Being Hindu by Hindol Sengputa: An Excerpt

In his book, Hindol Sengupta talks about Mughal prince and Islamist reformer Dara Shikoh.

Hindol Sengupta, author of Being Hindu-Old Faith, New World and You. (Photo: Penguin Publication)

What does being a Hindu really mean? Author and journalist Hindol Sengupta attempts to answer that question in his latest book, Being Hindu: Old Faith, New World and You.

The Quint presents an excerpt from the book.

Remembering Aurangzeb, Forgetting Dara Shukoh: The Tragedy of Islam and Hinduism in India

It is not as if Islam has not had its reformist scholars in India. The most prominent – though barely mentioned these days – example is of Dara Shikoh. The tale of Dara is one of the most poignant in Indian history.

Usually, to bring to light the synthesis that happened between Hinduism and Islam in India during Mughal rule, the example of Akbar is given, the emperor who began as a hardliner but increasingly grew more tolerant towards various faiths, and even tried to bridge some of the divisions with the creation of a comprehensive spiritual ideology called Din-i-IIlahi.

But Akbar had the Mughal crown on his head, and near infinite powers in his vast empire. The ability to bring radical reform was easier for the emperor whose arrival proclamation declared him as the ‘shadow of god on earth’.

Shikoh, his great-grandson, is a more interesting character. To understand the depth of Shikoh’s grand idea, let us turn for a moment to the theologian and philosopher Jonardon Ganeri’s The Lost Age of Reason. Ganeri chooses the year 1656 as a seminal year for the flowering of a culture of syncretism in India.

‘In India, this was the year in which a long-running process of religious isomorphism, pioneered by Akbar’s chronicler Abu-i-Fazl and orchestrated around the idea of Ibn al-Arabi, the Sufi mystic and philosopher, of ‘unity in being’ (wahdat al-wujud), reached fulfillment in Dara Shikoh’s grand project to translate 52 Upanishads in Persian,’ writes Ganeri, professor of philosophy at New York University.

Dara Shikoh(left) and the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, circa 1620. (Photo courtesy: The Metropolitan Musem of Art)

What had happened to Dara Shikoh in the year 1656? In that year, Dara Shikoh, the chosen heir to the throne of Shah Jahan-the builder of the Taj Mahal, the owner of the Peacock Throne and Kohinoor diamond, the great Mughal who lorded over the treasures of India, began a unique experiment.

He was not an emperor – not even close, but he was certainly the favorite among the four sons of Shah Jahan, says the historian Jadunath Sarkar, author of the definitive four-volume The Fall of the Mughal Empire. Dara, influenced by Sufism, had read the Talmud, the New Testament and the Vedanta. He had been a pupil under the Muslim fakir Sarmad and the Hindu yogi Laldas.

Now he embarked on his greatest project, for which he gathered at Kashi (Benaras) a vast troupe of bilingual scholars. This for its time is unprecedented fare. He is 41 years old. His father, Shah Jahan, 66, and already the emperor is growing weaker and there was no definite heir to the throne in sight.

The emperor would have to take a decision soon. And it would not be an easy decision. Though his four sons were from the same mother – rare in the world of the sprawling harems of Mughal emperors – there was little love between them. The two strongest contenders to the throne were Dara Shikoh and the puritanical Aurangzeb. Such was the hatred between Dara and Aurangzeb that the emperor had to keep them away from one another to keep the peace.

Aurangzeb was, thus, kept far away in the south of India, fighting wars for his father and the Mughal crown, while Dara Shikoh was always by the emperor’s side.

The year 1656 would be eventful for Auranzeb too. This was the year he invaded Golconda, home to some of the greatest diamond mines the world has ever known. In this battle, which finally Aurangzeb would have to desert censured by his father, Dara Shikoh would take the side of the local ruler and get his father to accept a peace treaty and accept the payment of an indemnity.

By the end of the year, while Dara was busy with his grand translation project, Aurangzeb invaded Bijapur. But again as victory seemed so close, the ruler used influence in Delhi through Dara and thwarted his plans through another stern message from the father emperor.

By the end of 1657, Shah Jahan was already ill.

Dara Shikoh(Left) and mystic Sufi saint Miyan Mir. (Photo courtesy: wikimedia commons)

It was under such circumstances that Dara Shikoh pushed his plural. He knew, of course, that his greatest rival, his brother Aurangzeb was known as a puritanical Islamist.

He would have known that even though he was no apostate and ‘never discarded the essential dogmas of Islam’, his ‘coquetry with Hindu philosophy made it impossible for him, even if he had the inclination, to pose as the champion of orthodox and excusive Islam, or to summon all Muslims to his banners by proclaiming a holy war’ – this he certainly would have recognized could well be the fatal chink in his armour against any potential rival, especially Aurangzeb.

But Dara Shikoh still continued his work of immense daring. Daring because he suggested several things that few, if any, before him had suggested from the position of such influence in Islam – he brought about the idea that the Upanishads are hermeneutically continuous with the Quran, and that the Upanishads ‘are first of all heavenly books… in conformity with the holy Quran’ and that the Upanishads are ‘actually mentioned in the Quran and designated as scriptural texts’.

Dara Shikoh’s great book comparing Islam, as seen by the Sufis, the version that appealed to him, and the Vedanta, specifically the Upanishads, is the Majma al-bahrayn or The Meeting Place of the Two Oceans.

He writes, ‘after knowing the truth of truths and ascertaining the secrets and subtleties of the true religion of the Sufis and having been endowed with this great gift, he thirsted to know the tenets of the religion of the Indian monotheists; and having had repeated intercourse and discussion with the doctors and perfect divines of this religion, who had attained the highest pitch of perfection in religious exercises, comprehension, intelligence and insight… did not find any difference, except verbal, in the way they sought and comprehended Truth.’

What did Dara Shikoh get for his troubles?

His discoveries would add disastrously to his downfall. Defeated in battle, it was easier for Aurangzeb to get rid of him since he could be accused for heresy. He was executed in 1659. It has been suggested that had it not been for the accusation of heresy against Islam – which could not have held if Dara had not been so pluralist – it would not have been easy for Aurangzeb to murder him. And so it came to pass that perhaps the most peaceful imperial reformist of Islam in India finally died a violent death.

(Hindol Sengupta is Editor-at-Large for Fortune India. Being Hindu: Old Faith, New World and You is his sixth book. Published with permission from Penguin Books India.)

Title: Being Hindu: Old Faith, New World and You
Author: Hindol Sengupta
Publisher: Penguin Books
Pages: 192
Price: Rs 399