Rulers of India: Akbar

by G. B. Malleson

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 Satí. It is not necessary to explain that the English equivalent for the word 'Satí' is 'chaste or virtuous,' and that a Satí is a woman who burns herself on her husband's funeral pile. The custom 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 Rájpútána, 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 Rájá Bihárí Mall of Ambar, was on a mission to the grandees of Bengal, news reached him that Jai Mall had died at Chausá. Jai Mall had been a great favourite with Akbar, for of all the Rájpútána 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 Rájá 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 Satí. 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, Faizí 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 'Ulamás (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 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 Khán-í-Ázam Mírzá, 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 Faizí 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 Islám 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 Khorasání woman for his housework; a Hindu woman, for nursing his children; and a woman from Marawánnáhr (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 Mírzá Abdurráhím, son of his old Atálik or preceptor, Bairám Khán. For many years he exercised the office of Khán Khánán, 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 Bábar, 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, Nizám-u-dín Ahmad, author of the Tabákat-í-Akbarí, or records of the reign of Akbar; the authors of the Taríkhí-í-Alfí, or the history of Muhammadanism for a thousand years; and, above all, the orthodox historian, Abul Kádir Badauní, author of the Taríkh-í-Badauní, or Annals of Badauní, and editor and reviser of a history of Kashmír, stand conspicuous.

Badauní 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 Imán for Fridays. For forty years Badauní lived at court in company with Shaikh Mubárik and his sons Faizí and Abulfazl, but there was no real friendship between them, as Badauní, an orthodox Musalmán, always regarded them as heretics. Under instructions from Akbar he translated the Rámáyana from its original Sanscrit into Persian, as well as part of the Máhábhárata. His historical work above referred to as the Taríkh-í-Badauní, 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.

Badauní 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 Jahángír. 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. 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, Hindí, 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, Faizí 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 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 Rájpút 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 Afghán 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.