Dara Shikoh

• 1. Introduction

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  Dara Shikoh was born on the 20th of March 1615 in Ajmer, Rajasthan. His father, who would soon ascend the Mughal throne as Shah Jahan, gave him a Persian name that works in two ways. Spelled Shikoh, it means terror. Spelled Shukoh, it means majesty or grandeur. Historian Ebba Koch favors the second reading. Either way, Dara grew into a figure of uncommon learning and devotion. His father formally designated him heir-apparent in 1633. Both Shah Jahan and Princess Jahanara Begum, Dara's elder sister, considered him the natural next emperor. He studied the Quran, Persian poetry, calligraphy and history as a boy. He later added Hindi, Arabic and Sanskrit to the languages he already knew. His native tongue was Persian, but his intellectual reach extended far beyond it. He became convinced that the mystical heart of Islam and the mystical heart of Hinduism were, at their deepest level, one and the same. That conviction fueled decades of scholarship and made powerful enemies in equal measure. Historians have long debated what the history of the subcontinent might have been had Dara prevailed. When Shah Jahan fell gravely ill in September 1657, his four sons went to war for the throne. Dara was defeated by his younger brother Prince Muhiuddin, who would reign as the Emperor Aurangzeb. Executed on the 30th of August 1659 at age forty-four, he was buried in an unmarked grave that no one would identify for centuries.

• 2. The Sufi Path

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  The Sikhs invited Mian Mir, the Qadiri Sufi saint of Lahore, to lay the foundation stone of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. This gesture of cross-community respect was a measure of Mian Mir's standing. It was through Mullah Shah Badakhshi, Mian Mir's spiritual disciple and later successor, that Dara Shikoh was first introduced to the saint. The encounter shaped Dara's inner life in lasting ways. Dara also became a follower of Sarmad Kashani, an Armenian Sufi-perennialist mystic. Sarmad Kashani was drawn to the same questions about the unity of religious truth that occupied Dara's developing thought. These connections placed Dara inside a network of teachers and seekers who moved freely across traditions. Dara formed a personal friendship with the seventh Sikh Guru, Guru Har Rai. A bond like this between a Mughal prince and a Sikh leader was uncommon for the era. That same impulse drove Dara toward the translation projects that would define his scholarly reputation.

• 3. Bridging Two Seas

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  Between 1654 and 1655, Dara Shikoh completed a short treatise in Persian called Majma-ul-Bahrain. The title translates as "The Confluence of the Two Seas." Its purpose was to illuminate the mystical and pluralistic affinities between Sufi thought in Islam and Vedantic thought in Hinduism. In 1657, Dara completed a translation of fifty Upanishads from Sanskrit into Persian. He wanted Muslim scholars to have direct access to these texts. He called the work Sirr-i-Akbar, meaning "The Greatest Mystery." In its introduction, Dara made a bold argument. He proposed that the text the Quran identifies as the "Kitab al-maknun," the hidden book, is none other than the Upanishads.

  Dara also commissioned a Persian translation of the Yoga Vasistha. The project began after both Vasistha and Rama appeared to him in a dream. The translation was carried out by Nizam al-Din Panipati and came to be known as the Jug-Basisht. The Safavid-era mystic Mir Findiriski, who died in 1641, commented on selected passages of the Jug-Basisht. His engagement with the work shows that Dara's translations were already reaching scholars far outside the Mughal court.

• 4. A Prince's Gallery

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  Dara Shikoh married his half-cousin Princess Nadira Banu Begum on the 1st of February 1633 at Agra. By all accounts, the two were devoted to each other. Unlike most Mughal noblemen of his time, Dara never contracted another marriage. The couple had seven children. Among those who survived were three sons, Sulaiman Shikoh, Mumtaz Shikoh and Sipihr Shikoh, and a daughter, Jahanzeb Banu Begum.

  In 1641, Dara gave Nadira Banu a collection of paintings and calligraphy he had assembled from the 1630s. This collection is now known as the Dara Shikoh Album. It is one of the few Mughal albums that preserve their original miniatures, calligraphy and covers intact. Among its surviving paintings are two facing pages from the early 1630s, depicting two ascetics in yogic postures. These are attributed to the artist Govardhan. The album also holds pictures of Muslim ascetics and divines, a set of images that together reflect Dara's deep interest in religious life across traditions.

  In Lahore, Dara commissioned the tomb of Nadira Banu Begum and the Shrine of Mian Mir. In Srinagar, he built the Akhund Mullah Shah Masjid and the Pari Mahal garden palace. A library he raised in Delhi in 1637 still stands at Kashmiri Gate, on the grounds of Ambedkar University. The Archaeological Survey of India now operates it as a museum.

  After Nadira Banu died, the album was absorbed into the royal library. Inscriptions connecting it to Dara were deliberately removed. Many calligraphy scripts and paintings still bear his mark, and his three sons and daughter each survived to be drawn into the struggle that followed.

• 5. The Fatal War

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  Shah Shuja declared himself Mughal Emperor in Bengal and began marching his forces toward Agra from the east. Murad Baksh allied himself with Aurangzeb, leaving Dara to face two brothers at once.

  Dara's final military stand came at the battle of Deorai, near Ajmer, on the 11th of March 1659. Before that defeat, he had already fled across much of the subcontinent. He moved from Agra to Delhi, then to Lahore, then through Multan and Thatta in Sindh. Crossing the Rann of Kachchh, he reached Kathiawar. There, Shah Nawaz Khan, the governor of Gujarat, opened the treasury and helped him raise a new army. Dara occupied Surat and advanced toward Ajmer. He sought support from Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Marwar, a powerful Rajput feudatory. Maharaja Jaswant Singh declined to commit. At Deorai, Aurangzeb's forces defeated him comprehensively.

  He fled back to Sindh and sought refuge with Malik Jeevan, an Afghan chieftain also known as Junaid Khan Barozai. Dara had saved this chieftain's life more than once from Shah Jahan's anger. Malik Jeevan seized Dara by the wrist and sent word to Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb's forces took Dara into custody on the 10th of June 1659. In Delhi, he was placed on a filthy elephant and paraded through the streets in chains. A convocation of nobles and clergy declared him a threat to public peace and an apostate from Islam. Four of Aurangzeb's henchmen killed him that night in front of his terrified son.

  The Venetian traveler Niccolao Manucci served in the Mughal court and recorded what followed. According to Manucci, Aurangzeb inspected the severed head and struck it three more times with his sword. He ordered it sealed in a box and sent to Shah Jahan during the old king's evening meal in prison. Guards told Shah Jahan that Aurangzeb had sent the box so he would not be forgotten. Shah Jahan, unaware of what the box contained, said "Blessed be God that my son still remembers me." When he opened it, he fell unconscious. Dara's remains were placed inside Humayun's Tomb in Delhi, among more than a hundred other graves in the complex's many chambers.

• 6. Lost and Found

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  In 2020, Sanjeev Kumar Singh, an engineer at the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, made an announcement. After four years of research, he had identified what he concluded was the specific grave of Dara Shikoh. Singh placed the grave under one of three cenotaphs in the northwestern chamber, beneath the dome of Humayun's Tomb. His research drew on the Alamgirnama, a biography of Aurangzeb that states Dara was buried below the dome alongside Akbar's sons Danyal and Murad. The relevant passage was translated for Singh by Prof. Aleem Ashraf Khan, Head of the Persian Department at Delhi University. Singh also examined the architectural style of the cenotaphs, which he found consistent with the period of Dara's death.

  On the 26th of February 2020, the Archaeological Survey of India launched a project to examine all 140 graves across 120 chambers in the complex. The effort is difficult because the graves carry no identifying inscriptions. Five of the seven expert committee members have backed Singh's conclusions. Among them are retired ASI Additional Director General Dr. B.R. Mani and retired ASI Joint Director General Dr. K.N. Dikshit. Padma Shri K.K. Muhammed, former ASI Director of the Northern Region, also joined their number. Dr. Syed Jamal Hassan, former ASI Director of Archaeology, has expressed doubt, citing the lack of inscriptions and confirming references. Padma Bhushan Irfan Habib, Professor Emeritus at Aligarh Muslim University, stated that the identification "seems to be quite definitive and should secure general acceptance." Singh published his research in Purapravah, an international journal of archaeology and history.

  In 2017, the New Delhi Municipal Council renamed Dalhousie Road in central Delhi to Dara Shikoh Road. The novelist Mohsin Hamid made Dara Shikoh the protagonist of his 2000 novel Moth Smoke, reimagining his trial in contemporary Pakistan. The Bengali writer Shyamal Gangapadhyay's novel on his life won the Sahitya Academy Award in 1993. Following the AMU Centenary Dara Shikoh Conference in December 2021, all written works by and about him became accessible through a dedicated digital library.