Medieval History

[ramana]

From Tribune, 18 June 2007

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Portrait of a rose princess</b>
by N.S. Tasneem

Little known facts about well-known personalities sometimes astonish the people. Babur loved his five daughters so much that he named four of them with the prefix of gul (rose). His eldest daughter was Masuma (Innocent) and then Gulrukh (Rose-Faced), Gulrang (Rose-Coloured), Gulchehra (Rosy-Cheeked) and Gulbadan (Rose-Body). The youngest Gulbadan has in her memoirs told the story from Babur’s conquest of India in 1526 till her death in 1603 during Akbar’s reign. Incidentally, Akbar died two years later in 1605.

Gulbadan (the rose princess) says, “Babur wanted his sons to be versed in the art of writing. If he had not been so great and constant a warrior he himself could have been a true poet.” Even when Humayun grew up, Babur wrote to him, “You certainly do not excel in letter writing and you fail because you have too great a desire to show off.”

Rumer Godden in her book Gulbadan (Viking 1981) has commented, “How surprised he would have been to know that it was his smallest daughter who would be the one to follow him in this love.”

There is an interesting episode in Gulbadan’s memoirs as to how Babur received his begum Maham when she came from Kabul to Agra in 1527. On June 27, Begum Maham reached Aligarh (then known as Kul-Jalali). Babur wanted to meet his wife as early as possible. At the evening prayer time someone told him, “I have just passed her Highness on the road, four miles out.” Gulbadan comments, “My royal father did not wait for a horse to be saddled but set out on foot and met her.”

When Humayun ascended the throne, he continued to shower his affection on his sister Gulbadan, who was otherwise undemanding. In fact, he inspired her to note down from her memory all the significant events since Babur left Kabul to meet Ibrahim Lodhi at Panipat. She was four years old at that time but her memory was very sharp. Humayun, on his part, was not fond of writing like his father Babur, whose Tuzuk-i-Babari is considered a classic.

In fact, he did not find time to do so due to the turbulent period of his lifetime. Still he had some interest in reading as Gulbadan tells, “Humayun had gone up to the roof of the tower he used as a library. Then he had interested himself in astrology, especially the rising of the planet Venus, probably to find some auspicious date.”

During Akbar’s reign Gulbadan continued to get due regards from her nephew. Akbar had not shown any interest in studies during his childhood, but when he grew up he had “a real delight in books and philosophical debate.” He had such a memory that none could realise that he was illiterate. He is said to have more than 24,000 books in his library.

Regarding “haughtiness” it can be said that “Babur had never been imperious — he was too sensitive to his sins. Humayun was hardly imperious enough, but in the case of Akbar, despite his mother Hamida’s remonstration, this trait was obvious.” Still for Gulbadan it was “that innate and unswerving reverence for the title ‘Emperor’ and of the blood royal. She could not help but esteem Akbar, no matter what he did.”

In February 1603, Gulbadan was laid up with a fatal fever at the age of 80. Hamida was with her at that critical time. Her last words were ‘Jiu’, a sort of blessing from an elderly person to a younger one. Akbar himself helped to carry her bier. Rumer Godden concludes, “There seems to have been no ‘death name’ for Gulbadan. Hamida was to be known as Miriam Makhani in tribute, oddly enough, to the Virgin Mary, but Gulbadan lives on in history as herself, Princess Rosebody.”
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->