. For instance, the grave is identified as Dara Shukoh’s in Waldemar Hansen, The Peacock Throne (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972), Figure 24. It also comes up in Google searches for the prince’s grave.
4. Yunus Jaffery holds this view, in Yunus Jaffery, “Shahzada Dara Shukoh,” Qand-i Parsi 67–68 (March-April 2015):82–111, 88.
5.Memoirs of Delhi and Faizabad, 114; Quran, 59:2: “Fa-tabiru ya-ula l-absar.”
6.“Subh dil-i man chun gul-i khurshid shiguft / haqq zahir shud ghubar-i batil ra girift // tarikh-i julus-i shah-i aurang mara / ‘zill-ul-haqq’ guft, in ra haq guft,” Tawakkul Beg, Nuskha-i ahwal-i shahi, British Library, MS Or. 3203, fol. 75a.
7. These letters are translated in Rajeev Kinra, Writing Self, Writing Empire: Chandar Bhan Brahman and the Cultural World of the Indo-Persian State Secretary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), 54–55.
8. Yunus Jaffery also makes a similar point about Dara’s omission in his edition of the Chahar Chaman; Chandarbhan Brahman, Chahar Chaman, ed. Mohammad Yunus Jaffery (New Delhi: Centre of Persian Research, 2007), 16.
9. Kinra, Writing Self, 56.
10.“Uryani-i tan buwad ghubar-i rah-i dust / an niz ba tegh az sar-i ma wa kardand,” Aqil Khan Razi, Waqiat-i Alamgiri, ed. Zafar Hasan (Delhi: Publications of the Aligarh Historical Institute, 1945), 121.
11. I draw on the reading of these chronicles presented in Vikas Rathee, Narratives of the 1658 War of Succession for the Mughal Throne, 1658–1707 (unpublished PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2015). Rathee also casts doubt on the attribution of the Khulasa to Sujan Rai Bhandari. See also Sujan Rai Bhandari, Khulasat-ut-tawarikh, ed. M. Zafar Hasan (Delhi: J. and Sons, 1917).
12. Francois Bernier, Histoire de la dernière révolution des états du Grand Mogol, 4 vols. (Paris: Claude Barbin, 1671–1672), 1: 8.
13. Vincent Arthur Smith and Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, The Oxford History of India, from the Earliest Times to the End of 1911 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), 408.
14. I draw here on the concepts of cultural memory and archive elucidated by Aleida Assmann, “Canon and Archive,” in Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, eds. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 98–107.
15. Muhammad Fayz Bakhsh, Tarikh-i Farahbakhsh, 98.
16. Athar Ali, Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), 31.
17. For more on Persophone Hindus as well as the circulation of brief soteriological texts, see my unpublished doctoral dissertation: Supriya Gandhi, Mughal Self-Fashioning, Indic Self-Realization: Dara Shikoh and Persian Textual Cultures in Early Modern South Asia (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2011).
18. For reflections on Persian textual production in early modern India, see Nile Green, “The Uses of Books in a Late Mughal Takiyya: Persianate Knowledge between Person and Paper,” Modern Asian Studies 44 (2010): 241–265.
19. I refer to the date of composition and not the date that the manuscript was copied; Debi Das ibn-i Bal Chand Sandilwi, Khulasat-ul-khulasa, Aligarh University, MS Ḥabibganj 24 / 3.
20. National Library, Kolkata, Buhar collection, MS Arabic 133, Dara Shukoh, Majma-ul-bahrain.
21. These names include a certain Ibn Mulla Muhammad Tutanji, whose patronymic means “tobacconist” in Turkish, pointing to an Ottoman connection. The translator is Muhammad Salih, son of the late Shaykh Ahmad Misri, whose patronymic suggests his Egyptian ancestry.
22. For a list of seventy-four of these, see Gandhi, Mughal Self-Fashioning, Appendix 2.
23. Carmichael Lib. Varanasi, P2029, cited in Mahesh Prasad, “The Unpublished Translation of the Upanishads by Prince Dara Shikoh,” in Dr. Modi Memorial Volume: Papers on Indo-Iranian and Other Subjects, ed. Darab Peshotan Sanjana (Bombay: Fort Printing Press, 1930), 622–638.
24. For instance, Asiatic Society, MS Curzon 678, Sirr-i Akbar.
25. Khuda Bakhsh Library, Patna, HL 3662, Sirr-i Akbar.
26. Girdharilal Tikku, Persian Poetry in Kashmir, 1339–1846: An Introduction (Berkeley: University of California Publications, 1971), 266.
27. Rosane Rocher, “Nathaniel Brassey Halhed on the Upaniṣads (1787),” Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 58 / 9 (1977 / 8): 279–289, 282.
28. Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, A Code of Gentoo Laws or Ordinations of the Pundits from a Persian Translation from the Original Written in the Shanscrit Language (London: s.n., 1776), xxi.
29. William Jones, “On the Musical Modes of the Hindus: Written in 1784, and Since Much Enlarged,” Asiatick Researches 3 (1792): 55–87, 65.
30. It is not clear which particular version of the Jog Basisht that Sir John Shore translated. See Sir Leslie Stephen, Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1897), 52: 151.
31. Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, Oupnek’hat (id est, secretum tegendum), 2 vols. (Strasbourg: Levrault, 1801), 2: x–xi.
32. Anquetil-Duperron has a particularly sustained attack aimed at Montesquieu’s arguments on Oriental despotism developed in De l’esprit des lois (1748). See Lucette Valensi, “Éloge de l’orient, éloge de l’orientalism: Le jeu d’échecs d’Anquetil-Duperron,” Revue de L’histoire Des Religions 212 (1995): 419–452.
33. Anquetil-Duperron, Description Historique et Géographique de L’Inde (Berlin: C. S. Spener, 1786–1789), 562.
34.“[N]ous n’aurions aucune traduction des Livres Indiens,” Anquetil-Duperron, Législation Orientale (Amsterdam: Marc-Michel Rey, 1778), 140, cf. 21.
35. See his comments about conversion to Christianity in Anquetil’s second preface, Oupnek’hat.
36.“[I]dem dogma, unicum universitatis parentem, unicum principium spirituale invenies,”Anquetil-Duperron, Oupnek’hat, 1: viii.
37. “An Account of Books for the Year 1802,” anonymous review of Oupnek’hat, The Asiatic Annual Register (1803): 13–18.
38. For questions regarding the influence of Indic thought on Schopenhauer’s philosophy, see Douglas Berger, The Veil of Māyā: Schopenhauer’s System and Early Indian Thought (Binghamton: Global Academic Publishing, 2004). For an amusing account of a misunderstanding arising out of one of Schopenhauer’s scribbled notes on his copy of the Oupnek’hat, which stated that this work talked of Amida, the bodhisattva Amitabha, see Urs App, “How Amida got into the Upanishads: An Orientalist’s Nightmare,” in Essays on East Asian Religion and Culture, ed. Christian Wittern and Lishan Shi (Kyoto: Editorial Committee for the Festschrift in Honour of Nishiwaki Tsuneki, 2007), 11–33. For more on Anquetil-Duperron, see App, The Birth of Orientalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 363–439.
39. Urs App, “Schopenhauer’s Initial Encounter with Indian Thought,” Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch 87 (2006): 35–76, esp. 53–56.
40. Tara Chand, “Rafi al-Khilaf of Sita Ram Kayastha Saksena,” The Journal of the Ganganatha Jha Research Institute, 11 (1944): 7–12.
41.“Ba nam-i ankih nami nadarad / Ba har nami kih khwani sar bar arad,” Dara Shukoh, Majma-ul-bahrain, 2.
42. Chandrabhan Brahman, Nazuk Khayalat (Lahore, 1901), 3–4. There is no such text attributed to Shankara in the Sanskrit tradition. The Nazuk Khayalat is probably referring to Atma Bodha (Self-Wisdom), a work credited to Shankara’s authorship.
43. Dara Shukoh (attributed), Tariqat al-Haqiqat (Gujranwala: Qaumi Press, 1895).
> 44. Dara Shukoh (attributed), Rumuz-i tasawwuf (Lahore: Mashhur-i Alam Press, 1923).
45. Nik Akhtar Timuri Dihlawi, Sirat-i wahdat, Hyderabad, Salar Jung Library, MS Tasawwuf 3476.
46. Dara Shukoh (attributed), Ima al-muhaqqiqin, Hyderabad, Salar Jung Library, MS Tasawwuf 25.
47. For instance, Rammohun Roy, Tuhfat al-Muwahhidin (Calcutta: Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 1950).