This lithographic book, published in 1875 in Lahore, present-day Pakistan, is a volume of letters written by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1618–1707, reigned 1658–1707) to his sons, daughter, friends, and ministers. It also includes jottings, as in an occasional journal, on events and other things that caught his attention. The marginal printed notes were added by an unknown person and probably postdate the work itself. After imprisoning his father, Emperor Shah Jahan, and killing his brothers, Aurangzeb crowned himself emperor of India and assumed the title ʻĀlamgīr (meaning world-conquering, but also connoting sweeping and universal). The Mughal Empire reached its greatest extent under Aurangzeb, but his harsh rule and attempt to impose strict Muslim orthodoxy on India provoked revolts by non-Muslim peoples and led to the decline of the empire. Aurangzeb’s treatment of the Hindus was especially harsh, and included the imposition of a poll tax and the destruction of many Hindu temples. Aurangzeb was interested in poetry and literature, and his letters are regarded as models of elegant Persian prose.