Aurangzib the vegetarian

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I recall that a thread on this topic petered out months ago without having

its initial question resolved, of whether Aurangzib practiced vegetarianism.

I happen to have begun to read about Aurangzib, and find, in what is

admittedly a by now very archaic source, Lane-Poole's Oxford biography of

Aurangzib, that 'Religion induced Aurangzib to abjure the pleasures of the

senses as completely as if he had indeed become the fakir he had once

desired to be. No animal food passed his lips, and his drink was water; so

that, as Tavernier says, he became "thin and meagre, to which the great

fasts which he keeps have contributed. During the whole of the duration of

the comet [four weeks, in 1665], which appeared very large in India, where I

then was, Aurangzib only drank a little water and ate a small quantity of

millet bread; this so much affected his health that he nearly died, for

besides this he slept on the ground, with only a tiger's skin over him; and

since that time he has never had perfect health"'. I guess that dietary

ascetisicm is likely to be vegetarian in any tradition. Or perhaps he

retained a bit of the syncretism that ran in the family, and the tiger skin

is actually a saiva touch.