Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/69

Rh unmistakably intended to grasp the sceptre if he could. Aurangzíb might indeed have renounced the dream of power, and reverted to the ascetic ideal of his youth: but Dárá and Shujá' were infidels or heretics whom it was his duty, as a true Muslim, to drive from the throne; moreover, the lust of power was hot in his blood; besides, the Prince-Fakir would never have been safe from the knives of his brothers' agents. Death or imprisonment for life was the alternative fate of rival aspirants to the throne, and Aurangzíb chose to inflict the former. It was shocking, but safe, and on the whole more merciful: but to men of generous hearts it might have been impossible.

The shrewdest of all contemporary European witnesses, the French doctor Bernier, who was a spectator of the horrors of the fratricidal war, a sympathizer with Dárá, and no lenient critic of Aurangzíb, at whose court he spent eight observant years, sums up the whole matter with his usual fairness:

'My readers,' he says, 'have no doubt condemned the means by which the reigning Mughal attained the summit of power. These means were indeed unjust and cruel; but it is not perhaps fair to judge him by the rigid rules which we apply to the character of European princes. In our quarter of the globe, the succession to the crown is settled in favour of the eldest son by wise and fixed laws; but in Hindústán the right of governing is usually disputed by all the sons of the deceased monarch, each of whom is reduced to the cruel alternative of sacrificing his brothers that he himself may reign, or of suffering his own life to be forfeited