Emperor Akbar. Fatehpur Sikri.
Emperor Akbar. Fatehpur Sikri.
January 26, 2010
The Mughal emperor’s Pachisi Courtyard. In front of the Ibadat Khana, House of Worship.
Akbar’s court poets Faizi and Urfi receive the Persona. Rabindranath Tagore, Amir Khosrow, Kabir, Bulleh Shah, Lalan, and Sarmad, the wild Persian-Jewish convert to Sufism, dressed like a Jain. The mystics and Sufis of India mix and consult. Vyasa, Valmiki, and Tulsidas look on. Persuaded by Tagore, given the trials of the time, Rahman Baba, an Afgani Pashtun, comes down from his mountain village to confer with the poet from the moon. Satya Pir, Dihlawi, Fani Kashmiri, Brahman, Panapati. Evoking the majesty of human history, Lord Alfred Tennyson extols Akbar’s dream.
The many oceans mingle. The dancing girls on the Pachisi Courtyard.
Probably you are right about Tagore..he used to call the bauls to Shantiniketan and make them dance and used to listen to their songs…he wore long flowing gowns…he was a Sufi…
You seem to have researched well Frederick…thanks
I have always, meaning like over 35 years, been very fond of Tagore’s Gitanjali and translation of Kabir… I had fogotten his interest in the Bauls, but it makes perfect sense. Thanks for reminding me of that.
Actually, one of my poems, “Dawn of a New Day,” is very much indebted to the Gitanjali, in my echapbook Crow Hunting:
https://books.google.com/ebooks?as_brr=5&q=+inauthor:%22Frederick+Glaysher%22