Interview/ M.J. Akbar, author and former Union minister
To most of us, the Mughal story starts in the forenoon of April 21, 1526, when a corps of 12,000 defeated an army of one lakh in just four hours on the plains of Panipat. The history of India changed at that noon when Babur, a warlord from Fergana, prevailed over Ibrahim Lodi, the sultan of Delhi. But M.J. Akbar’s After Me, Chaos starts the Mughal story two ‘generations’ later, with the birth of Babar’s grandson Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar. For two reasons.
The book opens with the first reason. The birth didn’t happen exactly in the manner in which it was ordained by nature. A soothsayer—to use a pejorative word—intervened to alter what everyone thought was God’s will. The royal astrologer, who decided that the queen’s labour pain was occurring at an inauspicious hour, intervened in a hideous manner, and got the boy born at a time he willed!
The second reason is given at the end of the book—in the very last paragraph of the last chapter. Writes the author: “Both Babur and Humayun would have been forgotten even by the footnotes of history but for Akbar, a reflection of the dazzling light… of that Venus of fortune, the goddess Alanqua.” Yes, there wouldn’t have been a Mughal empire, but for Akbar.
Goddess Alanqua for a Muslim dynasty? Yes, a goddess of the ‘pagan’ eastern Turkic Khans, she was a virgin mother like Mary, but the Mughals took pride in tracing their heritage to her. “Alanqua was crucial to Akbar’s cosmic identity,” writes the author. “Pride in this heritage was proclaimed in official history, and this was never denied or diluted by any successor”, not even the friend of faith, Aurangzeb. For that matter, even Aurangzeb had astrologers in his court who told him when to enter a city, when to start a battle, and when to receive guests in the durbar.
The book is not just the story of six men—Babur the Conqueror, Humayun the Kind, Akbar the Great, Jahangir the Just, Shah Jahan the Magnificent, and Aurangzeb the Pious—but also of men who considered their culture more ancient and greater than their faith. It is an unputdownable, thrilling account of one and a half illustrious centuries of Indian history, when the Indian sun shone over the world’s richest, mightiest and the most splendid empire of that time.
Excerpts from an interview with the author:
Q/ What prompted you to choose such a topic, taking such pains as to go to primary sources?
A/ What prompted me were my attempts to understand my country’s past. I have always sought my information by opening the curtains that have been placed before us, in most cases by whole generations of British scholars. While their contributions were good, we have to go back to translations from the Persian, from the official records.
Now the topic—the Mughals’ commitment to astrology. It’s all over the place [in Mughal accounts]…. The stories are absolutely fascinating. The reason for that is they accepted that their culture went back far beyond in time, more than their religion. They were all practising Muslims. No doubt about that. But they also recognised the parallel reality. For example, they claimed a more ancient ancestry. Once I started putting the pieces together, I found enough instances of cultural assimilation.
Q/ One can understand that in the case of the first five great Mughals. But in the case of Aurangzeb, who is supposed to be a friend of faith, how could he believe in astrology which goes against the tenets of his religion?
A/ His bigotry destroyed the Mughal empire. It collapsed not because it was defeated in the battlefield. It collapsed because its internal coherence, internal cohesion and its internal value system were completely destroyed by this bigot. He knew it. The title of the book, After Me, Chaos, comes from what he said, what he predicted, that it would be chaos after him.
Q/ That’s originally from the French king Louis XIV’s statement. He said, “After me, deluge…”
A/ Happy that you mentioned this, because it’s completely wrong. It’s not originally French. Not Louis XIV. He said it 80 years after Aurangzeb.
Q/ Really? I thought you improvised.
A/ No. I’ll tell you the story. Aurangzeb used to hide his commitment to astrology because he thought that the orthodox mullahs would be upset. Yes, he was a man of faith. But even he, when it came to his own coronation, went to astrologers to find out the right time. He crowned himself twice. And both times, the astrologers told him the right time.
To come to the point of the title. When he was 80 years old—he had four sons whom he kept in jail for various amounts of time—he called Bahadur Shah and told him, how he [Aurangzeb] had become emperor. He had no rational chance of becoming emperor, his elder brother Dara Shukoh had been the father’s [Shah Jahan] favourite, but what was written in the horoscope, written by Mullah Alaulmulk Tuni, was different. Then he tells Bahadur Shah that in 80 years, every single incident of his life had been predicted.
Having recounted his own story, he gives the son the bad news—that the horoscope had also said that the mighty empire would crumble within two or three years after his death. So it was an astrologer who predicted everything including the collapse of the empire, and this is there in the original Persian, that “after me chaos”.
Q/ But how could he reconcile his religious faith with astrology?
A/ He sort of kept it private. And he had many Muslim astrologers. For more than a hundred years before Aurangzeb, the post of the chief astrologer in the court was held always by a Brahmin from Banaras. Their names are there in the books. Every morning, at the first meeting of the day, two astrologers would be there to determine whether it was auspicious for the emperor to meet X or Y.
Q/ You mentioned that in the case of Humayun, when he was to meet the emperor of Persia.
A/ Humayun’s astrologer’s is a fascinating story. The book begins with him. He was a Muslim—Maulana Chand. He was there when Humayun was on the run after being defeated by Sher Shah. Imagine, after 14 years [of the founding of the empire] the emperor didn’t have even money to buy food. He was in exile pursued not only by Sher Shah but also his brothers. When he entered Umarkot, his wife Hamida Banu was heavily pregnant. But Humayun had to leave her in his host’s palace and fight an enemy. He left, leaving only one man behind—his astrologer. Why? To record the exact second of the birth of his child so that there would be no confusion about the horoscope.
Maulana Chand believed that this was a child who was very auspicious. But when the labour pains started, he went frantic. He realised the time was not auspicious. He had to delay the birth till a most auspicious moment which would come a few days later. No, no, the child cannot be born now. But the women started laughing, saying when nature starts its course, who are you to stop it? But he was determined. He knew of the auspicious moment which would occur a few days later, and that a child born at that moment would be chakravarty.
So you know what he did? He found an ugly-looking woman there, caught her by the scruff of her neck and pushed to the side of the exiled queen’s bed. The queen, in labour pains, was so shocked to see this hideous thing thrust through the curtain, and her labour pains ceased. Then the child would be born at the right time the astrologer wanted. That child would be Akbar.
Q/ The book says Humayun was himself an astrologer, and he foresaw his own death.
A/ Yes. And how do we know? Because it’s right there in the records. He used to eat opium. One day he told his servant who was putting up packets of opium for the month to keep it only for seven days; ‘I won’t need it on the eighth’. On the seventh morning, after consuming it, he said that this afternoon, a great injury will happen to a great person. In the evening, he went up to the terrace to see the stars. And he heard the prayer call. While running down the stairs, his foot caught in his robe, and he fell to his death.
Q/ It was a library building—you had a ‘body in the library’ case…
A/ Yes, they all had libraries. After Jahangir finally had access to his father’s library, the first book he took out and read was the Ramayan. This is part of culture. They respected other faiths. They respected other languages. [I have problems with] this whole notion that Islam is trapped in one language. Look, the Quran came in one language, but the Quran itself says that the message I [God] have sent is in every language. Surely, God is available to anyone with any kind of language. Culture is much older than religion. Most religions can be defined to a particular date. But culture comes from our ancestry.
Q/ Coming back to Aurangzeb’s death, if you believe that such things are determined by the stars, you also believe that astrology suggests ways to avoid or delay certain calamities. You propitiate the gods, the spirits, the supernatural powers through certain rites. Do we find evidence for that in the Mughal accounts?
A/ When Jahangir’s granddaughter was born, his astrologer forbade him from seeing her for a few years [to avoid certain calamity]. When he goes to Kashmir for a holiday, he wants to take his grandson, but the astrologer forbids him, saying something would happen to the child, but it won’t be the worst. And it so happened. The child, while playing near a window in the castle, fell. But exactly below the window, a carpet seller had stacked his ware. The child survived. When there was a theft in Jahangir’s palace, he called the astrologer who told him it would be found. And it was. When Akbar was to invade Kashmir, there was a great debate in the council whether it was the right time, and Akbar leaves it to the astrologer to decide. Akbar planned to build a city in Punjab but the plan never took off because the astrologers could not find the right time to start work.
Q/ The Mughals claimed to have descended from Timur and Genghis. Genghis was a believer in these things. There’s a story that he didn’t invade India because he read bad signs when he burnt sheepskin. You didn’t mention it.
A/ Yes, there is that story, but that is beyond the scope of my book which is about the Mughals. And the fact is, Genghis’s army invaded India thrice. All three were defeated.
Q/ You have written extensively about five of the great six. But is there enough about Shah Jahan? Akbar may be great, but Shah Jahan captured popular imagination with his Taj, Red Fort, Mumtaz, Kohinoor, Peacock Throne. He symbolises fine things—beauty, wealth and magnificence. What about his belief in astrology?
A/ The book has a lot about him. You know, his main title was Sahib-i-Qiran-i-Saani, or Second Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus. Like his father, he would enter a city only after clearance from astrologers—he waited for 12 days after January 28, 1628, to enter Agra. There are records of predictions being made when his sons were born. [Grandfather] Jahangir was still alive when Shah Jahan’s children were born. On March 29, 1615, there was an eclipse, which they saw as an ominous sign. A son was born to Khurram (Shah Jahan) the next day. Three years later Jahangir saw a comet, which spelt dire news according to astrologers. Aurangzeb was born just after. Jahangir does not hide his foreboding at what might transpire—that the conflict between these two boys would be bad for the empire.
Q/ But wasn’t Shah Jahan also a little dogmatic about religion, perhaps a little less than Aurangzeb?
A/ There is this incident which shows how he was. Once he was out hunting, when he rode ahead of the entourage. That is dangerous for an emperor. Soon he was tired, and sat under a tree waiting for others. He felt thirsty and he saw a man with a water pitcher. He asked for some water. That man, who didn’t know that the stranger was the emperor, sprinkled some leaves on top of the vessel, and gave the water. Shah Jahan drank it and then asked him why he sprinkled leaves. The man replied that there was this custom when they gave water to donkeys. Soon the entourage arrived, the man realised this was the emperor himself, and he started trembling. But Shah Jahan smiled, and said you gave me water when I was thirsty; as a reward, I allow you to collect all the revenue from this village. It came to be known as the Brahman’s Village.
Q/ This waterman story reminds me of the waterman in Humayun’s story. The one who saved him when he was fleeing after his defeat in the battle of Chausa.
A/ Yes. As a reward, Humayun allowed him to sit on the throne for a day or half.
Q/ Ek din ka sultan! But is it true that he emptied the treasury in those few hours?
A/ No, they were not foolish.
Q/ Are you thinking of a sequel? On the later Mughals, or the so-called lesser Mughals? There were some 15 or 16 of them?
A/ That story is a separate story. A very different story. In their story, you see how a dynasty, which has no reason to survive, continuing into tragedies.
After Me, Chaos: Astrology in the Mughal Empire
Author: M.J. Akbar
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Price: Rs799; Pages: 300