Marathas, Malik Ambar and Mughal Emperor Jahangir's Fantasies in Early 17th Century

शहाजी राजे, मलिक अंबर, (संत एकनाथ आणि इतर) यांच्या मध्ययुगीन महाराष्ट्राचा आणि पर्यायाने भारताचा इतिहास हा कसा जागतिक इतिहास आहे, याचे एक अतिशय कलात्मकतेने सादर केलेले उदाहरण म्हणजे हे सोबतचे Abu’l-Hasan यांनी जहांगीर बादशहाचे १६१६ साली काढलेले चित्र आहे...

 

रिचर्ड ईटन त्याबद्दल आपल्या "India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765", 2019 पुस्तकात लिहतात...

 

"... One of the most arresting portraits commissioned by Jahangir is the deeply allegorical painting of himself standing on a globe that rests on the horns of a bull, which in turn stands on a great fish – symbols of kingship drawn from Hindu lore. All around the emperor are seen images representing his highest aspirations. Cherubs in the sky offer him a sword and arrows. To one side is an elaborate crown above a roundel in which is inscribed his own name and those of each of his royal ancestors reaching back to Timur. Above the crown flutters a bird of paradise. To the emperor’s other side is a golden scale of justice hanging from a chain with golden bells. The chain is suspended between the globe and a javelin, against which rests a musket. In the centre of the painting, wearing a white turban, a crimson gown and impeccably white slippers, is Jahangir himself, drawing a reverse-curved bow and aiming his arrow at the severed head of his most hated enemy, Malik Ambar (d. 1626), which rests on the tip of the javelin. Perched on Ambar’s bare head is an owl, a symbol of darkness. All around the head are inscriptions that speak of the emperor’s contempt for Malik Ambar – ‘The head of the night-coloured servant has become the house of the owl’; ‘Ambar the owl, which fled the light, has been driven from the world by your [Jahangir’s] enemy-smiting arrow."

 

हे चित्र जहांगिराची निव्वळ फँटसी आहे , स्वप्न आहे.... हे चित्र १६१६ साली काढण्यात आले हा योगायोग नाही! कारण... त्यावर्षी मराठे आणि अफ्रिकी यांनी मोगलांना जेरीस आणले होते...

 

"The painting was completed c.1616, another bad year in a series of bad years for Mughal military operations in the Deccan. From the start of his reign, Jahangir had sent army after army south to fulfil his father’s dream of annexing the plateau to the empire. Between 1608 and 1612 he launched four major invasions led by his best generals, but all were repulsed by armies loyal to Ahmadnagar, one of the three remaining major sultanates of the plateau. Although the kingdom’s Nizam Shahi house was headed by a series of weak, puppet sultans and the capital of Ahmadnagar was occupied by Mughal forces, the state was kept alive by two powerful groups: Maratha warrior lineages and the so-called Habshis – natives of east Africa recruited as military slaves. Malik Ambar, a disciplined leader and master tactician, was a member of the latter group. His career is important, not just because he and his Deccan forces managed to check India’s mightiest armies for two decades, but also for what it reveals about the place of Africans in Indian history, and about military slavery itself...."

 

आणि म्हणून मग मलिक अंबर चा पराकोटीचा द्वेष (त्याच्या तुटलेल्या मुंडक्यावरचे घुबड पहा)आणि हिंदूंधर्मातील कल्पना वापरत त्याच्या क्रूरपणे केलेल्या हत्येची कल्पनारम्यता...

 

मलिक अंबर वयाच्या ७७व्या वर्षी १६२६ साली शांतपणे, बहुदा आपल्या स्वतःच्या बिछान्यात वारले...

 

टीपा :

 

१) In the 3rd century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established the roughly spherical shape of Earth as a physical fact and calculated the Earth's circumference. This knowledge was gradually adopted throughout the Old World during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. By about the 5th century AD, the siddhanta astronomy texts of South Asia, particularly of Aryabhata, assume a spherical Earth as they develop mathematical methods for quantitative astronomy for calendar and time keeping.

२) चित्र जून २०२३ मध्ये न्यूयॉर्क, अमेरिकेतील प्रसिद्ध मेट संग्रहालयात आहे. पहा  Met Museum