356 years ago, at the end of August 1659,
Aurangzeb’s eldest brother Dara was tried in the `Diwan I Khas’ of the Red Fort
by the qazis and executed for the crime of blasphemy. He was declared to be a
heretic and beheaded and stripped of all his rights as a Muslim. His headless
body was then unceremoniously buried in the huge vault below Humayun’s tomb
without a shroud or any funeral rituals or prayers. Dara had been Emperor Shah Jahan’s eldest and
favorite son who had not only been a scholar of Arabic and Persian but also of
Sanskrit.
In my new novel Ocean of Cabras the narrator recounts… “awe gripped
the imperial court when prince Dara had confounded both the mullahs and
Brahmins by propounding the astonishing idea that a great shining golden river
of common faith ran through both Islam and the faiths of the Hindus. The
Maulvis had earlier been aghast when he had started to add Sanskrit to the
Persian, Turki and Arabic languages that he had earlier mastered but were alarmed
when he had started listening to groups of learned Brahmin scholars that he had
summoned. They were not too disturbed when he released the first Persian
translations Upanishads and the
Bhagavad-Gita that earlier had only been in the secret libraries of a few
Brahmin priests but they were appalled when he had the audacity to declare that
this heretic philosophy was none other than the `Sirr i-Akbar - the great
secret, which he suggested, was none other than the `Kitab-al-Muknum’ or the
hidden book mentioned in the fifty-sixth chapter of the holy Quran itself.
Dara had believed that Allah, known by many
different names to the different people of the world, loved all his creations
and had sent his messages and messengers to all the people of the world in
their times of trouble to lead them to Jannat (heaven). He believed that it was
the bigoted priests of every faith, who could not see beyond what had been
taught to them, who refused to accept that Allah was a loving and merciful god
for all of mankind. He believed that the priests of all religions were the real
creators of Shaitan (devil) and of Jehannum (Hell) and it was they who used the
power of fear and hatred to persecute those who differed with their narrow
beliefs. Dara had believed that loving surrender to Allah and to all his
creations was the path to heavenly bliss for all humanity. How was anyone to
know that this simple and lofty idea, that could do injury to no one, was to
anger many Muslims especially his puritanical younger brother who was already
burning with envy at Dara’s popularity?”
Many years later while Aurangzeb was in the Deccan
fighting the Marathas during the last 29 years of his life their eldest sister
Jahanara is believed to have built a cenotaph to honour Dara on the platform of
the great monument. She may have also built two other cenotaphs near it for
their youngest brother Murad who Aurangzeb had also executed at Gwalior.
Another cenotaph might have been for Dara’s valiant son Sikander Shikoh who had
been slowly poisioned with poshta at Gwalior.
Ocean of Cobras explores the lives of many fascinating
Mughals in the cusp between the golden age of Shah Jahan and the gloomy 49
years under Aurangzeb that really marked the end of a great empire.
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