Banarsidas: A Role Model For Jains

Banarsidas was not a good merchant, and for the majority of his life, he was not a good man. His first two wives were not permitted to move in with him for a long time, probably because of his reputation of misbehavior and couldn’t financially provide for himself. In his youth, Banarsidas was more interested in learning and love than having a career, disobeying his father. As a youth, he implied that he contracted a venereal disease and worshiped Hindu gods. Banarsidas was not a role model for Jains yet still wrote his life’s tale for his family and friends to learn from. It was his new found enthusiasm for his Jainism and a new movement that inspired him to write his life as a lesson for other Jains. Babur’s own autobiography is similar in …show more content…
On different occasions, he swore off dark green vegetables and the fact he had to vow more than once is proof that he had trouble keeping those vows. The Adhyatma movement heavily criticized rituals and favored the individual spirituality over worldly acts. Banarsidas records his fruitless vows in a similar tone that he writes about the conch shell of Shiva. Both did nothing for him when is he ill or bankrupt; and it was generally the kindness of others or self-reflection that resolved his problems. He also vowed from marrying more than twice and once again, his word meant nothing as he had three wives. Unlike his negative views of other mistakes he made in his youth, he never demonized his blatant disregard of his many vows. Banarsidas used the rituals as a consistent source of misguided religion, not only was his brief Shiva worship incorrect so was his zealousness of ritual. This is more directed at his Jain friends and family arguing in favor of his new religious movement and to obtain from meaningless …show more content…
The Baburnama does not revolve around a moral instead it captures the details of Babur’s campaigns and courtly politics. Banarsidas does not attempt to embellish his image, instead humbles himself before his audience. The same cannot be said for the Baburnama which sought to establish an official history of the emperor. Babur’s narrative is in more detail and is significantly longer than Banarsidas’ stanzas. Banarsidas writes in meter for simple poetry and a vernacular language for easy reading for his literate, yet limitedly educated audience. The Jain did educate their children but only taught basic reading and arithmetic. The Baburnama was written in Babur’s own vernacular to record Babur’s experiences for posterity. The separate intentions sets the two autobiographies apart in content. As a military leader, Babur wrote about his conquests as main events of his life. Babur wrote to preserve his history for his sons’ sons and Banarsidas only had friends and family dedicate his life’s work to. Banarsidas, however scantly, included his wives, sisters, and mother in his chronicle; comparatively, Babur mostly discussed his campaigns, nobles, and sons. The two accounts differ greatly because of their dissimilar lives, Banarsidas was a layman that once warded off robbers by pretending to be a Brahmin. Babur never had to suffer such fate as the founder of an empire.