SANSKRIT IN THE REIGN OF MUGHALS

 

          In the wake of Mughal invasions, the political relations between the newcomers and the indigenous bounded to be influenced mutually.  The Hindu and the Muslim communities came to imbibe each other’s thoughts and customs.  It was out of the desire for mutual understanding that Hindu (Sanskrrit) religions literature was studied and translated or summarized in the Muslim courts like those of Zain-ul-Abidin in Kashmir and Husain Shah in Bengal. 

Muslim courts and Muslim preachers and saints were attracted to the study of Hindu philosophy like Yoga, Vedanta and the sciences of medicines and astrology.  The growth of Urdu, of the mingling “out of Persian, Arabic and Turkish words and ideas with languages and concepts of Sanskrit origin, is a proof of the linguistic synthesis of the Hindus and the Muslims”.

          The Mughal rulers of India were patrons of education.  Shah Jahan, though more interested in magnificent building, was highly educated in his early youth in Turki.  He founded one college at Delhi and repaired the college named Dar-Ul-Baqa (Abode of Eternity).  In Dara Shukoh the Mughal imperial family possessed one of the greatest scholars that India has ever produced.  Well versed in Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit, he was the author of some famous works, including Persian translations of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana.

          Jagannatha Pandita (1590-1665 A.D), a protégé of Shah Jahan, is the author of five lyrics namely SudhaLahari, AmrtaLahari, LakshmiLahari, KarunaLahari and GangaLahari.  The SudhaLahari has thirty stanzas in praise of the sun, AmrtaLahari ten stanzas praising the river Yamuna, LakshmiLahari forty one stanzas in praise of Lakshmi, KarunaLahari which is also known as VishnuLahari sixty stanzas in praise of Vishnu, and GangaLahari which is also known as PiyushaLahari fifty two stanzas in praise of the river Ganga.

          Apart from these works, Jagannatha Pandita  authored a combined Gnomic and didactic poetry titled BhaminiVilasam contains four parts dealing with Anyokti, Srngara, Karunya, and Santi in 101, 100, 19, and 32 stanzas respectively in memory of his wife Bhamini. 

          Moreover, Jagannatha Pandita acquired high reputation through the RasaGangadharam which is standard work on Alankaras.  His sense of judgement becomes clear from his definition of poetry expressed in the line “Ramaneeyaarthaf prathipaadhakas sabdhaha means, a word that expresses a beautiful meaning”.