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Evidence actually suggests that the Mughals became far more "Brahmanized" than many of the religious nationalist of modern-day India would prefer to remember. This traces at least back to the 3rd Mughal Emperor, Akbar, & rapidly increased. Like his father, Akbar, Jahangir...
... surrounded himself with “Sanskrit thinkers.” His son, Shah Jahan, pursued the same policy. As these Brahman collaborators swelled the ranks of the Mughal courts, the Emperors increasingly came under the influence of Brahmanical culture. Twice annually, on their solar and...
lunar birthdays, members of the Imperial family participated in the tuladan, a weighing ceremony described by Islamic culture expert Father Michael Calabria as “the central ritual of the imperial Hindu kingdom in the eighth century.” According to Fr. Calabria, “By offering his...
... body weight in gold, silver, or other precious substances to Brahmans, the king asserted his power and glory.”British journalist Fergus Nicoll, documents one example in 1608. "Court astrologers, both Hindu and Muslim... advised the Emper- or that the year... would be one...
... of particular auspiciousness for Prince [Shah Jahan]. So, to celebrate his sixteenth birthday, they now cast a special horoscope.... So remarkable were their predictions that they urged the Emperor to break with tradition and grant [Shah Jahan] the unprecedented honor of...
... an additional Tuladan weighing ceremony. This practice had been adopted by Khurram’s liberal grandfather, the late Emperor Akbar. It was one of a number of ancient Hindu rituals — in which the ruler’s weight in gold and precious stones was originally distributed to Brahman...
... priests for the maintenance of temple precincts — appropriated by Akbar to enhance his own legitimacy in locally recognizable terms." Sir Thomas Roe, the English ambassador to the Mughal court, bears witness to another example in 1616. “This day was the birth of the king...
... and solemnized as a great feast, wherein the king is weighed against some jew- els, gold, silver, stuffs of gold [and] silver, silk, butter, rice, fruit, and many other things... which is given to the Brahmans,” writes Roe in his journal.
Jahangir was enthralled by the “vast system of superstition” of the Brahmans. He was a devotee of the astrologers. As Pelsaert observes in 1626, "Some of the Brahmans are very ingenious.... They reckon eclipses very clearly, and they also do a great deal of fortune-telling....
... There are usually one or two such men with a great reputation in the city; indeed the present King generally kept one at Court.... The Brahmans have consequently secured a great reputation, and they have now acquired such influence over the great men, and then over all...
... the Moslems, that they will not undertake a journey until they have enquired what day or hour is auspicious for the start; and when they return from a journey, or come to take up an appointment, they will not enter the city until the suitable day or hour...
... has been predicted, and then they wait until the exact moment has arrived." In 1628, after the death of his father, Jahangir, Shah Jahan came to the throne. He had been under the tutelage of upper-caste Hindus since childhood. Moreover, he was trained in warfare by a Hindu...
“At the age of eight, [Shah Jahan] started additional musketry lessons, as well as swordsmanship, cavalry techniques, spear work, and wrestling — all under the watchful eye of Raja Salivahan, a trusted Hindu officer in [Jahangir’s] personal militia,” reports Nicoll....
... In Shah Jahan’s daily court sessions, Nicoll wrote, “Holy men of all faiths — ash-encrusted Hindu sadhus, Sufi mystics in white cot- ton robes — clustered into the royal presence, seeking to give blessings and receive alms.” The “Sanskrit thinkers” in the Mughal courts...
... sang hymns of praise to the Emperors. Two of the most notable of these flatterers were Pandit Jagannath and Chandar Bhan Brahman. Jagannath was in the service of Jahangir and Shah Jahan; Chandar Bhan was in the service of Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and, eventually, his...
... son Aurangzeb. While the Mughal throne switched hands, the Brahman advisors remained in the same roosts for generations. Jagannath, writes Nicoll, was “one of the Emperor’s favorite Sanskrit-language wordsmiths, a Hindu honored with the title...
... Mahakavirai, ‘Great Master of Verse.’” According to Indian historian Dr. Malik Mohamed, “Shah Jahan honored Pandit Jagannath with the title ‘Panditraja.’ The Emperor... was daily blessed by Pandit Jagannath with address as...
... Dillishwara-ba Jagdishwara (The Lord of Delhi is the Lord of the Universe).” As Nicoll reports, his strategy of flattery paid off. "Sanskrit scholars like Pandit Jagannath, the Great Master of Verse, recited verses in honor of... Shah Jahan. One Sunday night in October 1634..
... encamped at Bhimar in Kashmir, the Emperor awarded the poet his weight in silver as prize money for a cycle of twelve literary masterpieces. Similar honors awaited favored Hindi poets, such as Hari Nath, who won an elephant, a horse, and twenty-five thousand rupees in...
... January 1640. American historian Rajeev Kinra reports that Chandar Bhan “lived, worked, and thrived through part or all of the reigns of four different Muslim monarchs, at the peak of the Mughal Empire’s power and global influence.” Chandar cheered the Mughal ruler’s...
... “victory and conquest” in the following paean: "Even though in this age adorned by the felicity and prosperity of His Most Exalted Majesty — the Sovereign of the Times, World Conqueror, and Treasure-Bestowing Emperor, who is bounteous as the sea, and the earthly shadow of...
... the divine splendorous presence — a new social occasion takes place every day, and fabulous assemblies and festivals are arranged every month and every year; and from the six directions an amber-sweetened zephyr of victory and conquest wafts into nostrils eager for a whiff...
... of its grace; and there is no way to measure or count the trappings of the court and the imperial apparatus of this eternal caliphate; and, if from the very beginning of this spring of Empire and fortune, the pen of narration were to commit to writing the details of the...
... day-increasing festivities and freshness and verdancy of the garden of eternal spring in this stalwart Empire — the space of many volumes would be necessary." Imperial servants like Chandar and Jagannath groveled before the Mughals by comparing them to gods and proclaiming...
... their Empire “eternal.” Incapable of speaking truth to power, Chandar praised the Emperor as “World Conqueror” and Jagannath praised him as “Lord of the Universe” instead of denouncing the injustice of his foreign occupation. As a consequence of the cheerful subservience...
... of these Brahman courtiers, “the Mughal administration adopted a policy of tolerance towards Hindus and their places of worship.”
