Babur's Unshakeable Faith in DivinityK

Babur's Unshakeable Faith in DivinityK S Ram
The Baburnama is Babur's memoirs. However, this work could also be read as a purana. The founder of the Mughal dynasty in India did not write his memoirs for self-glorification. This book, like the puranas, is meant to "assert eternal provi-dence/ And justify the ways of God to men" (Milton).
After a narration in prose, whenever Babur has to deduce and put across a lesson, he does so in verse. His spirituality derived from first-hand experience is not for a happy hereafter, but for holistic kingship here. A few instances could help illustrate this.
Babur's uncle, Sultan Mahmud Mirza, duly acceded to the throne of Samarkand. But he was a debauched tyrant. When a deeply distressed subject approached him for justice, complaining that a soldier had forcibly taken away his dear wife, the lecherous sultan coldly responded: "She's been with you for many years.
Let her be with him for a few days". Babur sees potential havoc in this injury. His verse: "Beware of festering inner wounds, for inner wounds surface in the end./ Distress no one insofar as you are able, for one cry of anguish can upset the whole world".
The sultan perished within five months. For Babur this is the inevitable play of cause and effect. "When you have done evil, be not secure from calamity, for retribution is the law of nature", he states.
Babur had the quality of ironic awareness. He was a king, ever-active to acquire new territory, yet he was aware of how vain and transitory was the nature of such pursuits.
When Khusrawshah blinds his very benefactor Sultan Masud Mirza, Babur denounces it as 'shortsightedness' to resort to such depravity "for the sake of this transitory world". He pronounces: "A hundred thousand curses upon anyone who performs or has performed such a despicable act!
Anyone who hears of this and does not curse (Khusrawshah) deserves to be cursed himself!" So convinced is Babur of the self-destructing nature of evil, that he feels maybe no force is required to quell evil. More than once he states: "Entrust to fate who does you evil, for fate is an avenging servant for you".
The driving force for Babur was his strong faith in God. His two most famous victories, the first against Sultan Ibrahim in the Battle of Panipat and the second against Rana Sanga in the Battle of Khanua, were against armies almost tenfold greater in number.
Yet, when consciously taking on such mighty forces, Babur was not being reckless. He was driven by his perception of God's ways. Battles, he says, are in truth fought on a different field; numbers in your cadres are not the decisive factor.
He says: "God grants victory both to the many and the few: no one has might in the divine court". This brings to mind the wisdom of Dharmaraj in opting for the unarmed Krishna as against the huge cadres the loser-to-be Duryodhana got to wage war at Kurukshetra.
After the Battle of Panipat, Babur glorifies God: "God... defeated such a powerful opponent and conquered a vast kingdom like Hindustan. We do not consider this good fortune to have emanated from our own strength and force but from God's grace".
People often wonder in disbelief at the celebrated story of Babur swapping his own life to save the dying Humayun. Such acts, verging on the miraculous, in fact, come naturally to anyone who has rock-strong faith in God always.
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