124

AURANGZIB THE PURITAN EMPEROR or the splendid ease of Shah Jahau. The Hindus would have preferred anything to a Mohammedan bigot. The Rajput princes only wanted to be let alone. The Dec- can would never have troubled Hindustan if Hindustan had not invaded it. Probably any other Moghul prince would have followed in the steps of the kings his fore- HINDf MUilOTAHS. fathers, and emulated the indolence and vice of the luxurious court in which he had received his earliest impressions. Aurangzib did none of these things. For the first time in their history the Moghuls beheld a rigid Mos- lem in their emperor a Moslem as sternly repressive of himself as of the people around him, a king who was