No.                   Sovereign.                A.H.           A.D. 
VI.  Aurangzeb Alamgir, Muhayi-ud-din      .  1068          1658
[’Azam Shah     .     .     .    .     .  1118          1707
Kam Baksh      .     .     .    .     .  1119-20       1708]
VII.  Bahadur Shah-’Alam, Kutb-ud-din .     .  1119          1707
VIII.  Jahandar Shah, Mu’izz-ud-din    .     .  1124          1713
IX.  Farrukhsiyar   .     .     .    .     .  1124          1713

The question concerning the exact date from which the beginning of Aurangzeb’s reign should be reckoned is obscured by the conflict of authorities and has given rise to much discussion.  The results may be stated briefly as follow:—­

Aurangzeb formally took possession of the throne in a garden outside Delhi on the 1st Zu’l Q’adah, A.H. 1068, July 31, A.D. 1658, but subsequently orders were passed to antedate the beginning of the reign to 1st Ramazan in the same year, equivalent to June 2, 1658.  After the destruction of Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb returned to Delhi in May, A.D. 1659, and was again enthroned with full ceremonial on June 15, 1659 (= A.H. 1069).  Some authors consequently assume the accession to have taken place in 1659.  But the reign certainly began in A.D. 1658, and should be reckoned as running from the official date, June 2 of that year.  The dates given above are in New Style (N.S.).  If recorded in Old Style (O.S.) they would be ten days earlier. (See Irvine and Hoernle in J.A.S.B., Part I, vol. lxii (1893), pp. 256-67; and Irvine, in Ind.  Ant., vol. xl (1911), pp. 74, 75.)

3.  The author invariably ignores the fact that daughters and other female relatives inherit under Muhammadan law.

4.  Hindoo law does not ordinarily recognize any right of succession for daughters, and so differs essentially from the law of Islam.  The exceptions to this general rule are unimportant.

5.  The experience of most officials does not confirm this statement.

6.  The statement now requires modification.  After the Central Provinces were constituted in 1861, the principle of succession by primogeniture was maintained only in the Hoshangabad, Chhindwara, Chanda, and Chhattisgarh Districts.  But even there the legal effect of the restrictions on alienation and partition is ’not quite free from doubt’ (I.G. 1908, x. 73).  The tendency of the law courts is to apply everywhere uniform rules taken from the Hindoo law books.

7.  ’See ante, Chapter 10, notes 10, 16.  The gradual conversion of tenure by leases from Government into proprietary right in land has brought the land under the operation of the ordinary Hindoo law, and each member of a joint family can now enforce partition of the land as well as of the stock upon it.  The evils resulting from incessant partition are obvious, but no remedy can be devised.  The people insist on partition, and will effect it privately, if the law imposes obstacles to a formal public division.