Dara Shikoh Totally Explained

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Dara Shikoh (Persian: داراشكوه ) (March 20, 1615 - August 30, 1659) was the eldest son of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal. His name داراشكوه in Persian means "The possessor of Glory". He was favoured as a successor by his father and his sister Jahanara Begum, but was defeated by his younger brother Aurangzeb in a bitter struggle for the Mughal throne.

The struggle for succession and death

On September 6, 1657, the illness of emperor Shah Jahan triggered a fierce and desperate battle for power among the four Mughal princes though realistically only Dara and Aurangzeb had a chance of emerging victorious. Shah Shuja declared himself emperor in Bengal. Despite strong support from Shah Jahan, who had recovered enough from his illness to remain a strong factor in the struggle for supremacy, and the victory of his army led by his eldest son Sulaiman Shikoh over Shah Shuja in the battle of Bahadurpur on February 14, 1658 Dara was defeated by Aurangzeb at the battlefield of Samugarh, 13 km from Agra on May 30, 1658 and subsequently Aurangzeb took over Agra fort and deposed emperor Shah Jahan on June 8, 1658. After the defeat Dara retreated from Samugarh to Delhi and from there to Lahore. His next destination was Multan and then to Thatta (Sindh). From Sindh, he crossed the rann of Kachchh and reached Kathiawar, where he met Shah Nawaz Khan, the governor of the province. He occupied Surat and advanced towards Ajmer. He was again defeated by the imperial army of Aurangzeb in the battle of Deorai (near Ajmer) on March 11, 1659. After hisdefeat he ran away to Sindh and sought refuge under Malik Jiwan, a Baluch chieftain, who had once been saved by the Moghul prince from the wrath of Shah Jehan. However, Malik betrayed Dara and turned him over to Aurangzeb on June 10, 1659 along with his second son Sipihr Shikoh. Dara was brought to Delhi, placed on a filthy elephant and paraded through the streets of the capital in chains. He was put on trial and received the death sentence as he was declared as an apostate from Islam. He was murdered by the assassins on the night of August 30, 1659.

Intellectual pursuits

Dara Shikoh was a gentle and pious Sufi intellectual, one of the greatest representatives of that uniquely Indian synthesis sometimes referred to as the "composite culture". He was an erudite champion of mystical religious speculation (which made him a heretic in the eyes of his more orthodox brother and the coterie around him) and a poetic diviner of syncretic cultural interaction among people of all faiths. Historians have speculated how different India would have been had he prevailed over his less enlightened brother Aurangzeb. Dara was a follower of Lahore's famous Qadiri Sufi saint Hazrat Mian Mir, whom he was introduced to by Mullah Shah Badakhshi (Mian Mir's spiritual disciple and successor) and who was so widely respected among all communities that he was invited to lay the foundation stone of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Sikhs. He devoted much effort towards finding a common mystical language between Islam and Hinduism. Towards this goal he completed the translation of 50 Upanishads from its original Sanskrit into Persian in 1657 so it could be read by Muslim scholars. His translation is often called Sirr-e-Akbar (The Greatest Mystery), where he states boldly, in the Introduction, his speculative hypothesis that the work referred to in the Qur'an as the "Kitab al-maknun" or the hidden book is none other than the Upanishads. His most famous work, Majma ul-Bahrain ("The Mingling of the Two Oceans") was also devoted to finding the commonalities between Sufism and Hindu Monotheism.

Patron of art

He was also a patron of fine arts, music and dancing, a trait frowned upon by his sibling Aurangzeb. In fact many of his paintings are quite detailed and compare well to a professional artist of his time. The Dara Shikoh album is a collection of paintings and calligraphy assembled during the 1630s until his death. It was presented to his wife Nadira Banu and remained with her until her death after which the album was taken into the royal library and the inscriptions connecting it with Dara Shikoh were deliberately erased; however not everything was vandalised and many calligraphy scripts and paintings still bear his mark.

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