Zeb-Un-Nisa : An Untold Story

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        Zeb Un Nisa : Untold Story 
                           -Pradeep Gupta 

While traveling in South India few years back, I visited Shrirangam Temple. What I could find out a princess of Mughal empire spent  final days of her life as a Kishan devotee. It was Zeb Un Nisa , eldest daughter of Auranzeb , seems unbelievable than read the following : 
Not much is written about Zeb-Un-Nisa. She was the eldest child of Mughal King Aurangzeb and his Begum Dilras Bano. Auranzeb loved and adored her daughter like anything . 
Zeb-Un-Nisa was having a  sharp mind , memorized the Qur’an at the tender age of seven and became a Hafiz. After seeing her talent and her eagerness to learn more Aurangzeb  ensured to impart best education to  her . Apart from religion she also  learnt philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, literature, and history .
While she was a child, her marriage was fixed with her cousin Suleiman Shikoh. Suleman was  son of her uncle  Dara Shikoh.  But Auranzeb killed his elder brother Dara as well as his nephew  Suleiman  in the power struggle for Delhi throne. 
She used to write poems under the pen name Makhfi . Young and beautiful Zeb-Un-Nisa also fell in  love for a poet Aqeel Khan. This was a result of  common  interest in literature , When Auranzeb  knew about her love to a commoner he became furious. He advised the two to mend their way. Failing in his efforts , Aurangzeb got Aqeel Khan killed by crushing him with an elephant in the  Fort . Pain of these two failed love stories is reflected in her early poetry work. 
Cut to 
Ancient Shrirangam Temple is located in Tamilnadu on the island created by Kaveri and Kolidam rivers near Trichilapalli . It is believed that a  vimana installed in this temple  came out of “parkadal” with the divine powers of Brahma. Lord Ram  incarnation of Vishnu performed poojas of  this vimana. It is believed that Lord Ram gifted this vimana to Vibishana , younger brother of Ravana with a condition, not to keep that on earth. While he took this vimana and was traveling towards Srilanka, Lord Vinayaka played a trick and made that to stick on Srirangam. 
Cut to 
Army of Auranzeb , while plundering cities in South also looted Lord Ram’s Vimana from Srirangam temple and taken it to Delhi to  present it  to Mughal King. The moment the vimana came to Mughal fort , Auranzeb’s most adorable daughter Zeb-Un- Nisa fell very very sick . Auranzeb pressed services of Shahi Hakim but he could not diagnose , her condition started deteriorating , many other Hakim, Siddh and Vaidya come but in vain . Finally a Vaidya observed that Zeb- Un- Nisa had very high fever and and  want to communicate something repeatedly. He tried to understand and found that she was repeating only one sentence - Send my Vimana to Shrirangam. Vaidya  asked Mughal King whether any Viman has recently arrived from Shrirangam. The Mughal King said yes. The Vaidya said it appears that until this Viman is sent back to that place princesses can not be cured. As she was the most adorable person for Auranzeb , so he immediately decided to send back this Vimana to Shrirangam. Surprise was awaiting for the King , the moment he said yes, slowly his daughter started coming back to normal and in a day she became completely cured without any medication. 
A contingent was ready to carry back Vimana to Shrirangam. The legend goes like this - Zeb- Un- Nisa also decided to go to Shrirangam with the contingent . 
The Mughal contingent come back to Delhi after placing Viman in the temple premise but Zeb- Un- Nisa decided to stay back as a devotee of Lord. 
She composed a number of Bhajans in praise of Lord and remained in this temple complex till her last breath of life, her samadhi is also in the temple premises. 
By the way this Shrirangam temple is in the area of 156 sq km and Round about area is nearly 10710 sq feet with seven Parikrimas that makes it so unique.This is the only religious place anywhere  in the world to have seven Parikrimas
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