Paper short abstract:

The complexity of Aurangzeb’s character can be seen by comparing narratives in which Mir Jafar Zatalli ridicules Aurangzeb physically and assuages his sense of Justice as an Emperor to alternative works where he has the highest regard for his strength of character and military prowess in the face of crisis.

Paper long abstract:

Kaha ab paiye aisa Shahanshah

Mukammal akmal va kamil dil agah ?

Mir Jafar Zatalli (1658-1713), the author of Zatalnamah is better known for his scathing comments on everyone and for painting a portrait of moral and political decline in the eighteenth century where greed and backstabbing were flourishing. According to Zatalli, the solution to these socio- political problems was to go back to Aurangzeb's reign. In fact he holds his usually scathing tongue and praises the Emperor and his administrative abilities which supposedly held the entire Empire together in the time of crisis.

On the one hand, Zatalli has composed poems eulogizing Aurangzeb. Even though he gives him back handed compliments, he thinks that at least in Aurangzeb's reign the world was still habitable but after his death it seems that political and social life were deteriorating sharply.

On the other hand, he constantly ridicules Emperor Aurangzeb by writing extremely impudent and often obscene 'Court Journal' of the royal commands given by the Emperor during Court proceedings. Aurangzeb is depicted as listening to reports of some malfeasance or public discontent or of some vulgar sexual activity each day. Aurangzeb responds to it in a similar bawdy fashion.

It is difficult to decide which the more mordant satire on the emperor: a court where bawdy sexualities are reported as events of state, or a court where the Emperor receives report of a wrongdoing but laughs it off with a vulgar riposte. The paper hopes to explore the complex, often contradictory depiction of Aurangzeb's reign in Zatalli's work.