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146 brother, the noble but impetuous Dárá (1659). After another twelve months' struggle, he drove out of India his second brother, the self-indulgent Shujá (1660), who perished miserably among the insolent savages of Arakan. His remaining brother, the brave young Murád, was executed in prison the following year (1661). Aurangzeb had from boyhood been a Muhammadan of the stern puritan type. Having now killed off his rival brethren, he set up as an orthodox sovereign of the strictest sect of Islám, while his invalid father, Sháh Jahán, lingered on in prison, mourning over his murdered sons, until his own death in 1666.

Aurangzeb's Campaigns in Southern India.—Aurangzeb continued, as emperor, that persistent policy of the subjugation of Southern India which he had brilliantly commenced as his father's lieutenant. Of the five Muhammadan kingdoms of the Deccan, Bídar and Ahmadnagar with Ellichpur had fallen to his arms, as the prince in command of the Imperial armies, before his accession to the throne. The two others, Bijápur and Golconda, struggled longer, but Aurangzeb was determined at any cost to annex them to the Mughal Empire. During the first half of his reign, or exactly twenty-five years, he waged war in the south by means of his generals (1658-83). A new Hindu power had, as we have seen, arisen in the Deccan—the Maráthás, whose history will be traced in more detail in a subsequent chapter. The task before Aurangzeb's armies was not only the old one of subduing the Muhammadan kingdoms of Bijápur and Golconda, but also the new one of crushing the quick growth of the Hindu or Maráthá confederacy.

Slow Conquest of Southern India.—During a quarter of a century, his utmost efforts failed. Bijápur and Golconda were not conquered. In 1670, the Maráthá leader, Sivají, levied chauth, or one-fourth of the revenues, as tribute from the Mughal Provinces in Southern India; and in 1674 he crowned himself an independent sovereign at Ráigarh. In 1680-1681, Aurangzeb's son, Prince Akbar, having rebelled against his father, joined the Maráthá army. Aurangzeb felt that he must either give up his magnificent palace in the north for a soldier's tent in the Deccan, or he must relinquish his most cherished