Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/18

xiv The end of the seventeenth century reveals the Mughal empire as rotten at the core. The grand edifice which Akbar had built up and Shah Jahan and Aurangzib had extended, still looked fair as before, but it was ready to tumble down like a house of cards at the first touch of the foreign invader's lance. The Treasury was empty. The Imperial army knew itself defeated and recoiled from its foes. The centrifugal forces were asserting themselves successfully, and the empire was ready for disruption. The moral weakness of the empire was even greater than the material: the Government no longer commanded the awe of its subjects; the public servants had lost honesty and efficiency; ministers and princes alike lacked statesmanship and ability; the army broke down as an instrument of force. In letter after letter the aged Aurangzib mourns over the utter incapacity of his officers and sons and chastises them with his sharp pen, but in despair of a remedy. Contemporaries like Bhimsen and Khafi Khan, sadly contrast the misery and degradation of the nobles and the people alike in Aurangzib's closing years with the glory of the empire under his forefathers, and wonder why it was so.

Why was it so? The ruler was free from vice, stupidity, or sloth. His intellectual keenness