Storia do Mogor : or, Mogul India, 1653-1708 / by Niccolao Manucci, Venetian ; tr., with introduction and notes, by William Irvine.

Storia do Mogor, or, Mogul India, 1653-1708 / by Niccolao Manucci, Venetian ; tr., with introduction and notes, by William Irvine.

  • Manucci, Niccolò, 1639-approximately 1717.
Date:
1907-08
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Storia do Mogor, or, Mogul India, 1653-1708 / by Niccolao Manucci, Venetian ; tr., with introduction and notes, by William Irvine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    507/512 (page 385)
    THE FICTITIOUS SHAHBAZ regard to Prince Murad BakPsh, a man of good qualities and an excellent soldier, I am innocent of his death. It was due to the demands of justice. Nor was he fit to reign, for he was a heretic, as I have ascertained since his death. If God made me emperor, it was from no other cause than that I had been ever a faithful defender of the Quran. Against my design and my will, which was to live as a poor faqir, I was exalted above other men, because that just Lord, who raises the meek and abases the haughty, had so determined.’ I know quite well that some instructed reader will censure this history as not true, if I say to him that Aurangzeb killed the eunuch Shahbaz. I do not condemn the wisdom of a reader who so judges, for there are some historians who assert that the said eunuch continued alive and went to Bengal. Nor can I much blame those writers, for it was the opinion of many that so it was, as they will see in this my short narrative which I insert here, a s it has little concern with what follows. To accomplish his wrongful acts Aurangzeb [280] had re- course to artifice. After he had become absolute, and Shah Shuja‘ was ruined, he gave certain orders to one of his eunuchs called Faim (Fahim). This man pretended to be Shahbaz, the eunuch of Murad Bakhsh, and went to live in the province of Bengal. Lands were assigned to him which yielded him a suffi- cient income to support himself in comfort. He ate and drank and amused himself with pastimes. He was fond of the chase and of conversations with Europeans and other foreigners. He always praised the valour of Murad Bakhsh. and claimed to have been faithful to his prince. Aurangzeb acted thus solely that foreign nations should not speak against him, and say he had killed a eunuch so prudent and so loyal to his master. Be it known to the reader that if the said eunuch was sent to Bengal it was by reason of its being frequented by many traders of various nations. He was not sent to Gujarat or to the Dakhin for fear that he might be re- cognised, and then no one would give credit to his assertions. He might certainly have been sent to Kabul or Kashmir ; but since in those places there were no traders from foreign nations, like there are in Bengal, he was therefore sent to that region, VOL. I. 25