Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Forbidden Library and the Battle for Knowledge
Transcript
- Lucas: We’ve spent quite a while tracing Aurangzeb’s military movements through the Deccan and his complex legal rulings via the fatawa e alamgiri, but there’s another dimension of his reign that feels almost invisible today. Luna: The books? Lucas: Exactly. While he was dismantling temples and imposing the jizya tax, he was simultaneously building one of the most ambitious libraries in South Asian history within the Agra Fort. It wasn’t just a collection; it was an active engine of translation and scholarship that involved both Muslim ulema and Hindu pandits. Luna: That seems incredibly contradictory for someone so strict about orthodoxy. Lucas: It is, and historians have debated this for centuries. The Alamgiri Library, or the Imperial Library, was stocked with tens of thousands of manuscripts, including rare copies of the Quran, Persian poetry, and crucially, Sanskrit works on astronomy, medicine, and philosophy. He didn’t just hoard them; he paid for their acquisition, binding, and copying. Luna: So he was actively funding the translation of Hindu texts into Persian? Lucas: Yes, though it was complicated. Scholars like Dharmapala, who we’ve met before in discussions of his administration, were employed to translate texts like the Mahabharata and the Puranas. The goal was partly administrative—understanding the legal and cultural frameworks of his subjects—but it also reflected a genuine Mughal interest in preserving knowledge across traditions. Luna: And his daughter Zeb-un-Nissa was right in the middle of this? Lucas: She was central to it. Despite their famous estrangement over politics and succession, Zeb-un-Nissa was a renowned poet and scholar who maintained her own extensive library. She corresponded with scholars across the empire, and records suggest she may have had significant influence over which texts were commissioned for translation in the imperial workshop. Luna: I remember reading that she was exiled for her views, yet she kept writing. Lucas: She did, and even in exile, her correspondence continued to flow through the channels of the court. The Ruqa'at i alamgiri, the collection of Aurangzeb’s letters, mentions several instances where literary gifts and books were sent as diplomatic tokens, showing that the culture of the written word remained vital even as political tensions rose. Luna: What kind of books were they moving around? Lucas: Everything from intricate miniature paintings and calligraphy samples to dense theological treatises. There are accounts of scholars spending years translating a single text, with teams of scribes working under contract to ensure accuracy. It was a massive bureaucratic undertaking, managed by officials like Bhimsen Saxena, who documented these activities in his chronicles. Luna: It sounds like a quiet, scholarly version of his wars. Lucas: In a way, it was. Just as he fought to expand the empire’s borders, he fought to expand its intellectual horizon. But here’s the catch: this library was tied to the person of the emperor. When he died in Burhanpur in 1707, the institution lacked a strong independent foundation. The knowledge wasn’t decentralized; it was concentrated in the fort. Luna: Which makes it vulnerable. Lucas: Precisely. As the Mughal Empire fractured after his death, the libraries of Agra and Shahjahanabad became targets. We know that during the subsequent power struggles, and later during Nader Shah’s invasion of Delhi in 1739, vast numbers of these manuscripts were looted, destroyed, or dispersed. What took decades to assemble could be lost in weeks. Luna: It’s a tragedy of centralized power. Lucas: Absolutely. Unlike European universities that grew organically from guilds and cities, Mughal scholarship was top-down. If the center collapsed, the network dissolved. This explains why so few of those original Sanskrit-Persian translations survive intact today, making the existing fragments all the more precious to modern researchers. Luna: Did anyone try to save them during the chaos? Lucas: Some scholars fled south, taking portable collections with them, but the institutional memory was largely broken. The shift away from such large-scale state-sponsored translation happened rapidly once the Marathas and other powers began to consolidate control in different regions, each developing their own localized scholarly traditions. Luna: It feels like we’re losing a huge part of that conversation. Lucas: We are, and that loss shapes our understanding of the period. For a long time, Aurangzeb was painted solely as a destroyer of culture, ignoring the Alamgiri Library entirely. Only recently have historians started digging into the maasir i alamgiri and other sources to reconstruct this intellectual side of his reign. Luna: Because the archives exist, even if the books don't. Lucas: Right. The administrative records tell us what was there, even if the physical objects are gone. It reminds us that history isn’t just about battles and taxes; it’s about what people valued enough to write down and preserve. Luna: I never thought of him as a patron of science. Lucas: He was. Astronomical tables were updated, and medical texts were translated, reflecting a practical need for knowledge that served the empire’s health and navigation. It’s a reminder that piety and pragmatism often walked hand in hand, even when they seemed to contradict each other. Luna: So the library was both a spiritual and practical tool? Lucas: Definitely. It served his desire for religious legitimacy through Islamic texts, but also his need for effective governance through Hindu and scientific knowledge. It was a multi-faceted project that defies simple categorization. Luna: It complicates the whole 'tyrant' narrative. Lucas: It does. He can be both a rigid orthodox ruler and a sophisticated patron of letters. Human beings, and empires, are rarely one-dimensional. Luna: Do you think any of that knowledge survived in secret? Lucas: Some certainly did, hidden in private collections or monasteries, but much of the imperial corpus was lost. It’s a haunting thought—that entire conversations between Hindu and Muslim scholars vanished because of political instability. Luna: It makes me want to know more about the individual scribes. Lucas: There’s growing interest in their lives too. We know names like Qazi Khan and others who oversaw these projects, but their stories are buried in footnotes. Recovering their voices is part of the new wave of Mughal historiography. Luna: It adds a human layer to the bureaucracy. Lucas: It does. These weren’t faceless functionaries; they were passionate individuals navigating a complex empire. Their work shaped the intellectual landscape of India for generations. Luna: I’m glad we’re shining a light on this side of him. Lucas: Me too. It balances the picture. You can’t understand the empire without seeing the books as well as the swords. Luna: And the tulips. Lucas: And the tulips. Always the tulips. But seriously, the next time you think of Aurangzeb, imagine not just the battlefield, but the quiet scriptorium in Agra, filled with the smell of ink and paper. Luna: That’s a powerful image. Lucas: It should be. Knowledge is fragile, and its preservation is always a struggle against time and power. Luna: Speaking of preservation, how do we keep this show going? Lucas: If you’ve been stepping into history with us episode by episode, knowing that listener support is what keeps these deep dives ad-free and available helps more than you might think. A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Luna: It really does make a difference for the research. Lucas: Thank you. Now, let’s go back to those scribes, because there’s a specific story about a translator named...