The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was no saint: he (over-)extended the empire to the largest territory it ever had, but he killed his brothers and imprisoned his father (Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal). Aurangzeb is also said – especially by modern-day Hindu nationalists, including the ones in the current government – to have killed countless Hindus, destroyed countless temples, and to have ignored or suppressed the great Indian artistic traditions brought to their height by his great-grandfather, the emperor Akbar. Historian Audrey Truschke argues that for centuries, for political reasons past and present, the evidence about Aurangzeb was deliberately distorted and that he was no worse than any Muslim ruler of his era.