Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/105

CHAP. IV.] For four months she hovered between life and death. Indeed, there was little hope of her recovery, as two of her maids, though less severely burnt, died in a few weeks. By a happy accident, the physician of the late king of Persia, who had fled from the wrath of his successor, reached Agra only twenty days after this mishap. His judicious medicines removed many of her attendant troubles, especially fever and weakness.

But both he and Hakim Mumana, the Physician Royal of Delhi, laboured in vain to heal her burns. Where the medical science of the age failed, quackery succeeded. A slave named Arif prepared an ointment which entirely healed her sores in two months.

On 25th November began a most splendid and costly festivity in celebration of her complete recovery. Jahanara was given jewels worth ten lakhs by her rejoicing father; every member of the household and every officer of the State received a gift on the joyous occasion; the beggars got two lakhs. The princes who had hastened to Agra on hearing of her accident, had their share of the Imperial bounty. But none of them was so great a gainer as Aurangzib, for, at