Aurangzeb (1658–1707): expansion and reversal

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Shah Jahan fell ill in 1657. He wanted the throne to go to his eldest son, Dara Shikoh.
Mughal rule had no fixed law of succession. So the sons fought. The winner took all.
Aurangzeb beat Dara Shikoh in a series of battles. He then executed Dara and sent his cut-off head to their father.
His other brothers met the same kind of end:
one brother was arrested and executed;
one brother was driven into exile.
Shah Jahan was locked up in the Agra Fort and stayed a prisoner there until he died.
Aurangzeb crowned himself in 1658. He took the title 'Alamgir' — "conqueror of the world" (also read as "world-seizer"/"world-holder") [2].
He ruled for almost 49 years, the longest of the six great Mughals.

Aurangzeb was skilled in military matters. He conquered parts of the south, and the empire grew to its greatest size under him.
Two big Deccan annexations mark the peak:
Bijapur, annexed 1686 [2];
Golconda, annexed 1687 [2].
A court chronicle of his reign, the Maasir-i-Alamgiri, records the history of "the Emperor Aurangzib-Alamgir, reign 1658–1707 AD" — it is a main written source for these campaigns [3].

Bold parent fact: the win in the south became the trap.
Aurangzeb spent his last 25 years fighting war after war in the Deccan.
Those armies had to be paid and fed. This emptied the treasury.
It also strained the administration — officers were far from the centre, and control weakened.
Even after all that fighting, he had not crushed the Marathas of the Deccan when he died in 1707 [2].
Heavy taxes, including the re-imposed jizya, made the farming population poorer over time [2].
By his death, his authority was being disputed across his lands [2]. Historians often treat the Deccan drain as a key reason Mughal power fell apart fast after 1707.
A building shows the money squeeze. Bibi-ka-Maqbara at Aurangabad was built in 1679 for his wife Rabia-ul-Daurani, also called Dilras Banu Begum [4]. It copies the Taj Mahal's shape — central dome, four minarets, wide square plinth — but is smaller and plainer, and is called the "Taj of the Deccan" [4].

He was a deeply religious, austere Sunni. "Austere" means plain living, no luxury.
Unlike Akbar, he observed all the rituals of his faith himself.
He banned music and dance at court, calling them un-Islamic.
He brought back two taxes that Akbar had abolished:
jizya — a tax on non-Muslims (a poll tax on "unbelievers") [2];
a pilgrimage tax on Hindus.
He also kept Hindus out of public offices and destroyed their schools and temples; his persecution of the Sikhs of Punjab turned that community against Mughal rule [2].

One view: motives were mainly political.
Scholars holding this view say he acted to establish dominance, not out of belief.
Their evidence: he gave grants and assurances of protection to some temples.
The NCERT position: politics played a part, but his own farmans make the personal religious motive clear too. A farman is a royal written order.
The key proof is his 1669 order to all governors: "to demolish schools and temples of the infidels and put down their teachings and religious practices."
What followed:
Temples at Banaras, Mathura and Somnath, among many others, were destroyed.
Jain temples and Sikh gurudwaras were destroyed too.
He persecuted Sufis and other Muslim sects — so the target was not only non-Muslims.
He also persecuted Zoroastrians (the religion of the Parsis).

His despairing last letters to two sons say: "I came alone and am going away alone. I know not who I am and what I have been doing… I have not done well for the country and the people, and of the future there is no hope."
His grave matches that mood. He is buried at Khuldabad, near Aurangabad, Maharashtra — a modest, open-air grave in the courtyard of the shrine of the Sufi saint Shaikh Burhan-u'd-din Gharib [5]. No dome, no marble tomb like Humayun's or Akbar's.
The Tomb of Aurangzeb is an ASI-protected monument, part of a larger funerary complex that also holds the grave of his son Azam Shah and other family members [5][6].
The succession fight repeated at once: the Battle of Jajau (1707) was fought between his sons right after his death [2].

Aurangzeb crowned himself in 1658 with the title 'Alamgir' — "conqueror of the world" — and ruled about 49 years, to 1707.
Dara Shikoh was Shah Jahan's eldest son and his choice for the throne; Aurangzeb executed him and sent his head to Shah Jahan.
Shah Jahan died a prisoner in the Agra Fort.
Bijapur was annexed in 1686; Golconda in 1687 [2].
Jizya and the Hindu pilgrimage tax, both abolished by Akbar, were re-imposed by Aurangzeb.
The 1669 farman ordered all governors to demolish the schools and temples of non-believers.
Temples destroyed included those at Banaras, Mathura and Somnath; Jain temples and Sikh gurudwaras too.
Bibi-ka-Maqbara, Aurangabad, built 1679 for Dilras Banu Begum (Rabia-ul-Daurani), is called the "Taj of the Deccan" [4].
Aurangzeb's plain open-air grave is at Khuldabad, in the shrine courtyard of Sufi saint Shaikh Burhan-u'd-din Gharib [5].
Maasir-i-Alamgiri is the court history of his reign, 1658–1707 [3].
He did not defeat the Marathas — they were still unbroken at his death in 1707 [2].

Peak size is not peak strength. The empire was largest under Aurangzeb, yet the same Deccan campaigns that made it large drained the treasury, stretched the administration thin, and taxed peasants harder [2]. Use this to argue that territorial expansion without fiscal capacity causes collapse — the classic "imperial overstretch" line for GS-I decline questions.
The motive debate is a ready-made "critically examine" answer. Present both sides: the political-dominance reading (temple grants and protection orders) versus the NCERT reading (the 1669 farman shows a personal religious motive as well). The NCERT verdict is "both, but the religious motive is clear from his own orders."
His policy widened the base of opposition. Jizya, the pilgrimage tax, temple demolition, and persecution of Sikhs, Jains, Sufis, other Muslim sects and Zoroastrians turned many groups — not only Hindus — against Mughal rule [2]. Link this to the rise of the Marathas, Sikhs and Jats as successor powers after 1707.
Compare Akbar and Aurangzeb as two models of rule. Akbar's conciliation (jizya abolished, rituals relaxed) versus Aurangzeb's orthodoxy (jizya restored, music banned) is the cleanest way to show how legitimacy, not just armies, held a diverse empire together.