The Book of Akbar 389: CHAPTER XXXVI. · EXPEDITION OF THE SHAHINSHAH TO THE EASTERN PROVINCES, THE SUBMISSION OF THE KHAN ZAMAN, AND THE RETURN TO AGRA.
The Akbarnama (H. Beveridge), vols. I–II 389
- Language
- English
Contents
CHAPTER XXXVI. · EXPEDITION OF THE SHAHINSHAH TO THE EASTERN PROVINCES, THE SUBMISSION OF THE KHAN ZAMAN, AND THE RETURN TO AGRA.
389.1.1
It is not hidden from the far-seeing, who understand the pulse of the age, and comprehend the character of the multiform world, and who contemplate its entrancing banquet, that success, victory over opponents, the collecting of able assistants, and the accumulation of the world’s goods produce increased humbleness in a nature which is allied to real nobility and which is innately good and well-intentioned and is continually perusing the daily record of its actions. For such an one they are the materials of increased watchfulness and for returning thanks to his benefactor. And as he knows that fidelity and good service are the constituents of thanksgiving, he goes on developing single-heartedness. He becomes both more humble toward the Creator and more complaisant to the creature. He both augments his loyalty and service to his Master and also is from appreciation of performances more amiable towards servants. But he who has no part in humanity except the outer form, and no share in nobility except in name shows effects the contrary of all these. With a little reputation and distinction he places his real rank in the alcove of oblivion, and he, in the first place, ignores his duties towards the author of his being. Secondly, he assumes airs of grandeur and hauteur with his benefactor and master; who is his quasi-God, and lets destructive thoughts pass into his mind. Thirdly, he behaves arrogantly towards his comrades and equals and conducts himself in an intoxicated fashion.
389.1.2
Fourthly, he shows himself oppressive and tyrannical towards all mankind. The unhappy wretch thinks in his folly that he is constructing the materials of his own greatness, but the wise know that he is dressing the arena of his own ruin. The case of ‘Ali Quli Khan, commonly known by the name of Khan Zaman, is a repeated illustration of these truths. Physical courage, in which thousands of unreasoning brutes are victorious rivals, was made by him a motive for self-exaltation, and increased arrogance, and he ascribed to himself his success, which was a ray from the fortune of the Khedive of the Age, and so made it a cause of increased infatuation. Accordingly, a hint has already been given of his intoxicated ways. The pride of this wicked man increased when the son of ‘Adli, who had gathered round him a number of vagabond Afghans, had been defeated by him, and the veil over his actions was nearly altogether withdrawn. The perfect reason and great affection of the Shahinshah impelled him to proceed to that province on the pretext of hunting.
389.1.3
The words which passed from his lips were, “If any portion of goodness remain in that evil nature, and he awake from the slumber of negligence and hasten to do homage I shall draw a line of forgiveness over his offences and come back, for he is a plant which we have grown, and the noblest quality of princes is the acceptance of excuses, and the forgiveness of faults, for man that is born of woman is a confection of intoxicants and restorations. If auspiciousness does not guide him, and he does not show an appreciation of the bliss of service he will be disposed of before his disease shall have become chronic, and its remedy difficult, and the inhabitants of that country will be delivered from the hands of several oppressors.” In accordance with these administrative ideas the sublime cortége proceeded under the Divine aid to the eastern cities on the day of Shahrayir 4 Amardad, Divine month, corresponding to Thursday the 4th Zi-l-Q‘ada 968 (17th July, 1561). The protection of Agra was committed to M‘uinu-d-din Ahmad Khan Farankhudi, Mun‘im Khan Khankhanan, Khwaja Jahan and many servants of the threshold of fortune attended His Majesty. He marched stage by stage, diffusing the light of his justice; in appearance he was hunting, but inwardly he was with his God.
389.1.4
When the camp arrived at the territory of Kalpi, ‘Abdullah Khan Uzbeg made a petition through the courtiers in waiting that the spiritual and temporal leader would cast a glance of favour on the lowly and eternally glorify by his advent the hovel of this attendant: “should His Majesty do me this honour what impropriety would there be in the Sun of fortune’s cherishing a mote.” That world of urbanity granted his petition and enlightened his lodging by the holy light of his splendour. ‘Abdullah paid the respects of obedience. The whole of that day His Majesty held high festival in his house, which was situated on the banks of the Jamna, and spent the time in joy and delight. From thence he turned his rein towards Karra, which is on the Ganges. As the suburbs of that city became the place of his encampment he turned his attention to hunting in the neighbourhood. It chanced that he spent several days in that delightful land. The Khan Zaman and his brother Bahadur Khan, as the time of their rending the veil had not yet come, awoke from the slumber of negligence and proceeded to do homage. They are exalted by doing so and presented the varieties of the country by way of peshkash. They tendered noted elephants such as Dilsankar, Pulta, Dalil (?), Sab-dilia and Jag-Mohan (world-fascination), every one of which was a ‘heaven in his world, and they with shame and repentance made the dust of the threshold the collyrium of their eyes.
389.1.5
His Majesty the Shahinshah in consequence of his right-founded principles treated their past evil acts as unacted and rewarded them by special favours. With his truth-interpreting tongue he said that the wondrous tree of humanity was the precious nursling of God. How unpleasant it is to uproot flowers and grasses (ashjār-nabātī). It may be judged then what will be the result of uprooting such a tree (as man) He accepted the coin of their shame and submission as an intercessor for their acts and made the ocean of his forgiveness boil over! At this time ‘Abdu-l-Majid Aṣaf Khan was sent off with a number of warriors towards Panna against Rajah Ram Chand. If he behaved properly, and seized and sent to court Ghazi Khan Tanūri and a number of broken men who had gone to that country, and if he himself bound on the girdle of obedience and good service, they were to return after having treated him in a conciliatory fashion. As it was the rainy season, the Rajah was obstinate and the holy warriors returned and went to their fiefs. After His Majesty had spent twenty days in Karra, and his mind had become tranquil about the affairs of that country the noise of a return to the capital reverberated. The two brothers waited on the stirrup for three stages and took leave after receiving countless favours.
389.1.6
His Majesty the Shahinshah traversed much territory in ten days, and on the day of Mihr 16 Shahrayūr, Divine month, corresponding to Friday, 17th Zi-l-hajja, 968 (29th August, 1561), he alighted at Agra. He completed this auspicious expedition in one month and fourteen days. He was fourteen days in going and he halted twenty days, and in returning he took ten days. When the shade of His Majesty the Shahinshah’s glorious umbrella fell upon the metropolitan district the noble spirits went out to welcome him and to show their loyalty. Everyone received favours in accordance with his merits. There was a new daily market of justice, and a new springtime for the world. Time and time’s creatures gained fresh joy, The culmination of service was revealed to the imperial servants in the districts and borders of the dominions. From every quarter men donned the pilgrim-garb of honour and came to kiss the threshold of fortune. In the end of Aban, Divine month, of this year, corresponding to the beginning of Rabi’-al-awwal 969, November 1561, Shamsu-d-din Muhammad Khan Ataga, who had been distinguished by the title of A‘azim Khan, came from the Panjab and did homage. He fulfilled the destined worship in the guise of serving his spiritual and temporal master. He presented splendid gifts, such as were befitting his loyalty, and was exalted by the glorious favours of the Shahinshah.
389.1.7
He undertook the management of affairs, political and financial, and disposed of matters relating to the army and to the civil population according to his own sound judgment. Maham Anaga, who from her excellent services, abundant wisdom and exceeding devotion regarded herself as the substantive prime minister, was displeased at this. Mun‘im Khan Khan-khanan too, who was the ostensible vakīl and sat on the masnad as such, was inwardly grieved at this. Where were the judiciousness, the independence of mind and the disinclination for worldly affairs which would have regarded the presence of one who took up and placed on his head the burden of the world’s business as a great gift from God and as something to be thankful for, so that when the Khan A‘azim in his straightness and loyalty undertook the service of the Shahinshah, Mun‘im Khan and Miham Anaga should have looked upon him as a providential helper and have rendered thanks for the boon from the bottom of their hearts, instead of being so grieved and vexed? For in the antechamber of right-dealing the true principle and that which is approved by the wise is that one should hold oneself fettered to external work until another who can take charge of it makes his appearance, and the office of pleasing the master by the management of affairs shall have been entrusted to him by acts and not by words.
389.1.8
When one is given to understand by the tongue of actions that his service has been entrusted to another and that a servant who is chief manager has arrived on the scene, it is folly to be vexed; and such conduct is to allow oneself to be overcome of his desires. Rather, it is to overset oneself, and to damage oneself by one’s own hand.
389.2.1
One of the ennobling events in the Shahinshah’s fortune which in this year applied collyrium to the eyes of the simple-minded aspirants after auspiciousness was that Cunar, which is an impregnable fortress, came into the possession of the imperial servants. Certainly it has seldom come into the hands of princes by force of arms or by abundance of stratagem. For on account of its height and strength the hand of the external foe cannot reach it, and owing to plenty of food and water those inside are not dependent on the outer world. The brief account of this event is that when ‘Adili’s son became a vagrant in the wilderness of ruin the fort of Cunar, which had been his abode, came into the hands of one Fattū who belonged to his clan (khāsa khel). He regarded this inaccessible fort as his refuge and laboured to strengthen it. When the standards of fortune returned from the town of Karra and were set down at Agra, Khwāja ‘Abdul Majid Asaf Khān was appointed to take the fort. As Fattū had some proper feelings, and some good sense he perceived that the day of the Afghans’ defeat had arrived, and so sent a number of people to express his submissiveness. He humbly represented to the world-protecting court that if Shaikh Muhammad were to take him by the hand and bring him to kiss the threshold of fortune he would assuredly deliver the fort with a contented mind to the imperial servants and would bind himself to the saddle-straps of the Shahinshah’s fortune.
389.2.2
His petition was accepted and the Shaikh went, in accordance with a lofty command, and brought him by princely kindnesses to perform homage. The forehead of his auspiciousness was brightened by his prostrating himself at the court of the refuge of the world. His Majesty exalted him by favours and gave him the rank of an Amir. Hasan ‘Ali Khan Turkaman was appointed to the charge of the fortress. Among the occurrences of this time was His Majesty the Shahinshah’s mounting the elephant Hawai and engaging it in a fight. The life-giving and world-adorning Creator was daily exalting his degrees of greatness by new methods and new lights and was making the spiritual and physical perfections of this sole one of unity’s Court perceptible to the superficial and short-sighted. The Age’s Khedive was contented with rendering thanks inwardly and continued to wear a veil over his actions. Whenever owing to a Divine decree a veil might be removed from his world-adorning beauty, His Majesty by the might of his own far-seeing meditation fashioned some other yet more beautiful and wonderful veils. He was at once a spectator of the system of Divine decrees, and an administrator of the world according to the best laws. Secretly he was testing the sincerity, the large-mindedness, and business-capabilities of men;
389.2.3
ostensibly, he was prosecuting hunting and elephant-fights which the ignorant regard as a kind of neglect of the duties of sovereignty, but which the wise regard as the cream of practical skill. In those very amusements which led the superficial into this error there appeared certain actions which involuntarily brought such superficialists into the highway of devotion and made them travellers on the path of true knowledge. Among them is the following extraordinary occurrence. The story of this instructive affair, and of this opener of reason’s ear is as follows. The elephant Hawai was a mighty animal and reckoned among the special elephants. In choler, passionateness, fierceness and wickedness he was a match for the world. Strong and experienced drivers who had spent a long life in riding similar elephants mounted him with difficulty, so what could they do in the way of making him fight? That royal cavalier of bravery’s plain and tiger-hunter of audacity’s forest one day without hesitation mounted this elephant, in the very height of its ferocity, on the polo-ground which he had made for his pleasure outside of the fort of Agra, and executed wonderful manoeuvres. After that he pitted him against the elephant Ran Bagha which nearly approached him in his qualities. The loyal and the experienced who were present were in a state such as had never happened to them before.
389.2.4
As the courtiers who were witnesses of this dangerous scene were disturbed by its continuance and were unable to remonstrate, it all at once occurred to them that a remedy might be found if the Ataga Khan who was the prime minister were brought, and if he by prayers and entreaties could withdraw His Majesty from this dreadful occupation, the contemplation of which turned the gall-bladder of the lion-hearted to water. When the distracted Ataga Khan arrived and saw the state of affairs he dropped from his hand the thread of endurance and bared his head. He cried and lamented like oppressed suppliants for justice. Great and small raised hands of entreaty and implored from God the safety of that sacred person which is the principle of peace and tranquillity for mankind. When His Majesty perceived the Ataga Khan’s perturbation he said to him, “You must not make all this lamentation, and if you don’t stop I’ll at once throw myself down from the elephant.” When the Ataga Khan saw that His Majesty was bent upon the business he at once obeyed and from deference outwardly composed his agitated mind. The lion-hearted Shahinshah calmly went on with his terrifying pursuit until the elephant Hawai by the strength of a hidden [arm?] Bagha let fall the strong cable of steadfastness and turned to flee. Hawai looked neither behind nor before and disregarded heights and hollows and went like the wind in pursuit of the fugitive.
389.2.5
His Majesty, a rock of firmness, continued to sit steadily and to watch the ways of destiny. After running a long way the elephant came to the edge of the river Jamna, and to the head of the great bridge of boats. Ran Bagha in his confusion went on to the bridge, and Hawai with the tiger of fortune’s jungle on his back came upon the bridge behind him. Owing to the great weight of those two mountain-forms the pontoons were sometimes submerged and sometimes lifted up. The royal servants flung themselves into the water on both sides of the bridge and went on swimming until the elephants had traversed the whole of the bridge and got to the other side. At this time when the spectators were looking on at the wonderful affair, the Khedive of the age in a moment restrained Hawai who was like fire in disposition and like wind in swiftness. Ran Bagha ran off, carrying his life. New life, too, came to the world and distraught hearts were composed. Some short-thoughted, short-sighted ones imagined that perhaps there was some drunkenness in the brain of the Ruler of time and terrestrials, and that this performance was the result thereof. They immediately recoiled from this baseless idea and perceived that His Majesty was a wondrous portrayer of the arts of reason who was bringing into evidence a specimen from the wondrous inner gallery and was summoning the astray in the wilderness of ignorance to the king’s highway of knowledge.
389.2.6
He was giving eyes to the blind, and was anointing the eyes of the seeing with impearled collyrium. Several times when this fortunate writer has had the privilege of private conversation with His Majesty the Shahinshah he has heard from his holy lips that “our knowingly and intentionally mounting on mast, murderous elephants when they have a moment previously brought their drivers under their feet and killed them, and when they have slain many a man, has this for its cause and motive that if I have knowingly taken a step which is displeasing to God or have knowingly made an aspiration which was not according to His pleasure, may that elephant finish us, for we cannot support the burden of life under God’s displeasure.” Good God, what an insight is this! and what a calculation with oneself! In fine, at all times, whether that of holy privacy, or that of engrossment in business, in time of battle, and in time of banquet, he is ever regardful of the real, guiding thread, and while he is outwardly with the creature, and inwardly with the Creator, he is at one and the same moment the arranger of the sections of the outward and inward and acts as the leader of both those great parties, and while deriving pleasure from both of those pleasant products adorns the throne both of the spiritual and the temporal universe. Among the events was Adham Khan’s arrival at Court.
389.2.7
At the time when Agra was being made illustrious by the Shahinshah’s presence, the idea took shape in the world-adorning mirror of his mind that the government of Malwa should be committed to Pir Muhammad Khan Shirwānī, and that Adham Khan should do service at Court. Orders were issued to this effect and Adham Khan obeyed them and proceeded thither, after making over Malwa to Pir Muhammad Khan. He travelled rapidly and soon arrived, and was the recipient of royal favours. Maham Anaga’s heart, which was distressed by the separation from her honoured son, was thereby comforted, while Pir Muhammad Khān was relieved of the burden of a colleague, and realised his hopes, and the people generally of Malwa were freed from injustice and gained peace and tranquillity. Adham Khan too was restrained from folly and thus guarded against destruction. Furthermore the determination to improve him became fixed in the holy mind. At this time the lord of the universe in accordance with his noble ways was continually outwardly engaged in hunting while inwardly he walked with God and was employed in the capturing of souls. He laid grand foundations for every work, and arranged good regulations in matters of administration. In spite of his youth which is a time when most rulers follow their inclinations without self-introspection, His Majesty made his prime years a means of acquiring Divine knowledge, and was never for a moment neglectful of this.
389.2.8
Prosperity, enthronisation, the cherishing of friends, and the consuming of enemies, every one of which was a sense-robbing cup for former princes or rather a drinking to the lees of infatuation, became in the holy personality of His Majesty the Shahinshah a cause of increased knowledge, of augmented wisdom, of abundant prudence and watchfulness. In virtue of the Divine purposes, and the irresistible decrees of the incomparable Deity, many of the world-adorning excellencies of this spiritual and temporal prince were concealed even from his own acuteness. I have heard this many times in the days of my childhood from my honoured father when I was engaged in acquiring knowledge. He (too) was a fountain of blessings and an assemblage of spiritual and material perfections and one who spent his days in the hermitage of retirement. And I learnt this also by myself when I came to have the bliss of serving him who is the elixir of the capabilities of the masters of wisdom. By reason of this fact, to wit, that his world-illuminating spiritual beauty was hidden from himself, he would seek from others what he should have sought for in himself and which he should have brought for the use of mankind and so been a guide to those wandering in the wilderness of error. Continually he made the pain of seeking after God, which is also capable of becoming perfect health, the hem of his heart, and kept the mobility of his holy soul.
389.2.9
Hunting, which is a bracelet on the arm of joy, was made by him a constituent of the pain of search and made him traverse alone city and country. In his abundant carefulness he sought for truth among the dust-stained denizens of the fields of irreflection—and most of the really great study it under this disguise—and consorted with every sort of wearers of patched garments such as jogis, sanyāsis and qalandars, and other solitary sitters in the dust, and insouciant recluses. From their outward ways and conversation he got at their real natures. Similarly he inquired after the Truth from the learned and the distinguished who were bound by the chain of science and reputation, and who trick out the petty shops of schools and colleges. He recognised the adulterateness and false metal of the impostors among these classes but infolded these things in his own wide capacity. He put the dust of concealment over those deceitful Satans and did not lay bare the reputation of those ministers of the truth. In spite of these results there was no falling-off or slackening in this world-king’s quest. Rather he increased his endeavours and was more restless than ever in his search for physicians of the soul who might be guides on the path of attainment.