Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/235

CHAP. IX.] In my first viceroyalty I did not wait for previous sanction in such matters. But now I have grown more cautious!" Indeed, in one of his letters to his sister Jahanara he complains that though he had served his father faithfully for twenty years he was favoured with much less power and confidence than his nephew Sulaiman Shukoh.

Before turning to the two great wars under- taken by Aurangzib during this period we shall describe his.

In the 16th and 17th centuries much of the modern Central Provinces owned the sway of aboriginal Gond chiefs and was known in history under the name of Gondwana. The great Gond kingdom of Garh-Mandla had been crippled by a Mughal invasion and sack of the capital in Akbar's reign, and, later, by Bundela encroachments from the north. But about the middle of the 17th century another Gond kingdom, with its capital at Deogarh, rose to greatness, and extended its sway over the districts of Betul, Chindwara and Nagpur, and portions of Seoni, Bhandara and Balaghat. In the southern part of Gondwana stood the town of Chanda, the seat of a third Gond dynasty. A king of