Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/166

126 lion-hearted stock. But he was among the bravest even in their valiant rank. In the crisis of the campaign in Balkh, when the enemy, "like locusts and ants," hemmed him in on every side, and steel was clashing all around him, the setting sun heralded the hour of evening prayer: Aurangzib, unmoved amid the din of battle, dismounted and bowed himself on the bare ground in the complicated ritual of Islam, as composedly as if he had been performing the rik'a (prostration) in the mosque at Agra. The king of the Uzbegs noted the action, and exclaimed, "To fight with such a man is self-destruction!"

We may read Aurangzib's ideal of enlightened kingship in his reply to one of the nobles who remonstrated with him on his incessant application to affairs of state: "I was sent into the world by Providence," he said, as Bernier records his words, "to live and labour, not for myself, but for others; it is my duty not to think of my own happiness, except so far as it is inseparably connected with the happiness of my people. It is the repose and prosperity of my subjects that it behooves me to consult; nor are these to be sacrificed to anything besides the demands of justice, the maintenance of the royal authority, and the security of the state. It was not without reason that our great Sa'di emphatically exclaimed, 'Cease to be Kings! Oh, cease to be Kings! Or determine that your dominions shall be governed only by yourselves.'" In the same spirit he wrote to Shah Jahan: "Almighty God bestows his trusts upon him who discharges the duty of cherishing his subjects