the very happy mughal emperor

not that there's anything wrong with it.

http://rainbowrays.blogspot.com/2007/12/may-none-be-as-i-humbled-and-wretched.html

http://www.littlemag.com/2000/amitav.htm

From 'The Great Moghuls' by Bamber Gascoigne pgs 37-38 and 42:

"He was occupied at this time in linking in narrative form the jottings
which he had made throughout his life as a rough diary, but he also
found time for a magnificent and very detailed forty page account of his
new acquisition--Hindustan. In it he explains the social structure and
the caste system, the geographical outlines and the recent history; he
marvels at such details as the Indian method of counting and
time-keeping, the inadequacy of the lighting arrangements, the profusion
of Indian craftsmen, or the want of good manners, decent trousers and
cool streams; but his main emphasis is on the flora and fauna of the
country, which he notes with the care of a born naturalist and describes
with the eye of a painter--an interest and a talent which would be very
precisely inherited by his great grandson, Jahangir.

He separates and
describes, for example, five types of parrots; he explains how plantain
produces banana; and with astonishing scientific observation he
announces that the rhinoceros 'resembles the horse more than any other
animal' (according to modern zoologists, the order Perisodactyla has
only two surviving sub-orders; one includes the rhinoceros, the other
the horse). In other parts of the book too he goes into raptures over
such images as the changing colors of a flock of geese on the horizon,
or of some beautiful leaves on an apple tree. The sensitivity with which
he observed his own reactions in love extends also to his observations
of nature....

The
emperor died on December 26,1530. His progression with all its ups and
downs from tiny Ferghana to Hindustan would in itself ensure him a minor
place in the league of his great ancestors, Timur and Jenghiz Khan
[note that from his mother's side Babur was a direct descendant of
Jenghiz Khan, while on his father's side he was a direct descendant of
Timur--Rashmun]; but the sensitivity and integrity with which he
recorded this personal odyssey, from buccaneer with royal blood in his
veins revelling in each adventure to emperor eyeing in fascinated
amazement every detail of his prize, gives him an added distinction
which very few men of action achieve. And his book itself became a
powerful and most beneficial source of inspiration to his descendants.
Avid readers of family history, they found here the most personal
expression of their own tradition. In certain respects they consciously
imitated Babur; Jahangir wrote a very similar book about his own life,
Shah Jahan deliberately copied Babur's gesture of pouring away his wine
before a decisive campaign.

Even more important, for several generations
the Great Moghuls instinctively followed Babur's concept of a ruler,
which by the standards of the time was decidedly liberal. Again and
again in his memoirs he demonstrates the belief that defeated enemies
must be conciliated rather than antagonized if they are to be ruled
effectively afterwards, and that one's own followers must be prevented
by rigid discipline from victimizing the local population. It was a
belief which would play an important part in the great days of the
Moghul empire."

Extract below taken from the first chapter of Stanley Lane-Pool's
biography of Babur. To avoid confusion, I refer to him as 'Babur'
throughout unlike Lane-Pool who spells his name as 'Babar':




Babur is the link between Central Asia and India, between
predatory hordes and imperial government, between Tamerlane and Akbar.
The blood of the two great Scourges of Asia, Chingiz and Timur, mixed in
his veins, and to the daring and restlessness of the nomad Tatar he
joined the culture and urbanity of the Persian. He brought the energy of
the Mongol, the courage and capacity of the Turk...his permanent place
in history rests upon his Indian conquests; but his place in biography
and in literature is determined rather by his daring adventures and
persevering efforts of his earlier days, and by the delightful Memoirs
in which he related them.





Soldier of fortune as he was, Babur was not the less a man
of fine literary taste and fastidious critical perception. In Persian,
the language of culture, the Latin of Central Asia, he was an
accomplished poet, and in his native Turki he was master of a pure and
unaffected style alike in prose and verse. The Turkish princes of his
time prided themselves upon their literary polish, and to turn an
elegant ghazal, or even to write a beautiful manuscript, was their
peculiar ambition, no less worthy or stimulating than to be master of
sword or mace.





In some of the boldly sketched portraits of his
contemporaries which enliven the Memoirs, Babur often passes abruptly
from warlike or administrative qualities to literary gifts; he will tell
how many battles a king fought, and then, as if to clinch the tale of
his merits, he will add that he was a competent judge of poetry and was
fond of reading the Shah Nama...Of another dignitary he notes
regretfully that 'he never read, and though a townsman he was illiterate
and unrefined'; on the other hand 'a brave man' is commended the more
because he 'wrote the nastalik hand,' though, truly, 'after a fashion'.






Wit and learning, the art of turning a quatrian on the spot,
quoting the Persian classics, writing a good hand, or singing a good
song, were highly appreciated in Babur's world, as much perhaps as
valour...Babur will himself break off in the middle of a tragic story to
quote a verse, and he found leisure in the thick of his difficulties
and dangers to compose an ode on his misfortunes...





Hence his Memoirs are no rough soldier's chronicle of
marches and countermarches...they contain the personal impressions and
acute reflections of a cultivated man of the world, well read in Eastern
literature, a close and curious observer, quick in perception, a
discerning judge of persons, and a devoted lover of nature; one,
moreover, who was well able to express his thoughts and observations in
clear and vigorous language.






'His autobigraphy,' says a sound authority [H. Beveridge], is
one of those priceless records which are for all time, and is fit to
rank with the confessions of St. Augustine and Rousseau, and the memoirs
of Gibbon and Newton. In Asia it stands almost alone.'....




the shrewd comments and lively impressions which break in
upon the narrative give Babur's reminiscences a unique and penetrating
flavour. The man's own character is so fresh and buoyant, so free from
convention and cant, so rich in hope, courage, resolve, and at the same
time so warm and friendly, so very human, that it conquers one's
admiring sympathy.




The utter frankness of self-revelation, the unconscious
portraiture of all his virtues and follies, his obvious truthfulness and
fine sense of honour, give the Memoirs an authority which is equal to
their charm. If ever there were a case when the testimony of a single
historical document, unsupported by other evidence, should be accepted
as sufficient proof, it is the case with Babur's memoirs. No reader of
this prince of autobiographers can doubt his honesty or his competence
as witness and chronicler.'

MaxEntropy_Man posted Re:A Litmus Test for a mogul on 5 yrs ago
so rashmun - was babur a homosexual or not? he said so himself in his autobiography. not that there's anything wrong with it.

Rashmun posted Re:A Litmus Test for a mogul on 5 yrs ago
he had homosexual tendencies in his youth--he himself
says in his autobiography that he fell in love with a youth but the
relationship was never consummated-- but he never had sex with any boy
or man. In later life, he actively propagated against homosexuality. So
the answer is that Babur was not a homosexual in as much as he did not
have sex with any boy or man.

MaxEntropy_Man posted Re:Mughal Emperor Babur: The Poet King on 4 yrs ago
so since you are the moghal history buff, tell me - was
babur a homosexual? i thought he admits to that explicitly in his
autobiography. not that there's anything wrong with it, i am just
curious.


Rashmun posted Re:Mughal Emperor Babur: The Poet King on 4 yrs ago
Max, how many times will u ask me the same question
again and again? I have responded to this several times. Stop being
unethical.

hilarious! i have a sneaky feeling that there's something wrong with it.

Rashmun wrote:http://www.littlemag.com/2000/amitav.htm

from the linked article:

Although scarcely a model parent, Babur’s father,
Umar-Shaykh Mirza, was the very soul of docility compared to the rest of his
family. More or less the first thought that occurred to Babur on hearing of his
father’s death was to flee to the mountains so that "at least I would not
fall captive... to one of my uncles." Of one of his uncles Babur writes:
"He never missed the five daily prayers, even when he was drinking... He
was a good drinker. Once he started drinking, he drank continually for twenty
or thirty days, but when he stopped he did not drink again for the same amount
of time." Of another: "He was addicted to vice and debauchery. He
drank wine continually. He kept a lot of catamites, and in his realm wherever
there was a comely, beardless youth, he did everything he could to turn him
into a catamite."

ah! so it ran in the family?

Not that there is anything wrong with it. Obviously.

he forgot to add that in his last post.

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:hilarious! i have a sneaky feeling that there's something wrong with it.

our position at council for understanding of glorious mughal history and hindu muslim synthesis is this:

it's not gay if you're giving it. for example: if akbar gave it to a goat, that doesnt make him a zoophile, it makes the dirty goat a humanophile and deserves to be put to death by decree as told in the holy book. in same vein, if babur had his wang polished by another man's pecker that doesnt make him gay, but other man is gay for sucking a man's dick.

hope you're able to catch this distinction.

ps: looking forward to news articles on homosexuality in andhra and telangana for rest of the day.