Unmarked, Unnoticed, Austerly Simple And Open Grave Of Aurangzeb Alamgeer — Last Great Mughal Emperor
Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgeer was many things to many people but who was he? While all of Aurangzeb’s forefathers had grand resting places, he chose a bare minimum one and even decided to pay for it from his own personal expenses. Why did he choose to do that? It is hard to describe how simple the grave is. There’s hardly anything around it. There’s a simple grave with a plant at the center surrounded by mud which is covered with a white cloth lead through a non-descript lane you have to walk via dusty other lanes with nothing, no structure worth noting on the way to it — the whole journey to his grave perplexes your brain.
I had never before given the last great Mughal’s final resting place a thought, probably because nobody spoke of it. The emperor was not so much known for aesthetic sense as for orthodoxy, ruthlessness and puritanism, in stark contrast with the sybaritic tastes, connoisseurship and liberalism of his forefathers. No wonder they were entombed in such stately mausoleums by which they are still remembered. The first Mughal, Babur, was buried in a garden named after himself in Afghanistan. Akbar constructed the tomb of his father, Humayun, in Delhi, and it is the first of the grand dynastic mausoleums that came to symbolize the magnificence and elegance of Mughal architecture. Akbar’s tomb at Sikandra is also considered an architectural masterpiece. Jahangir was buried at Shahdara Bagh in Lahore, Pakistan, in a most magnificent edifice. Shah Jahan died in captivity, and he was, in keeping with his wishes, buried next to his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, under the huge dome of the Taj Mahal; their stone sarcophagi were embellished with pietra dura. Later, his son, Aurangzeb — not known for his fine taste in art — installed a delicate, pierced marble screen encircling the graves of both his parents, and it is considered a masterwork of Mughal art.
On Friday, the 4th of March, 1707, at 8 am, in the fiftieth year of his reign, Aurangzeb Alamgir died after performing morning prayers. He was 89 years old and a deeply pious man. Unlike all his predecessors, he believed that the state treasury was not his personal property and stitched caps and copied Qur’ans which were anonymously sold to earn him the money he needed to buy the plot of land for his grave. A simple red stone slab, three yards long, two yards wide, and a few inches deep with a hollowed-out centre marks the spot. The slab itself bears no inscription whatsoever, allowing a small portion of the grave to remain open to the sky. Here a small “sabza” shrub grows. The grave is inside the “Dargah” or tomb complex, of Sheikh Zainuddin Shirazi, a Sufi saint of the Chishti order, who it is said, Aurangzeb felt deeply inspired by. The cost of the tomb is said to have been only 14 rupees and 12 annas.
When erstwhile British Viceroy, Lord Curzon visited the tomb he was horrified to see how simple it was and so requested Nizam of Hyderabad, who then ruled over the land to construct marble wall around it. Roof was still kept open, uncovered with only sky as its covering as per his wishes.
It is said that Aurangzeb Alamgeer asked his sons to collect 4 rupees and 2 annas from his mahaldar, who kept this money on the emperor’s behalf. This money was earned by the emperor through sewing caps (used during prayer). Then he asks his sons to collect three hundred five rupees from his purse and distribute it to faqirs (beggars) on the day of his death. This money was the wage earned by copying the Quran.
