Favorite historical figure?
I'm super late on this, but it's so, so hard to choose only one. Like picking a favorite kid.
One historical figure that I've been kind of obsessed with lately, though, is Birbal. He was one of the navaratnas (nine jewels) of the court of Akbar, the third of the Mughal Emperor, and acted as an advisor and military commander. He was among the first officers to become a part of Akbar's court, and was noted for his generosity, learning (he was an especially good poet), and tactical skill, to the extent that he could sway the emperor's mind on nearly anything.
Birbal and Akbar were almost unusually close (apparently they were never parted after their first meeting until death), and there have actually arisen, since the 1500s, a genre of moral tales called Akbar-Birbal stories, (largely) fictional stories about him using his wit and intelligence to openly question the emperor and humiliate his rivals, often with witty quips and jokes to soften the blow. He also appears as a character in one of Salman Rushdie's best novels, his semi-fictional The Empress of Florence.
But there are a lot of really interesting and even quite touching factual stories involving the bond between Akbar and Birbal. According to Ira Mukhoty's biography of Akbar:
"During an elephant fight organized in the grounds of Akbar’s court, one of the elephants, ‘unique for violence’, suddenly rushed towards Birbal, and seized him with his trunk. Akbar turned his horse around and galloped towards the elephant, charging at him, while all around him his soldiers and courtiers shouted out in alarm. The elephant then turned towards Akbar but, inexplicably, faltered, and Birbal was saved."
In fact, when he built the city of Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar "ordered ‘the erection of a stone palace for [Birbal].'" For the thirty years he served Akbar, he was never once censured by the emperor, which is incredibly uncommon, as even some of the highest ranking courtiers found themselves punished more than once for relatively minor mistakes. Apart from Akbar, Birbal also cultivated very strong bonds with two of the other navaratnas, the poet Faizi and the musician Tansen, as well as the historian-advisor Abu’l-Fazl.
In 1585, Birbal left the court of Akbar for the first time, to personally lead a fight against the Pashtun Yusufzais in Kabul, where he was ultimately killed, along with thousands of Mughal troops.
Akbar was completely inconsolable, and his remaining friends and family at court had to fight to keep him afloat.
"For two days and two nights he refused any food or water, did not attend to any state matters, left the bemused ambassador of Turan unattended, and turned away in grief from the jharoka window. Akbar ‘grieved him exceedingly, and his heart turned away from everything’, wrote Abu’l Fazl. Hamida Banu, who had come to the Punjab to meet with her son, had to entreat with the Padshah, along with his attendants, to resume his activities. The entire court mourned Birbal and the poet Keshavdas wrote verses in Brajbhasha in memory of him."
An enemy of Birbal's at court, the theologian Baduni, wrote in his diary of the emperor that, "He never experienced such grief at the death of any Amir." Akbar became haunted by the idea of Birbal's body being left unprotected and without a proper burial in the rocky mountains of Kabul.
"‘By this heart-rending mishap, the memory of the pleasures of his lofty company has become very bitter,’ Akbar admitted to Abu’l Fazl, ‘and this sudden calamity has greatly afflicted my heart…some obstacles have prevented me from seeing the body with my own eyes so that I might testify my love and affection for him.’"
For months, and even years, after Birbal's death, rumors would filter into court that he had been spotted actually alive through the empire. Every single time one reached him, Akbar would send men out to search for his lost friend, taken with the hope that Birbal would finally return to him.
In 1586, Akbar left Fatehpur Sikri, never to return. He spent the rest of his life on the move, heading further and further north, closer to where Birbal had perished.
A small poem, thought by historians to have been written by Akbar in the depths of his grief, still remains.
"He saw the poor and gave them all
But never distributed sorrows.
Now that he has given even sorrow to me,
Birbal has nothing left for himself."
