indichawla
SPNer
- Sep 20, 2025
- 16
- 2
- 62
Abstract
This essay compares the historical and psychological discourse of two extraordinary documents of the late Mughal period, the Zafarnama (Epistle of Victory, c. 1705),[1] a 111-verse Persian letter written by the tenth Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh, to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir, and the Emperor himself in his own last will, which was preserved in a rare Persian manuscript recently discovered in a private collection in Peshawar and documented by the scholar M. Nasim Khan.[2] The essay argues that such documents form a whole historical dialectic - the Zafarnama as a social moral reproach and the Will as an individual confession of guilt. This essay starts with pursuing three movements of analysis, the first one being the re-creation of the historical setting, the bloody siege of Anandpur (1704), the oath betrayal, the massacre and the martyrdom of the sons of Guru Gobind Singh. It subsequently goes on to comment selected verse by verse on the Zafarnama, demonstrating how Guru Gobind Singh invoked the Persian literary traditions and Islamic theological rhetoric to accuse Aurangzeb of oath-breaking (nifaq), misuse of the Qurān and corrupting piety with power. And finally, it undertakes a forensic and psychological examination of the Peshawar Will, which includes the Persian text of the will, and discovers a man who is a despair of penitence: an emperor who refers to himself as a sinner sunk in sins, who insists on a fourteen-rupee shroud, who deems even his Qurānic transcription incomes as a near- harām, as passing. The essay concludes that the Zafarnama and the Will are indissolubly united: in the Will the Guru had set forth, and given definite form to, a pre-resistance to tyranny is truth spoken with spiritual power These writings, in concert, bring to an end of the Mughal age, and beginning of the Khalsa one, a truth eternal, a truth eternal: that temporal authority, when called to face by absolute moral sovereignty, must ultimately yield, if not in life, then in death.
The Deccan dust hung in the air like a curtain, and muffled everything beyond the next row of tents. The Indian scenery in the first half of the 18th century was such as to give stamp on the ruins of the last, where a new voice of conscience was demanding a new chapter and version of the imperial story. It was 1707, and the sun glared down on Ahmadnagar, in the indifferent fury of a Deccan summer that didn’t care about the empires. In the crimson velvet pavilion of the emperor, there was no sound at all.
It was here that we find Aurangzeb Alamgir, the sixth of the great Mughals, the man who had made his empire reach up to the crags of the Himalayas, and down to the shores of the Cape of Comorin. He was eighty-eight years old, and he looked like what he was: a man who had spent decades of his life in field camps, worn out by an austerity that he imposed on himself, and left but little to rest. The self-proclaimed “World Seizer,” so proud to have it in his title, was now in the grip of none but the tremors of his own mortality.
Beyond, the war drums of the Marathas played a never-ending and ever taunting rhythm, a message that the conquests of a lifetime were unrolling with every setting sun. But in the obscurity of the Diwan-e-Khas, the Emperor was not thinking of the successors of Shivaji, or of the treacherous Rajputs. He was gazing at a parchment, a letter which had been brought up north, and carried by two warriors of the Sikh religion, through the midst of a hostile empire. It was the Epistle of Victory, Zafarnama, written by Guru Gobind Singh. When the old Emperor traced the elegant Persian lines with his shaking hands, he was aware, with a horror that must have chilled his marrow, that it was not a petition to mercy that he was reading, but a mirror, turned at his soul. The disbelief of the moment can only make sense in the mind of Aurangzeb. he contradicted himself at every step, a king who slept on a plain mat, and made caps to earn his own bread, and yet who had taken his father prisoner, and had put to the gallows his own brothers, to claim the Pea{censored} Throne. He saw himself to be the Mujaddid, the renewer of the faith, a divinely appointed scourge sent by God to cleanse the land of idolatry and of sedition. He had been the fulcrum on which the subcontinent had swung for almost fifty years of his life, his will absolute, his piety terrifying. Yet, as he lay dying, the pillars of that certitude were starting to crumble. The empire was bankrupt, the peasantry was in a state of starvation, and the sons he had brought up were circling around like vultures, looking forward to the day when the old man would breathe his last breath, that they might tear up the empire into a war of succession.
With a thunderclap, the Zafarnama landed in this dying empire. The emperor was as complicated a figure as the author, Guru Gobind Singh, of the letter. A poet, a scholar, and a warrior, was a figure who had transformed the Sikh community into the Khalsa, the brotherhood of sant-sipahi (saint-soldiers), with their unshorn hair and carrying steel at their sides. He was antithetical to the Mughal court, straightforward where they were duplicitous, egalitarian where they were hierarchical, radiant where they were shrouded in sin. The Guru and the Emperor had never met face to face, but were united by blood and tragedy. The governors of Aurangzeb had hunted the Guru, his own forts besieged by the Mughal armies, and his cruelty had bricked two of his youngest sons alive at Sirhind.
This transformation hinges on one of the exchanges: the dispatch Zafarnama, or Epistle of Victory, of the tenth Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh, to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir in the winter of 1705.[3] Written in elegant Persian, a language of Mughal statecraft and of high culture, this 111-verse letter was much more than a letter: a moral charge sheet, penned by a man who had lost virtually everything, to the man who had stolen it. The thesis of this essay is that the Zafarnama and the will of Aurangzeb are two documents which are complementary to each other, one a public charge, the other a private admission. Both of them show the disintegration of earthly authority, which stands before an upright and clear conscience, and when it is put to trail by a stern and unwavering spiritual truth, and how a letter, in the hand of an emperor of conscience, can lead to the certainty of empire
Zafarnama was written at Dina, which was close to Raikot, Punjab. The Guru had come out of the Battle of Chamkaur, he mourned his losses at Machhiwara, and gathered his spiritual resolve. The Zafarnama was not the letter of a defeated man by the Mughal forces ; it was a literary masterpiece of Persian verse, , sharp as a scimitar and devastating in its psychological accuracy.. Guru Gobind Singh knew that it would take a wound, who believed himself a lieutenant of God; he only did not assault his mighty armies, but at the theology of Aurangzeb. The Zafarnama has not started with theology. It began on the blood-soaked Punjabi soil and the brutal realpolitik of an empire rotting in its own bowels.
By 1704, the reign of Aurangzeb, though so extensive in territory, was a colossus strain. The inexhaustible Deccan conflict with the Maratha Confederacy had become a financial and military quagmire, diverting the empire’s resources and fragmenting focus. Meanwhile, the conscious redesigning of Mughal kingship by Aurangzeb was towards a less syncretic, , imperial model of Akbar towards a more doctrinal Sunni Islamic sovereignty. The re-establishment of the jizya in 1679 and the patronising of the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri and the demolition of some of the prominent Hindu temples were actions that were not only acts of personal piety, but also instruments of political consolidation, yet they alienated various segments of the population of the empire. Guru Gobind Singh changed everything. In 1699, the inauguration of the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib was a world-historical event. It produced the Sant-Sipahi (saint-soldier), a warrior, who was answerable to God, not to any Mughal officer, characterised by the Five Ks, and governed by the Rehat (code of conduct). This was the explicit establishment of Miri-Piri, the fusion of temporal and spiritual authority, a community that existed within the Mughal empire but served and obeyed a different higher authority. This egalitarian community posed a threat to the feudal structure of the neighbouring Hill Rajas; to Mughal officials such as Wazir Khan, the Governor of Sirhind, the community was a rebellious challenge to the imperial rule. Having been unsuccessful in direct assaults, the Hill Rajas had turned to the Mughal state, claiming Guru Gobind Singh as a seditious chieftain. In 1704, a joint Mughal-Hill Raja army besieged the long and brutal siege. The siege reached a point of extremity, starvation and fatigue within the fort that the besiegers made a sworn oath of safe passage. It was not a casual pledge but a hathiyarnaama or qasamnama, a solemn covenant sworn that was taken on the Qurān by the Mughal envoys. To Aurangzeb, a ruler who had carefully fashioned himself as Alamgir (World-Seizer) and a protector of the law of Islam (Sharia) an oath before the Qurān was the most sacred assurance and a guarantee possible, a breach of which was a grave sin (kufr in its aspect of covenant-breaking). Even Guru Gobind Singh, a sceptic at heart, accepted this pledge, trusting in the sanctity his adversaries professed. The evacuation that ensued was a trap of the basest kind. When the Sikhs had crossed the rain-swollen river of Sarsa, the Mughal and his allies attacked the Sikhs, shattering the oaths completely. This betrayal was the primal kind: not only a military deception but a deep desecration, using the holy book as an instrument of treachery. The tragedy was then exponentially compounded. A small group of Khalsa soldiers, including the eldest sons of the Guru, the teenage Sahibzada Ajit Singh and Jujhar Singh, made a legendary last stand at the Battle of Chamkaur, where they all met martyrdom against overwhelming odds. [4]The younger sons of the Guru, Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh (9 and 7 years old) were taken prisoner by Wazir Khan separately. [5]
The younger sons were offered to convert to Islam to save their lives and, with transcendent courage, they refused, and were executed by being bricked alive in a wall. Their grandmother Mata Gujri died in captivity due to shock; she could not take. Guru Gobind Singh was now a fugitive in the woods of Machhiwara, having lost his stronghold, his army, his mother, and his four sons. Guru Gobind Singh, from this absolute zero of material and personal existence, a state in Sikh tradition known as Chardhi Kala, or eternal optimism in the face of adversity, composed the Zafarnama. It is precisely drawn power from this context: it is the testimony of a witness to ultimate injustice, written not from a position of strength, but from an unimpeachable high round of moral truth.
The Zafarnama is a masterpiece of political theology. The Guru met Aurangzeb on his own ground - Persian verse and Islamic argument, selected ground of Persian literacy and Islamic discourse. It’s 111 verses, mainly in the form of the masnavi (rhyming couplet). It begins, conventionally, yet potentially with praise of God. The letter opens with an invocation to God, but quickly shifts to a tone of admonishment that would have been unthinkable for a subject to address an emperor. This strike is a strategic attacking move. It determines the theological learning of the Guru, and puts the future criticism not in the form of an external other, but of an internal other, of a fellow-citizen of the common universe of Abrahamic monotheism and the veneration of prophetic tradition, thus inadvertently setting up a comparison of what is righteous Islamic behaviour against which Aurangzeb will be measured.
The letter begins with a prayer to God, but soon changes its tone to one of reproach, which would have been inconceivable for a subject to address to the emperor.
کمال کرامت کاا یام کریم
رضا بخش رزاق رهاکون رحیم
Kamaal-e karamat kayam karim, Raza baksh razak rahak o Rahim
Ama-baksh bakshindeh o Dastgir, Raza baksh rozi deh o dilpazir
He is the immortal Lord, Eternal, all powerful
Giver of joy and salvation, Bountiful and merciful.
Merciful One, Who protects and guides, O Charming One
Who forgives and provides.
This is a strategic move. It fixes the theological erudition of the Guru and makes the subsequent criticism to emerge not as the creation of an external they, but of an internal part of the common universe of Abrahamic monotheism and appreciation of prophetic tradition. It then proceeds to worship Hazrat Ali, the fourth Caliph and his justice and courage, thus implicitly putting in place a norm of righteous Islamic behaviour against which Aurangzeb will be judged.
The Guru starts by dissecting the concept of breaking oaths, which was the sin that was central to the Mughal loss at Anandpur. The imperial army had vowed on the Qurān to allow the Sikhs to go without molestation, which they defied as soon as the Guru came out of the fort. The Guru employs this disloyalty in the form of a sword to cut open the conscience of the emperor.
The verses that must have pierced Aurangzeb the most were those that questioned the very basis of his piety. The Emperor was proud to be a ruler who had enforced the Sharia and who at the end of his day, would pray and transcribe the Qurān in his own hand. But the Guru writes:
The Guru is assuring the emperor that he will witness a rebellion being suppressed, but the soul of resistance is unbroken. He refers to the ghosts of the soldiers whom the emperor has murdered, the widows who wail into the night, a direct attack on the Emperor as a defender of the people of his empire. Perhaps, the greatest psychological blow, however, is in the verses where the Guru mocks the emperor, with his dependence on large armies and elephants, contrasting them with the power of the Divine:
چه مردی که اخگر خموشی کنی
که آتش دمان را فروزان کنی
Chi mardī ki akhgar khamoshī kunī, Ki ātish damān rā furozān kunī.
What kind of man are you, that you extinguish mere embers,
Yet inflame those already blazing with fire?
It is a warning that earthly triumphs are short-lived and ephemeral. The Zafarnama is no cry of mercy; it proclaims triumph. The Guru believes that he has demonstrated that God is on his side by surviving the massacre at Chamkaur. And were God be on the side of the Guru, then the emperor who fought against God is damned.
In the Zafarnama, the image sharpens in an accusatory tone: “When the lamp of the world veiled itself, it was truth that withdrew before you. In its place, you rose like the king of night, commanding, yet cloaked in darkness rather than light. Your sovereignty does not illuminate; it dazzles only to conceal. You sit upon the throne, but it is a dominion of shadow, not of truth.”
With that ground thus set, the letter drives its charge home. It is the betrayal of the oath of the Qurān, which is the main accusation, and the Zafarnama prosecutes it with a verse, one of the most heart-rending in the whole of Indo-Persian literature:
هار آن کاس کی کائول کوران آآی داش
کی یزدان بر-او رهنوما آیدش
Har Aan Kas Ki Kaul-E Kuran Aai-Dash
Ki Yazdan Bar-O Rehnuma Aaidash
God becomes the guide of any person who trusts someone’s
oath taken on the holy Qurān.
This couplet is a trap. The first hemistich,
acknowledges Aurangzeb’s follower is Islam, the second hemistich,
که عین مرد را زارا ایتبار نیست
چی قاسم کوران آست یزدان یکیست
Ke Een Mard Ra Zarra Eitbaar-E Neest
Chi Kasam-E Kuran Ast Yazdaan Yakeest
This man (Aurangzeb) cannot be trusted, even equivalent of a speck
of sand and who swears by the Qurān as well as by One God.
This unleashes the logical and moral trap. It raises an unanswerable question in the theology of the Aurangzeb framework: Are your actions and deeds render your observance of the rituals hollow and hypocritical? In what way, then, are they of any value? It accuses the emperor of making Islam a political performance, separating the form and substance, and perpetrating nifaq (hypocrisy). The Zafarnama theme is repeated multiple times, to depict the siege and the broken Oaths not as a politically misplaced step; it is, in fact, a sin that taints the very faith they are supposed to worship and pretend to honour.
The injustice named, the letter turns to justify armed resistance, the epistle pivots to articulate the Sikh doctrine of Dharam Yudh (righteous war) and the legitimacy of armed resistance. It is a question that deprives the emperor of legitimacy. If you claim to serve God, the Guru argues, your word must be your bond. Any violation of an oath taken on the Qurān is to desecrate the Qurān itself. The reasoning itself is irrefutable and devastating. The Guru goes on and transforms the military failures of the emperor into a spiritual judgment.
This couplet has been immortalised in the annals of the history of Sikhs, and it is widely cited as a reason to go to war. But in the Zafarnama, it is a criticism of the inability as well as the failure of the emperor. The Guru insinuates that he, the Guru, had taken up his sword when all his efforts and tries to achieve peace were met with deceit. He contrasts his reluctance to engage in violence with the emperor and his betrayal and treacherous aggression. He mocks Aurangzeb with the hollowness of his power:
This is encapsulated in the most famous verse of the text:
چو کار از همه حیلته در گذشت، حلال است بردن به شمشیر دست
Chu kar az hameh heelate dar guzasht,
halal ast burden be shamsheer dast.
When all avenues have been exhausted,
only then is it righteous to take the sword to hand.
This is not the justification or glorification of violence but a very definite moral and legal state of affairs. The first hemistich, Chu kar az hameh heelate dar guzasht, sets the strict precondition of the exhaustion of all peaceful methods and means (hameh heelate) in the first hemistich:
It was the last treachery of Anandpur. The consequence is mentioned in the second hemistich halal ast burden be shamsheer dast. Most importantly, the Guru mentions the term halal, which implies that something is permissible by Islamic law, once again, addressing the Islamic legal paradigm to which Aurangzeb himself revered. The sword has nothing to do with conquest or taking revenge, but it is a last divinely imperative (farman). The Guru is careful to frame the conflict as one against oppression and not a conflict against Islam, but against oppression (zulm): “I do not fight with Muslims; it is with the tyrant and the cruel.” This martyrdom of his sons and followers is thus re-enacted not as a loss but as a willing sacrifice to God, a spiritual victory which overrides temporal loss. The letter strikes his utmost nd deepest blow.
The couplet sets two worlds against each other. The first hemistich,
کی اورا غرور آست بار ملک و مال
ای ما رأ پناه است یزدان آکا
Ki o-ra gharur ast bar mulk o mal
O ma-ra panah ast yazdan aka
As you take pride in your wealth and in the might of your land,
So I trust in the Eternal One, in the protection of His hand.
defines Aurangzeb’s power as terrestrial, symbolised by the man-made takht (throne), inherently transient and worldly.
تو قاف المش او زین سپنجی سرای
کی علم بیگوراد سر جا باجه ·
ببین گردیش بوفایی زمان
کی بیگوزاست بار هار ماشین و ماکان
Tu ghaf al mash au zeen sepanji sarae
Ki alam biguzrad sar-e ja bajae ·
Bebin gardish-e bewafai-ye zaman
Ki biguzast bar har makin o makan
Be aware this world is transient,
Here today and tomorrow gone;
The wheel of Time is relentless
It will take us all, one by one.
Beware the unrelenting turn
Of Time's faithless wheel:
It turns for each and every one
It harbours no appeal.
It declares the spiritual authority of the Guru in the form of his seat at the dar (doorstep) of the Divine, source of power unequalled by any throne. The Sufi Islamic tradition resonates with the term faqr (spiritual poverty), which refers to the utmost humility and closeness to God. As Guru Gobind Singh addresses Aurangzeb, the tone is stripped of ornament and turns quietly severe. He is reminding him that his power is temporary, that the throne he occupies is not a possession but a passing station. What appears secure today will inevitably slip from his grasp, just as it has for countless rulers before him. The warning is clear: do not lose yourself in the illusion of permanence, for time and truth will outlast your authority.
Within a single couplet, the Guru disposes of the Mughal darbar in its entirety, right to power and claim to authority. The Zafarnama does not end with a plea, but a demand for justice, and closes with a strong sense of resolution, leaving the ultimate judgment in the hands of God, while having irrevocably placed the emperor in the dock of history.
The letter was delivered to the Deccan by two of the Panj Pyare, the Five Beloved Ones, Bhai Daya Singh and Bhai Dharam Singh.[6] Just imagine the scene they must have encountered at the imperial camp. These two fierce Sikhs arrive, turbans and their garments covered with dust, and deliver the letter. The emperor, amid the detritus of war, the scarlet tents, the braying camels, the exhausted nobles, receives these two Sikh warriors. The seal bearing the name as the slave of the King of Kings” is broken.
The emperor is morally disturbed, according to Sikh sources. Aurangzeb reads. And as he reads, the communication of his secretaries suggests, the old man crumbles. The man who had stood up to the greatest armies of the times, who had long withstood the scorching heat of the Deccan, is brought low by the ink of a poet. He reads the accusations as deceit. He reads the reminders of his mortality. He reads the assertion that the Guru, although he has lost in material terms, is the victor. The psychological effect cannot be overrated. Aurangzeb was the man who was obsessed with his legacy, obsessed with appearing as a just and righteous Muslim leader. The Zafarnama reminds him that history will make him a known liar and a tyrant. Though Mughal chronicles are generally silent regarding such tests to imperial izzat (honour), further historical imperial events provide eloquent witness to this. The silence of Mughal court chronicles on this episode is itself telling, imperial record-keepers did not preserve moments that exposed the sovereign's moral crisis. As described in Sikh historical traditions, including the Gurbilas Patshahi 10, and the Suraj Prakash Granth, Aurangzeb as profoundly shaken by the letter, although Mughal court chronicles rarely recorded imperial vulnerability, making no mention of this particular reaction. [7] Post receiving the Zafarnama, firmans were issued by Aurangzeb directing his generals to stop hostilities against the Guru. [8] It is said that he had remarked the Guru’s words had “pierced his heart like an arrow.” He even wrote back, an invitation to the Guru to come and see him, a last effort to obtain absolution at the hands of the man whom he had endeavoured to destroy. The hunter who had hunted the Guru now implored and begged for a meeting. However, it was too late. The turn of karma had begun. The Guru was starting to travel south, though the Emperor was fading rapidly. The meeting did not take place. The Guru had not yet reached South when Aurangzeb passed on at Ahmednagar in February 1707.
But the most piercing testimony to the Zafarnama lies in that intimate, full of anguish world of Aurangzeb himself, as revealed in his last Will.. The Peshawar Manuscript. It was reproduced in Rabi-ul-Awwal 1105 AH (c. 1693), and is a key reading, the background of his Will. The Will, a document of pure raw grief, a rare manuscript in the possession of a private collection in Peshawar, was recorded by the scholar M. Nasim Khan. (“The Will of Aurangzeb (1658–1707): A Rare Document.” Gandhara Studies, Vol. 3, pp. 161ff.) The pre-Zafarnama date shows that the penitence of Aurangzeb was already a pre-existing condition of his old age. The Zafarnama aimed to rouse this silent guilt, to give it a certain, concrete form by enumerating his transgressions and to bring this hidden secret into the open. It is the written record of a broken man. In case the Zafarnama was the closing argument of the prosecution, the Will is the guilty plea of the defendant. The manuscript is carefully produced, and the decoration and the text are in a deliberate tension. A cruel irony given its content. It is written on heavy, cream-coloured paper, bound in a cover which has been replaced, but the old purple stitching that binds the pages are still visible. It is written in Naskh, a elegant, flowing script in black ink, with headings in vermilion red. The title page is the masterpiece of the Mughal atelier, the lapis lazuli blue and gold paint, the intricate arabesques, which were adorned to illuminate the empire at its peak. But the words inscribed in this frame of gold and lapis are no commands of conquest; the whisper of a terrified soul.
The Peshwar script was transcribed by the scribe Ahqul Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali in the Rabi-ul-Awwal 1105 AH (c. 169394 CE).[9] Although this is the transcription date, the original composition of the Will itself is probably earlier than this copy, and is of the mature years of Aurangzeb, long before he died in 1707. It tells us that the remorse which we see in the document was not the consequence of the Zafarnama, but a permanent, chronic condition of the soul of the emperor. The Guru letter did not create the guilt, but only solidified it, bringing it to a terrified head, the burden the emperor has been living with for years.
The Will text is a radical departure from the imperial norms. It does not start with a list of territories to be divided among the sons to be favoured, but with a confession:
The document begins formally:[10]
وصیت نامۀ شاه اورنگزیب عالمگیر عرض بحضور نواب عالمگیر محمد خان صاحب بہادر که شوکت وعظمت دائم باقی باشد
Will of the King Aurangzeb Alamagir presented to his Majesty Nawab Alamagir Muhammad Khan Sahib Bahadur whose prosperity and greatness remains forever.
It opens with the bismillah:
أبدأ باسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I start with the name of Allah, the most merciful and forgiver.
The first clause immediately establishes the tone of a soul preparing for judgment: First is for this sinner (i.e. myself) who is sunk in sins, that arrangement of shroud and burial (and) the holy tomb of Chestia (peace be upon him) may be done, because those who are drowned in (the ocean) of sin have no other protection except His clean refuge. This is a great honour for Prince Alijah.
The “World Seizer” refers to himself as “a sinner who is sunk in sins.” He discards the titles of Alamgir (World Conqueror) and Ghazi (Holy Warrior). He does not place himself as a ruler, but, rather, as a beggar, helpless and desperate, knocking at the door of God. It is the language of the Sufis, of the mystics who had renounced the world, but it is that which comes from a man who had denied the world himself. He denounces everything that he created. The self-identification of گناهكار (gunahgar - sinner) who is در در گناهان غرق (dar gunahan gharq - sunk/drowned in sins) is not formulaic poetry. It is the language of spiritual hopelessness, of a man who is aware of the moral burden of his own actions and deeds. Not he is wading in guilt, but he is sinking.
The second clause of the Will delves even deeper into this psychology of remorse. It is the will’s most iconic and psychologically revealing passage. It deals with the financing of his funeral. A Mughal Emperor was entitled to a state funeral of unimaginable splendour, his body draped in silks, his tomb a monument of marble and jade.
First, it is his stunning renunciation of the imperial wealth. Aurangzeb, who is the Emperor of an empire that generates tens of millions in revenues, refuses to consider the idea of imperial funds for his burial. He is adamant that his shroud be purchased with the amount of his earnings from sewing caps از دواختن كلاه, the lowest of manual labour. This is an outright renunciation of Mughal pomp, an assertion that his redemption cannot be purchased by the very wealth that it tainted. He states that these wages are نزديك به حرام (nazdik be haram - next to unlawful) and these wages should be distributed amongst the poor. This reflects a scrupulous, tortured theological anxiety. If the wages of transcribing the holy book are a suspect, what does that mean when it comes to all other imperial revenue?
This clause means that a crisis of legitimacy is so deep that even devotions are tainted. This resonates strongly with the charge of Zafarnama of the misuse of the Qurān In his will, Aurangzeb also faces the threat of his own fear that his engagement with the Qurān would have been corrupted by his adulterous power. The instruction for a simple, "مزار خشت خام" (mazar-e-khisht-e-kham - tomb of raw brick*) in Khuldabad is architecture as confession.
“A sum of fourteen rupees (and) twelve annas that is earned through sewing of caps is with Alia Begum... Take the amount and spend it on the shroud of this helpless (i.e. myself).”
A sum of fourteen rupees (and) twelve annas3 that is earned through the sewing of caps is with Alia Begum4, the mahaldar. Take the amount and spend it on the shroud of this helpless (i.e. myself). And a sum of three hundred rupees5 that is earned through the wages of copying the Qurān, has to be given to faqirs on the day of my death. As money received through copying Qurān is considered near to harām (unlawful). Therefore, this amount should not be spent on (my) shroud, etc. But Aurangzeb writes: “a sum of fourteen rupees (and) twelve annas3 that is earned through sewing of caps is with Alia Begum.” A pittance. This was the money the emperor had earned by sewing caps himself, a menial task he undertook to emulate the piety of the early Caliphs.[11] He refuses to use the imperial treasury for his burial. Why? Since he was aware of the origin of that money. He was aware that it was stained with the blood of peasants, the taxes bled of the drought-stricken, the plunder and loot of the temples of the south. He considered the wealth of the empire as mal-e-haram, illicit property. But the clause continues with a theological twist that is uniquely Aurangzeb:
“And a sum of three hundred rupees that is earned through the wages of copying the Qur’ān has to be given to faqirs on the day of my death. As money received through copying the Qurān is considered near to harām (unlawful). Therefore, this amount should not be spent on (my) shroud, etc.” This is a mind of agonising precision. Even the income gained by copying the Holy Book -the act of acts- is considered to be tainted. Why? Since Aurangzeb believed that he was commodifying the sacred by charging a religious service. Or, worse still, he believed that his own hands, besmirched as they were by the sins of empire, had made even his holy deeds impure. He commands this money to be distributed, a last charitable act in order to cleanse his soul. He wants to meet his Creator with nothing, stripped of all wealth, wrapped in a cloth bought with the meagre earnings of a labourer.
The third clause addresses his heir, Prince Azam Shah (Alijah). It continues this theme of moral absolution from state wealth. The Emperor writes: “Take it from the agent of Prince Alijāh; as he is the nearest heir among my sons, and on him lies the responsibility for the lawful or unlawful property (mal) and this helpless (i.e. myself) will not be responsible for this, because the dead are in the hands of the survivors." beside this if there is any need of money, then take it from the agent6 of Prince Alijāh; as he is the nearest heir among my sons, and on him lies the responsibility for the lawful or unlawful property (mal) and this helpless (i.e. myself) will not be responsible for this, because the dead are in the hands of the survivors.”
Here, this is the ultimate washing of hands. Aurangzeb is passing over the burdens of the empire sins to his son. The “lawful or unlawful property”, the entire Mughal state, is a spiritual burden and a liability. What he means to say to his son is: “I am leaving you this wealth, but I am leaving you its sin, as well. I will not answer you in the grave.” It is a terrible reproach to the system he created and built. He understood too late that preserving an empire required compromising every moral principle he held dear. In this case, he absolves himself (اين بيچاره مسئول آن نخواهد بود) legally and morally of the responsibility of the مال حلال يا حرام (mal-e-halal ya haram) of the empire, passing the burden on to his successors. This is an effort to confront his maker unencumbered of the burden of sins of governance
Fourth, burry me (the one who is confounded/perplexed and astray) with bare heads, because any ruined sinner brought bare headed before the Almighty King (i.e. God) is a mercy case.
The subsequent clauses of the will, though containing political suggestions, are like indirect confessions. The eighth clause counsels against treating the Sadat (descendants of the Prophet), warning that if given power سبب حسرت گردد و حينئذ فايده ندارد (sabab-e-hasrat gardad wa hin’iz faida nadarad - they become a cause of regret, and then it is of no use). This is an indication of his lifetime of navigation through religious-political tension.
The ninth one is: pardoning them is better than punishing them. عفو براى آنان بهتر از عقوبت است. ايذاى آنها بهر حال خطاست." (Forgiveness in their favour is better than punishment. Their harassment is, anyhow, a mistake) This maxim of mercy stands in damning contrast to the actions of Wazir Khan.
As we read the rest of the points of the Will, we are able to see the portrait of the haunted man more clearly. The fourth and fifth clauses he demands bare-headed burial and plain clothes, named as Kazi. He rejects the “novelty and schism of the rich.” He does not wish to be buried in a Taj Mahal but in the courtyard of a Sufi saint, Sheikh Zainuddin, at Daulatabad. He wishes to lie in the open air, close to a man of God and seeking intercession. It is the same Emperor who suppressed the Shiites and the Sikhs, but in death, he uses the Sufi path, the path of love and unity, which he had suppressed all his life.
The sixth clause reveals the ghosts that haunted him: “Those people who, together with this sinner (Aurangzeb), were away from their houses, were killed in the far deserts and wilderness, the lord of the country (kingdom) looks after their families... if any manifest fault is also committed by them, try to return them with forgiveness.”
Those people who, together with this sinner (Aurangzeb), were away from their houses, were killed in the far deserts and wilderness. The lord of the country (kingdom) looks after their families, and if any manifest fault is also committed by them, tries to forgive them with forgiveness and do a favour them.
The “far deserts” are the dry, rocky plains of the Deccan. For twenty years, Aurangzeb had led his army to the far end of the peninsula and to the far end of it, and had been fighting a guerrilla war which they could never win. Thousands of his men were killed by thirst and disease, and the Maratha arrows. The Emperor recalls them. He hears the widows of the fallen soldiers, weeping into the night. He pleads and begs with his successor to take care of them. It is a moment of humanity, a crack in the armour of the astute monarch. It demonstrates that he did not remain oblivious to the pain that he inflicted; he just could not do anything about it and was powerless to stop it, bound by the logic of empire.
The seventh clause, which is incomplete in the manuscript, as a page is lost, is a hint at his political cynicism. He refers to the Iranians, the Persian nobles who were the mainstay of his administration. He commends them on their loyalty, but he cautions and warns of their fondness for pleasure. The missing lines likely contained advice on how to manage this powerful faction, advice born of fifty years of court intrigue. But it is the eighth clause that returns to the theme of religion. He talks about the Sadat, the descendants of the Prophet. He recommends that they be treated with respect, quoting the Qurānic verse of loving the kin of the Prophet. But, being always the pragmatist, he counters this with a warning, be careful not to give them so much power that they will be “desirous of power. It is the classic Aurangzeb, who bows down to the lineage of the Holy Prophet, yet who is horrified by any authority that may threaten the throne. In terms of taking responsibility, there is no one better than the Iranians. During war and even occupying gracious posts till now, nobody among them has ever turned their face (abandon) from any battle, and slipping in their solid legs never happened. Along with this (moreover), they never did any disloyalty, unrestrained, and ingratitude. But (they are) too much desirous of pleasure. (It is) hard to maintain and uphold with them, but one should uphold and keep the way of equilibrium. (You) ought to assist the elderly in the country more, and honour and respect them secretly. They cannot forgive them; there is no method besides some definite punishment for the crime. Never hurt them that we have tried this nation too much. They are guarding honour (courage) and loyalty and in the direction of truth... (the remainder is lost, and there is most likely one page missing)
But in the ninth clause, we most distinctly hear the echo of the Zafarnama, more clearly. The letter of the Guru was a cry of injustice, a denunciation of tyranny. In his Will, Aurangzeb seems to finally agree. He writes: “a human being is a slave of beneficence; they are the people who are the real verifier... Forgiveness in their favour is better than the punishment. Their harassment is, anyhow, a mistake.”
“It is better to forgive than to punish.” This is from the man who had his brother beheaded, who had his father thrown into prison, and who had imposed the most severe and strictest interpretation of Islamic law in Indian history. He has turned himself inside out. It was alleged in the Zafarnama that he was a tyrant, and he is found to be so in the end. He tells his son to do good, to be forgiving, and to avoid making mistakes of harassment. It is the lesson that is learned too late.
The tenth clause is a reflection of his failure in the Deccan. He advises his heir never to stay in one place: “To stay at one place is apparently a comfort, but it results in thousands of calamities.” He discovered this lesson to his own pain. As he sat, immobile, in his camp, the Maratha chief Shivaji, and then his son Sambhaji, moved like lightning, striking hard on Mughal forces and fading away into the rugged plateau. The Emperor's state of attrition had bled the empire dry. He leaves this hard-won acquired wisdom to his son, but it is counsel against a losing game. “If possible, the ruler of a kingdom should never sustain (spare) himself from an act (moment) (Keep acting and never stay at one place). To stay at one place is apparently a comfort, but it results in thousands of calamities and troubles; one should abstain from it.”
The eleventh clause is perhaps the most tragic of all, very likely the most self-disclosing. It reveals the paranoia that consumed him in his final days. He writes: “Do not trust your sons and never treat them friendly, because if Emperor (Shah Jahan) had not treated Dara Shikoh in this manner, this might not have happened.” The cycle of violence is completed here. By killing his family, Aurangzeb seized the throne. At his deathbed, he is now frightened that his own sons will do the same to him. He warns Prince Azam not to believe his own brothers. He confesses that his own ascension was a crime (this would not have otherwise happened). He projects his guilt to the future and understands that it is the very ambition that had cursed the Mughal dynasty. The house Timur constructed is a house of cards, which is held together by fear and blood.
Aurangzeb can trace the catastrophic chain of events, the war of succession, patricide, and fratricide, to the favouritism of his father. He even admits and implicitly acknowledges that his rule was built on a betrayal of his own family’s. In the Zafarnama, he was accused of breaking oaths sworn on the Qurān; here, he
reflects on the original sin of broken familial trust.
In the twelve clauses, Aurangzeb appeals to the old attendants and servants. This loss of confidence in his kin, mistrust of his nobles, he lays his hope on the faithful slaves with whom had served him for decades. “Treat the distinguished people and old attendants and servants with compassion... Do not hurt them without any extreme political need.” It is a plea for kindness in a world he knows is cruel.
The manuscript concludes with a colophon, indicating the writer of the manuscript was the scribe Ahqul Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali. It is devoted to the twelve Imams, an unusual allusion to the Shia feeling that makes the orthodox image of Aurangzeb even more confusing.
The colophon notes it was written در ماه مبارک ربيع الأول سنه ١١٠٥ هجری (in the holy month of Rabi-ul-Awwal, year 1105 AH) by إقبال العباد محمد خان علي (Iqbal al-‘Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali). The Peshawar will, consequently, be a psychological portrait of a ruler in a deep crisis of conscience. It implies that the remorse that Aurangzeb felt was deep and pre-existing. This genius of the Zafarnama was to bring personal, formless guilt, with a public and specific indictment. The will shows how a man is frightened before the court of God; the Zafarnama served it to him as the charge sheet. His next moves were attempts to address this very public indictment. The meeting he sought with the Guru was thus a desired encounter with his chief moral accuser.
This is the end of the manuscript. The hand of the scribe halts; the Mughal tale is pursued another hundred and a half, but the special account of the reckoning of the self is over with Aurangzeb. This audience with Guru Gobind Singh did not take place. In March 1707, when he was in Ahmednagar, Aurangzeb passed away with his crisis still unresolved. The political outcome was the historical positioning of Guru Gobind Singh with Prince Mu’azzam (Bahadur Shah I), a sign of the sovereign political position of the Guru. The 18 th century opened out into a long battle between the Khalsa and the Mughal state, a battle that the Zafarnama spiritualised. In Sikhism, it became canonised in the Dasam Granth. Miri-Piri and Dharam Yudh are based theologically on it. It legalises Chardi Kala. It is a masterpiece of Persian poetry, in a literary sense. Its verses are recited and invoked in everyday life and constitute the epic story of martyrdom and moral courage.
The tale of the Zafarnama and the Will is the tale of two men who had never met, though they understood each other quite well. Guru Gobind Singh appealed directly to the conscience of Aurangzeb. That had been the weak point revealed in the very Will of the emperor. It was not that the Guru defeated the Mughal army, as such, he never did it conventionally, however, his victory was that he forced the emperor to confront the emptiness hollowness of his conquests, was his victory.
We can juxtapose the two texts, the fiery, righteous verses of the Zafarnama and the humble, shuddering words of the Will, and we see the complete picture of a civilisation at the crossroads. The Empire of the Mughals, with its lapis lazuli and its gold, its huge armies and its taxes, had reached the stage when the sword could never achieve. It had seized the land, but lost its people. It had made some fine and architectural marvels, yet it had ruined the trust that binds a society together.
Guru Gobind Singh gave another vision in his letter. A vision of a world in which the truth is the highest power, an oath is sacred, and the value of a man is measured not by his crown, but in his courage to stand for equitable justice.
The Zafarnama shook Aurangzeb because even though he could kill the Guru’s sons, he could not kill what the Guru represented.
The truth survived at Chamkaur. It survived the raging Sarsa River. It travelled to the Deccan and into the tent of the emperor, and it survived long after the emperor was laid in his plain shroud in the open air of Daulatabad. Even the Will itself, a feeble paper and ink document, in a Peshawar private collection. It is the narrative of a man at war with himself. He, he who aspired to be a saint, perished as a sinner; who aspired to conquer the world, died in fear of his Creator. It was eventually the pen of Guru Gobind Singh that had succeeded where the swords of the million Mughals had failed disgracefully: he had piered the heart of the emperor and made him confess. The arrow was the Zafarnama; the wound the Will. Out of that wound a new flood of Indian history started to flow in the subcontinent; the Mughal age was over, and the Khalsa age had dawned.
The silence that settled upon Ahmadnagar, following the death of Aurangzeb, was oppressive, but not the silence of peace. It was the quietness of a vacuum. The centre could not contain. The sons, as the emperor had predicted, turned on each other. Mu’azzam, Azam and Kambaksh marched into each other, and their armies trampled over the dust on which their father had lain. The tolerant empire that Akbar had created and the fanatical empire that Aurangzeb had expanded were shattered into pieces.
The Zafarnama were being recited, sang and remembered, in the pine woods of north India and the dusty plains of the Punjab. Fathers passed them on to sons, a testament to the day that one Guru took on a mighty emperor and won. The Will of Aurangzeb, with its shroud of fourteen rupees, became a cautionary tale of the unworthiness and futility of ambition. In contrast to the two, the vibrant, defiant verses of the living Guru and the broken, whispering clauses of the dying emperor had become the deifying legend of the age.
The Will and the Zafarnama answer each other in ten years of blood and silence. The betrayal blood carried the Zafarnama, which revealed that the strongest weapon that can be used to combat tyranny is the truth expressed in terms of spiritual power. It proclaimed that it is real sovereignty at the threshold of Divinity. This silent witness is the will of Aurangzeb, with its unsubtled confession of his sin (گناهكار), his renouncing of his wealth and his modest directives. It makes the emperor a tragic character, but his repentance was in parallel with unrepentant policies like jizya, whose submission was vitiated by the awareness of his betrayals. Both of them seal a circuit: the public charge and the personal confession of guilt. The letter of Guru outlived not only men, but it was the charter of another form of sovereignty. The repentant will of Aurangzeb is his monument of penitence that, despite the spiritual weakness of the most powerful kingdoms, and of every king who must, will, and must be made to avert his eyes, not to the might of the armies, but to the self-reflection of his own soul, and to that judgment which the mind has embraced as certain. This dialectic sums up some truth to eternity: the love of power is apt to be a cage of the spirit, and the emancipation starts with the acknowledgement of truth, whether proclaimed on a defiant epistle or whispered in a penitent last testament.
Although in Mughal sources, there is no direct documentary evidence of the causal impact of the Zafarnama on Aurangzeb, the coincident witness of the Will, of the subsequent firmans, of the invitation extended to the Guru, is, at least, compelling circumstantial evidence of a deep inward reckoning. It is a story that has been told through generations. It tells us that might is momentary, that empires rise and fall like the tides, yet the human spirit, with truth and courage, can come forth to meet the occasion and against all odds. Guru Gobind Singh was well aware of this He addressed Aurangzeb, not to save his own life but to save the soul of his people, and in this endeavour, he eternalised the battle between the oppression of the state and the liberty of the spirit. The Zafarnama is not a letter, but a declaration of eternal victory of the human conscience over oppression. The confession of guilt is the Will of Aurangzeb.
Together, they are united and close the circuit: the public charge and the private plea of guilty. The Guru letter lived beyond men, was the constitution and the proclamation of another form of sovereignty. The will of penitence of Aurangzeb will remain his epitaph, the testimony that even the strongest empires are spiritually feeble, and that all rulers will finally be compelled to be on their knees not only before the armies, but also before the mirror of their soul and judgment which they believe awaits them. The dialectic is truth immortal: in the seeking and striving after power, too soon is a prison of soul, and the only way out is through the truth, either proclaimed in a rebellious epistle or muttered in a last repentant testament.
The emperor is dead, long live the Truth.
Ahmad, M. B. The Administration of Justice in Medieval India. Medieval India Quarterly series. Aligarh: Aligarh Historical Research Institute, 1941.
Awan, M. T. History of India and Pakistan, vol. 2, pt. 1 (Great Mughals). Lahore, 1994.
Fenech, Louis E. “Martyrdom and the Sikh Tradition.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 117, no. 4 (1997): 623–42.
Guru Gobind Singh. Zafarnama. Translated by Jodh Singh. Patiala: Punjabi University, 1985.
Irvine, William. The Army of the Indian Moghuls. London: Luzac, 1903.
Khan, M. Nasim. “The Will of Aurangzeb (1658–1707): A Rare Document.” Gandhāran Studies 3 (2009): 161–174.
Macauliffe, Max Arthur. The Sikh Religion. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909.
Santokh Singh. Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth. Amritsar: Khalsa Samachar, 1963.
Sarkar, Jadunath. History of Aurangzib. 5 vols. Calcutta: M.C. Sarkar, 1912–24.
Sarkar, Jadunath, trans. Ahkam-i-Alamgiri. Calcutta, 1912.
[1] Guru Gobind Singh, Zafarnama, trans. Jodh Singh (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1985). The standard critical edition with Persian text and English translation. Verse numbering throughout this essay follows the Jodh Singh edition.
[2] M. Nasim Khan, “The Will of Aurangzeb (1658–1707): A Rare Document,” Ghandāran Studies 3 (2009): 161–174. The manuscript was first examined in 2005 in a private collection in Peshawar. Khan notes that the scribe, Ahqul Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali, does not appear in any other known Mughal document.
[3] For the full sequence of events from Anandpur to Dina, see Max Arthur Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909), 5:131–205. Macauliffe’s account, though hagiographical in register, remains the most comprehensive English-language reconstruction based on Sikh primary sources.
[4] Ajit Singh was approximately 18 and Jujhar Singh approximately 14 at the Battle of Chamkaur, December 1704. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, 5:155–62.
[5] Ages of the younger Sahibzadas vary slightly across sources; Macauliffe gives Zorawar Singh as approximately 9 and Fateh Singh as approximately 7. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, 5:165–68. The account of martyrdom by bricking (nindh dee neev) is corroborated by the Gurbilas Patshahi 10 and the Shahid Bilas.
[6] Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, 5:197–99. The Panj Pyare (Five Beloved Ones) were the first members initiated into the Khalsa at Anandpur in 1699.
[7] Gurbilas Patshahi 10, attributed to Bhai Sukha Singh (c. 1745), is among the earliest Sikh prose narratives of the tenth Guru’s life. Santokh Singh, Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth (Amritsar: Khalsa Samachar, 1963) is the most comprehensive versified biography. Both are hagiographical and must be read against the silence of Mughal archival sources on these specific events.
[8] Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 5:200–202. The firmans themselves have not been located in the imperial archive; their existence is attested by Sikh tradition and by the subsequent correspondence that led to the Guru’s alignment with Bahadur Shah I.
[9] Khan, “The Will of Aurangzib,” 165. The colophon reads: dar mah-e-mubarak Rabi-ul-Awwal, sana 1105 hijri, nivisht shud az Ihqarul Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali. Three other versions of Aurangzeb’s will are known: the Maulvi Hamid-ud-Din version (10 clauses); India Office Library MS.1344 (Sarkar, Aurangzib, vol. 5, 201), dealing with partition of the empire; and the Ahkam-e-Alamgiri (J.N. Sarkar, trans., text fol. 8b–10a). The Peshawar manuscript (12 clauses) is closest to the Ahkam-e-Alamgiri version.
[10] Khan, “The Will of Aurangzeb,” 161. The Maulvi Hamid-ud-Din version records a lesser sum of four rupees and two annas; the Peshawar manuscript records fourteen rupees and twelve annas. For monetary variants across all versions, see Khan, 167n.
[11] Khan, “The Will of Aurangzeb,” 167–68. Aurangzeb’s tomb at Khuldabad (near Daulatabad, Maharashtra) remains a site of visitation. He was buried in the courtyard of the dargah of Shaikh Zainuddin Shirazi, with the grave open to the sky as he requested. See William Irvine, The Army of the Indian Moghuls (London: Luzac, 1903), appendix.
This essay compares the historical and psychological discourse of two extraordinary documents of the late Mughal period, the Zafarnama (Epistle of Victory, c. 1705),[1] a 111-verse Persian letter written by the tenth Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh, to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir, and the Emperor himself in his own last will, which was preserved in a rare Persian manuscript recently discovered in a private collection in Peshawar and documented by the scholar M. Nasim Khan.[2] The essay argues that such documents form a whole historical dialectic - the Zafarnama as a social moral reproach and the Will as an individual confession of guilt. This essay starts with pursuing three movements of analysis, the first one being the re-creation of the historical setting, the bloody siege of Anandpur (1704), the oath betrayal, the massacre and the martyrdom of the sons of Guru Gobind Singh. It subsequently goes on to comment selected verse by verse on the Zafarnama, demonstrating how Guru Gobind Singh invoked the Persian literary traditions and Islamic theological rhetoric to accuse Aurangzeb of oath-breaking (nifaq), misuse of the Qurān and corrupting piety with power. And finally, it undertakes a forensic and psychological examination of the Peshawar Will, which includes the Persian text of the will, and discovers a man who is a despair of penitence: an emperor who refers to himself as a sinner sunk in sins, who insists on a fourteen-rupee shroud, who deems even his Qurānic transcription incomes as a near- harām, as passing. The essay concludes that the Zafarnama and the Will are indissolubly united: in the Will the Guru had set forth, and given definite form to, a pre-resistance to tyranny is truth spoken with spiritual power These writings, in concert, bring to an end of the Mughal age, and beginning of the Khalsa one, a truth eternal, a truth eternal: that temporal authority, when called to face by absolute moral sovereignty, must ultimately yield, if not in life, then in death.
The Deccan dust hung in the air like a curtain, and muffled everything beyond the next row of tents. The Indian scenery in the first half of the 18th century was such as to give stamp on the ruins of the last, where a new voice of conscience was demanding a new chapter and version of the imperial story. It was 1707, and the sun glared down on Ahmadnagar, in the indifferent fury of a Deccan summer that didn’t care about the empires. In the crimson velvet pavilion of the emperor, there was no sound at all.
It was here that we find Aurangzeb Alamgir, the sixth of the great Mughals, the man who had made his empire reach up to the crags of the Himalayas, and down to the shores of the Cape of Comorin. He was eighty-eight years old, and he looked like what he was: a man who had spent decades of his life in field camps, worn out by an austerity that he imposed on himself, and left but little to rest. The self-proclaimed “World Seizer,” so proud to have it in his title, was now in the grip of none but the tremors of his own mortality.
Beyond, the war drums of the Marathas played a never-ending and ever taunting rhythm, a message that the conquests of a lifetime were unrolling with every setting sun. But in the obscurity of the Diwan-e-Khas, the Emperor was not thinking of the successors of Shivaji, or of the treacherous Rajputs. He was gazing at a parchment, a letter which had been brought up north, and carried by two warriors of the Sikh religion, through the midst of a hostile empire. It was the Epistle of Victory, Zafarnama, written by Guru Gobind Singh. When the old Emperor traced the elegant Persian lines with his shaking hands, he was aware, with a horror that must have chilled his marrow, that it was not a petition to mercy that he was reading, but a mirror, turned at his soul. The disbelief of the moment can only make sense in the mind of Aurangzeb. he contradicted himself at every step, a king who slept on a plain mat, and made caps to earn his own bread, and yet who had taken his father prisoner, and had put to the gallows his own brothers, to claim the Pea{censored} Throne. He saw himself to be the Mujaddid, the renewer of the faith, a divinely appointed scourge sent by God to cleanse the land of idolatry and of sedition. He had been the fulcrum on which the subcontinent had swung for almost fifty years of his life, his will absolute, his piety terrifying. Yet, as he lay dying, the pillars of that certitude were starting to crumble. The empire was bankrupt, the peasantry was in a state of starvation, and the sons he had brought up were circling around like vultures, looking forward to the day when the old man would breathe his last breath, that they might tear up the empire into a war of succession.
With a thunderclap, the Zafarnama landed in this dying empire. The emperor was as complicated a figure as the author, Guru Gobind Singh, of the letter. A poet, a scholar, and a warrior, was a figure who had transformed the Sikh community into the Khalsa, the brotherhood of sant-sipahi (saint-soldiers), with their unshorn hair and carrying steel at their sides. He was antithetical to the Mughal court, straightforward where they were duplicitous, egalitarian where they were hierarchical, radiant where they were shrouded in sin. The Guru and the Emperor had never met face to face, but were united by blood and tragedy. The governors of Aurangzeb had hunted the Guru, his own forts besieged by the Mughal armies, and his cruelty had bricked two of his youngest sons alive at Sirhind.
This transformation hinges on one of the exchanges: the dispatch Zafarnama, or Epistle of Victory, of the tenth Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh, to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir in the winter of 1705.[3] Written in elegant Persian, a language of Mughal statecraft and of high culture, this 111-verse letter was much more than a letter: a moral charge sheet, penned by a man who had lost virtually everything, to the man who had stolen it. The thesis of this essay is that the Zafarnama and the will of Aurangzeb are two documents which are complementary to each other, one a public charge, the other a private admission. Both of them show the disintegration of earthly authority, which stands before an upright and clear conscience, and when it is put to trail by a stern and unwavering spiritual truth, and how a letter, in the hand of an emperor of conscience, can lead to the certainty of empire
Zafarnama was written at Dina, which was close to Raikot, Punjab. The Guru had come out of the Battle of Chamkaur, he mourned his losses at Machhiwara, and gathered his spiritual resolve. The Zafarnama was not the letter of a defeated man by the Mughal forces ; it was a literary masterpiece of Persian verse, , sharp as a scimitar and devastating in its psychological accuracy.. Guru Gobind Singh knew that it would take a wound, who believed himself a lieutenant of God; he only did not assault his mighty armies, but at the theology of Aurangzeb. The Zafarnama has not started with theology. It began on the blood-soaked Punjabi soil and the brutal realpolitik of an empire rotting in its own bowels.
By 1704, the reign of Aurangzeb, though so extensive in territory, was a colossus strain. The inexhaustible Deccan conflict with the Maratha Confederacy had become a financial and military quagmire, diverting the empire’s resources and fragmenting focus. Meanwhile, the conscious redesigning of Mughal kingship by Aurangzeb was towards a less syncretic, , imperial model of Akbar towards a more doctrinal Sunni Islamic sovereignty. The re-establishment of the jizya in 1679 and the patronising of the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri and the demolition of some of the prominent Hindu temples were actions that were not only acts of personal piety, but also instruments of political consolidation, yet they alienated various segments of the population of the empire. Guru Gobind Singh changed everything. In 1699, the inauguration of the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib was a world-historical event. It produced the Sant-Sipahi (saint-soldier), a warrior, who was answerable to God, not to any Mughal officer, characterised by the Five Ks, and governed by the Rehat (code of conduct). This was the explicit establishment of Miri-Piri, the fusion of temporal and spiritual authority, a community that existed within the Mughal empire but served and obeyed a different higher authority. This egalitarian community posed a threat to the feudal structure of the neighbouring Hill Rajas; to Mughal officials such as Wazir Khan, the Governor of Sirhind, the community was a rebellious challenge to the imperial rule. Having been unsuccessful in direct assaults, the Hill Rajas had turned to the Mughal state, claiming Guru Gobind Singh as a seditious chieftain. In 1704, a joint Mughal-Hill Raja army besieged the long and brutal siege. The siege reached a point of extremity, starvation and fatigue within the fort that the besiegers made a sworn oath of safe passage. It was not a casual pledge but a hathiyarnaama or qasamnama, a solemn covenant sworn that was taken on the Qurān by the Mughal envoys. To Aurangzeb, a ruler who had carefully fashioned himself as Alamgir (World-Seizer) and a protector of the law of Islam (Sharia) an oath before the Qurān was the most sacred assurance and a guarantee possible, a breach of which was a grave sin (kufr in its aspect of covenant-breaking). Even Guru Gobind Singh, a sceptic at heart, accepted this pledge, trusting in the sanctity his adversaries professed. The evacuation that ensued was a trap of the basest kind. When the Sikhs had crossed the rain-swollen river of Sarsa, the Mughal and his allies attacked the Sikhs, shattering the oaths completely. This betrayal was the primal kind: not only a military deception but a deep desecration, using the holy book as an instrument of treachery. The tragedy was then exponentially compounded. A small group of Khalsa soldiers, including the eldest sons of the Guru, the teenage Sahibzada Ajit Singh and Jujhar Singh, made a legendary last stand at the Battle of Chamkaur, where they all met martyrdom against overwhelming odds. [4]The younger sons of the Guru, Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh (9 and 7 years old) were taken prisoner by Wazir Khan separately. [5]
The younger sons were offered to convert to Islam to save their lives and, with transcendent courage, they refused, and were executed by being bricked alive in a wall. Their grandmother Mata Gujri died in captivity due to shock; she could not take. Guru Gobind Singh was now a fugitive in the woods of Machhiwara, having lost his stronghold, his army, his mother, and his four sons. Guru Gobind Singh, from this absolute zero of material and personal existence, a state in Sikh tradition known as Chardhi Kala, or eternal optimism in the face of adversity, composed the Zafarnama. It is precisely drawn power from this context: it is the testimony of a witness to ultimate injustice, written not from a position of strength, but from an unimpeachable high round of moral truth.
The Zafarnama is a masterpiece of political theology. The Guru met Aurangzeb on his own ground - Persian verse and Islamic argument, selected ground of Persian literacy and Islamic discourse. It’s 111 verses, mainly in the form of the masnavi (rhyming couplet). It begins, conventionally, yet potentially with praise of God. The letter opens with an invocation to God, but quickly shifts to a tone of admonishment that would have been unthinkable for a subject to address an emperor. This strike is a strategic attacking move. It determines the theological learning of the Guru, and puts the future criticism not in the form of an external other, but of an internal other, of a fellow-citizen of the common universe of Abrahamic monotheism and the veneration of prophetic tradition, thus inadvertently setting up a comparison of what is righteous Islamic behaviour against which Aurangzeb will be measured.
The letter begins with a prayer to God, but soon changes its tone to one of reproach, which would have been inconceivable for a subject to address to the emperor.
کمال کرامت کاا یام کریم
رضا بخش رزاق رهاکون رحیم
Kamaal-e karamat kayam karim, Raza baksh razak rahak o Rahim
Ama-baksh bakshindeh o Dastgir, Raza baksh rozi deh o dilpazir
He is the immortal Lord, Eternal, all powerful
Giver of joy and salvation, Bountiful and merciful.
Merciful One, Who protects and guides, O Charming One
Who forgives and provides.
This is a strategic move. It fixes the theological erudition of the Guru and makes the subsequent criticism to emerge not as the creation of an external they, but of an internal part of the common universe of Abrahamic monotheism and appreciation of prophetic tradition. It then proceeds to worship Hazrat Ali, the fourth Caliph and his justice and courage, thus implicitly putting in place a norm of righteous Islamic behaviour against which Aurangzeb will be judged.
کی صاحب دی یار آست اعظم عظیم
کی هوسان الجمال آست رازک رحیم
Ki Sahib D-Taar Ast Aazam Azim
Ki Husan Al Jamal Ast Raazak Rahim
He is Lord of the universe. He is merciful and provides sustenance to all.
His charm and grandeur cannot be matched by anyone.
Ki Sahib Sha-oor Ast Aajiz Nawaaz
Garin Al Prast O gamin Al Gadaaz
The Lord is intelligence personified. He protects the poor and
the helpless and destroys the wicked.
کی هوسان الجمال آست رازک رحیم
Ki Sahib D-Taar Ast Aazam Azim
Ki Husan Al Jamal Ast Raazak Rahim
He is Lord of the universe. He is merciful and provides sustenance to all.
His charm and grandeur cannot be matched by anyone.
Ki Sahib Sha-oor Ast Aajiz Nawaaz
Garin Al Prast O gamin Al Gadaaz
The Lord is intelligence personified. He protects the poor and
the helpless and destroys the wicked.
The Guru starts by dissecting the concept of breaking oaths, which was the sin that was central to the Mughal loss at Anandpur. The imperial army had vowed on the Qurān to allow the Sikhs to go without molestation, which they defied as soon as the Guru came out of the fort. The Guru employs this disloyalty in the form of a sword to cut open the conscience of the emperor.
مراع ایتبار بر عین قسم نیست
که ایزد گواه آست یزدان یکهست
نا کتره مراء اطبار بروست
کی بخشی و دیوان همه کیزب گوست
Maraa Aitbaar BarR Een Kasm-E Neest
Ke Eizad Gavah Ast Yazdan Yakeest
Na Katreh Maraa Aitbaar-E Bar-Ost
Ki Bakshi Va Deewan Hameh Kizb Gost
Aurangzeb! I have no trust in your oaths anymore. (You have
written that) God is one, and that He is witness (between us).
I don’t have trust, even equivalent to a drop (of water) in your
generals (who came to me with oaths on Qurān that I will be
given safe passage out of Anandgarh Fort). They were all telling lies
که ایزد گواه آست یزدان یکهست
نا کتره مراء اطبار بروست
کی بخشی و دیوان همه کیزب گوست
Maraa Aitbaar BarR Een Kasm-E Neest
Ke Eizad Gavah Ast Yazdan Yakeest
Na Katreh Maraa Aitbaar-E Bar-Ost
Ki Bakshi Va Deewan Hameh Kizb Gost
Aurangzeb! I have no trust in your oaths anymore. (You have
written that) God is one, and that He is witness (between us).
I don’t have trust, even equivalent to a drop (of water) in your
generals (who came to me with oaths on Qurān that I will be
given safe passage out of Anandgarh Fort). They were all telling lies
The verses that must have pierced Aurangzeb the most were those that questioned the very basis of his piety. The Emperor was proud to be a ruler who had enforced the Sharia and who at the end of his day, would pray and transcribe the Qurān in his own hand. But the Guru writes:
کاسه کائول کوران کوناد ایتبار
هامان روز آخر شواد مرد خاور
Kase Kaul-E Kuran Kunad Aitbaar
Haman Roz-E Akhir Shawad Mard Khawar
If anyone trusts (you) on your oath on Qurān, that person is
bound to be doomed in the end.
هامان روز آخر شواد مرد خاور
Kase Kaul-E Kuran Kunad Aitbaar
Haman Roz-E Akhir Shawad Mard Khawar
If anyone trusts (you) on your oath on Qurān, that person is
bound to be doomed in the end.
The Guru is assuring the emperor that he will witness a rebellion being suppressed, but the soul of resistance is unbroken. He refers to the ghosts of the soldiers whom the emperor has murdered, the widows who wail into the night, a direct attack on the Emperor as a defender of the people of his empire. Perhaps, the greatest psychological blow, however, is in the verses where the Guru mocks the emperor, with his dependence on large armies and elephants, contrasting them with the power of the Divine:
چه مردی که اخگر خموشی کنی
که آتش دمان را فروزان کنی
Chi mardī ki akhgar khamoshī kunī, Ki ātish damān rā furozān kunī.
What kind of man are you, that you extinguish mere embers,
Yet inflame those already blazing with fire?
It is a warning that earthly triumphs are short-lived and ephemeral. The Zafarnama is no cry of mercy; it proclaims triumph. The Guru believes that he has demonstrated that God is on his side by surviving the massacre at Chamkaur. And were God be on the side of the Guru, then the emperor who fought against God is damned.
نه پیچیده موی و نه رنجیده تن
که بیرون خود آورد دشمنشکن
Na pīchīda mūy o na ranjīda tan
Ke bīrūn khud āvard dushman-shikan
With neither a hair disturbed nor the body wounded,
Yet he came forth as a breaker of enemies.
که بیرون خود آورد دشمنشکن
Na pīchīda mūy o na ranjīda tan
Ke bīrūn khud āvard dushman-shikan
With neither a hair disturbed nor the body wounded,
Yet he came forth as a breaker of enemies.
In the Zafarnama, the image sharpens in an accusatory tone: “When the lamp of the world veiled itself, it was truth that withdrew before you. In its place, you rose like the king of night, commanding, yet cloaked in darkness rather than light. Your sovereignty does not illuminate; it dazzles only to conceal. You sit upon the throne, but it is a dominion of shadow, not of truth.”
چراغ جهان چون شد برقا پوش
شاه شب بر آمد همه جلو جاش
Chirag-E Jahaan Chun Shod-E Burka Posh
Shah-E Shab Bar-Aaamad Hameh Jalwa Josh
When the lamp of the world (the Sun) had covered itself (had set), the
King of the night (the darkness) came out with all its glory (it
became pitch dark.
شاه شب بر آمد همه جلو جاش
Chirag-E Jahaan Chun Shod-E Burka Posh
Shah-E Shab Bar-Aaamad Hameh Jalwa Josh
When the lamp of the world (the Sun) had covered itself (had set), the
King of the night (the darkness) came out with all its glory (it
became pitch dark.
With that ground thus set, the letter drives its charge home. It is the betrayal of the oath of the Qurān, which is the main accusation, and the Zafarnama prosecutes it with a verse, one of the most heart-rending in the whole of Indo-Persian literature:
هار آن کاس کی کائول کوران آآی داش
کی یزدان بر-او رهنوما آیدش
Har Aan Kas Ki Kaul-E Kuran Aai-Dash
Ki Yazdan Bar-O Rehnuma Aaidash
God becomes the guide of any person who trusts someone’s
oath taken on the holy Qurān.
This couplet is a trap. The first hemistich,
نه ایمانپرستی، نه اوضاعِ دین
نه صاحبشناسی، محمد یقین
Na Eeman Prasti Na Auzaa-E Deen
Na Sahib Shanassi Mohammed Yakeen
You neither follow the teachings of Islam nor do you understand its
meaning. You do not know the ways of the Lord, nor do you have any faith
in Prophet Mohammed.
نه صاحبشناسی، محمد یقین
Na Eeman Prasti Na Auzaa-E Deen
Na Sahib Shanassi Mohammed Yakeen
You neither follow the teachings of Islam nor do you understand its
meaning. You do not know the ways of the Lord, nor do you have any faith
in Prophet Mohammed.
acknowledges Aurangzeb’s follower is Islam, the second hemistich,
که عین مرد را زارا ایتبار نیست
چی قاسم کوران آست یزدان یکیست
Ke Een Mard Ra Zarra Eitbaar-E Neest
Chi Kasam-E Kuran Ast Yazdaan Yakeest
This man (Aurangzeb) cannot be trusted, even equivalent of a speck
of sand and who swears by the Qurān as well as by One God.
This unleashes the logical and moral trap. It raises an unanswerable question in the theology of the Aurangzeb framework: Are your actions and deeds render your observance of the rituals hollow and hypocritical? In what way, then, are they of any value? It accuses the emperor of making Islam a political performance, separating the form and substance, and perpetrating nifaq (hypocrisy). The Zafarnama theme is repeated multiple times, to depict the siege and the broken Oaths not as a politically misplaced step; it is, in fact, a sin that taints the very faith they are supposed to worship and pretend to honour.
ندانم که این مرد پیمانشکن
که دولتپرست است ایمانفکن
Na dānam ke īn mard paimān-shikan
Ke daulat-parast ast īmān-fikan
Aurangzeb! I did not know that you are a perjurer; that you are mere
worshipper of wealth and breaker of your faith
که دولتپرست است ایمانفکن
Na dānam ke īn mard paimān-shikan
Ke daulat-parast ast īmān-fikan
Aurangzeb! I did not know that you are a perjurer; that you are mere
worshipper of wealth and breaker of your faith
The injustice named, the letter turns to justify armed resistance, the epistle pivots to articulate the Sikh doctrine of Dharam Yudh (righteous war) and the legitimacy of armed resistance. It is a question that deprives the emperor of legitimacy. If you claim to serve God, the Guru argues, your word must be your bond. Any violation of an oath taken on the Qurān is to desecrate the Qurān itself. The reasoning itself is irrefutable and devastating. The Guru goes on and transforms the military failures of the emperor into a spiritual judgment.
که عجب است عجب است فتویِ شما
بجز راستی سخن گفتن زیان
Ke Ajabast Ajabast Fatwa Shuma
Bajaz Raasti Sukhan Guftan Ziyaan
Strange are your religious proclamations. Speaking any thing but
truth is to deceive oneself
بجز راستی سخن گفتن زیان
Ke Ajabast Ajabast Fatwa Shuma
Bajaz Raasti Sukhan Guftan Ziyaan
Strange are your religious proclamations. Speaking any thing but
truth is to deceive oneself
This couplet has been immortalised in the annals of the history of Sikhs, and it is widely cited as a reason to go to war. But in the Zafarnama, it is a criticism of the inability as well as the failure of the emperor. The Guru insinuates that he, the Guru, had taken up his sword when all his efforts and tries to achieve peace were met with deceit. He contrasts his reluctance to engage in violence with the emperor and his betrayal and treacherous aggression. He mocks Aurangzeb with the hollowness of his power:
This is encapsulated in the most famous verse of the text:
چو کار از همه حیلته در گذشت، حلال است بردن به شمشیر دست
Chu kar az hameh heelate dar guzasht,
halal ast burden be shamsheer dast.
When all avenues have been exhausted,
only then is it righteous to take the sword to hand.
This is not the justification or glorification of violence but a very definite moral and legal state of affairs. The first hemistich, Chu kar az hameh heelate dar guzasht, sets the strict precondition of the exhaustion of all peaceful methods and means (hameh heelate) in the first hemistich:
It was the last treachery of Anandpur. The consequence is mentioned in the second hemistich halal ast burden be shamsheer dast. Most importantly, the Guru mentions the term halal, which implies that something is permissible by Islamic law, once again, addressing the Islamic legal paradigm to which Aurangzeb himself revered. The sword has nothing to do with conquest or taking revenge, but it is a last divinely imperative (farman). The Guru is careful to frame the conflict as one against oppression and not a conflict against Islam, but against oppression (zulm): “I do not fight with Muslims; it is with the tyrant and the cruel.” This martyrdom of his sons and followers is thus re-enacted not as a loss but as a willing sacrifice to God, a spiritual victory which overrides temporal loss. The letter strikes his utmost nd deepest blow.
تو مسند نشین سرور کاینت
کی عذاب آست انصاف عین هوم صفت
Tu masnad nashin sarwar-e kayenat
Ki ajb ast insaf een hum sifat
You sit on a mighty throne,
You are king of all you survey,
But strange is your justice,
Strange the virtues you display.
کی عذاب آست انصاف عین هوم صفت
Tu masnad nashin sarwar-e kayenat
Ki ajb ast insaf een hum sifat
You sit on a mighty throne,
You are king of all you survey,
But strange is your justice,
Strange the virtues you display.
The couplet sets two worlds against each other. The first hemistich,
کی اورا غرور آست بار ملک و مال
ای ما رأ پناه است یزدان آکا
Ki o-ra gharur ast bar mulk o mal
O ma-ra panah ast yazdan aka
As you take pride in your wealth and in the might of your land,
So I trust in the Eternal One, in the protection of His hand.
defines Aurangzeb’s power as terrestrial, symbolised by the man-made takht (throne), inherently transient and worldly.
تو قاف المش او زین سپنجی سرای
کی علم بیگوراد سر جا باجه ·
ببین گردیش بوفایی زمان
کی بیگوزاست بار هار ماشین و ماکان
Tu ghaf al mash au zeen sepanji sarae
Ki alam biguzrad sar-e ja bajae ·
Bebin gardish-e bewafai-ye zaman
Ki biguzast bar har makin o makan
Be aware this world is transient,
Here today and tomorrow gone;
The wheel of Time is relentless
It will take us all, one by one.
Beware the unrelenting turn
Of Time's faithless wheel:
It turns for each and every one
It harbours no appeal.
It declares the spiritual authority of the Guru in the form of his seat at the dar (doorstep) of the Divine, source of power unequalled by any throne. The Sufi Islamic tradition resonates with the term faqr (spiritual poverty), which refers to the utmost humility and closeness to God. As Guru Gobind Singh addresses Aurangzeb, the tone is stripped of ornament and turns quietly severe. He is reminding him that his power is temporary, that the throne he occupies is not a possession but a passing station. What appears secure today will inevitably slip from his grasp, just as it has for countless rulers before him. The warning is clear: do not lose yourself in the illusion of permanence, for time and truth will outlast your authority.
که ما برگهٔ حضرت آییم شما
وز آن روز باشد شاهد شما
E Maa Bargah-E Hazrat Aayam Shuma
Vazaan Roz-E Baashed Shaahed Shuma
When I meet you in the court of your Lord,
you will appear as a witness there
(and answer all the crimes committed by you)
تو غافل مشو این سپنجی سرای
که عالم بگذرد سرِ جا بجای
Tu Gaafal Mash-Oo Een Sepanji Sara-E
Ke Aalam B Guzrad Sar-E Ja-B-Ja-E
Aurangzeb! Be aware that this world is like an inn where each
person comes to stay for a short period (just eight days). And
once his time is over, he departs and yields his place to others
while the world keeps moving.
وز آن روز باشد شاهد شما
E Maa Bargah-E Hazrat Aayam Shuma
Vazaan Roz-E Baashed Shaahed Shuma
When I meet you in the court of your Lord,
you will appear as a witness there
(and answer all the crimes committed by you)
تو غافل مشو این سپنجی سرای
که عالم بگذرد سرِ جا بجای
Tu Gaafal Mash-Oo Een Sepanji Sara-E
Ke Aalam B Guzrad Sar-E Ja-B-Ja-E
Aurangzeb! Be aware that this world is like an inn where each
person comes to stay for a short period (just eight days). And
once his time is over, he departs and yields his place to others
while the world keeps moving.
Within a single couplet, the Guru disposes of the Mughal darbar in its entirety, right to power and claim to authority. The Zafarnama does not end with a plea, but a demand for justice, and closes with a strong sense of resolution, leaving the ultimate judgment in the hands of God, while having irrevocably placed the emperor in the dock of history.
The letter was delivered to the Deccan by two of the Panj Pyare, the Five Beloved Ones, Bhai Daya Singh and Bhai Dharam Singh.[6] Just imagine the scene they must have encountered at the imperial camp. These two fierce Sikhs arrive, turbans and their garments covered with dust, and deliver the letter. The emperor, amid the detritus of war, the scarlet tents, the braying camels, the exhausted nobles, receives these two Sikh warriors. The seal bearing the name as the slave of the King of Kings” is broken.
The emperor is morally disturbed, according to Sikh sources. Aurangzeb reads. And as he reads, the communication of his secretaries suggests, the old man crumbles. The man who had stood up to the greatest armies of the times, who had long withstood the scorching heat of the Deccan, is brought low by the ink of a poet. He reads the accusations as deceit. He reads the reminders of his mortality. He reads the assertion that the Guru, although he has lost in material terms, is the victor. The psychological effect cannot be overrated. Aurangzeb was the man who was obsessed with his legacy, obsessed with appearing as a just and righteous Muslim leader. The Zafarnama reminds him that history will make him a known liar and a tyrant. Though Mughal chronicles are generally silent regarding such tests to imperial izzat (honour), further historical imperial events provide eloquent witness to this. The silence of Mughal court chronicles on this episode is itself telling, imperial record-keepers did not preserve moments that exposed the sovereign's moral crisis. As described in Sikh historical traditions, including the Gurbilas Patshahi 10, and the Suraj Prakash Granth, Aurangzeb as profoundly shaken by the letter, although Mughal court chronicles rarely recorded imperial vulnerability, making no mention of this particular reaction. [7] Post receiving the Zafarnama, firmans were issued by Aurangzeb directing his generals to stop hostilities against the Guru. [8] It is said that he had remarked the Guru’s words had “pierced his heart like an arrow.” He even wrote back, an invitation to the Guru to come and see him, a last effort to obtain absolution at the hands of the man whom he had endeavoured to destroy. The hunter who had hunted the Guru now implored and begged for a meeting. However, it was too late. The turn of karma had begun. The Guru was starting to travel south, though the Emperor was fading rapidly. The meeting did not take place. The Guru had not yet reached South when Aurangzeb passed on at Ahmednagar in February 1707.
But the most piercing testimony to the Zafarnama lies in that intimate, full of anguish world of Aurangzeb himself, as revealed in his last Will.. The Peshawar Manuscript. It was reproduced in Rabi-ul-Awwal 1105 AH (c. 1693), and is a key reading, the background of his Will. The Will, a document of pure raw grief, a rare manuscript in the possession of a private collection in Peshawar, was recorded by the scholar M. Nasim Khan. (“The Will of Aurangzeb (1658–1707): A Rare Document.” Gandhara Studies, Vol. 3, pp. 161ff.) The pre-Zafarnama date shows that the penitence of Aurangzeb was already a pre-existing condition of his old age. The Zafarnama aimed to rouse this silent guilt, to give it a certain, concrete form by enumerating his transgressions and to bring this hidden secret into the open. It is the written record of a broken man. In case the Zafarnama was the closing argument of the prosecution, the Will is the guilty plea of the defendant. The manuscript is carefully produced, and the decoration and the text are in a deliberate tension. A cruel irony given its content. It is written on heavy, cream-coloured paper, bound in a cover which has been replaced, but the old purple stitching that binds the pages are still visible. It is written in Naskh, a elegant, flowing script in black ink, with headings in vermilion red. The title page is the masterpiece of the Mughal atelier, the lapis lazuli blue and gold paint, the intricate arabesques, which were adorned to illuminate the empire at its peak. But the words inscribed in this frame of gold and lapis are no commands of conquest; the whisper of a terrified soul.
The Peshwar script was transcribed by the scribe Ahqul Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali in the Rabi-ul-Awwal 1105 AH (c. 169394 CE).[9] Although this is the transcription date, the original composition of the Will itself is probably earlier than this copy, and is of the mature years of Aurangzeb, long before he died in 1707. It tells us that the remorse which we see in the document was not the consequence of the Zafarnama, but a permanent, chronic condition of the soul of the emperor. The Guru letter did not create the guilt, but only solidified it, bringing it to a terrified head, the burden the emperor has been living with for years.
The Will text is a radical departure from the imperial norms. It does not start with a list of territories to be divided among the sons to be favoured, but with a confession:
The document begins formally:[10]
وصیت نامۀ شاه اورنگزیب عالمگیر عرض بحضور نواب عالمگیر محمد خان صاحب بہادر که شوکت وعظمت دائم باقی باشد
Will of the King Aurangzeb Alamagir presented to his Majesty Nawab Alamagir Muhammad Khan Sahib Bahadur whose prosperity and greatness remains forever.
It opens with the bismillah:
أبدأ باسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I start with the name of Allah, the most merciful and forgiver.
The first clause immediately establishes the tone of a soul preparing for judgment: First is for this sinner (i.e. myself) who is sunk in sins, that arrangement of shroud and burial (and) the holy tomb of Chestia (peace be upon him) may be done, because those who are drowned in (the ocean) of sin have no other protection except His clean refuge. This is a great honour for Prince Alijah.
The “World Seizer” refers to himself as “a sinner who is sunk in sins.” He discards the titles of Alamgir (World Conqueror) and Ghazi (Holy Warrior). He does not place himself as a ruler, but, rather, as a beggar, helpless and desperate, knocking at the door of God. It is the language of the Sufis, of the mystics who had renounced the world, but it is that which comes from a man who had denied the world himself. He denounces everything that he created. The self-identification of گناهكار (gunahgar - sinner) who is در در گناهان غرق (dar gunahan gharq - sunk/drowned in sins) is not formulaic poetry. It is the language of spiritual hopelessness, of a man who is aware of the moral burden of his own actions and deeds. Not he is wading in guilt, but he is sinking.
The second clause of the Will delves even deeper into this psychology of remorse. It is the will’s most iconic and psychologically revealing passage. It deals with the financing of his funeral. A Mughal Emperor was entitled to a state funeral of unimaginable splendour, his body draped in silks, his tomb a monument of marble and jade.
First, it is his stunning renunciation of the imperial wealth. Aurangzeb, who is the Emperor of an empire that generates tens of millions in revenues, refuses to consider the idea of imperial funds for his burial. He is adamant that his shroud be purchased with the amount of his earnings from sewing caps از دواختن كلاه, the lowest of manual labour. This is an outright renunciation of Mughal pomp, an assertion that his redemption cannot be purchased by the very wealth that it tainted. He states that these wages are نزديك به حرام (nazdik be haram - next to unlawful) and these wages should be distributed amongst the poor. This reflects a scrupulous, tortured theological anxiety. If the wages of transcribing the holy book are a suspect, what does that mean when it comes to all other imperial revenue?
This clause means that a crisis of legitimacy is so deep that even devotions are tainted. This resonates strongly with the charge of Zafarnama of the misuse of the Qurān In his will, Aurangzeb also faces the threat of his own fear that his engagement with the Qurān would have been corrupted by his adulterous power. The instruction for a simple, "مزار خشت خام" (mazar-e-khisht-e-kham - tomb of raw brick*) in Khuldabad is architecture as confession.
“A sum of fourteen rupees (and) twelve annas that is earned through sewing of caps is with Alia Begum... Take the amount and spend it on the shroud of this helpless (i.e. myself).”
A sum of fourteen rupees (and) twelve annas3 that is earned through the sewing of caps is with Alia Begum4, the mahaldar. Take the amount and spend it on the shroud of this helpless (i.e. myself). And a sum of three hundred rupees5 that is earned through the wages of copying the Qurān, has to be given to faqirs on the day of my death. As money received through copying Qurān is considered near to harām (unlawful). Therefore, this amount should not be spent on (my) shroud, etc. But Aurangzeb writes: “a sum of fourteen rupees (and) twelve annas3 that is earned through sewing of caps is with Alia Begum.” A pittance. This was the money the emperor had earned by sewing caps himself, a menial task he undertook to emulate the piety of the early Caliphs.[11] He refuses to use the imperial treasury for his burial. Why? Since he was aware of the origin of that money. He was aware that it was stained with the blood of peasants, the taxes bled of the drought-stricken, the plunder and loot of the temples of the south. He considered the wealth of the empire as mal-e-haram, illicit property. But the clause continues with a theological twist that is uniquely Aurangzeb:
“And a sum of three hundred rupees that is earned through the wages of copying the Qur’ān has to be given to faqirs on the day of my death. As money received through copying the Qurān is considered near to harām (unlawful). Therefore, this amount should not be spent on (my) shroud, etc.” This is a mind of agonising precision. Even the income gained by copying the Holy Book -the act of acts- is considered to be tainted. Why? Since Aurangzeb believed that he was commodifying the sacred by charging a religious service. Or, worse still, he believed that his own hands, besmirched as they were by the sins of empire, had made even his holy deeds impure. He commands this money to be distributed, a last charitable act in order to cleanse his soul. He wants to meet his Creator with nothing, stripped of all wealth, wrapped in a cloth bought with the meagre earnings of a labourer.
The third clause addresses his heir, Prince Azam Shah (Alijah). It continues this theme of moral absolution from state wealth. The Emperor writes: “Take it from the agent of Prince Alijāh; as he is the nearest heir among my sons, and on him lies the responsibility for the lawful or unlawful property (mal) and this helpless (i.e. myself) will not be responsible for this, because the dead are in the hands of the survivors." beside this if there is any need of money, then take it from the agent6 of Prince Alijāh; as he is the nearest heir among my sons, and on him lies the responsibility for the lawful or unlawful property (mal) and this helpless (i.e. myself) will not be responsible for this, because the dead are in the hands of the survivors.”
Here, this is the ultimate washing of hands. Aurangzeb is passing over the burdens of the empire sins to his son. The “lawful or unlawful property”, the entire Mughal state, is a spiritual burden and a liability. What he means to say to his son is: “I am leaving you this wealth, but I am leaving you its sin, as well. I will not answer you in the grave.” It is a terrible reproach to the system he created and built. He understood too late that preserving an empire required compromising every moral principle he held dear. In this case, he absolves himself (اين بيچاره مسئول آن نخواهد بود) legally and morally of the responsibility of the مال حلال يا حرام (mal-e-halal ya haram) of the empire, passing the burden on to his successors. This is an effort to confront his maker unencumbered of the burden of sins of governance
Fourth, burry me (the one who is confounded/perplexed and astray) with bare heads, because any ruined sinner brought bare headed before the Almighty King (i.e. God) is a mercy case.
The subsequent clauses of the will, though containing political suggestions, are like indirect confessions. The eighth clause counsels against treating the Sadat (descendants of the Prophet), warning that if given power سبب حسرت گردد و حينئذ فايده ندارد (sabab-e-hasrat gardad wa hin’iz faida nadarad - they become a cause of regret, and then it is of no use). This is an indication of his lifetime of navigation through religious-political tension.
The ninth one is: pardoning them is better than punishing them. عفو براى آنان بهتر از عقوبت است. ايذاى آنها بهر حال خطاست." (Forgiveness in their favour is better than punishment. Their harassment is, anyhow, a mistake) This maxim of mercy stands in damning contrast to the actions of Wazir Khan.
As we read the rest of the points of the Will, we are able to see the portrait of the haunted man more clearly. The fourth and fifth clauses he demands bare-headed burial and plain clothes, named as Kazi. He rejects the “novelty and schism of the rich.” He does not wish to be buried in a Taj Mahal but in the courtyard of a Sufi saint, Sheikh Zainuddin, at Daulatabad. He wishes to lie in the open air, close to a man of God and seeking intercession. It is the same Emperor who suppressed the Shiites and the Sikhs, but in death, he uses the Sufi path, the path of love and unity, which he had suppressed all his life.
The sixth clause reveals the ghosts that haunted him: “Those people who, together with this sinner (Aurangzeb), were away from their houses, were killed in the far deserts and wilderness, the lord of the country (kingdom) looks after their families... if any manifest fault is also committed by them, try to return them with forgiveness.”
Those people who, together with this sinner (Aurangzeb), were away from their houses, were killed in the far deserts and wilderness. The lord of the country (kingdom) looks after their families, and if any manifest fault is also committed by them, tries to forgive them with forgiveness and do a favour them.
The “far deserts” are the dry, rocky plains of the Deccan. For twenty years, Aurangzeb had led his army to the far end of the peninsula and to the far end of it, and had been fighting a guerrilla war which they could never win. Thousands of his men were killed by thirst and disease, and the Maratha arrows. The Emperor recalls them. He hears the widows of the fallen soldiers, weeping into the night. He pleads and begs with his successor to take care of them. It is a moment of humanity, a crack in the armour of the astute monarch. It demonstrates that he did not remain oblivious to the pain that he inflicted; he just could not do anything about it and was powerless to stop it, bound by the logic of empire.
The seventh clause, which is incomplete in the manuscript, as a page is lost, is a hint at his political cynicism. He refers to the Iranians, the Persian nobles who were the mainstay of his administration. He commends them on their loyalty, but he cautions and warns of their fondness for pleasure. The missing lines likely contained advice on how to manage this powerful faction, advice born of fifty years of court intrigue. But it is the eighth clause that returns to the theme of religion. He talks about the Sadat, the descendants of the Prophet. He recommends that they be treated with respect, quoting the Qurānic verse of loving the kin of the Prophet. But, being always the pragmatist, he counters this with a warning, be careful not to give them so much power that they will be “desirous of power. It is the classic Aurangzeb, who bows down to the lineage of the Holy Prophet, yet who is horrified by any authority that may threaten the throne. In terms of taking responsibility, there is no one better than the Iranians. During war and even occupying gracious posts till now, nobody among them has ever turned their face (abandon) from any battle, and slipping in their solid legs never happened. Along with this (moreover), they never did any disloyalty, unrestrained, and ingratitude. But (they are) too much desirous of pleasure. (It is) hard to maintain and uphold with them, but one should uphold and keep the way of equilibrium. (You) ought to assist the elderly in the country more, and honour and respect them secretly. They cannot forgive them; there is no method besides some definite punishment for the crime. Never hurt them that we have tried this nation too much. They are guarding honour (courage) and loyalty and in the direction of truth... (the remainder is lost, and there is most likely one page missing)
But in the ninth clause, we most distinctly hear the echo of the Zafarnama, more clearly. The letter of the Guru was a cry of injustice, a denunciation of tyranny. In his Will, Aurangzeb seems to finally agree. He writes: “a human being is a slave of beneficence; they are the people who are the real verifier... Forgiveness in their favour is better than the punishment. Their harassment is, anyhow, a mistake.”
“It is better to forgive than to punish.” This is from the man who had his brother beheaded, who had his father thrown into prison, and who had imposed the most severe and strictest interpretation of Islamic law in Indian history. He has turned himself inside out. It was alleged in the Zafarnama that he was a tyrant, and he is found to be so in the end. He tells his son to do good, to be forgiving, and to avoid making mistakes of harassment. It is the lesson that is learned too late.
The tenth clause is a reflection of his failure in the Deccan. He advises his heir never to stay in one place: “To stay at one place is apparently a comfort, but it results in thousands of calamities.” He discovered this lesson to his own pain. As he sat, immobile, in his camp, the Maratha chief Shivaji, and then his son Sambhaji, moved like lightning, striking hard on Mughal forces and fading away into the rugged plateau. The Emperor's state of attrition had bled the empire dry. He leaves this hard-won acquired wisdom to his son, but it is counsel against a losing game. “If possible, the ruler of a kingdom should never sustain (spare) himself from an act (moment) (Keep acting and never stay at one place). To stay at one place is apparently a comfort, but it results in thousands of calamities and troubles; one should abstain from it.”
The eleventh clause is perhaps the most tragic of all, very likely the most self-disclosing. It reveals the paranoia that consumed him in his final days. He writes: “Do not trust your sons and never treat them friendly, because if Emperor (Shah Jahan) had not treated Dara Shikoh in this manner, this might not have happened.” The cycle of violence is completed here. By killing his family, Aurangzeb seized the throne. At his deathbed, he is now frightened that his own sons will do the same to him. He warns Prince Azam not to believe his own brothers. He confesses that his own ascension was a crime (this would not have otherwise happened). He projects his guilt to the future and understands that it is the very ambition that had cursed the Mughal dynasty. The house Timur constructed is a house of cards, which is held together by fear and blood.
Aurangzeb can trace the catastrophic chain of events, the war of succession, patricide, and fratricide, to the favouritism of his father. He even admits and implicitly acknowledges that his rule was built on a betrayal of his own family’s. In the Zafarnama, he was accused of breaking oaths sworn on the Qurān; here, he
reflects on the original sin of broken familial trust.
In the twelve clauses, Aurangzeb appeals to the old attendants and servants. This loss of confidence in his kin, mistrust of his nobles, he lays his hope on the faithful slaves with whom had served him for decades. “Treat the distinguished people and old attendants and servants with compassion... Do not hurt them without any extreme political need.” It is a plea for kindness in a world he knows is cruel.
The manuscript concludes with a colophon, indicating the writer of the manuscript was the scribe Ahqul Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali. It is devoted to the twelve Imams, an unusual allusion to the Shia feeling that makes the orthodox image of Aurangzeb even more confusing.
دوازده وصيت بنام دوازده امام با بركت و تقدس تمام شد.
The twelve Wills in the name of twelve Imams with blessing and sanctity are completed
The twelve Wills in the name of twelve Imams with blessing and sanctity are completed
The colophon notes it was written در ماه مبارک ربيع الأول سنه ١١٠٥ هجری (in the holy month of Rabi-ul-Awwal, year 1105 AH) by إقبال العباد محمد خان علي (Iqbal al-‘Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali). The Peshawar will, consequently, be a psychological portrait of a ruler in a deep crisis of conscience. It implies that the remorse that Aurangzeb felt was deep and pre-existing. This genius of the Zafarnama was to bring personal, formless guilt, with a public and specific indictment. The will shows how a man is frightened before the court of God; the Zafarnama served it to him as the charge sheet. His next moves were attempts to address this very public indictment. The meeting he sought with the Guru was thus a desired encounter with his chief moral accuser.
This is the end of the manuscript. The hand of the scribe halts; the Mughal tale is pursued another hundred and a half, but the special account of the reckoning of the self is over with Aurangzeb. This audience with Guru Gobind Singh did not take place. In March 1707, when he was in Ahmednagar, Aurangzeb passed away with his crisis still unresolved. The political outcome was the historical positioning of Guru Gobind Singh with Prince Mu’azzam (Bahadur Shah I), a sign of the sovereign political position of the Guru. The 18 th century opened out into a long battle between the Khalsa and the Mughal state, a battle that the Zafarnama spiritualised. In Sikhism, it became canonised in the Dasam Granth. Miri-Piri and Dharam Yudh are based theologically on it. It legalises Chardi Kala. It is a masterpiece of Persian poetry, in a literary sense. Its verses are recited and invoked in everyday life and constitute the epic story of martyrdom and moral courage.
The tale of the Zafarnama and the Will is the tale of two men who had never met, though they understood each other quite well. Guru Gobind Singh appealed directly to the conscience of Aurangzeb. That had been the weak point revealed in the very Will of the emperor. It was not that the Guru defeated the Mughal army, as such, he never did it conventionally, however, his victory was that he forced the emperor to confront the emptiness hollowness of his conquests, was his victory.
We can juxtapose the two texts, the fiery, righteous verses of the Zafarnama and the humble, shuddering words of the Will, and we see the complete picture of a civilisation at the crossroads. The Empire of the Mughals, with its lapis lazuli and its gold, its huge armies and its taxes, had reached the stage when the sword could never achieve. It had seized the land, but lost its people. It had made some fine and architectural marvels, yet it had ruined the trust that binds a society together.
Guru Gobind Singh gave another vision in his letter. A vision of a world in which the truth is the highest power, an oath is sacred, and the value of a man is measured not by his crown, but in his courage to stand for equitable justice.
شریعت پرست-و فضیلت م-آب
حکیکات شناس و نبی الکتاب
Shari-At Prast-O Fazilat M-aab
Hakikat Shannas-O Nabi Al-Kitab
The Virtuous One gives justice to all. Nothing is hidden from
Him. He is the inspiration of Qurān.
حکیکات شناس و نبی الکتاب
Shari-At Prast-O Fazilat M-aab
Hakikat Shannas-O Nabi Al-Kitab
The Virtuous One gives justice to all. Nothing is hidden from
Him. He is the inspiration of Qurān.
The Zafarnama shook Aurangzeb because even though he could kill the Guru’s sons, he could not kill what the Guru represented.
چه مردی کی اخگر خاموشان کونی
کی آتش دامن را فاروزان کونی
Chi mardi ki ak!lgar khamoshan kuni.
Ki Atish daman ra Farozan kuni.
What manliness you have shown by extinguishing a few sparks
(Sahibzadas). You have made the conflagration brighter and more furious.
کی آتش دامن را فاروزان کونی
Chi mardi ki ak!lgar khamoshan kuni.
Ki Atish daman ra Farozan kuni.
What manliness you have shown by extinguishing a few sparks
(Sahibzadas). You have made the conflagration brighter and more furious.
The truth survived at Chamkaur. It survived the raging Sarsa River. It travelled to the Deccan and into the tent of the emperor, and it survived long after the emperor was laid in his plain shroud in the open air of Daulatabad. Even the Will itself, a feeble paper and ink document, in a Peshawar private collection. It is the narrative of a man at war with himself. He, he who aspired to be a saint, perished as a sinner; who aspired to conquer the world, died in fear of his Creator. It was eventually the pen of Guru Gobind Singh that had succeeded where the swords of the million Mughals had failed disgracefully: he had piered the heart of the emperor and made him confess. The arrow was the Zafarnama; the wound the Will. Out of that wound a new flood of Indian history started to flow in the subcontinent; the Mughal age was over, and the Khalsa age had dawned.
The silence that settled upon Ahmadnagar, following the death of Aurangzeb, was oppressive, but not the silence of peace. It was the quietness of a vacuum. The centre could not contain. The sons, as the emperor had predicted, turned on each other. Mu’azzam, Azam and Kambaksh marched into each other, and their armies trampled over the dust on which their father had lain. The tolerant empire that Akbar had created and the fanatical empire that Aurangzeb had expanded were shattered into pieces.
The Zafarnama were being recited, sang and remembered, in the pine woods of north India and the dusty plains of the Punjab. Fathers passed them on to sons, a testament to the day that one Guru took on a mighty emperor and won. The Will of Aurangzeb, with its shroud of fourteen rupees, became a cautionary tale of the unworthiness and futility of ambition. In contrast to the two, the vibrant, defiant verses of the living Guru and the broken, whispering clauses of the dying emperor had become the deifying legend of the age.
The Will and the Zafarnama answer each other in ten years of blood and silence. The betrayal blood carried the Zafarnama, which revealed that the strongest weapon that can be used to combat tyranny is the truth expressed in terms of spiritual power. It proclaimed that it is real sovereignty at the threshold of Divinity. This silent witness is the will of Aurangzeb, with its unsubtled confession of his sin (گناهكار), his renouncing of his wealth and his modest directives. It makes the emperor a tragic character, but his repentance was in parallel with unrepentant policies like jizya, whose submission was vitiated by the awareness of his betrayals. Both of them seal a circuit: the public charge and the personal confession of guilt. The letter of Guru outlived not only men, but it was the charter of another form of sovereignty. The repentant will of Aurangzeb is his monument of penitence that, despite the spiritual weakness of the most powerful kingdoms, and of every king who must, will, and must be made to avert his eyes, not to the might of the armies, but to the self-reflection of his own soul, and to that judgment which the mind has embraced as certain. This dialectic sums up some truth to eternity: the love of power is apt to be a cage of the spirit, and the emancipation starts with the acknowledgement of truth, whether proclaimed on a defiant epistle or whispered in a penitent last testament.
Although in Mughal sources, there is no direct documentary evidence of the causal impact of the Zafarnama on Aurangzeb, the coincident witness of the Will, of the subsequent firmans, of the invitation extended to the Guru, is, at least, compelling circumstantial evidence of a deep inward reckoning. It is a story that has been told through generations. It tells us that might is momentary, that empires rise and fall like the tides, yet the human spirit, with truth and courage, can come forth to meet the occasion and against all odds. Guru Gobind Singh was well aware of this He addressed Aurangzeb, not to save his own life but to save the soul of his people, and in this endeavour, he eternalised the battle between the oppression of the state and the liberty of the spirit. The Zafarnama is not a letter, but a declaration of eternal victory of the human conscience over oppression. The confession of guilt is the Will of Aurangzeb.
Together, they are united and close the circuit: the public charge and the private plea of guilty. The Guru letter lived beyond men, was the constitution and the proclamation of another form of sovereignty. The will of penitence of Aurangzeb will remain his epitaph, the testimony that even the strongest empires are spiritually feeble, and that all rulers will finally be compelled to be on their knees not only before the armies, but also before the mirror of their soul and judgment which they believe awaits them. The dialectic is truth immortal: in the seeking and striving after power, too soon is a prison of soul, and the only way out is through the truth, either proclaimed in a rebellious epistle or muttered in a last repentant testament.
The emperor is dead, long live the Truth.
Bibliography
Ahmad, M. B. The Administration of Justice in Medieval India. Medieval India Quarterly series. Aligarh: Aligarh Historical Research Institute, 1941.
Awan, M. T. History of India and Pakistan, vol. 2, pt. 1 (Great Mughals). Lahore, 1994.
Fenech, Louis E. “Martyrdom and the Sikh Tradition.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 117, no. 4 (1997): 623–42.
Guru Gobind Singh. Zafarnama. Translated by Jodh Singh. Patiala: Punjabi University, 1985.
Irvine, William. The Army of the Indian Moghuls. London: Luzac, 1903.
Khan, M. Nasim. “The Will of Aurangzeb (1658–1707): A Rare Document.” Gandhāran Studies 3 (2009): 161–174.
Macauliffe, Max Arthur. The Sikh Religion. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909.
Santokh Singh. Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth. Amritsar: Khalsa Samachar, 1963.
Sarkar, Jadunath. History of Aurangzib. 5 vols. Calcutta: M.C. Sarkar, 1912–24.
Sarkar, Jadunath, trans. Ahkam-i-Alamgiri. Calcutta, 1912.
[1] Guru Gobind Singh, Zafarnama, trans. Jodh Singh (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1985). The standard critical edition with Persian text and English translation. Verse numbering throughout this essay follows the Jodh Singh edition.
[2] M. Nasim Khan, “The Will of Aurangzeb (1658–1707): A Rare Document,” Ghandāran Studies 3 (2009): 161–174. The manuscript was first examined in 2005 in a private collection in Peshawar. Khan notes that the scribe, Ahqul Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali, does not appear in any other known Mughal document.
[3] For the full sequence of events from Anandpur to Dina, see Max Arthur Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909), 5:131–205. Macauliffe’s account, though hagiographical in register, remains the most comprehensive English-language reconstruction based on Sikh primary sources.
[4] Ajit Singh was approximately 18 and Jujhar Singh approximately 14 at the Battle of Chamkaur, December 1704. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, 5:155–62.
[5] Ages of the younger Sahibzadas vary slightly across sources; Macauliffe gives Zorawar Singh as approximately 9 and Fateh Singh as approximately 7. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, 5:165–68. The account of martyrdom by bricking (nindh dee neev) is corroborated by the Gurbilas Patshahi 10 and the Shahid Bilas.
[6] Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, 5:197–99. The Panj Pyare (Five Beloved Ones) were the first members initiated into the Khalsa at Anandpur in 1699.
[7] Gurbilas Patshahi 10, attributed to Bhai Sukha Singh (c. 1745), is among the earliest Sikh prose narratives of the tenth Guru’s life. Santokh Singh, Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth (Amritsar: Khalsa Samachar, 1963) is the most comprehensive versified biography. Both are hagiographical and must be read against the silence of Mughal archival sources on these specific events.
[8] Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 5:200–202. The firmans themselves have not been located in the imperial archive; their existence is attested by Sikh tradition and by the subsequent correspondence that led to the Guru’s alignment with Bahadur Shah I.
[9] Khan, “The Will of Aurangzib,” 165. The colophon reads: dar mah-e-mubarak Rabi-ul-Awwal, sana 1105 hijri, nivisht shud az Ihqarul Ibad Muhammad Khan Ali. Three other versions of Aurangzeb’s will are known: the Maulvi Hamid-ud-Din version (10 clauses); India Office Library MS.1344 (Sarkar, Aurangzib, vol. 5, 201), dealing with partition of the empire; and the Ahkam-e-Alamgiri (J.N. Sarkar, trans., text fol. 8b–10a). The Peshawar manuscript (12 clauses) is closest to the Ahkam-e-Alamgiri version.
[10] Khan, “The Will of Aurangzeb,” 161. The Maulvi Hamid-ud-Din version records a lesser sum of four rupees and two annas; the Peshawar manuscript records fourteen rupees and twelve annas. For monetary variants across all versions, see Khan, 167n.
[11] Khan, “The Will of Aurangzeb,” 167–68. Aurangzeb’s tomb at Khuldabad (near Daulatabad, Maharashtra) remains a site of visitation. He was buried in the courtyard of the dargah of Shaikh Zainuddin Shirazi, with the grave open to the sky as he requested. See William Irvine, The Army of the Indian Moghuls (London: Luzac, 1903), appendix.
