Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c15.8

c15.8

Jahangir ascended the throne of the Mughals at the age of thirty-seven years, when his mind was fully formed, and his ideas ripened by much experience. By this time he had shown himself to be a true descendant of the Timurids in many of his characteristics, and in these he bore a remarkable resemblance to his ancestor Babur. In a previous chapter we have seen that this progenitor of the Mughal dynasty was prevented by the force of circumstances from utilizing to any practical extent his gifts of intellectual versatility during his own lifetime, but that they were inherited by his successors, and were responsible for that spirit of culture which was the mark of their origin. And in none of this long line of distinguished descendants were Babur’s sentiments so accurately reproduced as in the person of his great-grandson Jahangir. It is in the similarity of their tastes that this is most noticeable. Both loved flowers, gardens, scenery, travelling, sight-seeing, and sport. Both suffered from the vice of self-indulgence, especially with regard to wine, but this failing was redeemed to some extent by their sense of good-fellowship—they drank, but like gentlemen. Both were fond of poetry, music and the arts, both read and wrote much—both producing voluminous memoirs—and both were enthusiastic nature-lovers and keen observers of animal life. In all these things they curiously resembled one another, nevertheless in other ways they were widely different men. Babur, as becomes a pioneer, was of vigorous habit, an athlete and a born fighter, a man’s man. On the other hand, Jahangir, except in his earlier days, was inclined to be soft and effeminate, fond of ease and peace—in a word, a voluptuary. The reason for this dissimilarity is not far to seek. Environment had something to do with it, and the different times in which each lived, but the main cause of this particular divergence was one of birth. Babur, as we have seen, was a direct product of two virile races of the Central Asian uplands.