Did Aurangzeb ban Music?
An 18th-century miniature in gouache and gold leaf of Aurangzeb seated on a throne Photo: Bridgeman Art Library The sixth and last great Mughal emperor Aurangzeb banned music in the tenth year of his reign, i.e. 1668, even though he personally enjoyed it. The contemporary Italian historian Niccolao Manucci writes about Aurangzeb's order to an official to stop all music: "If in any house or elsewhere he heard the sound of singing and instruments, he should forthwith hasten there and arrest as many as he could, breaking the instruments. Thus was caused a great destruction of musical instruments. Finding themselves in this difficulty, their large earnings likely to cease, without there being any other mode of seeking a livelihood, the musicians took counsel together and tried to appease the king in the following way. About one thousand of them assembled on a Friday when Aurangzeb was going to the mosque. They came out with more than 20 highly ornamented biers, as i