Universal Values as Reflected in Literature:

UNIVERSAL VALUES AS REFLECTED IN LITERATURE:
MODERN PERIOD

The early modern period (the timeframe for the period being the span later than A.D. 1400) witnessed the establishment of the Mughal power. A new India, built upon the fusion of the two great cultures, emerged. The first two rulers of the Mughal dynasty were Babur (1526-1530) and Humayun (1530-1556). Babur’s memoirs written in Turki, ‘Tuzuk-i-Baburi’, recounted his life adventures from his early youth in the valley of Ferghana to his conquest of India. Babur was a real poet, and apart from the incidental verses introduced in his memories, we have from his pen a small collection of Turki lyrics, which bear comparison with the best poetry of his day.

A comparative study of religions convinced Akbar, the third Mughal ruler (ruled 1556-1605), that there was truth in all of them, but that no one of them possessed absolute truth. According to Max Muller, who devoted much attention to the comparative study of religions, Akbar was ‘the first who ventured on a comparative study of the religions of the world.

The emperor was led to give up his faith in the absoluteness of Islam and declare that ‘there are sensible men in all religions…….’ He said:

Each person, according to his condition, gives the supreme being a name, but in reality to name the unknowable is vain.

‘Akbar went very far with Hinduism and Jainism as well as with Zoroastrianism and Christianity but everywhere he “stopped upon the threshold”.

No system could hold Akbar, and he was engaged in the compilation of a bewildering code of rites culled from all religions. He promulgated the Din-i-Ilahi. It was a religion without priests and books, leading to ideal of mystic union of the soul with the divine. This union, we may say, was based on the Sufi idea of absorption of the spirit in the Divine Being.

In spite of his illiteracy Akbar was far from being unlearned, nor was his intellect uncultivated for he delighted in listening to the reading of works on history, theology, philosophy and other subjects, and in discussing afterwards what had been read.

Abdul Fazl in the second and the third volumes of Akbar-nama narrated in Persian prose year by year the history of Akbar’s reign down to 1602. He not only recorded facts but also explained the motives behind them. Ain-i-Akbari, the complementary work, dealt primarily with a systematic body of rules of conduct governing all departments and all subjects. It included a comprehensive statistical account relating to his empire with relevant annotations.

While Badauni translated the Ramayana into Persian. Todar Mal rendered the Bhagavata-Purana into the same language.

Arnold Toynbee observes on the emperor Akbar: ‘This extraordinary man appears to have been simultaneously a great practical statesman and a transcendental mystic.’ Swami Vivekananda states that

the number of kings like Akbar, in whom the subjects find their life, is far less than that of kings like Aurangzeb who live on the blood or their people.

Akbar’s son, Jahangir (A.D. 1605-1627), who usually followed his father’s policy of religious toleration, was well versed in Persian literature and he himself occasionally composed. His memoirs contain many references to verses he admired for their beauty, wit, or appositeness to a special occasion.

Jahangir’s son, Shah Jahan (A.D. 1628-1658), who was on the whole a tolerant and enlightened ruler, patronized not only Persian scholars but poets of Sanskrit and Hindi as well. Chintamani of Cawnpore district, who composed a version of the Ramayana and treatise on prosody, was patronized by emperor Shah Jahan.

Shah Jahan built the famous Taj Mahal at Agra to contain the tomb of his wife. The superb mausoleum building has been poetically described as a ‘tender elegy in marble’. Rabindranath Tagore was inspired to write the following verse on the Taj Mahal

You knew, Emperor of India. Shah Jahan.
that life, youth, wealth, renown
All that away down the stream of time.
Your only dream
Was to preserve forever your heart’s pain.
The harsh thunder of imperial power
Would fade into sleep
Like a sunset’s crimson splendour.
But it was your hope
That at least a single, eternally - heaved sigh
would stay
To grieve the sky.
Though emeralds, rubies, pearls are all
But as the glitter of a rainbow tricking out
empty air
And must pass away,
Yet still one solitary tear
Would hang on the cheek of time
In the form
Of this white and gleaming Taj Maha1.

By the middle of the seventeenth century, Dara Shikoh, Shah Jahan’s eldest son and disciple of the Qodiri Sufis, translated Hindu scriptures, such as the Bhagavadgita and the Upanishads, into Persian and in his translation of the Upanishads he closely followed Shankara’s commentaries, Dara Shikoh caused the Persian version of the Atharv Veda to be made with the assistance of some Brahmin scholars.

To the initiative and patronage of the great-grandson of Akbar, Aurangzeb (ruled 1658-1707), we owe the greatest digest of Muslim law made in India, viz., the Fatawa-i-Alangiri, which simplified and defined Islamic justice in India. It has continued to be authoritative till today. The emperor’s extensive correspondence proves his mastery of Persian poetry and Arabic sacred literature.

Swami Vivekananda observed:

Look here, how in the modern period the Pathan dynasties were coming and going, but could not get a firm hold of their Indian Empire, because they were all along attacking the Hindu’s religion. And see, how firmly based, how tremendously strong was the Mogul Empire. Why? Because the

Moguls left that point untouched. In fact, Hindus were the real prop of the Moghul Empire: do you not know that Jahangir, Shahjahan, and Dara Shikoh were all born of Hindu mothers? Now then observe-as soon as the ill-fated Aurangazeb again touched that point, the vast Mogul Empire vanished in an instant like a dream.

Sivaji (1627-1680), the Maratha rebel, issued in 1679 a long public letter to the Emperor Aurangazeb. It eloquently pulled him up for reversing the wise policy of Akbar and Jahangir by imposing the Jiziya on Hindus. Sivaji pointed out that in the Koran God is styled Lord of all men, not simply of Muslims, and that both Muslims and Hindus worshipped God in their own way.

Guru Arjun (1581-1606), who rebelled against Aurangzeb, compiled the Holy Book Adi Granth. And Guru Govind Singh (1675-1708) placed the Granth Sahib (the sacred scripture of the Sikhs) in the place of the Guru. The greatest respect began to be paid to the incorporated Word (scripture), even the Guru choosing for himself a seat lower than that of the scripture. Govind Singh’s many compositions were included in the Dasam Granth, which consisted of several parts, each in a different language but all in Gurmukhi script.

To sum up, the Mughal dynasty began with Babur in 1526, reached its summit with Shah Jahan in 1628 and Aurangzeb in 1658, but declined as a result of Sikh and Maratha attacks, and was finally eliminated by the British in 1803.

(Lecture delivered by): Courtesy-Bulletin of the Rama Krishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta­-March, 2000.