History of Aurangzib (Five Volumes)
Overview
Published between 1912 and 1924, Jadunath Sarkar’s History of Aurangzib in five volumes constitutes the magnum opus of early twentieth-century Indian historiography and remains the most comprehensive scholarly biography of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707). The work consumed a quarter-century of Sarkar’s productive life and marked the first instance of an Indian historian producing a multi-volume critical history based on systematic archival research and source analysis. Sarkar’s study drew extensively on Persian state chronicles, particularly Khafi Khan’s Muntakhab al-Lubab and Saqi Mustaid Khan’s Maasir-i-Alamgiri, the latter of which Sarkar himself translated into English in 1947. The work synthesized evidence from unpublished Persian manuscripts, Marathi bakhar literature, European factory records from Dutch and English East India Company sources, imperial farmans, and official correspondence, including the critical collection of letters between Aurangzeb and his general Mirza Raja Jai Singh discovered by Sarkar. This documentary foundation enabled Sarkar to reconstruct Aurangzeb’s forty-nine-year reign in unprecedented detail, covering the period when the Mughal Empire reached its maximum territorial extent, spanning nearly the entire Indian subcontinent and contributing approximately twenty-five percent of global GDP.
The volumes analyze Aurangzeb’s complex legacy through examination of his religious policies, including the reimposition of jizya in 1679 after a century’s absence and temple destructions such as the Vishvanath Temple at Varanasi in 1669, alongside his extensive employment of Hindu administrators who comprised 31.6 percent of officials by 1707. Sarkar documented the decades-long Deccan campaigns that culminated in the conquests of Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687), the prolonged conflicts with the rising Maratha power, military engagements with Sikhs following the execution of Guru Tegh Bahadur in 1675, and campaigns against the Ahoms in northeastern regions. The work examines administrative reforms including the implementation of zabt revenue assessment in the Deccan, the codification of Hanafi law through the Fatawa ‘Alamgiri, and the fiscal apparatus that generated approximately one hundred million pounds annually, exceeding Louis XIV’s France tenfold, while Aurangzeb remitted over eighty long-standing taxes early in his reign. Sarkar’s analysis identified emerging contradictions between territorial expansion and administrative overextension, the mounting financial burdens of continuous military campaigns, and the religious opposition that accompanied orthodox policies, establishing interpretive frameworks that shaped Aurangzeb scholarship for subsequent generations.
About the Author — Jadunath Sarkar
Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958), born in Karachmaria village, Rajshahi district (now Bangladesh) on December 10, 1870, pioneered modern critical historiography in Indian academia through application of European source-critical methodology to Indian medieval history. After graduating from Presidency College, Calcutta in English (1891) and earning his Master of Arts from Calcutta University (1892), receiving the Premchand-Roychand Scholarship in 1897, Sarkar transitioned from English literature instruction to historical research. His academic career included faculty positions at Ripon College (1893), Presidency College (1898), Benaras Hindu University as instructor in modern Indian history (1917-1919), Ravenshaw College teaching English and history (1919-1923), Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University (August 1926-1928), and Sir W. Meyer Lecturer at Madras University (1928 onward). Sarkar taught himself Persian from the alphabet to master unpublished manuscript sources, declaring “Aurangzib is my life’s work; Shivaji is only an incidental off-shoot of it,” which reflected his concentration on Mughal military tactics and sieges.
Sarkar’s methodology combined rigorous archival research with extensive fieldwork, personally copying rare manuscripts by hand during weeks spent in libraries and archives, procuring microfilm copies from institutions including the British Library in London, and visiting historical sites such as Panipat to study battlefield topography firsthand rather than relying on secondary accounts. His work synthesized the tradition of critical historiography practiced by European historians Ranke, Niebuhr, and Mommsen with literary craftsmanship and command of Persian-language sources. Recognition for his scholarship included the Griffith Prize from University of Calcutta (1904), election as Honorary Member of the Royal Asiatic Society and Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal (1923), appointment as Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (1926), knighthood by King George V with investiture on August 22, 1929, corresponding membership in the Royal Historical Society (1935-1950), honorary membership in the American Historical Association as the first Indian historian to receive this distinction, and multiple honorary doctorates. Contemporary colonial scholar Denison Ross stated Sarkar’s work “might as well serve as a model to writers dealing with periods of Indo-Musalman history.” His prolific output included India of Aurangzib: Its Topography, Statistics and Roads (1901), hailed as “a model of neat and exact scholarship,” Shivaji and His Times (1919), The Fall of the Mughal Empire in four volumes (1932-1938), and The History of Bengal in two volumes (1943-1948).
The Work
Scope and Methodology:
The five volumes follow a chronological and thematic structure: Volume I covers the reign of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb’s princely years (1618-1657), Volume II examines the War of Succession (1658-1659) in which Aurangzeb defeated his brothers including the liberal-minded Dara Shikoh and imprisoned his father Shah Jahan in Agra Fort where the latter remained until death in 1666, Volume III analyzes the first half of Aurangzeb’s reign in northern India (1658-1681), Volume IV focuses on southern India and Deccan affairs (1645-1689), and Volume V chronicles the closing years and Deccan campaigns (1689-1707). Sarkar’s archival methodology involved systematic comparison of multiple Persian chronicle versions, particularly contrasting Khafi Khan and Saqi Mustaid Khan’s accounts to establish factual accuracy and identify historiographical bias. The work incorporated evidence from official Mughal documents including farmans and state papers, correspondence between emperor and provincial administrators and military commanders, Marathi historical narratives documenting Maratha-Mughal interactions, and European commercial records from Dutch and English factories that provided external perspectives on Mughal court politics and military campaigns. Sarkar’s analysis examined religious policy evolution, documenting both temple destruction orders and simultaneous firmans supporting Hindu religious institutions, revealing contradictions between orthodox ideology and pragmatic governance. The volumes reconstructed Rajput relations including diplomatic marriages, military alliances, and eventual alienation, detailed Deccan expansion strategy and logistics of prolonged southern campaigns, analyzed administrative reforms including revenue assessment systems and bureaucratic structures, and examined the breakdown of the jagirdari system under fiscal pressures created by continuous warfare.
Historical Context:
Sarkar situated Aurangzeb’s reign within the broader trajectory of Mughal imperial expansion and decline, documenting the empire’s achievement of maximum territorial extent while identifying systemic vulnerabilities that prefigured eighteenth-century disintegration. The work analyzed prolonged wars with Marathas under Shivaji and his successors, military conflicts with Sikhs in Punjab following Guru Tegh Bahadur’s execution, campaigns against Ahoms in northeastern frontier regions, and the annexation of Bijapur and Golconda sultanates. Sarkar examined the mounting fiscal crisis generated by decades of Deccan campaigning, calculating the enormous costs of maintaining armies in southern India while imperial revenues failed to expand proportionally with territorial acquisitions. The study documented the breakdown of the jagirdari system as competition for productive land assignments intensified among nobility, creating factional conflicts that would accelerate after Aurangzeb’s death. Analysis of religious policy encompassed the reimposition of jizya, enforcement of Islamic law through the Fatawa ‘Alamgiri, destruction of prominent temples, prohibition of Hindu festivals at court, and simultaneous employment of unprecedented numbers of Hindu administrators and Rajput commanders, revealing the tensions between Aurangzeb’s personal orthodoxy and imperial administrative requirements. Sarkar documented Aurangzeb’s personal austerity, administrative competence in managing vast bureaucratic apparatus, strategic acumen in military campaigns, and the contradiction between successful territorial expansion and erosion of imperial stability through policies that alienated Hindu elites and overextended military and fiscal resources.
Significance
Contemporary Reception:
The History of Aurangzib established new standards for Mughal historiography through systematic use of archival sources rather than reliance on British colonial administrative reports or secondary syntheses. Colonial British scholars acknowledged Sarkar’s authority, with Denison Ross recommending the work as a methodological model for Indo-Muslim historical studies. The publication of Volume I (1912) and final Volume V (1924) demonstrated sustained archival research over twelve years of active publication. Muslim scholars criticized Sarkar’s interpretations of Aurangzeb’s religious policies while unable to match his command of Persian manuscript sources. Sarkar’s 1928 synthesis bequeathed the interpretation of Aurangzeb that predominated in popular imagination for decades, suggesting the emperor intended establishing an Islamic state through mass conversion, an argument developed further in his Fall of the Mughal Empire (1932) which emphasized “Hindu reaction” against Aurangzeb as a factor in imperial decline.
Later Assessment:
Post-independence Indian historiography witnessed significant revision of Sarkar’s interpretative frameworks, particularly through Marxist and institutional economic analyses that challenged his emphasis on individual agency and religious policy. R.P. Tripathi encouraged Satish Chandra to scrutinize Sarkar’s assertions about eighteenth-century Mughal decline, leading to Chandra’s Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707-40 (1959), which argued that growing factional struggles within nobility for productive jagirs explained imperial weakness more convincingly than Aurangzeb’s religious policies, which Chandra demonstrated were abandoned within six years of the emperor’s death. Chandra’s study deliberately “shifted discussion on the fall of the Mughal empire from the acts of omissions and commissions of individuals, especially Aurangzeb, to the larger social, economic, and institutional cum administrative processes,” representing methodological transformation from political and religious narratives toward structural and economic analysis. Despite scholarly revision, Sarkar’s work remained foundational, with later historians building upon rather than displacing his documentary research. The advent of Marxist and postcolonial historiography diminished Sarkar’s prominence in academic discourse, though his archival discoveries and source compilations retained scholarly utility. Contemporary assessments acknowledge interpretive limitations while recognizing the work’s achievement in establishing documentary foundations for Aurangzeb studies and demonstrating feasibility of critical Indian scholarship on medieval Indian history using original Persian and Marathi sources.
Value for Researchers:
The History of Aurangzib provides comprehensive narrative reconstruction of the longest Mughal reign based on systematic documentary evidence, serving as indispensable starting point for specialized studies of seventeenth-century Mughal politics, administration, military history, and religious policy. Sarkar’s translations and citations of Persian sources, including his 1947 English translation of Maasir-i-Alamgiri, made manuscript evidence accessible to researchers without Persian-language competence. The work’s detailed examination of military campaigns, siege warfare tactics, diplomatic negotiations, and administrative operations provides factual foundation for understanding Mughal state functioning at its territorial zenith. Citations of specific farmans, official correspondence, and chronicle passages enable verification and further investigation of documentary sources. The volumes’ analysis of Aurangzeb’s Deccan strategy, Maratha relations, Rajput diplomacy, Sikh conflicts, and religious policy debates established research agendas pursued by subsequent generations of historians. While interpretive frameworks require supplementation by institutional economic analysis, subaltern perspectives, and revised understanding of Mughal administrative evolution, Sarkar’s documentary compilation retains permanent scholarly value as comprehensive synthesis of accessible archival evidence. The work demonstrates methodological rigor in source comparison, critical evaluation of chronicle bias, and synthesis of diverse documentary genres including state papers, private correspondence, European commercial records, and indigenous historical narratives, establishing standards for multi-source reconstruction of Mughal political history.
Digital Access
- Internet Archive - Volume I
- Internet Archive - Volume II
- Internet Archive - Volume III
- Internet Archive - Volume IV
- Internet Archive - Volume V
- Wikisource
Note: This description was generated with assistance from Claude (Anthropic).