Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Last Years: The Emperor Who Died Alone
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Aurangzeb's campaigns, his wars, his policies. But I think there's a side to him that we haven't really touched on: the man in his final years. What it was like to be him, alone in the Deccan, watching his empire fray. Luna: I've always wondered about that. He lived so long, right? He reigned for nearly 50 years. Lucas: Exactly. He came to the throne in 1658, and he died in 1707. That's an incredibly long reign, especially by Mughal standards. But the last 25 years of his life were spent almost entirely in the Deccan, camped out in tents, chasing Maratha guerrillas. He never saw Delhi or Agra again after 1682. Luna: He just never went back north? Lucas: No. He moved his entire court to the Deccan, set up a mobile capital. He was determined to crush the Maratha resistance once and for all. But it was like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands. The Marathas under Shivaji's successors — first his son Sambhaji, then after Sambhaji's capture, his brother Rajaram and later his widow Tarabai — they just kept slipping away, raiding Mughal supply lines, melting into the hills. Lucas: The turning point, I think, was the capture of Sambhaji in 1688. Aurangzeb's forces finally caught him at Sangameshwar. And the emperor made a point of humiliating him publicly. Luna: How so? Lucas: Sambhaji was paraded through the Mughal camp in chains, wearing a fool's cap. Aurangzeb offered him a choice: convert to Islam or die. Sambhaji refused, and was executed brutally — his eyes were gouged out, his tongue cut off, before he was beheaded. It was meant to break Maratha morale, but it actually had the opposite effect. Luna: It just hardened their resistance. Lucas: Exactly. Rajaram, Sambhaji's brother, escaped to the fort of Jinji in the deep south, and from there he coordinated a relentless guerrilla campaign. The Mughals besieged Jinji for eight years, and even after they took it, the war didn't end. Tarabai took over and kept fighting. Lucas: So here's Aurangzeb, in his seventies, still personally leading campaigns. He's described by contemporary chroniclers as living austerely — he slept on a simple cot, wore coarse clothes, and spent hours in prayer. He even sewed his own caps and copied the Quran by hand. Luna: Wait, he sewed his own caps? Lucas: According to some accounts, yes. He was known as 'Zinda Pir' — the living saint — by some of his followers. But his letters from this period are filled with despair. He writes about his sons being incompetent, his generals being corrupt, his treasury being empty. He says things like 'I came alone and I go alone. I have not done well by the country or by the people.' Luna: That's heartbreaking. He really felt he'd failed. Lucas: In many ways, he had. His obsession with the Deccan drained the Mughal treasury and left the north vulnerable. The Marathas were never fully subdued — after his death, they'd go on to dominate the subcontinent. And his own sons were already fighting over the succession while he lay dying. Lucas: He died on March 3, 1707, in Ahmednagar, at the age of 88. His death was kept secret for a few days to prevent chaos. And his burial? He'd given instructions that he should be buried in an open grave, with no dome over it, because he didn't want his tomb to become a place of pilgrimage. Luna: So where is he buried? Lucas: In Khuldabad, near Aurangabad. It's a simple grave, open to the sky. You can see it today — it's covered with a cloth, but there's no grand mausoleum like his father Shah Jahan's Taj Mahal. It's a stark reminder of how this emperor, who had once controlled almost all of India, ended his days. Luna: It's almost poetic. The man who built the Badshahi Mosque and tried to rule as a perfect Islamic king, choosing to be buried in the dirt. Lucas: Right. And it's also a reflection of his personal piety, or at least his public persona. He wanted to be remembered as a humble servant of God, not a great conqueror. But history judges him harshly — his policies alienated Hindus, Sikhs, and even some Muslims, and his wars broke the empire. Lucas: So when you look at those last years, it's a tragedy. Not just for him, but for the millions who died in his wars. And the empire he'd spent his life trying to preserve — it began to crumble within decades of his death.