Mughal Horoscopes as Propaganda

Abstract

Not only in Europe but also in India, kings and emperors used astrology as a ‘scientific proof’ for their claims to power. As it still was regarded as a science, it could provide useful justification for a king’s great destiny, even though horoscopes are so complex that almost every fact can be ‘found’ in them by a clever combination of their data. Though doubts about astrology existed, the Mughal emperors used astrology extensively. Two of them, Akbar (1556-1605) and his grandson Shāh Jahān (1628-1658), included horoscopes in the introductions of their official chronicles. Both wanted to prove that they were the renovator of Islam in the second Islamic millennium. Akbar had this done in defiance of religion, Shāh Jahān in compliance, but both with a definitive effort to twist the information from the heavens in a way that suited them. Both used horoscopes to explain the tenets of their reign as a requirement of the age. In the case of Shāh Jahān, we even find personal sentiments and changes over time, comparing an earlier and a slightly later horoscope.