REVIEW IN KASHMIR MONITOR

Of faith and fratricide

SUNDAY, 22 MAY 2016

KASHMIR MONITOR

MUNEEZA SHAMSIE

140 VIEWS

1

OF FAITH AND FRATRICIDE

In recent years, the rise of religious extremism and related violence has led to an increasing literary interest in the historical rivalry between Dara Shikoh the Mughal heir and his younger brother, Aurangzeb. In these writings, the former represents an intolerant religious extremism and the latter a more inclusive, tolerant and multicultural aspect of faith. Now the Indian writer and historian Murad Ali Baig has added to this body of work with his debut novel Ocean Of Cobras which encompasses the sibling rivalry between Shah Jahan’s four sons, but focuses in particular on Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb and the respective partisanship of their sisters Jahanara and Roshanara.

Baig constructs his plot in the form of a lost manuscript, discovered after 1857, by British officers in the Red Fort, Delhi and translated by British scholars from the original Persian into English: the document proves to be written by the fictitious Mubarak Ali, a eunuch at Shah Jahan’s court. The great strength of his narrative lies in the descriptions of different aspects of 17th century India including the precariousness of court life while serving a fratricidal/patricidal dynasty.

Mubarak Ali, the son of a Persian nobleman and an aristocratic French lady, becomes the victim of family misfortune following his father’s support for Khusrau’s unsuccessful rebellion against Jahangir, his father. Mubarak Ali is subsequently imprisoned and castrated by a vicious enemy. He is then bought in the slave market, to serve in the imperial harem. There his background, breeding and personal courage stand him in good stead. He is not only befriended by Shah Jahan’s eldest, the beautiful Princess Jahanara, but is later placed in charge of young Prince Murad and is educated alongside.

The book uses Mubarak Ali’s role as eunuch to great advantage to portray life among both the men and women at the Mughal court. He rides and hunts with Shah Jahan’s sons. He conjures up a vivid description of the royal shikar and of life in the Mughal camp, “a huge tented city”. As Shah Jahan travels to different districts to receive due tribute from their vassals or intimate rebels, the novel also captures the panoply of power which accompanies the imperial caravan — elephants, camels, cavalry and artillery, women (including the pregnant Mumtaz Mahal) carried in palanquins or riding veiled, on horses. Mubarak Ali goes on describes the death of Mumtaz Mahal in childbirth, Shah Jahan’s grief and the monument — the Taj Mahal — that he builds for her. Mubarak Ali’s sojourn with his shikari friend, deep in the forests among the Bhil tribe, teaches him how live and survive in a world close to nature which stands him in good stead during the exile he shares with Dara Shikoh and his diminishing entourage.

Mubarak Ali’s eyewitness account of the sibling rivalries between Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh begins when Mubarak Ali is nine and first joins the royal household. He observes Shah Jahan’s harsh treatment of 11-year-old Aurangzeb, while the Mughal heir Dara Shikoh enjoys the undisguised love showered on him by Shah Jahan: he can do no wrong in his father’s eyes. Mubarak Ali writes of Aurangzeb’s courage, his undoubted competence as a military commander — and his successful campaign in Orchha at 15, followed by his appointment as viceroy of the Deccan.

He reveals that the teenaged Aurangzeb was strongly influenced by a Sunni scholar in the Deccan, during his campaign there. He contrasts the puritanical and orthodox Aurangzeb with the intellectual and literary Dara Shikoh, who translated The Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita into Persian, espoused a mystical, inclusive Islam and was strongly influenced by the Sufis and Mian Mir.

In fact, as the friction between the two brothers grows, the novel continues to describe their rivalry and their power-struggle in the somewhat simplistic terms:

Dara wanted to bring all the people into the loving bosom of a merciful and benevolent Allah but Aurangzeb believed that the Mughals had a moral right to convert all the people of Hindustan into Muslims.

The problem with such a black-and-white reading of Mughal history and indeed Baig’s repeated statement that under the Mughals, India was a Muslim country, is that Baig looks at a pre-modern society through modern concepts of nationalism and statehood. Such interpretations are doubtless common currency in India and Pakistan today, but they do ignore the fact that from the 15th to 19th centuries, the religious wars that raged in Europe (Catholic versus Protestant) defined the nations of modern Europe, whereas in pre-colonial India, although religious conflicts did exist, battles were largely fought for power or territory with Hindu and Muslim rulers, joining forces against a common foe. Aurangzeb’s military allies were frequently Rajputs. As Aurangzeb’s power grew, both Hindu and Muslim princes/warriors joined him, and betrayed his incarcerated father and his defeated brothers.

As a historical novel, Ocean of Cobras does not take advantage of fiction as a creative medium to explore the emotional complexities of Shah Jahan and his fratricidal sons, which did not simply revolve around issues of faith, and whose actions would define the fate of their dynasty — and facilitate a denouement that they could not have imagined: British hegemony. Instead, Dara’s spiritual inclinations and his quest for transcendence, which encompassed many faiths and scriptures, are reduced by the author to a self-conscious post-independence polemic on religious unity. The novel is also peppered with sweeping and sometimes, inaccurate statements on Mughal/Indian history, including a reference to Aurangzeb’s literary daughter Zebunissa, as his granddaughter. 

Nevertheless, this is a very readable book and its insights into Mughal life include particularly interesting details of military battles witnessed by Mubarak Ali. His narrative includes a detailed account of the Battle of Samugarh during which Shah Jahan’s armies led by Dara Shikoh were defeated by Aurangzeb. As a part of Dara Shikoh’s entourage, Mubarak Ali tells of their journey across the subcontinent from Agra to Lahore, where Dara Shikoh regroups his forces and travels through Multan, Thatta and Ahmedabad and encounters Aurangzeb’s armies at the Battle of Deorai. There Dara Shikoh is defeated once more. Mubarak Ali’s account leads up to the brief, shocking and tragic trial of Dara Shikoh for apostasy, instituted by Aurangzeb and his orthodox clerics, culminating in Dara Shikoh’s execution (soon followed by that of his mentor Sarmad) which is all the more chilling for its combination of fratricide, realpolitik and faith.

Ocean of Cobras: The Epic Battle for the Soul of India between Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb

(HISTORY)

By Murad Ali Baig

Tara Press, India

ISBN 978-8183861281

344pp.

Kashmir Monitor 25/05/2016

Book review: Ocean of Cobras

 

14 November, 2015

Ocean of Cobras: The Chronicle of a Slave to the Mughal Prince Dara Shikoh, a book by Murad Ali Baig.

Writing history from stories is a major intellectual exercise.   But creating a story out of history requires more – an imagination that reflects what happened, at the same time walking through the spirit of the time.  Murad Ali Baig in his Ocean of Cobras has done precisely that – to give flesh and blood to the skeletal memory of the penultimate moment of Mughal rule on the sub-continent – the final years of Emperor Shah Jahan and the fratricidal struggle for the throne.

The book is a portrait of Dara Shikoh - a neglected ecumenical figure in histories of the period - favorite son of Shah Jahan and one of three brothers of Mughal Badshah Aurangzeb.  The period acquires life through the eyes, ears,  and soul of Mubarak Ali, a court eunuch and slave who enjoyed unique access to the extended royal Mughal family.  This voice renders many tales and tales within tales, bringing alive late seventeenth and early eighteenth century "India" with embroidered detail - the first family, court politics, battles between the brothers, their lust, loves and lives, and their hopes, fears, jealousies and hatreds.

The scenes and acts change: forays into tribal life; the ritual of the royal hunt; the finery of the zenana; seamless seductions; the gossip of the bazaar; culinary journeys into sumptuous banquets; and encounters with visitors from afar.  Beneath the glitter, the hustle and bustle of bazaars and the moving cities of royalty, lurks the rivalry between the siblings.  The tensions surface, pull and fall like the tow of currents in shallow waters - sensuous versus the austere; the laid back versus the disciplined; liberal versus orthodox Islam; the other-worldly versus the here and now; Dara versus Aurangzeb.

Immersed in the struggle and shaped by it are the visions, characters and passions of the two brothers who wrestle for purpose and pre-eminence.  Few may know that Dara commissioned the first translations of the Upanishads and Bhagvad Gita into Persian.  One encounters the first travellers from the West and their impressions of the country when early modern Europe was striking root.  Others would learn more of the intricate and fickle Hindu-Muslim alliances that influenced outcomes of the time.  The two faiths and the family of the ageing and marginalised Shah Jahan were bound and broken by exigencies of temporal power.  A persistent question that lingers in the narrative is what might India have been, had Dara reigned instead of his brother.

Beyond this larger question is the salience of the social and the play of chance which rarely find place in conventional accounts:  the chance encounter of Shah Jahan with a mendicant whose prophecy colors the psyche of a father toward his sons – particularly his suspicion of Aurangzeb and pampering of Dara, and its larger effect on family relations and court politics.  The restrained yet haunting role of the sisters - Jahanara, tenderly passionate but enigmatic; the malevolent but clairvoyant Roshanhara,  and the melancholic Gauharara;  and the shenanigans of the elder king with the wives of his generals who later come to haunt Dara.  These and other anecdotes string the high politics of empire into the human soil of everyday life.

Woven into these tales are excursions into military organization, strategy and technology of Mughal warfare, how armies moved and fought more than three hundred years ago.  Baig's rendition of tactics, maneuvers and sieges, logistics, weaponry and marches is masterful.  One moment you are in the midst of a campaign – the twists and turns in the fog of battle.  At another, on the Malwa plateau, or the climax of the final encounter between the brothers near Ajmer.  It is a ring side view from the howdah of an elephant, of changing fortunes of nobles and soldiers, personal tugs that underlay combat, and the ideas and expectations that compel men and women to act and choose as individuals, while silently a collective destiny forms.

Importantly, the book quietly touches some of the central themes that persist in the governance of modern India:  the intrigues and complications of dynastic politics; the relationship between state and religion; the long misunderstood engagement of the Islamic and Hindu way of life; and the continued distance between the ruler and ruled.  The Ocean of Cobras is an enchanting primer into our late medieval past which has much relevance for understanding the medieval present.

Kishore Mandhyan

Former Political Advisor - Cabinet of the United Nation's Secretary General

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REVIEW IN OUTLOOK MAGAZINE

The latest issue of Outlook Magazine dated October 5 has a good though rather convoluted review about Ocean of Cobras.

There was a full page excerpt from the book concerning Dara's trial was also published in Outlook in the issue of  September 22.

The first edition of the novel has sold out in less than three months and the next edition is now being printed.

A good start but a long road ahead.

DARA'S RELIGIOUS EXPLORATION

Book extract

Dara’s religious exploration

from the novel `Ocean of Cobras’

I clearly recall the excitement on every occasion when some of the long buried treasures of Hindu philosophy or literature were discovered and presented to Dara’s scholars. Many great Hindu texts like the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and even the Mahabharata had long been buried in the secret troves of Brahmin priests scattered all over the country. These and many other works like Patanjali's Yoga Sutras were not known even to the most educated Hindus. Dara's scholars and scribes not only translated them into the court language of Persian but also edited, copied and printed them so that these fountains of ancient Hindu wisdom and knowledge would become known to all.

Pandit Kavindracharya took Dara to Benares to help explain the basic message of the Upanishads. He said… “The Upanishads tells us that the mind is divine but unfortunately the mind that we use is the physical mind, which cannot help us in our journey because it has unconsciously accepted three non divine companions... fear, doubt and jealousy that confuse it. These three sentiments attack the mind and make it helpless. When the mind is weakened by these, ego enters the mind and destroys spirituality. The seeking mind believes in philosophy. The fearful heart needs religious rituals The human mind is like a monkey swinging from fear to fear.”

He went on… ”There are two approaches. One is through the mind, the other is through the heart. The approach through the mind is not secure because fear, doubt and jealousy distort our thinking. But the approach through the heart is sure. There are also powerful barriers like kama (lust), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), moha (attachment). When people are free from them they are able to enter the state of Moksha.”

A few weeks later Pandit Kavindracharya brought to Dara another long lost document called the Bhagavat Gita that had been lying among the scrolls of some Brahmins of the Brighu order. He said that it had originally been part of a discourse by a legendary hero called Krishna in the great Hindu legend of the Mahabharata. The text was now translated into Persian for the first time and contained some very profound thoughts.

He read out a few pages from it… “Desire and attachment is the basis of all sorrow so the sincere performing of one’s karma makes one detached and free. God resides in every heart but because many of us think we are no more than our bodies we become trapped by desires and attachments. The Gita says that God is the source of all energy and that mortal humans were mere lamps burning with a spark of that divine energy.”

Dara turned to one of the Sunni scholars and asked... ”Do you find anything in this philosophy that conflicts with what has been taught by our holy prophet? It clearly speaks of the need for absolute surrender to God with the same passion as we Muslims seek absolute surrender to Allah.” Dara asked… “But please tell me how can Hindus with such elevating philosophies continue the base practice of worshipping stone idols?”

Kavindracharya paused before replying... “Shazadeh hazoor most Hindus believe that their deities are different manifestations of Prabhu, the great cosmic spirit. The gods like of Vishnu, Shiva, Ram or Krishna and their consorts Lakshmi, Parvati, Radha, Sita and others have been endowed with many benign human attributes that make them satisfying to poor worshippers. These and many lesser deities, that they can see and touch, are much easier to worship with flowers and offerings. Most of our Hindu worshippers are poor people who know very little about their ancient philosophies. Like poor people everywhere they live precarious lives with hunger, sickness and other fears constantly tormenting them so they try to seek god’s protection with prayers, penances, pilgrimages and other acts of piety that they hope will please their gods.”

“Shahzedeh Hazoor all Hindus have to be grateful to you making our own great treasures of philosophy known to the world. The fabulous wealth of India was hidden from the western world until Alexander showed them the door through which so many conquerors were to follow in the centuries that followed. You have now opened a door to reveal to us the wonders of our own nearly forgotten past.”

Dara, in his quest to seek a unifying philosophy underlying all religions, now demonstrated the originality of his own intellect by personally writing a remarkable book that he called Majma-ul-Bahrain meaning `the mingling of the oceans' in which he attempted to seek the common links between the philosophies of the holy Quran and the Brahma Shastras.

He first compared the five elements listed in Islam and Hinduism. Like the Islamic Arsh-i-Azan, (great throne) of wind, fire, water and dust, Hindu texts speak of `Panch Bhut’ of sky, wind, brilliance, water and earth. He went on to add that Jibrail (Gabriel), the presiding angel of Islamic creation is similar to the Hindu Brahma (creator) while Mikhail, the angel of existence, is similar to the Hindu Vishnu (preserver) and Israfil (angel of destruction) was like Shiva (destroyer). Later he pointed out that water was the element of both Jibrail and Brahma, Fire was the element associated with Mikhail and Vishnu while air was the sacred element of both Israfil and Shiva.

I, however, thought that his greatest work was the Sirr-i-Akbar or `the great secret' where he showed the similarity between the monotheistic core of the Upanishads that underlay the religions of the Hindus with the unqualified monotheism of Islam. He wanted Muslims to understand that Hindus and Hindu religions actually had many common links with the spiritual core of Islam.

Word about Dara's great work began to spread and many Hindus were first curious and later deeply grateful to learn about the many nearly forgotten treasures of their own ancient culture. I was however troubled that these reports seemed to disturb some of the orthodox Muslims who held Hindus in contempt and firmly believed in the superiority of their own culture and religion.

______________________

The narrator Mubarak Ali’s anxiety was well merited. Many years later Dara’s broad minded religious beliefs were to divide the Mughal Empire with an increasing polarization of the Rajput and other hindu soldiers supporting Dara while the Muslim nobles either supported the rebel prince Aurangzeb or were half hearted in their support of Dara.

The battle of Samugarh in 1658 was therefore not just a battle for the Mughal throne but a battle for the very soul of India. Aurangzeb’s victory from the brink of defeat through a betrayal not only created a Muslim - Hindu divide but a divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims that was to affect many future generations.  

Talk about Dara at Gyan Mandir School

I gave a talk on August 21 to some 200 senior students of Gyan Mandir School about my new novel `Ocean of Cobras' and was most gratified by the enthusiastic response and the interest of many students who said that they knew so little about this exciting period of Mughal history. The interactive session with the students at the end of the talk was most stimulating.

I had not heard of this school before and was very pleasantly surprised that it is one of Delhi’s highly regarded schools with about 1500 students.

I suggested that the school might consider doing a school project to visit places in Delhi associated with Dara Shikoh like the Diwani Khas in the Red fort where he was tried, the Dara Shikoh library near Kashmiri Gate and Humayun's Tomb where princess Jahanara erected a tomb over his headless body when Aurangzeb was campaigning against the Marathas in the Deccan.

BOOK LAUNCH AT INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE

Monday 10^th April, 2015

·         Apart from some 200 people in the audience I greatly enjoyed the launch of my new novel. Siddharth Shriram released the book and said that though he was not very interested in history this book had been such an easy read that he hugely enjoyed it.

·         Professor Pushpesh Pant (retired professor from JNU, historian and author) endorsed the sentiment saying he had read the entire book in a day and is now reading it for the 3rd time as it contains so many nuggets of information and insights into a fascinating period.

·         I then outlined the thrust of the book that concerned a tipping point in India's history with the orthodox prince Aurangzeb and the liberal Dara Shikoh fighting not only for the Mughal crown but for the very soul of India.

·         Few people know that Dara was a Sanskrit scholar who did the first translations of the Upanishhads and the Bhagavat Gita that were not widely known to most people in Mughal times.

·         I explained that while much had been written about the Mughal emperors very little was known about Dara after the court scribes wrote him off after the battle of Samugarh. As the British had contempt for the `native armies’ very little was also known about the Mughal command and control systems and I had to go to the Military Museum in Istanbul to learn more about them. I also personally walked over many of the battlefields and strategic areas to be able to describe them properly.

·         Several people asked how much of the novel was fiction and how much history. I explained that about 25% of the book concerned the adventures of the purely fictitious narrator, the eunuch Mubarak Ali, but that most of the rest was firmly rooted in history.

·         Several people who had read the novel commented that they were waiting for it to be made into a movie as they saw a panorama of vivid mental images as they read of Mubarak’s adventures in the court and on the battlefields.

·         The battles, romances, betrayals, the events of the harem and the battles were then debated in a very lively discussion with the audience.

Did you see the review of Ocean of Cobras in the Sunday Business Standard?

BEYOND BUSINESS » PEOPLE » PEOPLE

The Mughal fusion of Hindu-Muslim culture is a tradition to be cherished: Murad Ali Baig

Interview with author
Uttaran Das Gupta August 8, 2015 Last Updated at 21:31 IST

The majestic tomb of the second Mughal emperor, Humayun, in New Delhi hides another grave - of Dara Shikoh, scholar, philosopher and the man who would have ascended the Peacock Throne if history had not intervened. Murad Ali Baig's novel, Ocean of Cobras, which will be launched on Monday, fictionalises the Mughal War of Succession (1657-1661) that sealed Dara's fate.Uttaran Das Gupta talks to the author about his upcoming book

From writing on cars to a historical novel - how did this happen?

I have written on cars, travel, environment, rural India as well as history, mythology and religion. My last book, 80 Questions to Understand India, sold about 30,000 copies. I follow my passions: a man can love his wife and also his dog.

Hillary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, said writing historical novels was a second choice when she realised she would not be a historian. You were already well-reputed as a journalist and a non-fiction writer. Why the move to fiction?

I am a historian with an MA in history. So access to records was not too difficult. Textbooks unfortunately mention Dara only as a footnote to the history of Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb and others.

My experience in marketing tractors and motorcycles took me to every part of India, and I visited many of the sites where battles took place, and other places mentioned in the book.

It was not easy learning to write fiction after straight narratives on many different subjects. Ocean of Cobras is authentic history as told by a fictitious narrator - a eunuch in the Mughal court, who is a witness to everything, from the intrigues of the harem to the battlefields.

Can you tell us something about the title of the book?

The Mughals took omens very seriously. Strange events like millions of snakes suddenly appearing in Bengal or the predictions of a wandering fakir prejudiced Shah Jahan against Aurangzeb, which in turn made the prince bitter and determined.

Dara has gained a sort of mythical reputation as a poet and secular-minded leader. Do you think he would have made an able administrator of the Mughal empire?

Dara, Shah Jahan's favourite son, was a great scholar but also an able military commander, who continued the armed struggle against his brother Aurangzeb for more than a year. The Persian scribes of the Mughal court wrote off Dara after the Battle of Samugarh. European writers depended mainly on street gossip.

Dara had deep respect for Hindu and Sufi philosophy, and his ascent to the throne might have led to a continuation of religious harmony for keeping the Mughal empire together. This was shattered by Aurangzeb's bigoted interpretation of Islam. But my novel does question if Dara was strong enough to hold such a turbulent empire together.

On the contrary, don't you think Aurangzeb earned a reputation of a ruthless bigot and religious fundamentalist?

Aurangzeb really became bitter and bigoted in the last 30 years of his life. (He lived to be nearly 90.) He usually tried to be just to all his subjects.

There has been some speculation of how different Indian history would have been if Dara had ascended the throne.

Indian history would have been different. Many would be surprised to learn that Dara had translated 59 Upanishads, and the Bhagwad Gita from Sanskrit to Persian so that the Hindu religious texts would gain wider circulation in the empire. Others would find it surprising the Dara considered Allah to be god to everyone and not just Muslims, like Aurangzeb did.

Mughal history has served as inspiration for fictional work in India for centuries. Do you think your novel has contemporary relevance?

I think my novel is very relevant: many Mughal customs of governance and taxation survive to this day.

The fusion of Hindu and Muslim culture during Mughal times is a tradition all Indians could cherish.

REQUIEM TO DARA SHIKOH

Oh Dara!

If memorie remain a lustrous sea shell

washed upon the shore of times inner eye
then pressed to ear discover
not one ocean but two

singing together a melancholy refrain

of wave on wave of sorrow

Oh Dara! Oh Dara!

All prayers are but a veil upon death’s dark door.
But how mourn the loss of a living bridge
between two oceans of faith and wisdom  

Oh you noble gentle invader
You were
You are
A broken bridge

between us and a golden dream

Oh unkempt forces of dark resentments

Oh crimson line on golden throat

Oh unkept tryst with unmet aspiration

  
A golden bird sings your requiem

No more poems for you Oh Dara
The heart can cup but so much sorrow  

Oh Dara! Oh Dara!

Amit Dahiya Badshah

SAMUGARH – TURNING POINT OF FUNDAMENTALISM

It was on an exceptionally hot day on May 29 1658 that India’s history changed forever. Two great Mughal armies led by Shah Jahan’s eldest son Dara Shikoh and his third son Aurangzeb clashed on a dusty plain about twenty kilometers south east of Agra. It was not only a battle for the Mughal throne but a battle for the very soul of India pitting Dara an eclectic scholar who respected all religions against Aurangzeb who was an orthodox Sunni Muslim. Dara had first translated of the Bhagavat Gita and the Upanishads from Sanskrit into Persian to make them known to the public for the first time. But he had been a pampered prince facing a smaller battle hardened army that Aurangzeb had marched up from the Deccan.

My forthcoming novel `Ocean of Cobras’ graphically describes the epic battle through the words of a narrator who writes… Aurangzeb moved as fast as his army could to quietly slip behind Dara’s lines before they were aware of his movements. They reached a secret ford across the Chambal at Ater by nonstop double marches over two days. Then there was consternation when Dara realized that Aurangzeb’s armies had come very close to Agra so he was forced to abandon much of his heavy canon and rush eastwards to intercept them.

The two armies met on a flat dusty plain east of a village called Samugarh on an unbelievably hot day at the end of May and the sun was like a furnace in the cloudless sky. There was not enough water to drink so many soldiers and horses simply collapsed with heat and sun stroke. The crash of the opposing mass of horse and men with the thunder guns and the screams of the wounded soldiers and the whinnying of the terrified horses would haunt the sleep of the survivors for the rest of their lives. I began to see that the battle was no longer just a contest between Dara and his rebel brothers but was beginning to be a religious war with the Hindus valiantly supporting Dara and many Muslim mansabdars supporting Aurangzeb.

It was with great difficulty that I was able to reach the side of Dara’s magnificent elephant but was unable to get his attention as my voice was drowned by the deafening sounds of gunfire, clashing swords and the screams of the wounded.  Dara was oblivious to all except the prospect of his immanent victory. His elephant was to soon become a signal of his doom. One of the enemy rockets exploded near it and our commander Khalilullah Khan rushed up and insisted that he must dismount and finish the battle on a horse. I heard him urgently shout… ”Praise be to Allah this victory is your own! But my God! Why you are still mounted on a lofty elephant? Have you not been sufficiently exposed to danger? If one of the numberless musket balls or arrows touch your royal person who can imagine the dreadful situation to which we will all be reduced? In God’s name descend quickly, mount this horse and pursue the miserable fugitives with all vigour.” As Dara descended, a huge shout was sent up by Khalilullah Khan’s squadron that Dara Shikoh had been killed. When the bewildered soldiers saw through the thick swirling clouds of dust and smoke that the howdah of Dara’s elephant was empty they feared the worst and quickly fled towards Agra.

The noise of battle quite quickly subsided and the dust and smoke began to slowly clear to reveal some fifteen thousand corpses lying on the dusty battlefield in hundreds of piles coated in vivid crimson blood. The Rajput corpses in their yellow jamas looked like untidy fields of saffron. For every dead body there were another three who had been wounded and were lying on the ground crying out piteously. But the intense heat quickly parched their throats so the devastating silence that followed the thunder of battle was almost uncanny. A sharp summer wind suddenly blew from the south and all the fallen bodies were quickly shrouded by a huge cloak of choking yellow dust. A few swirls of spiraling dust curling above the scene looked like ghosts rising up from the devastated plain until they too subsided and absolute silence pervaded the scene.

Dara rode in silence to his mansion from where he collected his family and valuables and left for Dilli shortly before dawn. Dara retreated to Lahore and then down the Indus and a year later was able to muster a big army to fight a fierce three day battle against Aurangzeb at Deorai near Ajmer. He then fled towards Kandahar to be betrayed once again and brought to Delhi where the imperial Qazis sentenced him to death for the crime of heresy. He had written a book called the `Mingling of the Oceans’ showing the many similarities between the Quran and the Brahma Shastras of the Hindus. 

Aurangzeb’s greatest weakness was his inflexible religious bigotry that made him lose the support his Shia subjects as well as his many Hindu and Rajputs followers. His intolerance became more acute after twenty years of rule as he became frustrated by endless rebellions. Though he did no more than Jehangir or Shah Jahan by permitting Hindu worship at old temples and forbidding the construction of new ones his reputation as a destroyer of temples became widespread. He was very unforgiving and by persecuting his Rajput followers cut off his own arms and weakened his military power. The Maratha leader Shivaji initially had no anti Muslim sentiment and had been quite willing to become a Mughal Amir. Aurangzeb’s obstinate pride however alienated him and gave him a new weapon to turn a purely political war against the Mughals into a religious war. The rebellion of the Marathas not only encouraged the Sikhs to revolt but spawned many other Hindu rebels. Aurangzeb died a feeble, broken and a deeply disappointed old man and is buried in a plain grave near Aurangabad. His bigotry was to make the Indian sub-continent the hotbed of Islamic extremism for the next four centuries. If Dara had won at Samugarh it is possible that his rule might have promoted harmony between India’s turbulent peoples and a united Mughal empire might have prevented India becoming so easily colonized by European powers. Samugarh was the turning point.

OCEAN OF COBRAS

Synopsis of my forthcoming novel

The chronicle of a slave to

The Mughal prince Dara Shikoh

The story about a beautifully tragic life as related in a long lost manuscript written by Mubarak Ali, a faithful palace eunuch who was Prince Dara Shukoh’s constant companion and witness to all the battles, intrigues, scholarship, trial, death and events of his tumultuous life. The book is packed with military action, the magnificence and intrigues of the Mughal court and a battle for the very soul of India with Dara’s religious tolerance pitted against the puritanical Islamic intolerance of Aurangzeb.

Mubarak Ali’s adventures are pure fiction set in the actual history of the Mughal empire between 1620 and 1660 where emperor Shahjahan’s eldest and favorite son Dara battles against his brothers Shuja, Aurangzeb and Murad for the Mughal throne after Shahjahan becomes seriously ill. Over five battles, the conflict eventually narrows to one between the liberal Dara and the orthodox Aurangzeb. Betrayal gives Aurangzeb a very narrow victory.

Dara was a liberal thinking scholar (also of Sanskrit) who first had the Upanishads and Bhagavat Gita translated from Sanskrit to Persian to become widely known for the first time. He also wrote his own book `Mingling of the Oceans’ showing the commonality between the Quran and the Hindu Shastras. If Dara had won the Mughal throne India might have enjoyed a long period of Hindu – Muslim amity instead of centuries of communal strife.

Mubarak, the fictitious narrator of this epic story, is a faintly foreign eunuch of the emperor’s Zenana. Aged six years younger than Dara he is intimate with all the members of the imperial family from their childhood to their adult years. Over the years he develops from a nine year old boy into a capable soldier and reveals intimate insights into the lives of the powerful men and women of the court. In the cloistered zenana he also develops a secret and strictly forbidden intimate relationship with a royal princess.

His adventures describe the exciting royal hunts, the passing of Mumtaz Mahal, the building of the magnificent Taj and the new city of Delhi. He shares his experiences while among tribals in the jungles, worship in Hindu and Muslim holy places, Dara’s grand marriage to Nadira Bano and the trade at the sea port of Surat with its many taverns and brothels. He shares Dara’s spiritual quest for Hindu-Muslim brotherhood exploring the many religious ideas of a time when Hindu’s were just beginning to assert their position in a Mughal world. The reader will follow Mubarak on a colorful tour of Hindustan from the limpid lakes of Kashmir to the craggy terrain of the Deccan and Kandahar, the lush pastures of the Punjab, the forested hills of the Himalayas to the sandy wastes of Sind and Baluchistan.

Mubarak describes many scenes of battle where the Mughal strategies and command structures are described for the first time. He rides with Dara at the battle of Samugarh and follows him on the long retreat to Lahore and then down the Indus. He then assassinates an enemy commander and helps rally Dara’s forces for his final battle at Deorai near Ajmer. He then travels with Dara’s family and retainers through the cruel deserts of Sind and Baluchastan until Dara is again betrayed and taken to Delhi as a prisoner. He is with Dara when he is paraded through Delhi and taken before the imperial Qazis where he is tried for heresy and condemned to death.       

The Ocean of Cobras is a tale of love and war, of compassion and cruelty in a period of Mughal grandeur and passionate pride. The story of Dara is a true story that many people in India still remember despite the passage of the centuries. 

105,000 words with three maps.

Rs. 350