A well-researched biography of the favoured son of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal

ultan 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.