Emperor Aurangzeb's grave... Alamgir was many things to many people but who was he really? While all of Aurangzeb’s forefathers had grand resting places, he himself chose a bare minimum one and even opted to pay for it from his own pocket. Why did he chose to do that? It is hard to describe how simple the grave really is. There's hardly anything around it. There's simple grave at center with a plant surrounded by mud which is covered with a white cloth in a non-descript lane which you have to walk via dusty other lanes with nothing, no structure worth noting on the way to it - whole journey to his grave perplexes your brain.
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, 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 ordered Nizam 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 Alamgir 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.
Last slide is a painting of the tomb by the British artist William Carpenter in the 1850s.
