Here is a subject indeed!
Considering the time--a time when Elizabeth of England found that England ready to support her in beheading her woman-cousin, when Charles IX. of France idly gave the order on St Bartholomew's Eve, and Pope Urban VIII., representing the highest majesty of the Christian religion, forced the tortured, seventy-year-old Galileo to his knees, there to abjure by oath what he knew to be God's truth: considering the country--a country to this day counted uncivilised by Europe--there is small wonder that the record of Akbar seems incredible even to the owner of the hand which here attempts to epitomise that record.
And yet it is a true one. Discounting to the full the open flattery of Abul-fazl's Akbarnâmâh, the source from which most information is derived, giving good measure to Budâoni's grudging criticisms, the unbiassed readers of Akbar's life cannot avoid the conviction that in dealing with him, they are dealing with a man of imagination, of genius.
Between the lines, as it were, of bare fact, the unconventional, the unexpected crops up perpetually, making the mind start and wonder. As an instance, let us take the account of the great hunt at Bhera, near the river Jhelum, and let us take it in the very words of the historians.
"The Emperor gave orders for a gamargha hunt, and that the nobles and officers should according to excellent methods enclose the wild beasts.... But, when it had almost come about that the two sides were come together, suddenly, all at once a strange state and strong frenzy came upon the Emperor ... to such an extent as cannot be accounted for. And every one attributed it to some cause or other ... some thought that the beasts of the forest had with a tongueless tongue unfurled divine secrets to him. At this time he ordered the hunting to be abandoned. Active men made every endeavour that no one should even touch the feather of a finch."
Now whether the legend which lingers in India be true or not, that it was the sight of a chinkara fawn which brought about the Emperor's swift change of front, we have here baldly set down certain events which apparently were incomprehensible and but vaguely praiseworthy, even to Abul-fazl's keen eye for virtue in his master. Viewed, however, by the wider sympathies of to-day, the fact stands forth indubitably that the "extraordinary access of rage such as none had ever seen the like in him before" with which Akbar was seized, was no mere fit of epilepsy, such as the rival historian Budâoni counts it to have been, but a sudden overmastering perception of the relations between God's creatures, the swift realisation of the Unity which binds the whole world together; for it seems certain that he never again countenanced a battue.
Now Akbar's life was full of such sudden insights. We see the effect of them in his swift actions; actions so swift, so unerring, that they startle the dull world around him. He was that rare thing--a dreamer who was also a man of action.
That he was full of faults none can deny, but, judging him by the highest canon, one feels bound to place him amongst those few names, such as Shakspeare, Michelangelo, Beethoven and Cæsar, who seem to have had equal control over their physical and their subliminal consciousness; and so, inevitably, head the lists of leaders amongst men.
Of Akbar's early years enough has been said. From his birth in the sand-swept desert, to the day on which, a lad-ling of eight, he finally escaped the clutches of his uncle Kamrân, and rode into his father's camp before Kâbul at the head of a faithful contingent, he had suffered such constant vicissitudes of fortune that there can be no surprise at the belief, which grew up later, that he bore a charmed life.
Of the next three years until, at the age of twelve, he marched with his father on India, and brought success by, with youthful energy, precipitating a decisive battle, nothing is known, save that he was married with much pomp to his cousin Râzia-Khânum, daughter of his dead uncle Hindal, a woman many years his senior.
Akbar, then, was thirteen years and four months old when at Hariâna, a town in the Jullunder district, he received the news of his father's accident, and almost at the same time those of his death. He, together with his governor, tutor, or, as it is called in Persian, atalik, Byrâm-Khân, was engaged in pursuing Sikûndah-Shâh, the last scion of the House of Sûr, and it seemed to them best, ere returning to Delhi, to secure the Punjâb by securing Sikûndah. But their decision proved of doubtful wisdom; for Kâbul instantly revolted, and Hemu, the shopkeeper-prime-minister of the third Sûri king, with an army of fifty thousand men and five hundred elephants, marched on Delhi, flushed by his victories, to restore the late dynasty, and took the city.
In this predicament, Akbar's counsellors advised retreat to Kâbul. Its recovery seemed certain, and he could there await future developments. But Akbar's instincts were for empire, and Byrâm-Khân, the old Turkomân soldier, was with him.
Delhi must be won back at all hazards; so, not without trepidation, the old man and the boy crossed the river Sutlej, and were joined at Sirhînd by Târdi-Beg, and the forces which had fled from Delhi. Now Târdi-Beg was a nobleman of the House of Chagatâi (which also claimed the young king as its most distinguished scion), and between him and Byräm-Khân there had ever been enmity. The latter, therefore, taking as his excuse the over-haste of Târdi-Beg's retirement from Delhi, called him to his tent, and without referring to their youthful master, had him assassinated. The event, common enough in Indian history, is noteworthy, because it caused the first rift in the confidence between Byrâm and Akbar, who, boy as he was, showed his displeasure, and refused to accept the rough soldier's excuse that violence was necessary to assert power.
The next breach was of the same kind. Passing by our old friend, the fort of Bhattînda, Akbar gave battle to Hemu on the old field at Pâniput, where, thirty years before, his grandfather, Babar, had decided his fate.
No doubt the thought of this had something to do with the renewed victory which left Hemu, sorely wounded, a prisoner in Byrâm's hands. Not satisfied with this, the savage old Tartar general brought him into Akbar's tent, and, presenting the boy with a sword, said: "This is your first war, my king. Prove your sword upon this infidel." But Akbar drew back indignantly. "How can I strike one who is no better than a dead man?" he replied hotly. "It is on strength and sense that a king's sword is tried." Whereupon Byrâm, incensed, no doubt, by the proud refusal, instantly cut down Hemu himself.
They say the boy-king wept; certain it is that he never forgot, never quite forgave, the incident. Next day, marching 53 miles without a halt, Akbar entered Delhi, the acknowledged Emperor of India.
What that India was, we know. On all sides was despotism; good or bad government being the result of the personal equation of the despot.
Akbar was to change much of this by wise, unalterable, and beneficent laws during the nine-and-forty years of his reign; for the present, however, he was under tutelage, and the first four years after his accession passed without the young king's showing any of the markedly-original tendencies which characterised him in after life.
But during those four years he was learning to recognise what he liked, what he disliked. Amongst the latter was the arbitrary exercise of Byrâm's power. This became more and more galling as the years sped by, and the boy, now growing to manhood, began to realise himself, began to dream dreams, began to see realities with a clearness and insight far beyond those of his tutor. But he had a generous, an affectionate heart. He hestitated long to throw off the yoke of tutelage and proclaim his determination to rule in his own way; and despite the efforts of Byrâm's enemies--and he had many--added to the persuasions of Mahâm-Anagâh (Akbar's foster-mother, who all his life, from the day when, a yearling babe, he was left in her charge while his father and mother fled for their lives across the Persian frontier, had been his chief adviser), it was not till A.D. 1560 that Akbar made up his mind to action. Then, leaving Byrâm engaged in a hunting expedition, he returned, on pretext of his mother's sudden illness, to Delhi and issued a proclamation announcing to his people that he had taken the sole management of affairs into his own hands, and that no orders, except those given under his own seal, should in future be obeyed. At the same time he sent a dignified message to Byrâm-Khân to this effect:--
"Till now our mind has been taken up with our education and by the amusements of youth, and it was our royal will that you should regulate the affairs of our empire. But, it being our intention henceforward to govern our people by our own judgment, let our well-wisher withdraw from all worldly concerns, and taking the pilgrimage to Mecca on which he has for so long been intent, spend the rest of his days in prayer far removed from the toils of public life."
The very dignity of this was, however, irritating, and Byrâm, after a brief feint of obedience, broke out into open revolt.
It needed Akbar himself to reduce his disloyalty by a display of clemency which must have convinced the old Tartar that he had here to do with some one, with something, the like of which he had never seen before. For when, driven to bay, in utmost distress he sent in an almost hopeless appeal for pardon, Akbar's reply was the despatching of a guard of honour equal to his own to bring the unfortunate man to his presence with every mark of distinction. It was too much for the old soldier. His pride broke down, he flung himself at his young master's feet in a passion of tears. Akbar's reply was to raise him by the hand, order a robe of honour to be flung round him, and to place him in his old seat by the king's side above all the other nobles.
So in "the very loud voice," and with "the very elegant and pleasant manner of speech" for which the young king was famous, he addressed him thus:--
"If Byrâm-Khân loves a military life, the governorship of Kâlpe offers field for his ambition. If he prefers to remain at court, our favour will never be wanting to the benefactor of our family. But if he choose devotion, he shall be escorted to Mecca with all the honour due to his rank, and receive a pension of 50,000 rupees annually."
Byrâm chose the last, and from that time Akbar reigned alone; and, to his credit be it said, except in his disastrous leniency towards his sons, there is scarcely a mistake to be laid to his charge. Before, however, embarking on what must necessarily be a very inadequate sketch of this remarkable man, a few words as to his personality and his looks may not be amiss. He was "inclined to be tall, sinewy, strong, with an open forehead and chest and long arms. He had most captivating manners and an agreeable expression." According to his son, "his manners and habits were quite different from those of other persons, and his visage was full of a godly dignity." For the rest, he was a great athlete, the best polo-player and shot at court, and ready for any exploit that required strength and skill.
His mind followed suit with his body, though he was absolutely unlike his grandfather Babar in versatility. Yet he had had, apparently, much the same opportunity of education. In both, the four years from eight to twelve were all that Fate gave them for schooling; but Babar emerged from his, a writer, a poet, a painter, a musician. Akbar, strange to say, could neither read nor write, but he was counted the first musician of his day.
Such was the man who at eighteen started to rule India on new lines, whose head held a new idea concerning kingship. The king according to this, should be the connecting link between his subjects. He should rule not for one but for all. Just as Asôka, nigh on two thousand years before, had protested that conquest by the sword was not worth calling conquest, so Akbar, whose soul in many ways followed close in thought to that of the old Buddhist king, felt, vaguely at first, afterwards more clearly, more concisely, that the king should be, as it were, the solvent in which caste and creed, even race, should disappear, leaving behind them nothing but equal rights, equal justice, equal law. To secure this, it was necessary to make all men forget conquest.
It was a big idea, and to carry it through in the face of a society which deemed kingship a personal pleasure to be gained by a long purse or a stout arm, needed a strong will.
But Akbar was young, and vital to his finger-tips. The first thing to be accomplished was to annex all India--as bloodlessly as he could. That is the first thing to be noticed in Akbar's rule. War, even from the beginning, was never to him anything but the lesser of two evils; the other being disunion, decentralisation, consequent misgovernment.
His first annexation was Mâlwa, where the governor, hard-pressed, "sought a refuge from the frowns of fortune" in Akbar's clemency. As a result of which he lived, and fought, and died, long years afterwards, in the service of the king, feeling his honour in no way impaired by his defeat.
Immediately after this, Akbar had to choose between personal affection and abstract justice. His foster-brother, Adham-Khân, son to that Mahâm-Anagâh whose kindly, capable breast had been the young king's refuge for so many years, began to give trouble. Lawless, dissolute, he presumed on the king's love for his former playfellow in a thousand ways. It was he who was chief actor in the tragedy of Rûp-mati, the beautiful dancing-girl with whom Bâz-Bahâdur of Mâlwa lived for "seven long happy years, while she sang to him of love," and who killed herself sooner than submit to Adham-Khân's desires. This brought down on him the king's anger, but he defied it still more by assassinating the prime minister as he sate at prayers in Akbar's antechamber on the roof. Some say, and this is probably true, that the king, hearing the old man's cry, came out sword in hand to avenge him, but, restraining his wrath, ordered the murderer to be instantly thrown over the battlements. The story, however, is also told that the young Akbar, coming out from his sleeping-chamber, himself gripped the offender in his strong arms, and forcing him backward to the edge, paused for a last kiss of farewell ere he sent the sin-stained soul to its account. It is, at least, more dramatic.
But either tale ends with the greatest of tragedies for the young king. Mahâm-Anagâh, his more than mother, died of grief within forty days--died unforgiving.
The task of consolidating his empire occupied Akbar for the next two years. It would be idle to attempt to follow him from the Nerbûdda to the Indus, from Allahabâd to Guzerât. One incident will give an idea of his swiftness, his extraordinary dash and courage.
Returned from a long campaign on the north-western hills against his young brother, Mahomed Hakîm, Akbar heard of renewed trouble with the Usbeks in Oude. Though it was then the height of the rainy season, he made a forced march over a flooded country, and arriving at the Ganges at nightfall, swam its swollen stream with his advanced guard, and after lying concealed till daybreak, sounded the attack.
"The enemy, who had passed the night in festivity, little supposing the king would attempt to cross the river without his army, could hardly believe their senses when they heard the royal kettledrums." Needless to say, the rebels, surprised, were defeated, and, as usual, pardoned. This was Akbar's policy. To punish swiftly, then to forgive. Thus he bound men to him by ties of fear and love. Already he had conceived and carried out the almost inconceivable project of allying himself in honourable and peaceful marriage with the Râjputs. Behâri Mull, Râjah of Ambêr (or Jeypore), had given the king his daughter, while his son Bhagwan-dâs, and his nephew Mân-Singh, were amongst Akbar's most trusted friends, and held high posts in the imperial army. Toleration was beginning to bear fruit; but Chitore, the Sacred City, held out alike against annexation or cajolery. So it could not be allowed to remain a centre of independence, of revolt. It was in A.D. 1568 that Akbar began its siege. Udâi-Singh, the Fat King, had fled to the mountains, being but a bastard Râjput in courage, leaving one Jâimul in charge of the sanctuary of Râjput chivalry.
It was a long business. Once an accident in the mines which Akbar was pushing with the utmost care, brought about disaster, and the siege had practically to be begun again. In the end, it was a chance shot which brought success. Alone, unattended, in darkness, Akbar was in the habit of wandering round his guards at night, marking the work done in the trenches, dreaming over the next day's plans. So occupied in a close-pushed bastion, he saw by the flare of a torch on the rampart of the city some Râjput generals also going their rounds. To snatch a matchlock from the sentry and fire was Akbar's quick impulse.
It won him Chitore; for the man who fell, shot through the head, was Jâimul himself. Next morning, Akbar went through scenes which he never forgot. He saw, as his grandfather had done, the great war-sacrifice of the Râjputs; but, unlike Babar, he did not view it contemptuously. It made an indelible mark upon his soul. The story goes, that two thousand of the Râjput warriors escaped the general slaughter by the "stratagem of binding the hands of their women and children, and marching with them through the imperial troops as if they were a detachment of the besiegers in charge of prisoners."
If this extraordinary tale be true, the explanation of it surely lies in Akbar's admiration; an admiration which led him on his return to Delhi to order two huge stone elephants, formed of immense blocks of red sandstone, to be built at the gateway of his palace. And on the necks of these elephants he placed two gigantic stone figures representing Jâimul and Pûnnu, the two Râjput generals who had so bravely defended Chitore.
It was during this siege that Akbar's friendship with the poet Faizi commenced. Five years younger than the young king, who was then but six-and-twenty years of age, Faizi, or Abul-faiz, as he is rightly named, was by profession a physician, by temperament an artist in the highest sense. Charmed by his varied talents, fascinated by his goodness, Akbar kept him by his side until he died nineteen years afterwards, when it is recorded that the king wept inconsolably. One thing they had in common--an unusual thing in those days--they were both extraordinarily fond of animals, especially of dogs.
This friendship, bringing about as it did the introduction to Akbar of Abul-faiz's younger brother, Abul-fazl, marks an important change in the king's mental development.
Hitherto he had been strictly orthodox. In a way, he had set aside the problems of life in favour of his self-imposed task; henceforward his mind was to be as keen, as swift to gain spiritual mastery, as his body was to gain the physical mastery of his world. Possibly he may have been led to thought by the death in this year of his twin sons; apparently these were the only children which had as yet been born to him, and at twenty-seven it is time that an Eastern potentate had sons. With him, too, the very idea of empire must have been bound up with that of an heir to empire. So it is no wonder that we find him overwhelmed with joy at the birth, in 1569, of Prince Salîm. Yet his sons (he had three of them in Fate's good time) were to be the great tragedy of Akbar's life. Long years afterwards, when the baby Salîm, whom he had welcomed verily as a gift from God, had grown to be a man, a cruel man, who ordered an offender to be flayed alive, Akbar, with a shiver of disgust, asked bitterly "how the son of a man who could not see a dead beast flayed without pain, could be guilty of such barbarity to a human being?"
How indeed? Were they really his sons, these hard-drinking, hard-living young princes, who had no thought beyond the princelings of their age?
This resentment, this disgust, however, was not to be for many years. Meanwhile, Akbar, having built the fort at Agra, that splendid building whose every foundation finds water, whose every stone is fitted to the next and chained to it by iron rings, began on his City of Victory, Fatehpur Sikri.
And wherefore not, since sons had been born to his empire? It was wide by this time, but Guzerât was still independent and had to be brought within the net.
It was in this campaign that Akbar nearly met his end in the narrow cactus lane at Sarsa, when he and the two Râjput chieftains, Bhagwan-dâs and Mân-Singh, fought their way through their enemies, each guarding the other's head.
Akbar's life is full of such reckless bravery, such wonderful escapes; in this, at least, he was true grandson to Babar-of-the-Thousand-Adventures.
It was in the following year that the famous ride from Agra to Ahmedabâd in nine days was made; and, after all, somewhat uselessly made, since the emperor was too chivalrous to take his enemy unawares, and, finding him asleep, ordered the royal trumpeters to sound a reveillée before, after giving him plenty of time, the imperial party "charged like a fierce tiger." It is good reading all this, overburdened though the pages of the Akbarnâmâh-Abul-fazl's great History of his Master--may be with flatteries and digressions.
But it is not in all this that Akbar's glory lies. It is in the far-reaching justice of his legal and administrative reforms, above all, in the reasons he gives for these reforms, that he stands unique amongst all Indian kings. We have, however, still to record his conquest of Bengal (where, it may be noted, he swam his rivers on horseback at the head of every detachment for pursuit, every advance guard), still to tell the tale of the Fat King Udâi-Singh's son, Râjah Pertâp, before at Fatehpur Sikri, in the twentieth year of his reign, and the thirty-third of his life, we can find pause to consider Akbar's principles and practice. Bengal, then, was added to empire with the usual rapidity. Then arose trouble in Mêwar. Udâi-Singh was dead, still defying from a distance Akbar's power, still scorning the alliance by marriage which had brought his neighbours revenue and renown; but his son Pertâp lived--Pertâp, who was to the sixteenth century what Prithvi-Râj had been to the fourteenth; that is to say, the flower of Râjput chivalry, the idol of the men, the darling of the women. He had taken to the hills, he had outraged Akbar's sense of justice, and he must be crushed. The battle of Huldighât decided his fate. Wounded, wearied, he fled on his grey horse "Chytuc" up a narrowing stony ravine, behind him the clatter of another horse swifter than his own; for "Chytuc," his friend, his companion, was wounded, too, and more wearied even than wounded.
"Ho! nîla-ghôra-ki-aswâr!"
["Oh! Rider of the grey horse!"]
The cry rang out amid the echoing rocks. What! Was his enemy within call already? "Chytuc" stumbled on, urged by the spur.
"Ho! nîla-ghôra-ki-aswâr!"
Nearer and nearer! A cry that must be answered at last. One final stumble, "Chytuc" was down, and Pertâp turned to sell life dearly. Turned to find his brother.
"Thy horse is at its end--take mine," said Sukta, who long years before had gone over to Akbar's side, driven thither by Pertâp's pride.
"And thou?"
"I go back whence I came."
Those who had watched the chase from the plains below asked for explanations. They were given.
"Tell the truth," came the calm reply.
Then Sukta told it. Drawing himself up, he said briefly:
"The burden of a kingdom over-weighted my brother. I helped him to carry it."
Needless to say, the excuse was accepted. And to this day the cry, "Ho! nîla-ghôra-ki-aswâr," is one of the war-cries of the Râjput.
To return to Akbar, in the twentieth year of his reign. It was just ten years since Faizi had come into his life--Faizi, the first Mahomedan to trouble his head about Hindu literature, Hindu science. It had opened up a new world to Akbar, and when six years afterwards Abul-fazl entered into the emperor's life also, with his broad, clear, tolerant, critical outlook, and his intense personal belief in the genius of the man he served, it seemed possible to achieve what till then Akbar had almost despaired of achieving. The dream had always been there. In some ways he had gone far towards realising it. He had, early in his reign, abolished the capitation tax on infidels, and the tax on pilgrimages, his reason for the latter being, "that although the tax was undoubtedly on a vain superstition, yet, as all modes of worship were designed for the One Great Being, it was wrong to throw any obstacle in the way of the devout, and so cut them off from their own mode of intercourse with their Maker."
Then he had absolutely forbidden the slavery of prisoners of war; and having observed, both during his many campaigns and his still more numerous hunting expeditions, that the greater portion of the land he traversed remained uncultivated, he had set himself, alone, unaided--for his courtiers were content with conventionalities--to find out the cause. The land was rich, the cultivators were industrious; the reason must lie in something which made cultivation unprofitable. What was it? An excessive land-tax? He instantly started experimental farms, which convinced him that this, and nothing else, was the cause of the land lying idle. But on all sides he met with opposition. Convinced himself that the old methods were obsolete, he had almost given up the task of reform in despair, when he met Abul-fazl. In religious matters, too, he had gone far beyond his age. The intolerance the bigotry of those around him shocked his innate sense of justice. Here again Abul-fazl was a tower of strength, and, inch by inch, yard by yard, his support enabled the king to fight for his final position, until in 1577, after endless discussions in the House-of-Argument (which he had had built for the purpose, and where, night after night, he sate listening while doctors of the law, Brahmans, Jews, Jesuits, Sufis--God only knows what sects and creeds--discussed truth from their varying standpoints), he took the law into his own hands and practically forced the learned Ulemas to put their signatures to a document which proclaimed him Head-of-the-Church, the spiritual as well as the temporal guide of his subjects. The reason he gave for desiring this decision was, that as kings were answerable to God for their subjects, any division of authority in dealing with them was inexpedient.
So in 1579 he mounted the pulpit in his Great Mosque at Fatehpur Sikri, and read the Kutbah prayer in his own name in these words, written for the occasion by the poet Faizi:--
"Lo! from Almighty God I take my kingship,
Before His throne I bow and take my judgeship,
Take Strength from Strength, and Wisdom from His Wiseness,
Right from the Right, and Justice from His Justice.
Praising the King, I praise God near and far--
Great is His Power! Allâh-hû-Akbâr!"They were not unworthy words; and they were, as Sir William Hunter well calls them, the Magna Charter of Akbar's reign. He was now free to realise all his long-cherished dreams of universal tolerance and absolute unity. In future, no distinctions of race and creed were held cogent. The judicial system was reorganised and the magistracy made to understand that the question of religion was no longer to enter into their work.
The whole revenue administration was altered, and it remains to this day practically as Akbar left it. In this, as in finance and currency, he was ably aided by Tôdar-Mull, a Hindu of exceptional ability and tried integrity.
But Akbar was fortunate in his friends. In addition to Faizi, who appears to have satisfied his philosophic instincts, and Abul-fazl, to whose clear eyes he always turned when in doubt, he had a third intimate companion who, in many ways, stood closest to him of the three.
This was Râjah Birbal, who began life as a minstrel. His pure intellectuality, his quaint humour and cynical outlook on life, seem to have given Akbar the nerve tonic, which, dreamer as he was at times, he seems to have needed; for like all really great men, the emperor was almost feminine in sensitiveness.
It is difficult to decide what his own personal creed was. That which he promulgated as the Divine Faith is a somewhat nebulous Deism. That which is credited to him in the following words is poetically mystical:--
"In every Temple they seek Thee, in every Language they praise Thee. Each Religion says that it holds Thee, the One. But it is Thou whom I seek from temple to temple; for Heresy and Orthodoxy stand not behind the Screen of thy Truth. Heresy to the Heretic, Orthodoxy to the Orthodox; but only the dust of the Rose Petal remains to the seller of perfume."
Behind all this there lies the conviction so strongly expressed that "not one step can be made without the torch of truth," that "to be beneficial to the soul, belief must be the outcome of clear judgment."
But the chronicle of the remainder of his reign claims us.
In 1584 he outraged the orthodox by choosing a Râjputni Jôdh-Bai, the daughter of Râjah Bhagwân-das, as the first wife of his son and heir, Prince Salîm.
He himself had left such things as marriage behind him, and, though still in the prime of years, led the life of an ascetic. Five hours sleep sufficed for him; he ate but sparingly once a day; wine and women he appears to have forgotten. There is a saying attributed to him of his regret that he had not earlier recognised all women as sisters. Certainly for the last five-and-twenty years of his life he had nothing in this respect wherewith to reproach himself. Wider interests absorbed him. Child-marriages had to be discountenanced, abolished by a sweep of the pen; education placed on a firmer, better basis. It seemed to him, as it seems to many of us to-day, that an unconscionable time was spent in teaching very little, and, hey presto! another sweep of the pen, and school-time was diminished by one-half. There is nothing so dynamic as a good despotism!
All this was crowded, literally crammed into a few peaceful years at Fatehpur Sikri, and then suddenly he left his City of Victory, the city that was bound up with his hope of personal empire, the city he had built to commemorate the birth of his heir and removed his capital, not to Delhi, but to the far north--to Lahôre.
Why was this?
It is said that a lack of water at Fatehpur was the cause. And yet with the river Jumna close at hand, and Akbar's wealth and boundless energies, what was a lack of water had he really been set on remaining there?
It seems as if we must seek for a cause behind this patent and pitiful one. Such cause, deep-seated, scarcely acknowledged, is surely to be found in the bitter disappointment caused to the emperor by his sons. From his earliest years Salîm had given trouble. At eighteen he was dissolute, cruel, arrogant beyond belief. His younger brothers, Murâd and Danyâl, were little better. Of the three, Murâd was the best; it was possible to think of him as his father's son. Yet the iron must have eaten into that father's soul as he saw them uncomprehending even of his idea, his dream. In leaving Fatehpur Sikri, as he did in 1585, therefore, it seems likely that he left behind also much of his personal interest in empire.
The ostensible cause of his northward journey was the death of his brother, and a consequent revolt in Kâbul; but he did not return for fourteen long years--years that while they brought him success, while they justified his wisdom, brought him also much sorrow and disappointment. Though both earlier historians and Western commentators fail, as a rule, to notice it, there can be no doubt to those who, taking Akbar's whole character as their guide, attempt to read between the lines, that the emperor's policy changed greatly after he left Fatehpur Sikri behind him. A certain personal note is wanting in it. Take, for instance, the war which he carried out in the province of Swât, and which ended in a disaster that cost him his dearest friend, Râjah Birbal. Now that disaster was due entirely to this new note in Akbar's policy. He did not desire conquest; not, at least, conquest on the old blood-and-thunder lines. He wished, and he ordered, what we should nowadays call a "peaceful demonstration to the tribes." The army was to march through the Swât territory, using as little violence as possible, and return. The idea was outrageous to the regulation general, so Abul-fazl and Birbal drew lots as to which of them should go and keep Zein-Khân's martial ardours in check. It fell on Birbal; much, it is believed, to Akbar's regret. Of the exact cause of disagreement between Birbal and Zein-Khân little is known; but they did disagree, and with disastrous results. The whole Moghul army was practically overwhelmed, and it is supposed that Birbal, in attempting escape by the hills, was slain. His body was never found. Elphinstone, in his History, accuses Abul-fazl of giving a confused and contradictory account of this event, "though he must have been minutely informed of its history"; but a little imagination supplies a cause for this: Abul-fazl knew that Birbal was undoubtedly acting on the king's orders.
The emperor for a long time refused even to see Zein-Khân, and he was inconsolable for the loss of his friend--his greatest friend--who had known his every thought. It is said, indeed, that these two men, both keenly interested in the answer to the Great Riddle of Life, the one Agnostic, the other hopeless Optimist by virtue of his genius, had agreed that they would come back the one to the other after death if possible, and that therein lay Akbar's strange eagerness to credit the many reports which gained currency, that Birbal had been seen again alive.
There can be no doubt but that the loss of his friend saddened the remainder of Akbar's life. Indeed, it may be said that from the year in which he quitted Fatehpur Sikri, thus abandoning his Town of Conquest to the flitting bats, the prowling hyenas, the year also of Birbal's loss, a cloud seems to fall over the gorgeous pageant of Akbar's royalty.
Just before this, however, on the very eve of departure, an event occurred at Fatehpur Sikri which in itself, had the Dreamer-King but possessed second sight, would have been sufficient to dim the lustre of his personal life.
For in 1585 three travellers from England arrived with a letter from Elizabeth their queen, to one "Yellabdin Echebar, King of Cambaya, Invincible Emperor."
The letter is worth giving:--
"The great affection which our subjects have to visit the most distant places of the world, not without good intention to introduce the trades of all nations whatsoever they can, by which meanes the mutual and friendly traffique of merchandise on both sides may come, is the cause that the bearer of this letter, John Newberie, joyntly with those that be in his company, with a courteous and honest boldnesse, doe repaire to the borders and countreys of your Empire; we doubt not but that your Imperiall Maiestie, through your royal grace, will favourably and friendly accept him. And that you wold doe it the rather for our sake, to make us greatly beholden to your Maiestie, wee should more earnestly, and with more words, require it, if wee did think it needful.
"But, by the cingular report that is of your Imperiall Maiestie's humanitie in these uttermost parts of the world, we are greatly eased of that burden, and therefore we use the fewer and lesse words; only we request, that because they are our subjects, they may be honestly entreated and received. And that in respect of the hard journey which they have taken to places so far distant, it would please your Maiestie with some libertie and securitie of voiage to gratify it with such privileges as to you shall seem good: which curtesie of your Imperiall Maiestie shall to our subjects at our request perform, wee, according to our royal honour, will recompense the same with as many deserts as we can. And herewith wee bid your Imperiall Maiestie to farewell."
Akbar's answer was to give the travellers safe conduct. So John Newbery, of Aleppo, after seeing all that was to be seen, journeyed Punjâb-ways, to be never again heard of. Ralph Fitch, merchant of London, went south-eastward to find the Great Delta of the Ganges, and so return to England, and by his report, help to start the first British venture to the East; and William Leedes, jeweller, who had learnt his trade in Ghent, remained to cut gems for Akbar.
A notable event, indeed, this first touch of England on India. And it happened when the Moghul dynasty was at the height of its power, when Akbar Emperor, indeed, had but one failure in his life--his sons.
Surely it must have been some prescience of what was to come, which made him, so soon after giving that safe conduct, leave the outward and visible sign of his personal hold on Empire--the City of his Heirs--a prey to the owl and the bat?
Akbar's fourteen-year stay in the Punjâb, spent partly at the Fort of Attock, which he built, and which still frowns over the rushing Indus, and at Lahôre, was marked by the annexation of Kashmir, which was effected with very little bloodshed. Owing to the difficulty of the passes, the first expedition made terms with the ruling power, by which, while the sovereignty of the Moghul was ceded, his interference was barred. This did not suit Akbar's dream of united, consolidated government. So he refused to ratify the treaty, and when the winter snows had melted, sent another expedition to enforce his claim to rule.
Dissensions due to bad government were rife in Kashmir. The troops detailed to defend the Pir-Punjâi pass were disloyal. Half, deserted to the invading force, the remainder retired on the capital. Whereupon, the whole valley lying at the mercy of the Moghul, terms were dictated.
Akbar himself went twice into Kashmir. Those who have been fortunate enough to see the indescribable beauties of its lakes, its trees, its mountains, can imagine how it must have appealed to a man of his nature.
Sinde and Kandahâr followed Kashmir swiftly into the wide net of Moghul influence, and took their places quietly in the emperor's Dream of Empire. Kâbul followed in its turn. While there, Akbar suffered a severe blow in the news of the death in one day--though at different places and causes--of two of his most trusted friends and adherents, Râjah Todâr-Mull, the great Finance-Minister, and Râjah Bhagwân-dâs, his first Râjput ally.
The Dekkan was in process of being netted also, when another and still heavier blow fell on the emperor in the death of his second--and, in many ways, most promising--son, Murâd. He died, briefly, of drink.
But the worst blow was the conduct of his son and heir, Salîm, which in 1598 made it necessary for his father to leave Lahôre for Agra, in order to check the prince's open rebellion. He was now thirty--arrogant, dissolute, passionate in every way; and, finding himself as his father's viceroy at the head of a large army, made a bid for the crown, while his father's forces were engaged in the Dekkan.
But Akbar's love made him patient. He wrote an almost pitiful letter of dignified tolerance. His affection, he said, was still undiminished. Let his son return to duty, and all would be forgotten.
Salîm chose the wiser part of submission, but even as he did so, prepared to wound his forgiving father to the uttermost.
Abul-fazl was on his way back from the Dekkan, and Prince Salîm instigated the Râjah of Orchcha to lay an ambuscade for this old, this most beloved companion of the king.
History says that he and his small force defended themselves with the greatest gallantry, but were eventually cut to pieces. Abul-fazl's head was sent to Prince Salîm, who, however, had craft; for his father, mercifully, never knew whose was the hand that really dealt the death-blow. Had he done so, his grief would have been even greater than it is reported to have been. He touched no food for days; neither did he sleep.
Akbar, indeed, was fast becoming almost unnerved by his tenderness of heart. Salîm, professedly repentant, abandoned himself to still further debaucheries at Allahabâd.
As a last resource, a last effort, Akbar resolved, in a personal interview, to appeal to his son's better feelings.
He had hardly started from Agra, however, when he was recalled to his mother's death-bed. It was yet another shock to Akbar, who, ever since that day of choice, when, surrounded by smiling, expectant faces, he had stood frightened, almost tearful, then with a cry found--he knew not how--Hamida-Begum's loving arms, had held his mother as he held no other woman in the world.
Something of the pity of it must have struck even Salîm's passion-torn heart, for he followed his father and gave in his submission. Not for long, however. Akbar could not be hard on those he loved. The restraint was soon slackened; the physicians who were to break the drug-habit sent to the right-about, and the patient restored to freedom and favour.
And still Fate had arrows in store for poor Akbar's wounded heart. Prince Danyâl, his youngest son, drank himself to death in the thirtieth year of his age, having accomplished his object by liquor smuggled to him in the barrel of his fowling piece.
A pretty prince, indeed, to be the son of the greatest king India has ever known.
This rapid succession of sorrow left the emperor enfeebled. He had always been a hard worker, had spared himself not at all; now Nature was revenging herself on him for his defiance of fatigue.
As he lay dying in the fort at Agra, the emperor, bereft of his friends, worse than bereft of his sons, had but one comfort--his grandson, Prince Khurram, who afterwards succeeded his father under the title of Shâh-jahân. A word from Akbar might have set him on the throne; but the father was loyal to his disloyal son. He summoned his nobles around him, and his personal influence was still so great that not a voice of dissent was raised against his declaration of Prince Salîm--little Shaikie, as he still called him at times--as his heir.
Akbar died at sixty-three, almost his last words being to ask forgiveness of those who stood about his bed, should he ever in any way have wronged any one of them.
The Mahomedan historians assert loudly that he also repeated the Orthodox creed; but this is not likely. He had wandered too far from the fold of Islâm to find shelter from death in it.
So died a man who dreamt a dream, who turned that dream into a reality for his lifetime; but for his lifetime only. Fate gave him no future.
Even his enemies admit with a sneer, saying he had it a gift from a Hindu jogi, his almost marvellous power of seeing through men and their motives at a glance. Did he ever, we wonder, look at his own face in the glass, and see written there his failure?
Most of his administrative reforms exist to the present day. Some, such as the abolition of suttee and the legislation for widow remarriage which he enforced easily, nearly cost us India to establish.
But Akbar had the advantage of being a king indeed.
"There is but one God, and Akbar is his Viceroy."
Such was his first motto. If it made him a despot, his second one made him tolerant.
"There is good in all things. Let us adopt what is good, and discard the remainder." And this admixture of despotism and tolerance is the secret of Indian statesmanship.
Akbar was the most magnificent of monarchs; but all his magnificences held a hint of imagination. Whether in the scattering amongst the crowd by the king's own hand, as he passed to and fro, of dainty enamelled rose-leaves, silvern jasmine-buds, or gilded almonds, or in the daily Procession of the Hours, all Akbar's ceremonials have reference to something beyond the weary, workaday world. In the midst of it all he was simplicity itself.
No better conclusion to this ineffectual record of his reign can be given than this description of him by a European eyewitness:--
"He is affable and majestical, merciful and sincere. Skilful in mechanical arts, as making guns, etc.; of sparing diet, sleeping but three hours a day, curiously industrious, affable to the vulgar, seeming to grace them and their presents with more respective ceremonies than those of the grandees; loved and feared of his own; terrible to his enemies."
One word more. He invariably administered justice sitting or standing below the throne; thus declaring himself to be the mere instrument of a Supreme Power to which he also owned obedience.
So not without cause did this record begin by calling Akbar a Dreamer.