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Akbar, the Great 1542 - 1605
Can a man – all alone - foist a god upon his fellows
Even if it’s only himself
And they his subjects
G.. is Akbar!
Does the muezzin from the minaret of Qoutoub-Minar
look up or
down to the illiterate savant emperor
whose newly-ordered cosmos
much as Tamerlane and Genghis Khan's blood
mixed gods
invented the Gysin-Burroughs cut-up and fold-in method
a cornucopian chimera
shi'ite-sunnite-kharidjites
hindu/buddhist-jain
confucian-taoist/zoroastrian
orthodox-christian/judaic
saivite-vaisnavite
mahayanist-theravadite
shintoist-zen-chan
agnostic-atheist
A…. is Great!
In the begining there was no VERB for him
In the end
from
"brahmana" Himalayas to the "asurya" Deccan
from
Ghazna and Kabul to the spent chugged mouth of the Ganges
where bloomed the Allah-Upanishad
One common language
One uncommon religion
One classless society
One mutually nourishing art
One scientific quest
and the sweet music of friendly disputation
within then the world’s vastest book and art collection
though knowingly
took to wife an Hindu princess
chose his prime counsellor from among the Brahmin élite
where within hearing distance lithesome nymphs bathed in scented milk
his victoriously wearied warrior limbs back from punitive expeditions
through Panipat Delhi Agra Punjab Gwalior Ajmer
Gujarat Bengal Sind Orissa Baluchistan Ahmadnagar Kashmir
Khandesh
to circumscribe the sub-continent
a Ceasar at the court of Fatehpur-Sikri
Akbar is ___!
Who would parse and complete or conclude the syllogism
For « One » who dared abolish the jiziyah
Note: Jalal ud-Din Muhammad Akbar (1542-1605), the third Mughal Emperor, edicted that muezzins should herald the rising of the sun by the call: Allah-u-Akbar!
The « jiziyah » , a word of Arabic origin, meaning a tax levied on non-Muslims who wished to conserve their own property, and imposed by the Moghul sovereigns – on and off - in India, was abolished by Akbar in his seventh year of accession to the throne.
©: T. Wignesan, March 13, 1992 (from the sequence/collection: "Words for a Lost Sub-Continent")
Copyright ©
T Wignesan
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