Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/210

204 launched my bark upon the waters. ... Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!'

To his favourite Kám-Bakhsh he wrote: –

'Soul of my soul ... Now I am going alone. I grieve for your helplessness. But what is the use? Every torment I have inflicted, every sin I have committed, every wrong I have done, I carry the consequences with me. Strange that I came with nothing into the world, and now go away with this stupendous caravan of sin! ... Wherever I look I see only God. ... I have greatly sinned, and I know not what torment awaits me. ... Let not Muslims be slain and the reproach fall upon my useless head. I commit you and your sons to God's care, and bid you farewell. I am sorely troubled. Your sick mother, Udaipúri, would fain die with me ... Peace!'

On Friday, the 4th of March, 1707, in the fiftieth year of his reign, and the eighty-ninth of his life, after performing the morning prayers and repeating the creed, the Emperor Aurangzíb gave up the ghost. In accordance with his command, 'Carry this creature of dust to the nearest burial-place, and lay him in the earth with no useless coffin,' he was buried simply near Daulatábád beside the tombs of Muslim saints.

'Every plan that he formed came to little good; every enterprise failed:' such is the comment of the Muhammadan historian on the career of the sovereign whom he justly extols for his 'devotion, austerity, and justice,' and his incomparable courage, long-suffering, and judgment. Aurangzíb's life had been a vast failure, indeed, but he had failed grandly. He had pitted his conscience against the world, and the world