LETTER: AURANGZEB TO HIS TEACHER
Aurangzeb would have given his
teacher the highest position in his empire had the latter taught him properly.
He asks a straightforward and embarrassing question. He wants to know from his
teacher what reward he wants from the emperor. He makes it clear that he could
have jolly well appointed him his couriter or in a higher post had he taught
him well in his childhood. A father who teaches properly is more respectable
than a father. This feeling of Aurangzeb should be accepted as true. It shows
that he honours good teachers. This teacher had given him false information
about various kings of the world. He was taught that the kings of European
states, Holland, England, Spain were very small and weak. He was taught that
kings of China, Burma and Russia were also petty. This misinformation (wrong facts) was given to him with the view to make
him feel that Indian kings were the most powerful in the whole world. Thus, the
teacher fed wrong information (taught wrong facts) into the young brain of the
prince. What was the purpose of this education – this false way of teaching? It
was only to make the prince vain about his position. The teacher filled him
with false vanity and pride.
The teacher failed miserably to
motivate the prince to objectively (impartially) read various histories to assess his own
strength. It was the duty of the teacher to first understand and then teach
Aurangzeb various states along with their strength, their war strategy (ways of
fighting) their customs, their religions, their political and administrative
set-ups, their public welfare programmes, their progress in various fields,
their fall and the reasons for such falls. A teacher teaching a prince must
teach him to avoid the mistakes committed by other kings so as to rule
smoothly. A good teacher teaching a prince should prepare him to successfully
discharge his duty as a king in the later years. This is possible only if he
gives him a comparative analysis of
kings and their administration. Forget the history of other people, the teacher
has not cared to teach him the history of his own forefathers, the founders of the Moghul empire in India.
The teacher did not care to teach him the means and ways his fore-fathers
adopted to establish a powerful empire in India. Thus, the teacher failed on
the home front (history of his own
family, as well. Kingdoms will crumble if such princes were to rule after their
such teachings.
Aurangzeb blames his teacher for
fixing wrong priorities (subject) to teach. The teacher had
planned to make Aurangzeb a great scholar of Arabic language and literature.
The teacher conviently forgot that the prince was not to become a Arabic
grammarian or a poet but the king after his father’s death. It is a sheer waste
of time for a they don’t concern his job. A king has to deal with very grave and serious issues and he needs
much commonsense for that. Learning of words does not stand him in good stead
in this direction. Aurangzeb rightly condemns his former teacher for having
mistaught him. A teacher must know what his pupil needs. Once he chooses a
wrong direction knowingly or otherwise, he is to blame for ruining the career
of the child. A prince should not be given the details of words but the details
of the world he has to deal with. Don’t teach him grammar in detail but the
ways to run the administration. The views expressed by Aurangzeb are perfectly
valid even today.
Aurangzeb pinpoints (make
a special mention) the lapses of his
former teacher. He is of the confirmed (sure) view that the child must be
taught in his mother tongue. Education through mother tongue is always better
than through any other language. The child learns fast and remembers for all
his life the things taught to him in his childhood days if the teaching is done
through his mother tongue. Aurangzeb feels he was wasted his childhood in
learning science, law language through the medium of Arabic. He feels so sorry
for his teacher who taught him philosophical
abstractions (only ideas) which were very hard to understand and were
useless in real life. He felt how he confused him with very big and difficult
philosophic concepts (ideas). Those words would confuse even the best of
scholars. Even the best scholars would not know their actual meaning. His
teachers taught him hard philosophical concepts as if he were the most competent (able) man to teach
philosophy. The fact is that all incompetent and ignorant men use high words to
conceal (hide) their incompetence (inability). Aurangzeb speaks out of disgust
and despair and bitterness (anger).
His bitterness against his teacher is greatly justified. He wishes that his
teacher would have taught him the way to build fortitude and unshakable
self-confidence. He should have been taught to remain calm both in
prosperity and adversity. He should have taught him about human life, about the
universe and all noble thins. Had he ennobled (made better) his mind and soul,
given him spiritual and moral strength to face the world like a hero, he would
have been more devoted to him than was Alexander to Aristotle. He should have
taught him the duty of the king to his people, and the people’s duty to their
king. He should have taught him the ability to run the administration in a good
manner. He should have been taught how to lead his army to war successfully and
defeat the enemy. He tells his former teacher or flatterer to go and live in
his obscure village so that he does not ruin the career of other people. Let
others not know through the king or through his bad teaching what a bad man he
is. No one knows whether his former tutor left for his village. But it is a
fact no one respects him in the history of the Moghul empire.
Question and Answers
1.
What sort of
philosophy teaching would have helped Aurangzeb?
Philosophy
teaches us how to think rightly, freely and methodically. This type of
philosophy teaching would have helped Aurangzeb in the running of his
administration.
2.
How could the
teacher teach him to be a better and efficient king?
The
teacher would have done a good job had he taught him his duties towards the
people, people’s duties towards him, the use of power to be successful in his
kingdom, the art of besieging a town and raising the army.
3.
What is
Aurangzeb’s attitude towards his former teacher?
Aurangzeb
is critical of his way of teaching, the subjects that he taught and the desire
for money. He is angry with him but requests him politely to go back to the
village where he came from and live unknown.
4.
What should
Mullah Sahe have taught Aurangzeb?
It
was the professional duty very comprehensively the war strategies, customs,
religions, administrative set-ups, rise and fall, mistakes done by heads of
states rebellions and other such things of the states of the world. He should
have taught him an objective and true history of his own forefathers who
founded the Moghul empire in India. It is sad that his teacher failed him in
all fields.
5.
Why was learning
Arabic a waste of time as far as Aurangzeb was concerned?
Aurangzeb
was a prince. He had to take his father’s throne after some time. He was not to
teach Arabic language, grammar and literature in a school. He was not interested
to become a linguist or a grammarian. He had a different field altogether. He
is right when he says that learning Arabic was a sheer waste of time for him.
He should have been taught war craft, administration, public welfare schemes,
comparative world history, fate of those kings who did not discharge their
duties and such issues.
6.
Why is learning
any foreign language unpleasant?
Learning
any foreign language is unpleasant and tedious because the learner is not
culturally associated with it. He is always reluctant to learn a foreign
language because he does not like its longsome words, expressions and many
other things.
7.
Why is childhood
a good period for learning? To what use could it have been put?
Childhood
is a good period of learning because a well-taught child remember all the good
things taught him then all his life. These things prepare him to be good and
noble in life. It is useless to teach a child the law, religion and sciences in
a foreign language. A child taught well in his childhood is surely a good and
noble man.
8.
What is
Aurangzeb’s parting advice to his teacher?
Aurangzeb’s
last advice to his former tutor is to go back to his village from where he had
come to teach him. He tells him to hide himself in a remote village. Nobody
should know about his position as a teacher. Nobody should about his position
as a teacher. Nobody should also know that he has been censored by the emperor
for teaching him in a wrong way. This is some sort of punishment to the bad
teacher.
