“That I can easily believe,” rejoined Faizi: “it happens to everyone on their first arrival here. However much one may have heard or read of Akbar’s palace beforehand, one is overcome with astonishment on really seeing it. But tell me, Kulluka, how things go in the north; I am anxious to hear news of your Kashmir.”
Kulluka willingly replied, keeping to general affairs, and without then alluding to the divisions that were beginning to arise; and soon Siddha also took a lively share in the conversation. Never before had he found himself so quickly at his ease with a stranger as he did with the celebrated Faizi, the great Emperor’s friend and councillor, and of whose learning and knowledge he had heard so much. The conversation soon passed from the subjects of the day to various topics, especially those relating to literature.
“You admire our palaces,” said Faizi, turning to Siddha, “and say they far out-do your expectations; but it was quite the contrary with me when I first made acquaintance with your simple, classical, and sacred literature. Our faithful were not very learned; Mullahs had assured me they were nothing but a confused and tasteless collection of monstrosities, as pernicious to our civilisation as dangerous to our belief in Allah and His Prophet. I say nothing about this last accusation; but as to what concerns the cultivation of taste and knowledge, I find far more aid in your poets and thinkers than in ours. How splendid is your heroic poetry, how fine your lyrics, and sparkling your dramas! what noble, elevated feelings, yet, at the same time, what purity and humanity, and what a breadth and depth of thought was there in your philosophers of old! But why should I remind you of all this, which you naturally know and understand far better than I do, who with great difficulty have learnt to understand your language, which is so entirely different from our Persian or Arabic.”
“After all,” said Siddha, “Sanscrit does not come so naturally to us Hindus, who generally speak Hindustani. Ask Kulluka if he did not find difficulties in teaching it to me.”
“Even,” remarked Kulluka, “even if in the beginning Faizi found the same difficulties in learning Sanscrit that others have done, his translation of our Kashmiri chronicles, and his rendering of Nala and Damayanti,[5] can well make us forget that the language is not his native one.”
“What splendid poetry, is it not?” continued Faizi, who did not let the conversation easily drop when it once touched on Hindu literature; “and how far short any translation must fall when compared with the original, so simple and yet so exalted, with its unsurpassed women! Think of the noble, pure Damayanti, proof against all the trials and slights of her unworthy husband! My translations have been undertaken to please Akbar, who naturally cannot find time to learn a strange language, and yet is desirous of reading everything. Now he has given me the task of translating the Evangelists.”
“Of what?” asked Kulluka.
“Of the holy books used by the people of the West, who are called Christians, after the founder of their religion, of whom you must have heard. There is much worth reading in those books, and I find many exalted and profound ideas in them, mixed with matter of less consequence, as is also the case with your philosophies; but on the whole there is not much that is new to those who are acquainted with your philosophical writings. But what always strikes me particularly,” he continued, again turning the conversation to the praise of ancient India, “are your proverbs. How insipid ours appear when compared with them! Even if I had only learnt this one of you, it would have been enough to give me fresh courage for working at my manuscript,—
“The treasure that never fades is never robbed, but grows
The more it is expended; that treasure is called knowledge.”