Meanwhile, the expedition sent against Kashmir had been but a degree more successful. The commanders of it had reached the Pass of Shuliyas, and had found it blockaded by the Musalman ruler of the country. They waited for supplies for some days, but the rain and snow came on, and before they could move there came the news of the defeat inflicted by the Yusufzais. This deprived them of what remained to them of nerve, and they hastened to make peace with the ruler of Kashmir, on the condition of his becoming a nominal tributary, and then returned to Akbar. The Emperor testified his sense of their want of enterprise by according to them a very cold reception, and forbidding them to appear at court. But the mind of Akbar could not long harbour resentment, and he soon forgave them.

Of the three expeditions, that against the Baluchis alone was immediately successful. These hardy warriors submitted without resistance to the Mughal Emperor. As soon as the efforts of Todar Mall and Man Singh had opened the Khaibar Pass, Akbar appointed the latter, the nephew and heir to the Jaipur Raja, to be Governor of Kabul, and sent {133} him thither with a sufficient force, other troops being despatched to replace him in the Yusufzai country, and Peshawar being strongly occupied. Akbar had himself returned to Lahore. Thence he directed a second expedition against Kashmir. As this force approached the Passes, in the summer of 1587, a rebellion broke out against the actual ruler in Srinagar. The imperial force experienced then no difficulty in entering and conquering the country, which thus became a portion of the Mughal empire, and, in the reign of the successor of Akbar, the summer residence of the Mughal sovereigns of India. It may here be mentioned that to reach Jamrud, at the entrance of the Khaibar Pass, Man Singh had to fight and win another battle with the hill-tribes. He reached Kabul, however, and established there a stable administration. The Kabulis and the heads of the tribes, however, complained to Akbar that the rule of a Rajput prince was not agreeable to them, whereupon Akbar translated Man Singh in a similar capacity to Bengal, which just then especially required the rule of a strong hand, and replaced him at Kabul by a Musalman. He announced at the same time his intention of paying a visit to that dependency.

First of all, he secured possession of Sind (1588); then, in the spring of the following year, set out for Kashmir. On reaching Bhimbar, he left there the ladies of his harem with Prince Murad, and rode express to Srinagar. He remained there, visiting {134} the neighbourhood, till the rainy season set in, when he sent his harem to Rotas. They joined him subsequently at Attock on his way to Kabul. The Passes to that capital were open, all opposition on the part of the hill-tribes having ceased, so Akbar crossed the Indus at Attock, and had an easy journey thence to Kabul. He stayed there two months, visiting the gardens and places of interest. 'All the people, noble and simple, profited by his presence.'[4] He was still at Kabul when news reached him of the death of Raja Todar Mall (November 10, 1589). The same day another trusted Hindu friend, Raja Bhagwan Das of Jaipur, also died. Akbar made then new arrangements for the governments of Kabul, Gujarat, and Jaunpur, and returned towards Hindustan.

[Footnote 4: Elliot, vol. v. p. 458.]

He had already, as I have stated, arranged for the government of Bengal. He reached Lahore on his home journey in the beginning of 1590. Whilst residing there, information reached him that his newly appointed Governor of Gujarat, the son of his favourite nurse, had engaged in hostilities with Kathiawar and Cutch. These hostilities eventuated in the addition of those two provinces to the Emperor's dominions, and in the suicide of the prince of Afghan descent, who had fomented all the disturbances in Western India.[5] The Emperor took advantage of his stay at Lahore to direct the more {135} complete pacification of Sind, affairs in which province had taken a disadvantageous turn. The perfect conquest of the province proved more difficult than had been anticipated. It required large reinforcements of troops, and the display of combined firmness and caution to effect the desired result. The campaign took two years, and, during that time, Kashmir had revolted.

[Footnote 5: Vide Blochmann's Ain-i-Akbari, p. 326.]

The Emperor during those two years had had his head-quarters at Lahore. No sooner did he hear that the success in Sind was complete, than Akbar, who, expecting the event, had sent on the bulk of his forces towards Bhimbar, remaining himself hunting on the banks of the Chenab, set out to rejoin his main body. On his way to it he learned that his advanced guard had forced one of the Passes, notwithstanding fierce opposition. This event decided the war, for the soldiers of the rebel chief, resenting his action, fell upon him during the night, killed him, and cut off his head, which they sent to Akbar. With the death of this man all opposition ceased, and Akbar, riding on to Srinagar, stayed there eight days, settling the administration, and then proceeded by way of the gorge of Baramula to Rotas, and thence to Lahore. There he received information that his lieutenant in Bengal, the Raja Man Singh, had definitively annexed the province of Orissa to the imperial dominions. He had despatched thence to Lahore a hundred and twenty elephants, captured in that province, as a present to the Emperor.

{136} The attempt to bring into the imperial scheme the Deccan provinces south of the Vindhyan range, followed the next year, and continued for eight years later. On the whole it was successful. The strong places, Daulatabad, Kherwa, Nasik, Asirgarh, and Ahmadnagar, opened their gates, after long sieges, to the imperial arms. And, although the territories dependent upon Ahmadnagar were not entirely subdued till 1637, the position acquired by Akbar gave him a preponderance which the Mughals retained for at least a century.

The campaign in Southern India was remarkable for three facts. The first was the dissensions of the generals sent from different parts of India to co-operate independently in the conquest, dissensions which necessitated, first, the despatch thither from Agra of the Emperor's confidant, Abulfazl, and afterwards, the journey thither of Akbar himself; secondly, the death, from excessive drinking, of the Emperor's son, Prince Murad, at Jalna; thirdly, the murder of Abulfazl, on his return to Agra, at the instigation of Prince Salim, the eldest surviving son of Akbar and his heir apparent.

Akbar had held his court for fourteen years at Lahore when, in 1598, the necessities of the position in Southern India forced him to march thither. He had compelled the surrender of Ahmadnagar and Asirgarh, when, nominating Prince Danyal to be governor in Khandesh and Berar, and Abulfazl to complete the conquest of the territories dependent {137} upon Ahmadnagar, he marched in the spring of 1601 towards Agra.

The circumstances which required the presence of Akbar at Agra were of a very painful character. Prince Salim had from his earliest youth caused him the greatest anxiety. Nor had the anxiety been lessened as the boy approached manhood. Salim, better known to posterity as the Emperor Jahangir, was naturally cruel, and he appeared incapable of placing the smallest restraint on his passions. He hated Abulfazl, really because he was jealous of his influence with his father; avowedly because he regarded him as the leading spirit who had caused Akbar to diverge from the narrow doctrines of the bigoted Muhammadans. Akbar had hoped for a moment that the despatch of Abulfazl to Southern India would appease the resentment of his son, and when he decided to proceed thither himself he had nominated Salim as his successor, and had confided to him, with the title of Viceroy of Ajmere, the task of finishing the war with the Rana of Mewar, which had broken out again. He had further studied his partialities by despatching the renowned Man Singh, his relation by marriage, to assist him.

The two princes were already on their march towards Mewar when information reached them that a rebellion had broken out in Bengal, of which province Man Singh was Viceroy. Man Singh was therefore compelled to march at once to repress the outbreak. Left without a counsellor, and commanding a {138} considerable force, Prince Salim resolved to take advantage of the absence of his father in the south to make a bold stroke for the crown. Renouncing, then, his march on Mewar, he hurried with his force to Agra, and when the commandant of the imperial fortress, loyal to his master, shut its gates in his face, hastened to Allahabad, occupied the fort, seized the provinces of Oudh and Behar, and assumed the title of King.

It was the news of these occurrences which drew Akbar from the Deccan. Attributing the action of Salim to the violence of a temper which had ever been impatient of control, he resolved rather to guide than to compel him. Accordingly he wrote him a letter, in which, assuring him of his continued love if he would only return to his allegiance, he warned him of the consequences of continued disobedience. When this letter reached Salim, Akbar was approaching Agra at the head of an army of warriors, few in number, but the chosen of the empire. Salim, then, recognising that his position was absolutely untenable, and that if he persisted it might cost him the succession, replied in the most submissive terms. His conduct, however, did not correspond to his words. Informed, somewhat later, that the bulk of the imperial army was still in the Deccan, he marched to Itawa, levying troops as he proceeded, with the intention of waiting upon his father at the head of an imposing force. But Akbar was not deceived. He sent his son an order {139} to choose one of two courses; either to come to Agra slightly attended, or to return to Allahabad.

Prince Salim chose the latter course, receiving the promise, it is believed, that he should receive the grant of Bengal and Orissa. At any rate, he did receive the grant of those provinces. We cannot say, at this time, how much Akbar was influenced in his course by the consciousness of the comparative weakness of his own position, by his dislike of having to fight his own son, or by his affection. Probably the three sentiments combined to give to the course he adopted a tinge of weakness. At any rate, he soon had reason to feel that his concessions to his rebellious son had produced no good effect. For Salim, whose memory was excellent, and whose hatred was insatiable, took the opportunity of the return of Abulfazl from the Deccan, but slightly attended, to instigate the Raja of Orchha to waylay and murder him.[6]

[Footnote 6: Prince Salim justifies, in his Memoirs, the murder on the ground that Abulfazl had been the chief instigator of Akbar in his religious aberrations, as he regarded them. To the last he treated the Raja of Orchha with the greatest consideration.]

The murder of his friend was a heavy blow to Akbar. Happily he never knew the share his son had in that atrocious deed. Believing that the Raja of Orchha was the sole culprit, he despatched a force against him. The guilty Raja fled to the jungles, and succeeded in avoiding capture, until the death of Akbar rendered unnecessary his attempts to conceal himself. A reconciliation with Salim followed, and {140} the Emperor once more despatched his eldest son to put down the disturbances in Mewar. These disturbances, it may be mentioned, were caused by the continued refusal of Rana Partap Singh to submit to the Mughal. After his defeat at Huldighat in 1576, that prince had fled to the jungles, closely followed by the imperial army. Fortune continued so adverse to him that after a series of reverses, unrelieved by one success, he resolved, with his family and trusting friends, to abandon Mewar, and found another kingdom on the Indus. He had already set out, when the unexampled devotion of his minister placed in his hands the means of continuing the contest, and he determined to try one more campaign. Turning upon his adversaries, rendered careless by continued success, he smote them in the hinder part, and, in 1586, had recovered all Mewar, the fortress of Chitor and Mandalgarh excepted. Cut off from Chitor, he had established a new capital at Udaipur, a place which subsequently gave its name to his principality. When he died, in 1597, he was still holding his own. He was succeeded by his son, Amra Rana, who, at the time at which we have arrived, was bidding defiance, in Mewar, to all the efforts of the imperial troops (1603).

Prince Salim had a great opportunity. The forces placed at his disposal were considerable enough, if energetically employed, to complete the conquest of Mewar, but he displayed so little taste for the task that Akbar recalled him and sent him to his {141} semi-independent government of Allahabad, where he spent his time in congenial debauchery, and in worse. His disregard of all sense of duty and honour, even of the lives of his most faithful attendants, became at last so marked that Akbar set out for Allahabad, in the hope that his presence might produce some effect. He had made but two marches, however, when the news of the serious illness of his own mother compelled him to return. But the fact that he had quitted Agra for such a purpose produced a revulsion in the thought and actions of Prince Salim. As his father could not come to him, he determined to repair, slightly attended, to the court of his father. There he made his submission, but he did not mend his ways, and his disputes with his eldest son, Prince Khusru, became the scandal of the court.

The Emperor, indeed, was not happy in his children. His two eldest, twins, had died in infancy. The third, erroneously styled the first, was Prince Salim. The fate of the fourth son, Prince Murad, has been told. The fifth son, Prince Danyal, described as tall, well-built, good-looking, fond of horses and elephants, and clever in composing Hindustani poems, was addicted to the same vice as his brother Murad, and died about this time from the same cause. His death was a great blow to Akbar, who had done all in his power to wean his son from his excesses, and had even obtained a promise that he would renounce them. There were at court many grandsons of the Emperor. Of these the best-beloved was Prince Khurram, who {142} subsequently succeeded Jahangir under the title of Shah Jahan.

The news of the death of Prince Danyal and its cause seem to have greatly affected the Emperor. He was ill at the time, and it soon became evident that his illness could have but one termination. The minds of those about him turned at once to the consideration of the succession. His only surviving son was Prince Salim, but his conduct at Allahabad, at Agra, and elsewhere, had turned the hearts of the majority against him, whilst in his son, Prince Khusru, the nobles recognised a prince whose reputation was untarnished. Prince Khusru, moreover, as the son of a princess of Jodhpur, was closely related to Raja Man Singh, and that capable man was a great factor in the empire. He had married, too, the daughter of the Muhammadan nobleman who held the highest rank in the army, and who was himself probably related to the royal family, for he was the son of the favourite nurse of Akbar. These two great nobles began then to take measures for the exclusion of Prince Salim, and the succession of Prince Khusru.

To effect this purpose they had the fort of Agra, in the palace in which Akbar was lying ill, guarded by their troops. Had Akbar died at this moment his death must have given rise to a civil war, for Salim would not renounce his pretensions. But, as soon as the prince recognised the combination against him, alarmed for his personal safety, he withdrew a short distance from Agra. Vexed at his absence during {143} what he well knew was his last illness, Akbar, a lover above all of legality, summoned his nobles around him, declared Prince Salim to be his lawful successor, and expressed a hope that Prince Khusru might be provided for by the government of Bengal.

The influence acquired by Akbar was never more apparent than at this conjuncture. It needed but one expression of resentment against his ungrateful and undutiful son to secure his exclusion. His expressions in his favour, on the other hand, had the effect of inducing the most powerful nobles to resolve to carry out his wishes, the half-hearted and wavering to join with them. Not even the highest nobleman in the army, the father-in-law of Prince Khusru, who had already combined with Raja Man Singh to support Khusru, could resist the influence. He sent privately to Prince Salim to assure him of his support. Man Singh, the most influential of all at that particular crisis, seeing that he was isolated, yielded to the overtures made him by Salim, and promised also to uphold him. Secure now of the succession, Prince Salim repaired to the palace, where he was affectionately received by the dying Akbar. The circumstances of that interview are known only from the report of the prince.

After the first affectionate greetings Akbar desired that all the nobles might be summoned to the presence; 'for,' he added, 'I cannot bear that any misunderstanding should subsist between you and those who have for so many years shared in my toils, {144} and been the companions of my glory.' When the nobles entered and had made their salutations, he said a few words to them in a body; then, looking at each of them in succession, he begged them to forgive him if he had wronged any one of them. Prince Salim then threw himself at his feet, weeping; but Akbar, signing to his attendants to gird his son with his own scimitar and to invest him with the turban and robes of State, commended to his care the ladies of the palace, urged him to be kind and considerate to his old friends and associates, then, bowing his head, he died.

Thus peacefully departed the real founder of the Mughal empire. More fortunate than his father and his grandfather, more far-sighted, more original, and, it must be added, possessing greater opportunities, he had lived long enough to convince the diverse races of Hindustan that their safety, their practical independence, their enjoyment of the religion and the customs of their forefathers, depended upon their recognition of the paramount authority which could secure to them these inestimable blessings. To them he was a man above prejudices. To all alike, whether Uzbek, or Afghan, or Hindu, or Parsi, or Christian, he offered careers, provided only that they were faithful, intelligent, true to themselves. The several races recognised that during his reign of forty-nine years India was free from foreign invasion; that he subjugated all adversaries within, some by force of arms, some by means more peaceful, and that he preferred {145} the latter method. 'The whole length and breadth of the land,' wrote Muhammad Amin after his death, 'was firmly and righteously governed. All people of every description and station came to his court, and universal peace being established among all classes, men of every sect dwelt secure under his protection.' Such was Akbar the ruler. In the next chapter I shall endeavour to describe what he was as a man.

Akbar died the 15th October, 1605, one day after he had attained the age of sixty-three.

{146}

CHAPTER XII THE PRINCIPLES AND INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION OF AKBAR

'The success of the three branches of the government, and the fulfilment of the wishes of the subject,' writes the author of the Ain-i-Akbari, 'whether great or small, depend upon the manner in which a king spends his time.'

Tried by this test, the cause of the success of Akbar as a man and as a ruler can be logically traced. Not only was he methodical, but there ran through his method a most earnest desire to think and do what was right in itself and conducive to the great aim of his life, the building of an edifice which, rooted in the hearts of people, would be independent of the personality of the ruler. Before I attempt to state in detail the means he adopted to attain this end, I propose to say a few words on a subject which may be said to underlie the whole question, the conformation of his mind and the manner in which it was affected by matters relating to the spiritual condition of mankind. Than this there cannot be any more important investigation, for it depended entirely on the structure of his mind, and its power to accept {147} without prejudice, and judge impartially, views differing from those of his co-religionists, whether the chief of the Muhammadans, few in number when compared with the entire community, could so obtain the confidence and sympathy of the subject race, doomed to eternal perdition in the thought of all bigoted Musalmans, as to overcome their prejudices to an extent which, had they been consulted previously, they would have declared impossible. The period was undoubtedly unfavourable to the development of what may be called a liberal policy in this matter.

The Muhammadans were not only conquerors, but conquerors who had spread their religion by the sword. The scorn and contempt with which the more zealous among them regarded the religion of the Hindus and those who professed it may be traced in every page of the writings of Badauni, one of the contemporary historians of the period. Nor was that scorn confined solely to the Hindu religion. It extended to every other form of worship and to every other doctrine save that professed by the followers of Muhammad.

Akbar was born in that creed. But he was born with an inquiring mind, a mind that took nothing for granted. During the years of his training he enjoyed many opportunities of noting the good qualities, the fidelity, the devotion, often the nobility of soul, of those Hindu princes, whom his courtiers, because they were followers of Brahma, devoted mentally to eternal torments. He noted that these men, and men who {148} thought like them, constituted the vast majority of his subjects. He noted, further, of many of them, and those the most trustworthy, that though they had apparently much to gain in a worldly point of view by embracing the religion of the court, they held fast to their own. His reflective mind, therefore, was unwilling from the outset to accept the theory that because he, the conqueror, the ruler, happened to be born a Muhammadan, therefore Muhammadanism was true for all mankind. Gradually his thoughts found words in the utterance: 'Why should I claim to guide men before I myself am guided;' and, as he listened to other doctrines and other creeds, his honest doubts became confirmed, and, noting daily the bitter narrowness of sectarianism, no matter of what form of religion, he became more and more wedded to the principle of toleration for all.

The change did not come all at once. The historian, Badauni, a bigoted Musalman, who deplored what he considered the backsliding of the great sovereign, wrote: 'From his earliest childhood to his manhood, and from his manhood to old age, his Majesty has passed through the most various phases, and through all sorts of religious practices and sectarian beliefs, and has collected everything which people can find in books, with a talent of selection peculiar to him and a spirit of inquiry opposed to every (Islamite) principle. Thus a faith based on some elementary principles traced itself on the mirror of his heart, and as the result of all the influences which were brought to {149} bear on his Majesty, there grew, gradually as the outline on a stone, the conviction on his heart that there were sensible men in all religions, and abstemious thinkers, and men endowed with miraculous powers, among all nations. If some true knowledge were thus everywhere to be found, why should truth be confined to one religion, or to a creed like Islam, which was comparatively new, and scarcely a thousand years old; why should one sect assert what another denies, and why should one claim a preference without having superiority conferred upon itself?'

Badauni goes on to state that Akbar conferred with Brahmans and Sumanis, and under their influence accepted the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. There can be no doubt, however, but that the two brothers, Faizi and Abulfazl, like himself born and brought up in the faith of Islam, greatly influenced the direction of his studies on religion. It is necessary to say something regarding two men so illustrious and so influential. They were the sons of a Shaikh of Arab descent, Shaikh Mubarak, whose ancestors settled at Nagar, in Rajputana. Shaikh Mubarak, a man who had studied the religion of his ancestors to the acquiring of a complete knowledge of every phase of it, who possessed an inquiring mind and a comprehensive genius, and who had progressed in thought as he acquired knowledge, gave his children an education which, grafted on minds apt to receive and to retain knowledge, qualified them to shine in any society. The elder son, {150} Shaikh Faizi, was born near Agra to the vicinity of which the father had migrated in 1547. He was thus five years younger than Akbar. Shortly after that prince had reconquered the North-western Provinces, Shaikh Faizi, then about twenty, began his quiet, unostentatious life of literature and medicine. He soon made a name as a poet. His native generosity, backed by the earnings of his profession as physician, prompted him to many acts of charity, and it became a practice with him to treat the poor for nothing.

In religious matters he, following his father's example, displayed a tendency towards the unfashionable doctrines of the Shiahs. It is related that, on one occasion, when he applied to the Kadr[1] for the grant of a small tract of land, that officer, who was a Sunni, not only refused him but, solely because he was a Shiah, drove him from the hall with contumely and insult. Meanwhile, moved by the report of his great ability, Akbar had summoned Faizi to his camp before Chitor, which place he was besieging. Faizi's enemies, and he had many, especially among the orthodox or Sunni Muhammadans, interpreted this order as a summons to be judged, and they warned the Governor of Agra to see that Faizi did not escape. But Faizi had no thought of escape. He was nevertheless taken to the camp of Akbar as a prisoner. The great prince received him with courtesy, and entranced by his varied talent, {151} shortly afterwards attached him to his court, as teacher in the higher branches of knowledge to the princes, his sons. He was occasionally also employed as ambassador.

[Footnote 1: Kadr: an officer appointed to examine petitions, and selected on account of his presumed impartiality. Vide Blochmann's Ain-i-Akbari, p. 268.]

His abundant leisure Faizi devoted to poetry. In his thirty-third year he was nominated to an office equivalent to that of Poet Laureate. Seven years later he died, never having lost the favour of Akbar, who delighted in his society and revelled in his conversation. It is said that he composed a hundred and one books. His fine library, consisting of four thousand three hundred choice manuscripts, was embodied in the imperial library.

But if Shaikh Faizi stood high in the favour of Akbar, his brother, Shaikh Abulfazl, the author of the Ain-i-Akbari, stood still higher. Abulfazl was born near Agra the 14th January, 1551. He too, equally with his brother, profited from the broad and comprehensive teaching of the father. Nor did he fail to notice, and in his mind to resent, the ostracism and more than ostracism, to which his father was subjected on account of the opinions to which the free workings of a capacious mind forced him to incline. The effect on the boy's mind was to inculcate the value of toleration for all beliefs, whilst the pressure of circumstances stimulated him to unusual exertions in his studies. At the age of fifteen he had read works on all branches of those sciences that are based on reason and traditional testimony, and before he was twenty had begun his career as a teacher.

{152} 'An incident,' writes the lamented Professor Blochmann, 'is related to shew how extensive even at that time his reading was. A manuscript of the rare work of Icfahani happened to fall into his hands. Unfortunately, however, one half of each page, vertically downwards from top to bottom, was rendered illegible, or was altogether destroyed, by fire. Abulfazl, determined to restore so rare a book, cut away the burnt portions, pasted new paper to each page, and then commenced to restore the missing halves of each line, in which attempt, after many thoughtful perusals, he succeeded. Some time afterwards, a complete copy of the same work turned up, and on comparison it was found that in many places there were indeed different words, and in a few passages new proofs even had been adduced: but on the whole the restored portion presented so many points of extraordinary coincidence, that his friends were not a little astonished at the thoroughness with which Abulfazl had worked himself into the style and mode of thinking of a difficult author.'

A student by nature, Abulfazl for some time gave no favourable response to the invitation sent to him by Akbar to attend the imperial court. But the friendship which, in the manner already described, had grown between his elder brother, Faizi, and the Emperor, prepared the way for the intimacy which Akbar longed for, and when, in the beginning of 1574, Abulfazl was presented as the brother of Faizi, Akbar accorded to him a reception so favourable that {153} he was induced to reconsider his resolve to lead a life 'of proud retirement.' He was then only twenty-three, but he had exhausted the sources of knowledge available in his own country. To use his own words: 'My mind had no rest, and my heart felt itself drawn to the sages of Mongolia or to the hermits on Lebanon; I longed for interviews with the Llamas of Tibet or with the padris of Portugal, and I would gladly sit with the priests of the Parsis and the learned of the Zend-avesta. I was sick of the learned of my own land.'

From this period he was attached to the court, and there arose between himself and Akbar one of those pure friendships founded on mutual esteem and mutual sympathy, which form the delight of existence. In the Emperor Abulfazl found the aptest of pupils. Amid the joys of the chase, the cares of governing, the fatigues of war, Akbar had no recreation to be compared to the pleasure of listening to the discussions between his much regarded friend and the bigoted Muhammadan doctors of law and religion who strove to confute him. These discourses constituted a great event in his reign. It is impossible to understand the character of Akbar without referring to them somewhat minutely. Akbar did not suddenly imbibe those principles of toleration and of equal government for all, the enforcement of which marks an important era in the history of India. For the first twenty years of his reign he had to conquer to maintain his power. With the representatives of dispossessed dynasties in Bengal, in Behar, in Orissa, in {154} Western India, including Gujarat and Khandesh, ready to seize an opportunity, to sit still was to invite attack. He was forced to go forward. The experience of the past, and the events daily coming under his notice, alike proved that there must be but one paramount authority in India, if India was to enjoy the blessings of internal peace.

During those twenty years he had had many intervals of leisure which he had employed in discussing with those about him the problem of founding a system of government which should retain by the sympathy of the people all that was being conquered. He had convinced his own mind that the old methods were obsolete; that to hold India by maintaining standing armies in the several provinces, and to take no account of the feelings, the traditions, the longings, the aspirations, of the children of the soil,—of all the races in the world the most inclined to poetry and sentiment, and attached by the strongest ties that can appeal to mankind to the traditions of their fathers—would be impossible.

That system, tried for more than four centuries, had invariably broken down, if not in the hands of the promulgator of it, certainly in those of a near successor. Yet none of those who had gone before him had attempted any other. His illustrious grandfather, who had some glimmering of the necessity, had not been allotted the necessary time, for he too had had to conquer to remain. His father had more than almost any of the Afghan sovereigns {155} who preceded him failed to read the riddle. He fell before a better general, and his rootless system died at once, leaving not a trace behind it. Penetrated, then, with the necessity of founding a system that should endure, and recognising very gradually, that such a system must be based on mutual respect, on mutual toleration regarding differences of race, of religion, of tradition; on the union of interests; on the making it absolutely clear that the fall of the keystone to the arch meant the fall of each stone which went to build up the arch; he sought, as I have said, during the first twenty years of his reign, discussions with his courtiers and the learned regarding the system which would best appeal to those sentiments in the conquered race which would convey to them confidence and conviction.

Before Akbar knew Abulfazl he had almost withdrawn from the task in despair. Instead of wise counsel he encountered only precepts tending to bigotry and intolerance. From his earlier counsellors there was absolutely no help to be hoped for. Akbar became wearied of the squabbles of these men; of their leanings to persecution for the cause of religious differences, even amongst Muhammadans. Before even he had recognised the broad charity of the teachings of Abulfazl he had come to the conclusion that before founding a system of government it would be necessary to wage war against the bigoted professors who formed a power in his own empire. 'Impressed,' writes Professor Blochmann, 'with a favourable idea {156} of the value of his Hindu subjects, he had resolved when pensively sitting in the evenings on the solitary stone at Fatehpur-Sikri, to rule with an even hand all men in his dominions; but as the extreme views of the learned and the lawyers continually urged him to persecute instead of to heal, he instituted discussions, because, believing himself to be in error, he thought it his duty as ruler to "inquire."' These discussions took place every Thursday night in the Ibadat-Khana, a building at Fatehpur-Sikri, erected for the purpose.

For a time Abulfazl took but a subordinate part in the discussions, simply spurring the various Muhammadan sectaries to reply to and demolish each other's arguments. The bigotry, the narrowness, evinced by the leaders of these sectaries, who agreeing that it was right to persecute Hindus and other unbelievers, hurled charges of infidelity against each other, quite disgusted Akbar. Instead of 'unity' in the creed of Islam he found a multiplicity of divisions. He was further disgusted with the rudeness towards each other displayed by the several sectaries, some of them holding high office in the State, and he was compelled on one occasion to warn them that any one of them who should so offend in the future would have to quit the hall. At last, one memorable Thursday evening, Abulfazl brought matters to a crisis. Foreseeing the opposition it would evoke, he proposed as a subject for discussion that a king should be regarded not only as the temporal, but as the spiritual guide of his subjects.

{157} This doctrine struck at the fundamental principle of Islam, according to which the Kuran stands above every human ordinance. The point of Abulfazl's proposition lay in the fact that in preceding discussions the Muhammadan learned had differed not only regarding the interpretation of various passages of the Kuran, but regarding the moral character of Muhammad himself. The storm raised by Abulfazl's motion was, therefore, terrible. There was not a doctor or lawyer present who did not recognise that the motion attacked the vital principle of Islam, whilst the more clear-sighted and dispassionate recognised that the assertions made in their previous discussions had broken through 'the strong embankments of the clearest law and the most excellent faith.'

But how were they to resist a motion which affected the authority of Akbar? In this difficulty they came to a decision, which, though they called it a compromise, gave away in fact the whole question. They drew up a document[2] in which the Emperor was certified to be a just ruler, and as such was assigned the rank of a 'Mujtahid,' that is, an infallible authority in all matters relating to Islam. This admission really conceded the object aimed at by Abulfazl, for, under its provisions, the 'intellect of the just king became the sole source of legislation, {158} and the whole body of doctors and lawyers bound themselves to abide by Akbar's decrees in religious matters.'

[Footnote 2: Blochmann (Ain-i-Akbari, p. xiv) calls it 'a document which I believe stands unique in the whole Church history of Islam.' He gives a copy of it at p. 186 of the same remarkable book.]

'The document,' writes Abulfazl in the Akbarnamah, 'brought about excellent results: (1) the Court became a gathering-place of the sages and learned of all creeds; the good doctrines of all religious systems were recognised, and their defects were not allowed to obscure their good features; (2) perfect toleration, or peace with all, was established; and (3) the perverse and evil-minded were covered with shame on seeing the disinterested motives of his Majesty, and thus stood in the pillory of disgrace.' It has to be admitted that two of the Muhammadan sectaries who had been the leaders of the party which inclined to persecution, signed the document most unwillingly, but sign they did. Abulfazl's father, on the other hand, who had exhausted all the intricacies of the creed of Islam, and the dogmas of its several sects, signed it willingly, adding to his signature that he had for years been anxiously looking forward to the realisation of the progressive movement.

The signature of this document was a turning-point in the life and reign of Akbar. For the first time he was free. He could give currency and force to his ideas of toleration and of respect for conscience. He could now bring the Hindu, the Parsi, the Christian, into his councils. He could attempt to put into execution the design he had long meditated of making the interests of the indigenous princes the {159} interests of the central authority at Agra. The document is, in fact, the Magna Charta of his reign.

The reader will, I am sure, pardon me if I have dwelt at some length on the manner in which it was obtained, for it is the keystone to the subsequent legislation and action of the monarch, by it placed above the narrow restrictions of Islam. It made the fortune of Abulfazl. It gained for him, that is to say, the lasting friendship of Akbar. On the other hand it drew upon him the concentrated hatred of the bigots, and ultimately, in the manner related in the last chapter, caused his assassination.

One of the first uses made by Akbar of the power thus obtained was to clear the magisterial and judicial bench. His chief-justice, a bigoted Sunni, who had used his power to persecute Shiahs and all so-called heretics, including Faizi the brother of Abulfazl, was exiled, with all outward honour, to Mekka. Another high functionary, equally bigoted, received a similar mission, and the rule was inculcated upon all that in the eye of the law religious differences were to be disregarded, and that men, whether Sunnis, or Shiahs, Muhammadans or Hindus, were to be treated alike: in a word, that the religious element was not to enter into the question before the judge or magistrate.

From this time forth the two brothers, Faizi and Abulfazl, were the chief confidants of the Emperor in his schemes for the regeneration and consolidation of the empire. He caused them both to enter the military service, as the service which best secured their {160} position at court. They generally accompanied him in his various expeditions, and whilst they suggested reforms in the land and revenue systems, they were at hand always to give advice and support to the views of the sovereign.

Meanwhile Akbar was preparing, in accordance with the genius of the age, and with the sentiments of the people over whom he ruled, to draw up and promulgate a religious code such as, he thought, would commend itself to the bulk of his people. The chief feature of this code, which he called Din-i-Ilahi, or 'the Divine faith,' consisted in the acknowledgment of one God, and of Akbar as his Khalifah, or vicegerent on earth. The Islamite prayers were abolished as being too narrow and wanting in comprehension, and in their place were substituted prayers of a more general character, based on those of the Parsis, whilst the ceremonial was borrowed from the Hindus. The new era or date, which was introduced in all the government records, and also in the feasts observed by the Emperor, was exclusively Parsi. These observances excited little open opposition from the Muhammadans, but the bigoted and hot-headed amongst them did not the less feel hatred towards the man whom they considered the principal adviser of the sovereign. They displayed great jealousy, moreover, regarding the admission of Hindu princes and nobles to high commands in the army and influential places at court. It was little to them that these men, men like {161} Bhagwan Das, Man Singh, Todar Mall, Birbal, were men of exceptional ability. They were Hindus, and, on that account and on that alone, the Muhammadan historians could not bring themselves to mention their names without sneering at their religion, and at the fate reserved for them in another world.

The inquiring nature of the mind of Akbar was displayed by the desire he expressed to learn something tangible regarding the religion of the Portuguese, then settled at Goa. He directed Faizi to have translated into Persian a correct version of the New Testament, and he persuaded a Jesuit priest, Padre Rodolpho Aquaviva, a missionary from Goa, to visit Agra.

It was on the occasion of the visit of this Father that a famous discussion on religion took place in the Ibadat-Khana, at which the most learned Muhammadan lawyers and doctors, Brahmans, Jains, Buddhists, Hindu materialists, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians or Parsis, each in turn spoke. The story is thus told by Abulfazl. 'Each one fearlessly brought forward his assertions and arguments, and the disputations and contentions were long and heated. Every sect, in its vanity and conceit, attacked and endeavoured to refute the statements of their antagonists. One night the Ibadat-Khana was brightened by the presence of Padre Rodolpho, who for intelligence and wisdom was unrivalled among Christian doctors. Several carping and bigoted men attacked him, and this afforded an opportunity for the display of the calm judgment and justice of the {162} assembly. These men brought forward the old received assertions, and did not attempt to arrive at truth by reasoning. Their statements were torn to pieces, and they were nearly put to shame, when they began to attack the contradictions of the Gospel, but they could not prove their assertions. With perfect calmness and earnest conviction of the truth the Padre replied to their arguments, and then he went on to say:

'"If these men have such an opinion of our Book, and if they believe the Kuran to be the true word of God, then let a furnace be lighted, and let me with the Gospel in my hand, and the 'Ulama (learned doctors) with their holy book in their hands, walk into that testing-place of truth, and the right will be manifest." The black-hearted mean-spirited disputants shrank from this proposal, and answered only with angry words. This prejudice and violence greatly annoyed the impartial mind of the Emperor, and, with great discrimination and enlightenment, he said:

'"Man's outward profession and the mere letter of Muhammadanism, without a heartfelt conviction, can avail nothing. I have forced many Brahmans, by fear of my power, to adopt the religion of my ancestors; but now that my mind has been enlightened with the beams of truth, I have become convinced that the dark clouds of conceit and the mist of self-opinion have gathered round you, and that not a step can be made in advance without the torch of proof. That course only can be beneficial which we select with clear judgment. To repeat the words of {163} the creed, to perform circumcision, or to be prostrate on the ground from the dread of kingly power, can avail nothing in the sight of God:

Obedience is not in prostration on the earth: Practice sincerity, for righteousness is not borne upon the brow!"'

Whatever we may think of this discussion, of the test of fire proposed by the Christian priest, we may at least welcome it as showing the complete toleration of discussion permitted at the Ibadat-Khana, and, above all, as indicating the tendency of the mind of Akbar. He had, in fact, reasoned himself out of belief in all dogmas and in all accepted creeds. Instead of those dogmas and those creeds he simply recognised the Almighty Maker of the world, and himself, the chiefest in authority in his world as the representative in it of God, to carry out his beneficent decrees of toleration, equal justice, and perfect liberty of conscience, so far as such liberty of conscience did not endanger the lives of others. He was very severe with the Muhammadans, because he recognised that the professors of the faith of the dominant party are always inclined to persecution. But he listened to all, and recognising in all the same pernicious feature, viz., the broad, generous, far-reaching, universal qualities attributed to the Almighty distorted in each case by an interested priesthood, he prostrated himself before the God of all, discarding the priesthood of all.

He has been called a Zoroastrian, because he recognised in the sun the sign of the presence of the Almighty. And there can be no doubt but that the {164} simplicity of the system of the Parsis had a great attraction for him. In his own scheme there was no priesthood. Regarding himself as the representative in his world of the Almighty, he culled from each religion its best part, so as to make religion itself a helpful agency for all rather than an agency for the persecution of others. The broad spirit of his scheme was as much raised above the general comprehension of the people of his age, as were his broad political ideas. To bring round the world to his views it was necessary that 'an Amurath should succeed an Amurath.' That was and ever will be impossible. The result was that his political system gradually drifted after his death into the old narrow groove whence he had emancipated it, whilst his religious system perished with him. After the reigns of two successors, Muhammadan but indifferent, persecution once again asserted her sway to undo all the good the great and wise Akbar had effected, and to prepare, by the decadence of the vital principle of the dynasty, for the rule of a nation which should revive his immortal principle of justice to all and toleration for all.

In the foregoing remarks I have alluded to the fact that Akbar allowed liberty of conscience in so far as that liberty did not endanger the lives of others. He gave a marked example of this in his dealing with the Hindu rite of Sati. It is not necessary to explain that the English equivalent for the word 'Sati' is 'chaste or virtuous,' and that a Sati is a woman who burns herself on her husband's funeral pile. The custom {165} had been so long prevalent among Hindu ladies of rank, that not to comply with it had come to be regarded as a self-inflicted imputation on the chaste life of the widow. Still, the love of life is strong, and the widow, conscious of her own virtue, and unwilling to sacrifice herself to an idea, had occasionally shown a marked disinclination to consent to mount the pile. It had often happened then that the priests had applied to her a persuasion, either by threats of the terrors of the hereafter or the application of moral stimulants, to bring her to the proper pitch of willingness.

Such deeds were abhorrent to the merciful mind of Akbar, and he discouraged the practice by all the means in his power. His position towards the princes of Rajputana, by whom the rite was held in the highest honour, would not allow him so far to contravene their time-honoured customs, which had attained all the force of a religious ordinance, to prohibit the self-sacrifice when the widow earnestly desired it. Before such a prohibition could be issued time must be allowed, he felt, for the permeation to the recesses of the palace of the liberal principles he was inaugurating. But he issued an order that, in the case of a widow showing the smallest disinclination to immolate herself, the sacrifice was not to be permitted.

Nor did he content himself with words only. Once, when in Ajmere, whilst his confidential agent, Jai Mall, nephew of Raja Bihari Mall of Ambar, was on a mission to the grandees of Bengal, news reached {166} him that Jai Mall had died at Chausa. Jai Mall had been a great favourite with Akbar, for of all the Rajputana nobles he had been the first to pay his respects to him, and had ever rendered him true and loyal service. He had married a daughter of Raja Udai Singh of Jodhpur, a princess possessing great strength of will. When the news of her husband's death reached Ambar she positively refused to become a Sati. Under the orders of the Emperor she had an absolute right to use her discretion. But when she did use it to refuse, the outcry against her, headed by Udai Singh, her son, became so uncontrollable, that it was resolved to force her to the stake. Information of this reached Akbar, and he determined to prevent the outrage. He was just in time, for the pile was already lighted when his agents, one of them the uncle of the deceased, reached the ground, seized Udai Singh, dispersed the assembly, and saved the princess.

Attached as Akbar was to his learned and liberal-minded friends, Faizi and Abulfazl, he encouraged all who displayed a real love for learning, and a true desire to acquire knowledge. He hated pretence and hypocrisy. He soon recognised that these two qualities underlay the professions of the 'Ulamas (Muhammadan doctors of learning) at his court. When he had found them out, he was disgusted with them, and resolved to spare no means of showing up their pretensions.

'He never pardoned,' writes Professor Blochmann, 'pride and conceit in a man, and of all kinds of {167} conceit, the conceit of learning was most hateful to him.' Hence the cry of the class affected by his action that he discouraged learning and learned men. He did nothing of the sort. There never has flourished in India a more generous encourager of the real thing. In this respect the present rulers of India might profit by his example. One of the men whose knowledge of history was the most extensive in that age, and who possessed great talents and a searching mind, was Khan-i-Azam Mirza, son of his favourite nurse. For a long time this man held fast to the orthodox profession of faith, ridiculing the 'new religion' of Akbar, and especially ridiculing Faizi and Abulfazl, to whom he applied nicknames expressing his sense of their pretensions. But at a later period he had occasion to make the pilgrimage to Mekka, and there he was so fleeced by the priests that his attachment to Islam insensibly cooled down. On his return to Agra, he became a member of the Divine Faith. He wrote poetry well, and was remarkable for the ease of his address and his intelligence. One of his many aphorisms has descended to posterity. It runs as follows: 'A man should marry four wives—a Persian woman to have somebody to talk to; a Khorasani woman for his housework; a Hindu woman, for nursing his children; and a woman from Marawannahr (Turkistan), to have some one to whip as a warning to the other three.'

One of the ablest warriors and most generous of men in the service of Akbar was Mirza Abdurrahim, {168} son of his old Atalik or preceptor, Bairam Khan. For many years he exercised the office of Khan Khanan, literally 'lord of lords,' tantamount to commander-in-chief. But he was as learned as he was able in the field. He translated the memoirs of Babar, well described by Abulfazl as 'a code of practical wisdom,' written in Turkish, into the Persian language then prevalent at the court of Akbar, to whom he presented the copy. Amongst other writers, the historians, Nizam-u-din Ahmad, author of the Tabakat-i-Akbari, or records of the reign of Akbar; the authors of the Tarikhi-i-Alfi, or the history of Muhammadanism for a thousand years; and, above all, the orthodox historian, Abul Kadir Badauni, author of the Tarikh-i-Badauni, or Annals of Badauni, and editor and reviser of a history of Kashmir, stand conspicuous.

Badauni was a very remarkable man. Two years older than Akbar, he had studied from his early youth various sciences under the most renowned and pious men of his age, and had come to excel in music, history, and astronomy. His sweet voice procured for him the appointment of Court Iman for Fridays. For forty years Badauni lived at court in company with Shaikh Mubarik and his sons Faizi and Abulfazl, but there was no real friendship between them, as Badauni, an orthodox Musalman, always regarded them as heretics. Under instructions from Akbar he translated the Ramayana from its original Sanscrit into Persian, as well as part of the Mahabharata. His {169} historical work above referred to as the Tarikh-i-Badauni, and which is perhaps better known under its alternative title Muntakhabat-ul-Tawarikh, or Selections from the Annals, is especially valuable for the views it gives of the religious opinions of Akbar, and its sketches of the famous men of his reign.

Badauni died about eleven years before the Emperor, and his great work, the existence of which he had carefully concealed, did not appear until some time during the reign of Jahangir. It is a very favourite book with the bigoted Muhammadans who disliked the innovations of Akbar, and it continued to be more and more prized as those innovations gradually gave way to the revival of persecution for thought's sake.

It is perhaps unnecessary to give a record of the other learned men who contributed by their abilities, their industry, and their learning to the literary glory of the reign of Akbar. The immortal Ain contains a complete list of them, great and small. But, as concerning the encouragement given to arts and letters by the sovereign himself, it is fitting to add a few words. It would seem that Akbar paid great attention to the storing in his library of works obtained from outside his dominions, as well as of those Hindu originals and their translations which he was always either collecting or having rendered into Persian. Of this library the author of the Ain relates that it was divided into several parts. 'Some of the books are kept within, some without the Harem. {170} Each part of the library is subdivided, according to the value of the books and the estimation in which the sciences are held of which the books treat. Prose books, poetical works, Hindi, Persian, Greek, Kashmirian, Arabic, are all separately placed. In this order they are also inspected. Experienced people bring them daily, and read them before his Majesty, who hears every book from the beginning to the end. At whatever page the readers daily stop, his Majesty makes with his own pen a mark, according to the number of the pages; and rewards the readers with presents of cash, either in gold or silver, according to the number of leaves read out by them. Among books of renown there are few which are not read in his Majesty's assembly hall; and there are no historical facts of past ages, or curiosities of science, or interesting points of philosophy, with which his Majesty, a leader of impartial sages, is unacquainted.' Then follows a long list of books specially affected by the sovereign, some of which have been referred to in preceding pages.

I have, I think, stated enough to show the influence exercised by literary men and literature on the history of this reign. The influence, especially of the two learned brothers, Faizi and Abulfazl, dominated as long as they lived. That of Abulfazl survived him, for the lessons he had taught only served to confirm the natural disposition of his master. The principles which the brothers loved were the principles congenial to the disposition of Akbar. They were the {171} principles of the widest toleration of opinion; of justice to all, independently of caste and creed; of alleviating the burdens resting on the children of the soil; of the welding together of the interests of all classes of the community, of the Rajput prince, proud of his ancient descent and inclined to regard the Muhammadan invader as an outcast and a stranger; of the Uzbek and Mughal noble, too apt to regard the country as his own by right of conquest, and its peoples as fit only to be his slaves; of the settlers of Afghan origin, who during four centuries had mingled with, and become a recognised part of the children of the soil; of the indigenous inhabitants, always ready to be moved by kindness and good treatment.

There was one class it was impossible to conciliate: the Muhammadan princes whose families had ruled in India, and who aspired to rule in their turn; who, in Bengal, in Orissa, in Behar, and in many parts of Western India, still exercised authority and maintained large armies. These men, regarding their title as superior to that of Akbar, and not recognising the fact that whilst their predecessors had lived on the surface, Akbar was sending roots down deep into the soil, resisted his pretensions and defied his power. How he tried conciliation with these men, and how their own conduct compelled him to insist on their expulsion, has been told in the last chapter.

I propose now to relate how the broad principles natural to Akbar and confirmed by his association {172} with Faizi and Abulfazl, affected the system of administration introduced by the reforming sovereign. In a previous page of this chapter I have quoted an expression of his own, to the effect that he had, at one time of his reign, forced Brahmans to embrace Muhammadanism. This must have happened because Akbar states it, but of the forced conversions I have found no record. They must have taken place whilst he was still a minor, and whilst the chief authority was wielded by Bairam. From the moment of his assumption of power, that is, from the day on which he gave the till then all-powerful Bairam Khan permission to proceed to Mekka, he announced his intention, from which he never swerved, to employ Hindus and Muhammadans alike without distinction. In the seventh year of his reign, he being then in the twenty-first year of his life, Akbar abolished the practice, heretofore prevailing, by which the troops of the conqueror were permitted to forcibly sell or keep in slavery the wives, children, and dependants of the conquered. Whatever might be the delinquencies of an enemy, his children and the people belonging to him were, according to the proclamation of the sovereign, to be free to go as they pleased to their own houses, or to the houses of their relatives. No one, great or small, was to be made a slave. 'If the husband pursue an evil course,' argued the liberal-minded prince, 'what fault is it of the wife? And if the father rebel, how can the children be blamed?'

The same generous and far-seeing policy was {173} pursued with unabated vigour in the reform of other abuses. The very next year, the eighth of his reign, the Emperor determined to abolish a tax, which, though extremely productive, inflicted, as he considered, a wrong on the consciences of his Hindu subjects. There are no people in the world more given to pilgrimages than are the Hindus. Their sacred shrines, each with its peculiar saint and its specific virtue, abound in every province of Hindustan. The journeys the pilgrims have to make are often long and tedious, their length being often proportioned to the value of the boon to be acquired. In these pilgrimages the Afghan predecessors of the Mughal had recognised a large and permanent source of revenue, and they had imposed, therefore, a tax on all pilgrims according to the ascertained or reputed means of each.

Abulfazl tells us that this tax was extremely prolific, amounting to millions of rupees annually. But it was felt as a great grievance. In the eyes of the Hindu a pilgrimage was often an inculcated duty, imposed upon him by his religion, or its interpreter, the Brahman priest. Why, he argued, because he submitted his body to the greatest inconvenience, measuring his own length along the ground, possibly for hundreds of miles, should he be despoiled by the State? The feelings of his Hindu subjects on this subject soon reached the ears of Akbar. It was submitted to him by those who saw in the tax only an easy source of revenue that the making of pilgrimages was a vain superstition which the Hindus would not forego, and {174} therefore the payment being certain and continuous, it would be bad financial policy to abolish the tax. Akbar, admitting that it was a tax on the superstitions of the multitude, and that a Hindu might escape paying it by staying at home, yet argued that as the making of pilgrimages constituted a part of the Hindu religion, and was, in a sense, a Hindu form of rendering homage to the Almighty, it would be wrong to throw the smallest stumbling-block in the way of this manifestation of their submission to that which they regarded as a divine ordinance. He accordingly remitted the tax.

Similarly regarding the jizya, or capitation tax imposed by Muhammadan sovereigns on those of another faith. This tax had been imposed in the early days of the Muhammadan conquest by the Afghan rulers of India. There was no tax which caused so much bitterness of feeling on the part of those who had to pay it: not one which gave so much opportunity to the display and exercise of human tyranny. The reason why the sovereigns before Akbar failed entirely to gain the sympathies of the children of the soil might be gathered from the history of the proceedings connected with this tax alone. 'When the collector of the Diwan,' writes the author of the Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, 'asks the Hindus to pay the tax, they should pay it with all humility and submission. And if the collector wishes to spit into their mouths, they should open their mouths without the slightest fear of contamination, so that the collector may do so.... The object of such humiliation {175} and spitting into their mouths is to prove the obedience of infidel subjects under protection, and to promote the glory of the Islam, the true religion, and to show contempt for false religions.' That the officials who acted in the manner here described contravened the true spirit of Islam, I need not stop to argue. There is not a religion which has not suffered from the intemperate zeal of its bigoted supporters; and Muhammadanism has suffered at least as much as the others. But the extract proves the extent to which it was possible for the agents of an unusually enlightened prince to tyrannise over and to insult the conquered race in the name of a religion, whose true tenets they perverted by so acting.

Akbar recognised not only the inherent liability to this abuse in the collection of such a tax, but also the vicious character of the tax itself. The very word 'infidel' was hateful to him. 'Who is certain that he is right,' was his constant exclamation. Recognising good in all religions, he would impose no tax on the conscientious faith of any man. Early then, in the ninth year of his reign, and in the twenty-third of his life, three years, be it borne in mind, before he had come under the influence of either of the two illustrious brothers, Faizi and Abulfazl, he, prompted by his own sense of the eternal fitness of things, issued an edict abolishing the jizya. Thenceforth all were equal in matters of faith before the one Eternal.

The dealings of Akbar with the Hindus were not confined to the abolition of taxes which pressed hardly {176} on their religious opinions. He endeavoured, with as little show of authority as was possible, to remove restrictions which interfered with the well-being and happiness of the people. What he did regarding Sati I have already related. The kindred question of the re-marriage of a widow met with the greatest encouragement from him. He even went further, and issued an edict rendering such re-marriage lawful. In the same spirit he forbade marriages before the age of puberty, a custom deeply rooted amongst the Hindus, and carried on even at the present day, though theoretically condemned by the wisest among them. He prohibited likewise the slaughter of animals for sacrifice, and trials by ordeal. Nor was he less stringent with those of the faith in which he was born. His method with them took the form rather of example, of persuasion, of remonstrance, than a direct order.

He discouraged the excessive practice of prayers, of fasts, of alms, of pilgrimages, but he did not forbid them. These were matters for individual taste, but Akbar knew well that in the majority of instances open professions were merely cloaks for hypocrisy; that there were many ways in which a man's life could be utilised other than by putting on an austere appearance, and making long prayers. The rite of circumcision could not, indeed, be forbidden to the Muhammadans, but Akbar directed that the ceremony should not be performed until the lad had attained the age of twelve. To humour the {177} prejudices of the Hindus, he discouraged the slaughter of kine. On the other hand, he pronounced the killing and partaking of the flesh of swine to be lawful. Dogs had been looked upon by Muhammadans as unclean animals, and the strict Muhammadan of the present day still regards them as such. Akbar declared them to be clean. Wine is prohibited to the Muslim. Akbar encouraged a moderate use of it.

In the later years of his reign (1592) he introduced, to the great annoyance of the bigoted party at his court, the practice of shaving the beard. In a hot country such as India the advantages arising from the use of the razor are too obvious to need discussion. But, although the order was not obligatory, the compliance or non-compliance with the custom became a distinguishing mark at the imperial court. Few things are more repugnant to a devout Musalman than the shaving of his beard. It was so then, and it is so now. The example set in this respect by the sovereign caused then many murmurs and much secret discontent.

Amongst others of the natural characteristics of Akbar may be mentioned his attachment to his relatives. Of one of these, a foster-brother, who persistently offended him, he said, whilst inflicting upon him the lightest of punishments: 'Between me and Aziz is a river of milk, which I cannot cross.' The spirit of these words animated him in all his actions towards those connected with him. Unless they were irreclaimable, or had steeped their hands in the blood {178} of others, he ever sought to win them back by his gentleness and liberality. He loved forgiving, reinstating, trusting, and though the exercise of these noble qualities led sometimes to his being imposed upon, they told in the long run. He was a good son, a loving husband, and perhaps too affectionate a father.

His sons suffered from the misfortune of having been born in the purple. One of them, Prince Danyal, was a prince of the highest promise, but the temptations by which he was surrounded, unchecked by his tutors, brought him to an early grave. Similarly with Prince Murad. As to his successor, Jahangir, he was, in most respects, the very opposite of his father. Towards the close of the reign he set an example which became a rule of the Mughal dynasty, that of trying to establish himself in the lifetime of his father, whose dearest friend, Abulfazl, he had caused to be assassinated. Nothing could exceed the exemplary patience and forbearance with which Akbar treated his unworthy son. Again, Akbar abhorred cruelty: he regarded the performance of his duty as equivalent to an act of worship to the Creator.

In this respect he made no difference between great and small matters. He was not content to direct that such and such an ordinance should be issued. He watched its working; developed it more fully, if it were successful; and marked the details of its action on the several races who constituted his subjects. He had much confidence in his own judgment of men. He was admittedly {179} a good physiognomist. Abulfazl wrote of him that 'he sees through some men at a glance,' whilst even Badauni admits the claim, though with his usual inclination to sneering at all matters bearing on the Hindus, he declares that Akbar obtained the gift of insight from the Jogis (Hindu ascetics or magicians).

With all his liberality and breadth of view Akbar himself was not free from superstition. He believed in lucky days. Mr. Blochmann states that he imbibed this belief from his study of the religion of Zoroaster, of which it forms a feature. His courtiers, especially those who were secretly opposed to his religious innovations, attributed his undoubted success to luck. Thus Badauni writes of 'his Majesty's usual good luck overcoming all enemies,' whereas it was his remarkable attention to the carrying out of the details of laws and regulations which he and his councillors had thoroughly considered which ensured his success.

He was very fond of field sports, especially of hunting, but after the birth of the son who succeeded him he did not hunt on Fridays. If we can accept the authority of the Emperor Jahangir, Akbar had made a vow that he would for ever abstain from hunting on the sacred day if the mother of Jahangir should have a safe deliverance, and he kept it to the end of his life. There is abundant evidence to prove that Akbar was not only fond of music, but was very musical himself. He delighted in the old tunes of Khwarizm, and, according to Abulfazl, himself composed more than two hundred of these, 'which are the {180} delight of young and old.' The same authority states that 'his Majesty had such a knowledge of the science of music as trained musicians do not possess.' Every day the court was treated to an abundance of music, the sounds of which have in all times been especially agreeable to Eastern monarchs. He also was gifted, to a considerable extent, with the genius of invention. The Ain records how he invented a carriage, a wheel for cleaning guns, and elephant gear; how, further, he made improvements in the clothing of his troops and in his artillery.

In his diet Akbar was simple, taking but one regular meal a day. He disliked meat, and abstained from it often for months at a time. He was specially fond of fruits, and made a study of their cultivation. Abulfazl records that he regarded fruits 'as one of the greatest gifts of the Creator,' and that the Emperor brought horticulturists of Iran and Turan to settle at Agra and Fatehpur-Sikri. 'Melons and grapes have become very plentiful and excellent; and water-melons, peaches, almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, etc., are everywhere to be found.' He adds that fruits were largely imported from Kabul, Kandahar, Kashmir, Badakshan, and even from Samarkand. The Ain contains a long list of these, which the reader who knows India will read with pleasure. It is interesting to find that, even in those days, the first place among the sweet fruits of Hindustan is given to the mango. This fruit is described as 'unrivalled in colour, smell, and taste; and some of the gourmands {181} of Turan and Iran place it above musk-melon and grapes.'

One word as to the daily habits of Akbar and to the manner in which he was accustomed to pass an ordinary day at Agra or Fatehpur-Sikri. It would seem that he kept late hours, spending the evenings far into the early morning in conversation and discussion. In such matters he occupied himself, according to the record of Abulfazl, till 'about a watch before daybreak,' when musicians were introduced. At daybreak the sovereign retired into his private apartments, made his ablutions, dressed, and about an hour later presented himself to receive the homage of his courtiers. Then began the business of the day. Probably this was concluded often long before midday, when the one meal which Akbar allowed himself was usually served, though there was no fixed hour for it. The afternoon was the recognised hour of sleep. Sometimes Akbar devoted the early morning to field sports, and sometimes the late evenings to the game of chaugan, or polo, for which purpose balls made of the palas wood were used. The hottest hours of the day were the hours of rest and recuperation.

Akbar had not reigned long ere he recognised the importance of attaching to his throne the Hindu princes of Rajputana by a tie closer even than that of mere friendship. It is interesting to note how he managed to overcome the inborn prejudices of the high caste princes of Rajast'han to consent to a union which, in their hearts, the bulk of them regarded as {182} a degradation. It would seem that his father, Humayun, had to a certain extent prepared the way. In his erudite and fascinating work,[3] Colonel Tod relates how Humayun, in the earlier part of his reign, became the knight of the princess Kurnavati of Chitor, and pledged himself to her service. That service he loyally performed. He addressed her always as 'dear and virtuous sister.' He also won the regard of Raja Bihari Mall of Amber, father of the Bhagwan Das, so often mentioned in these pages.

[Footnote 3: Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han, by Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod, second (Madras) edition, pp. 262, 282-3.]

Akbar subsequently married his daughter, and becoming thus connected with the House of Amber (Jaipur), could count upon Bhagwan Das and his nephew and adopted son, Man Singh, one of the greatest of all his commanders, as his firmest friends. Writing in another page of Bhagwan Das, Colonel Tod describes him as 'the friend of Akbar, who saw the value of attaching such men to his throne.' He adds, and few men have ever enjoyed better opportunities of ascertaining the real feelings of the princes of Rajputana, 'but the name of Bhagwan Das is execrated as the first who sullied Rajput purity by matrimonial alliance with the Islamite.' Prejudice is always strong, and, like the dog, it returns to its vomit.

Rajputana never produced greater or larger-minded princes than Bhagwan Das and his nephew. Their intimate union with Akbar contributed more than any other circumstance to reconcile the Rajputs to {183} the predominance of the Mughal. The union was further cemented by the marriage, already referred to, between Prince Salim and a daughter of Bhagwan Das. What the real influence of Akbar's administration was upon that chivalrous race may be gathered from the short summary which Colonel Tod, himself, more Rajput in his sympathies than the Rajputs themselves, devotes to his career.

'Akbar,' writes that author, 'was the real founder of the empire of the Mughals, the first successful conqueror of Rajput independence. To this end his virtues were powerful auxiliaries, as by his skill in the analysis of the mind and its readiest stimulant to action, he was enabled to gild the chains with which he bound them. To these they became familiarised by habit, especially when the throne exerted its power in acts gratifying to national vanity, or even in ministering to the more ignoble passions.' Unable, apparently, to comprehend the principle which underlay the whole policy of Akbar, that of conquering that he might produce union, and regarding him as he rightly regarded his Afghan and Pathan predecessors, Colonel Tod attacks him for his conquests. Yet even Colonel Tod is forced to add: 'He finally succeeded in healing the wounds his ambition had inflicted, and received from millions that meed of praise which no other of his race ever obtained.' I need not add that if to render happiness to millions is one of the first objects of kingship, and if to obtain that end union has to be cemented by conquest, the means sanction {184} the end. Akbar did not conquer in Rajputana to rule in Rajputana. He conquered that all the Rajput princes, each in his own dominions, might enjoy that peace and prosperity which his predominance, never felt aggressively, secured for the whole empire.

From the Raja of Jodhpur, Udai Singh, at the time the most powerful of the Rajput princes, Akbar obtained the hand of his daughter for his son Salim. The princess became the mother of a son who succeeded his father as the Emperor Shah Jahan. In him the Rajput blood acquired a position theretofore unknown in India. Of this marriage, so happy in its results, Colonel Tod writes that Akbar obtained it by a bribe, the gift of four provinces which doubled the fisc of Marwar (Jodhpur). He adds: 'With such examples as Amber and Marwar, and with less power to resist temptation, the minor chiefs of Rajast'han, with a brave and numerous vassalage, were transformed into satraps of Delhi, and the importance of most of them was increased by the change.' Truly did the Mughal historian designate them as 'at once the props and ornaments of the throne.'

There surely could not be a greater justification of the policy of Akbar with respect to Rajputana and its princes than is contained in the testimony of this writer, all of whose sympathies were strongly with the Rajputs.

Whilst on the subject of the imperial marriages, I may mention that Akbar had many wives, but of these eight only are authoritatively mentioned. His {185} first wife was his cousin, a daughter of his uncle, Hindal Mirza. She bore him no children, and survived him, living to the age of eighty-four. His second wife was also a cousin, being the daughter of a daughter of Babar, who had married Mirza Nuruddin Muhammad. She was a poetess, and wrote under the nom de plume, Makhfi (the concealed). His third wife was the daughter of Raja Bihari Mall and sister of Raja Bhagwan Das. He married her in 1560. The fourth wife was famed for her beauty: she had been previously married to Abul Wasi. The fifth wife, mother of Jahangir, was a Jodhpur princess, Jodh Baei. As mother of the heir apparent, she held the first place in the harem. The sixth, seventh, and eighth wives were Muhammadans.

In the matter of domestic legislation Akbar paid considerable attention to the mode of collecting revenue. He found existing a system devised by Sher Shah, the prince who had defeated and expelled his father. The principles upon which this system was based were (1) the correct measurement of the land; (2) the ascertaining the average production of a block of land per bigha;[4] (3) the settlement of the proportion of that amount to be paid to the Government by each; (4) the fixing of the equivalent in money for the settled amount in kind. Akbar proposed rather to develop this principle than to interfere with it. {186} With this object he established a uniform standard to supersede the differing standards theretofore employed.

[Footnote 4: A bigha is a portion of land measuring in the North-west Provinces nearly five-eighths of an acre. In Bengal, it is not quite one-third of an acre.]

'This laudable regulation,' we are told in the Ain, 'removed the rust of uncertainty from the minds of collectors, and relieved the subject from a variety of oppressions, whilst the income became larger, and the State flourished.' Akbar likewise caused to be adopted improved instruments of mensuration, and with these he made a new settlement of the lands capable of cultivation within the empire. We are told in the Ain that he was in the habit of taking from each bigha of land ten sers (about twenty pounds) of grain as a royalty. This was at a later period commuted into a money payment. In each district he had store-houses erected to supply animals, the property of the State, with food; to furnish cultivators with grain for sowing purposes; to have at hand a provision in case of famine; and to feed the poor. These store-houses were placed in charge of men specially selected for their trustworthy qualities.

The land was in the earlier part of the reign divided into three classes according to its fertility, and the assessment was fixed on the average production of three bighas, one from each division. The cultivator might, however, if dissatisfied with the average, insist on the valuation of his own crop. Five classifications of land were likewise made to ensure equality of payment in proportion to the quality of the land and its immunity from accidents, such as inundation. Other regulations were {187} carefully formed to discriminate between the several varieties of soil, all having for their object the fixing of a system fair alike to the cultivator and the Government.

Gradually, as I have above indicated, as the Government became settled, a better principle was introduced to fix the amount payable to the State. For this purpose statements of prices for the nineteen years preceding the survey were called for from the village heads. From these an average was struck, and the produce was valued at the current rates. At first these settlements were annual, but as fresh annual rates were found vexatious, the settlement was made for ten years, on the basis of the average of the preceding ten.

To complete this agricultural system, Akbar made at the same time a new division of the country for revenue purposes. Under this scheme the country was marked out in parcels, each yielding a karor (ten millions) of dams, equal to twenty-five thousand rupees. The collector of each of these parcels was called a karori. Whenever a karori had collected the sum of two lakhs of dams,[5] he was required to send it to the Treasurer-General at head-quarters. It was found, however, after a time, that the arbitrary division based simply upon a mathematical theory produced {188} confusion and disturbed ancient ways, of all others most congenial to the Hindus. After a trial, then, the artificial division was abandoned in favour of the ancient system of the people, under which the lands were parcelled out in conformity with the natural features of the country and the village system prevailing therein.

[Footnote 5: Two hundred thousand dams, equivalent to five thousand rupees. A dam is a copper coin, the fortieth part of a rupee. The coin known as the damri, used at the present day for the purposes of calculation, is the eighth part of a dam.]

Against the farming of the revenue, as a certain mode of oppression, Akbar was very strong. He particularly enjoined upon his collectors to deal directly, as far as was possible, with the cultivator himself, rather than with the village headman. This was an innovation which, though based upon the best intentions, did not always answer. Custom counts for much in India, and custom pronounced in favour of the recognition of the influence of the chief man of the village, and it became necessary practically to deal, at least conjointly, with him.

When the Emperor took into consideration the circumstances attending the holding of lands, he found not only that grants had been made by his predecessors to unworthy objects, but that his own administrators had been guilty of bribery and corruption of various degrees. It was shortly after Faizi joined him in camp, and had acquired great influence with him, that his eyes were opened to these enormities. He found to his horror that the chief perpetrators of them were men who made the largest professions of sanctity. Then followed, almost immediately, the sarcastic exile of these men to Mekka: {189} then, a thorough inquiry into the department. There were four classes to whom it had been considered desirable that the sovereign should be able to render State assistance. The first class comprised the men who devoted themselves to literature and learning, and who had no means of their own. It had seemed desirable that such men should not be harassed by the need of having to care for their daily bread. The second class included those who 'toil and practise self-denial, and while engaged in the struggle with the selfish passions of human nature, have renounced the society of men.' The third, the weak and poor, who had no strength for toil. The fourth, honourable men of gentle birth, who, from want of knowledge, are unable to provide for themselves by taking up a trade.

To inquire into the circumstances of petitioners of these classes an experienced officer of presumably correct intentions had been appointed. He was entitled Sadr, or chief, and ranked above the Kazi and the judges. When, in consequence of the inquiries set on foot at the instance of Faizi, it was discovered that the whole of this department was a hotbed of corruption, Akbar made a clean sweep of the officials, from the Sadr down to the smallest Kazi, and nominated men drawn from a different class, fencing their functions with strict regulations.

But, as sovereign who had to reward great services rendered to the crown, Akbar required to dispose of large grants of land to men devoted to his service. Thus, he paid the Mansabdars, or officers entrusted {190} with high command, by temporary grants of land in lieu of a money allowance. He found that the most powerful of his immediate predecessors, the Sher Shah who had expelled his father, Humayun, had been more than lavish in his grants of land to his immediate followers, men mostly of Afghan descent. Akbar inquired into the circumstances under which these grants had been made, and in many instances he resumed them to bestow them upon his own adherents.

In acting in this way he only followed the precedent set him by previous sovereigns. But he had even more reason than that which precedent would sanction. He found that the land specified in the firman granted to the holder but rarely corresponded in extent to the land which he actually held. Sometimes it happened that the language of the firman was so ambiguously worded as to allow the holder to take all that he could get by bribing the Kazis and the provincial Sadr. Hence, in the interests of justice and the interests of the crown and the people, he had a perfect right to resume whatever, after due inquiry, he found to be superfluous. He discovered, moreover, that the 'Ulama, or learned doctors, a class more resembling the pharisees of the New Testament than any class of which history makes record, and whom he cordially detested, had been very free in helping themselves during the period of his minority, and before the representations of Faizi had induced him to make inquiries. He therefore made the strictest {191} investigation into their titles. When these were found faulty, or he had reason to believe that they had been dishonestly obtained, he resumed the grants, and exiled the ex-holders to Bukkur in Sind, or to Bengal, the climate of which had, in those days, a very sinister reputation. At the period of his reform, moreover, he greatly reduced the authority of the Sadr, transferring to his own hands the bulk of the power which had devolved upon them.

Regarding the general tendency and result of the reforms instituted by Akbar in the territorial system of the country, a distinguished writer[6] has recorded his judgment that, much as they 'promoted the happiness of the existing generation, they contained no principle of progressive improvement, and held out no hopes to the rural population by opening paths by which it might spread into other occupations, or rise by individual exertion within his own.' I venture, with some diffidence and with the greatest respect, to differ from this criticism. Akbar, admittedly, promoted the happiness of the generation amongst whom he lived. To have proceeded on the lines suggested by Mr. Elphinstone, he would have destroyed a principle which was then vital to the existence of Hindu society as it was constituted. Akbar went dangerously near to that point when he attempted to negotiate directly with the cultivators instead of through the headman of the village. He recognised in sufficient time that he must deal very charily and {192} cautiously with customs which had all the force of law, and he withdrew his order.

[Footnote 6: The History of India, by the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone.]

The chief adviser of Akbar in matters of revenue, finance, and currency was the Raja Todar Mall, of whom I have spoken in the last chapter. He was a man of great ability and of tried integrity. Though attached to the court of a Muhammadan sovereign, he was an earnest Hindu, and performed faithfully all the ceremonies of his religion. On one occasion when accompanying Akbar to the Punjab, in the hurry of departure he forgot his idols. As he transacted no business before his daily worship he remained for several days without food or drink, and was at last with difficulty consoled by the Emperor.

Of the army the principal component force was cavalry. Elephants too constituted an important feature in the array of battle. As a rule, the presence of elephants was supposed to indicate the presence of the Emperor, or rather, it was believed that the sovereign could not be present unless elephants were there. In the last chapter I have given an example of the happy mistake committed by a formidable antagonist of the Emperor in consequence of this prevailing impression.

The empire north of the Vindhyan range was portioned by the Emperor into twelve subahs or provinces. These were each governed by a viceroy, subordinate only to the sovereign. He held office during good behaviour, and was bound in all things to carry out the instructions of his master. Under {193} him were local military officers called faujdars, who united in their own persons the duties devolving upon a chief of police and a military commander. To them was consigned the maintenance of peace in their several districts; the superintendence of military establishments within the same; the command of the regular troops there located; and, generally, the repression of disturbances.

The lines upon which justice was administered by the officers of Akbar were the same as those introduced by his Afghan predecessors. The Kuran was the basis upon which the law rested. But precedents often modified the strict interpretation. Where, moreover, the law leaned to severity it was again modified by the instructions drafted by the Emperor or his advisers. The leading features of these instructions were to temper justice with mercy. The high officers were enjoined to be sparing in capital punishments. In one rescript addressed to the Governor of distant Gujarat, that functionary was directed in no case, except in that of dangerous sedition, to inflict capital punishment until his proceedings had received the confirmation of the Emperor.

South of the Vindhyan range, in the division known as the Deccan, or South, the imperial possessions were originally divided into three subahs or commands. Subsequently, when new provinces and districts had been acquired, they were increased to six. After the death of Akbar these were all placed under one head, called the Subahdar, the precursor of {194} the Nizam. With him, but subordinate to him, was associated an administrative financial officer called the Diwan, or Chancellor.

Akbar was a very magnificent sovereign. Though simple in his habits, he recognised, as the greatest of British Viceroys recognised after him, that show is a main element in the governing of an Eastern people. It is necessary to strike the eye, to let the subjects see the very majesty of power, the 'pomp and circumstance' attending the being whose nod indicates authority, who is to them the personified concentration on earth of the attributes of the Almighty. This is no mere idea. The very expressions used by the natives of India at the present day show how this thought runs through their imaginations. To them the man in authority, the supreme wielder of power, sits in the place of God. His fiat means to them weal or woe, happiness or misery. On days of ceremony, then, they expect that this all-powerful being shall display the ensigns of royalty, shall surround himself with the pomp and glitter which betoken state. Akbar thoroughly understood this and acted accordingly.

We are not left to the descriptions of the author of the Ain to realise the imposing grandeur of his ceremonies. The native historians speak of his five thousand elephants, his twelve thousand riding-horses, his camp-equipage containing splendid tents, comprising halls for public receptions, apartments for feasting, galleries for exercise, chambers for retirement, all of splendid material and rich and varied {195} colours. They describe the Emperor himself on the days of special ceremonial seated in a rich tent, the awnings of which were thrown open, in the centre of carpeting of the softest material, covering at least two acres of ground, receiving the homage of his nobles. These occupied tents inferior only in degree to that of the sovereign. Then ensued, in the sight of the people, the ceremony of weighing the sovereign against various articles, to be distributed to those who needed them. According to the number of years the sovereign had lived there was given away an equal number of sheep, goats, and fowls to the breeders of those animals. A number of the smaller animals were likewise set at liberty. The Emperor himself distributed with his own hand almonds and fruits of the lighter sort among his courtiers.