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Akbar, Emperor of India
Akbar, Emperor of India
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AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.[A]
The student of India who would at the same time be an historian,
discovers to his sorrow that the land of his researches is lamentably
poor in historical sources. And if within the realm of historical
investigation, a more seductive charm lies for him in the analysis of
great personalities than in ascertaining the course of historical
development, then verily may he look about in vain for such
personalities in the antiquity and middle ages of India. Not that the
princely thrones were wanting in great men in ancient India, for we
find abundant traces of them in Hindu folk-lore and poetry, but these
sources do not extend to establishing the realistic element in details
and furnishing life-like portraits of the men themselves. That the
Hindu has ever been but little interested in historical matters is a
generally recognized fact. Religious and philosophical speculations,
dreams of other worlds, of previous and future existences, have
claimed the attention of thoughtful minds to a much greater degree
than has historical reality.
[Footnote A: This essay is art enlarged form of an address delivered
on the occasion of the birthday of King Wilhelm II of Württemberg, on
February 25, 1909.]
The misty myth-woven veil which hangs over persons and events of
earlier times, vanishes at the beginning of the modern era which in
India starts with the Mohammedan conquest, for henceforth the history
of India is written by foreigners. Now we meet with men who take a
decisive part in the fate of India, and they appear as sharply
outlined, even though generally unpleasing, personalities.
Islam has justly been characterized as the caricature of a religion.
Fanaticism and fatalism are two conspicuously irreligious emotions,
and it is exactly these two emotions, which Islam understands how to
arouse in savage peoples, to which it owes the part it has played in
the history of the world, and the almost unprecedented success of its
diffusion in Asia, Africa and Europe.
About 1000 A.D. India was invaded by the Sultan Mahmud of Ghasna.
"With Mahmud's expedition into India begins one of the most horrible
periods of the history of Hindustan. One monarch dethrones another, no
dynasty continues in power, every accession to the throne is
accompanied by the murder of kinsmen, plundering of cities,
devastation of the lowlands and the slaughter of thousands of men,
women and children of the predecessor's adherents; for five centuries
northwest and northern India literally reeked with the blood of
multitudes."[1] Mohammedan dynasties of Afghan, Turkish and Mongolian
origin follow that of Ghasna. This entire period is filled with an
almost boundless series of battles, intrigues, imbroglios and
political revolutions; nearly all events had the one characteristic in
common, that they took place amid murder, pillage and fire.
[Footnote 1: E. Schlagintweit, _Indien in Wort und Bild_, II, 26 f.]
[Illustration: AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
From Noer's _Kaiser Akbar_, (Frontispiece to Vol. II).]
The most frightful spectacle throughout these reeking centuries is the
terrible Mongolian prince Timur, a successor of Genghis-Khan, who fell
upon India with his band of assassins in the year 1398 and before his
entry into Delhi the capital, in which he was proclaimed Emperor of
India, caused the hundred thousand prisoners whom he had captured in
his previous battles in the Punjab, to be slaughtered in one single
day, because it was too inconvenient to drag them around with him. So
says Timur himself with shameless frankness in his account of the
expedition, and he further relates that after his entry into Delhi,
all three districts of the city were plundered "according to the will
of God."[2] In 1526 Baber, a descendant of Timur, made his entry into
Delhi and there founded the dominion of the Grand Moguls (i.e., of the
great Mongols). The overthrow of this dynasty was brought about by the
disastrous reign of Baber's successor Aurungzeb, a cruel, crafty and
treacherous despot, who following the example of his ancestor Timur,
spread terror and alarm around him in the second half of the
seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Even to-day
Hindus may be seen to tremble when they meet the sinister fanatical
glance of a Mohammedan.
[Footnote 2: A. Müller, _Der Islam im Morgen-und Abendland_, II, 300
f.]
The student of India who would at the same time be an historian,
discovers to his sorrow that the land of his researches is lamentably
poor in historical sources. And if within the realm of historical
investigation, a more seductive charm lies for him in the analysis of
great personalities than in ascertaining the course of historical
development, then verily may he look about in vain for such
personalities in the antiquity and middle ages of India. Not that the
princely thrones were wanting in great men in ancient India, for we
find abundant traces of them in Hindu folk-lore and poetry, but these
sources do not extend to establishing the realistic element in details
and furnishing life-like portraits of the men themselves. That the
Hindu has ever been but little interested in historical matters is a
generally recognized fact. Religious and philosophical speculations,
dreams of other worlds, of previous and future existences, have
claimed the attention of thoughtful minds to a much greater degree
than has historical reality.
[Footnote A: This essay is art enlarged form of an address delivered
on the occasion of the birthday of King Wilhelm II of Württemberg, on
February 25, 1909.]
The misty myth-woven veil which hangs over persons and events of
earlier times, vanishes at the beginning of the modern era which in
India starts with the Mohammedan conquest, for henceforth the history
of India is written by foreigners. Now we meet with men who take a
decisive part in the fate of India, and they appear as sharply
outlined, even though generally unpleasing, personalities.
Islam has justly been characterized as the caricature of a religion.
Fanaticism and fatalism are two conspicuously irreligious emotions,
and it is exactly these two emotions, which Islam understands how to
arouse in savage peoples, to which it owes the part it has played in
the history of the world, and the almost unprecedented success of its
diffusion in Asia, Africa and Europe.
About 1000 A.D. India was invaded by the Sultan Mahmud of Ghasna.
"With Mahmud's expedition into India begins one of the most horrible
periods of the history of Hindustan. One monarch dethrones another, no
dynasty continues in power, every accession to the throne is
accompanied by the murder of kinsmen, plundering of cities,
devastation of the lowlands and the slaughter of thousands of men,
women and children of the predecessor's adherents; for five centuries
northwest and northern India literally reeked with the blood of
multitudes."[1] Mohammedan dynasties of Afghan, Turkish and Mongolian
origin follow that of Ghasna. This entire period is filled with an
almost boundless series of battles, intrigues, imbroglios and
political revolutions; nearly all events had the one characteristic in
common, that they took place amid murder, pillage and fire.
[Footnote 1: E. Schlagintweit, _Indien in Wort und Bild_, II, 26 f.]
[Illustration: AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
From Noer's _Kaiser Akbar_, (Frontispiece to Vol. II).]
The most frightful spectacle throughout these reeking centuries is the
terrible Mongolian prince Timur, a successor of Genghis-Khan, who fell
upon India with his band of assassins in the year 1398 and before his
entry into Delhi the capital, in which he was proclaimed Emperor of
India, caused the hundred thousand prisoners whom he had captured in
his previous battles in the Punjab, to be slaughtered in one single
day, because it was too inconvenient to drag them around with him. So
says Timur himself with shameless frankness in his account of the
expedition, and he further relates that after his entry into Delhi,
all three districts of the city were plundered "according to the will
of God."[2] In 1526 Baber, a descendant of Timur, made his entry into
Delhi and there founded the dominion of the Grand Moguls (i.e., of the
great Mongols). The overthrow of this dynasty was brought about by the
disastrous reign of Baber's successor Aurungzeb, a cruel, crafty and
treacherous despot, who following the example of his ancestor Timur,
spread terror and alarm around him in the second half of the
seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Even to-day
Hindus may be seen to tremble when they meet the sinister fanatical
glance of a Mohammedan.
[Footnote 2: A. Müller, _Der Islam im Morgen-und Abendland_, II, 300
f.]