Originally posted by: Sandhya.A
Lana, jokes and Jalal-mania apart, i seriously doubt the veracity of the books by most of western authors on Indian History. India has always been depicted as a land of snakes and superstitions. Yoga as devilish. Our libraries destroyed, (sometimes by invaders,sometimes by local enemies) ...the best way to dismantle a society is to destroy the roots of its pride. If the Buddhist texts called Ashoka cruel to stress the miraculous effect their religion had on him, the western interpretations have stressed and restressed that aspect and highlighted it more than his goodness. They had to focus on his weakness, real or imaginary more than his pluses as the idea of a prajapati emperor who built an empire with people's welfare in mind 2000 years ago would hurt their own pride as they probably didn't have anyone to match. Just the same, Akbar also had to be found fault with. Whether his weakness with the fair sex was real or not the figure is certainly highly exaggerated. As if that was the case, he could have done just that - philandering. He certainly could not have built a huge empire, taken the majority of population of various sects into his fold, stabilized trade, established reasonable taxation policies, brought about social reforms, fought against Sati... ( can a man who rode on horse hundreds of miles to save a woman from burning actually have such scant respect for women and be debauched himself!) Whatever be his political motives, he never forced even his religion on his wives. So the Vincent version seems too wobbly.🤓
Sandy I just wish I could talk to you personally instead of typing away! I will highly recommend you to pick up the book and read through it! You will realise that your concept is nothing but a fallacy! The book has facts all over from the Islam religion, the sufis, the christians, the jains, the jesuits, the hindus and have Akbar glorified in all his policies and reforms!
I have a high regard for him after I read the book! He was a master in warfare, a complete daredevil, he made the impossible possible and took up challenges on purpose that was unthinkable to achieve and he was a man who thought out of the box be it in war tactics or tax reforms or religious reforms or ruling the country and that was why he is AKbar the great!
You will love him if you read but a man can't be without shortcomings, correct! He was a heavy drinker, he abused himself with all possible addictions but the commendable fact was he had a total self-control over himself! He was a womaniser of the first category but never went around forcing himself on women! He liked good food but was not a glutton. He was illiterate but his knowledge on religion was over and beyond any scholar of hs age! He was a devout spiritual person who not only simply learned and discussed about other religion but even practised them! He had his sons educated in christianity and they even practised the religion! Almost all religions thought he will convert to theirs but he didn't convert to any religion! But people who saw him daily thought he was a born hindu because he practised all hindu rituals! He also practised Farsi culture a lot. When he was 40 and older he completely gave up Islam religion and in fact instead of building mosques he would convert the remaining mosques into stables and barns and would build churches and monasteries and Jain and Hindu temples! He was a mass of contradiction! He became a strict vegetarian under the influence of Jain culture.
I will not be able to do justice by telling you everything here, so if you can get the book and read you will realise for yourself how wrong you think of this book! You will have a different angle to look at him, you will see him as a super intelligent human and not a god like mortal as he is portrayed by Abul Fazl in Akbarnama! I simply loved the facts taken from all accounts about Akbar and then composed them all in one book!
Edited by lghosh - 8 years ago