Dara Shukoh

A well-researched biography of the favoured son of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal Sultan Muhammad Dara Shukoh (1615 – 1659) was the eldest son and heir apparent to Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal. His name in Persian means ‘Darius the Magnificent’. A Sufi at heart, Dara Shukoh is known to be an advocate of the heterodox traditions in the Mughal Empire. An erudite scholar, he had studied all faiths, translated fifty-two Upanishads and many other texts from different religions into Persian. He was favoured as a successor by his father and his sister Jahanara Begum, but was defeated by his younger brother Aurangzeb in a bitter struggle for the imperial throne. The course of the history of the Indian subcontinent, had Dara prevailed over Aurangzeb, has been a matter of great conjecture among historians. Navin Pant’s well-researched and lucid biography of the royal prince is one of the very few books written on his life, and it reveals to us some lesser-known facts about Dara Shukoh.