The Institutes of Akbar 135.4
The Áín i Akbari (Blochmann, Jarrett) 135.4
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135.4.1
At the new year’s day feasts, His Majesty forced many of the ’Ulamás and the pious, nay even the Qázís and the Muftí of the realm, to drink wine,* * * And afterwards the Mujtahids of the Divine Faith, especially Faizí, called out, “Here is a bumper to the confusion of the lawyers!” On the last day of this feast, when the sun enters the nineteenth degree of Aries (a day called Sharafu-lsharaf, and considered particularly holy by His Majesty), the grandees were promoted, or received new jágírs, or horses, or dresses of honor, according to the rules of hospitality, or in proportion of the tribute they had brought.” In this year Gulbadan Begum [Akbar’s aunt] and Salimah Sultán Begum returned from a pilgrimage to Makkah. Soon after Sháh Abú Turáb also, and I’timád Khán of Gujrát, returned from the pilgrimage, and brought an immense stone with them, which had to be transported on an elephant. The stone contained, according to Abú Turáb, an impression of the foot of the prophet. Akbar—though it is difficult to guess the motive—went four kos to meet it, and the grandees were ordered to carry the stone themselves by turns, and thus it was brought to town. ‘In this year, Shaikh Mubárik of Nágor said in the presence of the emperor to Bír Bar, ‘‘ Just as there are interpolations in your holy books, so there are many in ours (Qoran) ; hence it is impossible to trust either.’’
135.4.2
' Some shameless and ill-starred wretches also asked His Majesty, why at the approaching close of the Millennium, he did not make use of the sword, ‘the most convincing proof,’ as Sháh Ismá’íl of Persia had done. But His Majesty, at last, was convinced that confidence in him as a leader was a matter of time and good counsel, and did not require the sword. And indeed, if His Majesty, in setting up his claims, and making his innovations, had spent a little money, he would have easily got most of the courtiers, and much more the vulgar, into his devilish nets. The following Rubá’í of Násir i Khusrau was often quoted at court. — I see in 992 two conjunctions, I see the sign of Mahdi and that of Antichrist : Either politics must change or religion. I clearly see the hidden secret. At a council meeting for renovating the religion of the empire, Rájah Bhagawán said, “I would willingly believe that Hindus and Musalmáns have each a bad religion ; but only tell us where the new sect is, and what opinion they hold, so that I may believe.” His Majesty reflected a little, and ceased to urge the Rájah. But the alteration of the orders of our glorious faith was continued. The Táríkh was found in the words Ihdás i bid’at, the innovation of heresy (990).
135.4.3
During those days also the public prayers and the azán, which was chanted five times a day for assembly to prayer in the state-hall, were abolished. Names like Ahmad, Muhammad, Muçtafá, &c., became offensive to His Majesty, who thereby wished to please the infidels outside, and the princesses inside, the Harem, till, after some time, those courtiers who had such names, changed them; and names as Yár Muhammad, Muhammad Khán, were altered to Rahmat. To call such ill-starred wretches by the name of our blessed prophet would indeed be wrong, and there was not only room for improvement by altering their names, but it was even necessary to change them, according to the proverb, ‘It is wrong to put fine jewels on the neck of a pig.’ And this destructive fire broke all out in Ágrah, burnt down great and small families, and did not even spare their family tombs—May God forsake these wretches!” [p. 315.] “In Rabí’ussání 990, Mír Fathullah came from the Dak’hin (vide above p. 33). * * * As he had been an immediate pupil of Mír Ghiásuddín Mansúr of Shíráz, who had not been overstrict in religious matters, His Majesty thought that Fathullah would only be too glad to enter into his religious scheme. But Fathullah was such a stanch Shí’ah, and at the same time such a worldly office-hunter, and such a worshipper of mammon and of the nobility, that he would not give up a jot of the tittles of bigoted Shí’ism.
135.4.4
Even in the statehall he said, with the greatest composure, his Shí’ah prayers—a thing which no one else would have dared to do. His Majesty, therefore, put him among the class of the bigots; but he connived at his practices, because he thought it desirable to encourage a man of such attainments and practical knowledge. Once the emperor, in Fathullah’s presence, said to Bír Bar, ‘I really wonder how any one in his senses can believe that a man, whose body has a certain weight, could, in the space of a moment, leave his bed, go up to heaven, there have 90,000 conversations with God, and yet on his return find his bed still warm?’ So also was the splitting of the moon ridiculed. ‘“Why,” said His Majesty, lifting up one foot, ‘it is really impossible for me to lift up the other foot! What silly stories men will believe.” And that wretch (Bír Bar) and some other wretches—whose names be forgotten—said, “Yea, we believe! Yea, we trust!” This great foot-experiment was repeated over and over again. But Fathullah—His Majesty had been every moment looking at him, because he wanted him to say something; for he was a new-comer—looked straight before himself, and did not utter a syllable, though he was all ear.”
135.4.5
Here Badáoní mentions the translations from Sanscrit into Persian which have been alluded to above, p. 104. “It is not quite certain whether the translations were made from Sanscrit, or from Hindí translations, or from both. Badáoní clearly states that for some translations, as the At’harban, Hindus were used as interpreters. For other works as the Mahábhárat, there may have been Hindí translations or extracts, because Akbar himself (vide p. 105, note 1) translated passages to Naqíb Khán. Abulfazl also states that he was assisted by Pandits when writing the fourth book of the Áín. Compare Sir H. Elliot’s Index to the Historians of India, p. 259. [p. 321.] “In these days (991) new orders were given. The killing of animals on certain days was forbidden, as on Sundays, because this day is sacred to the Sun; during the first eighteen days of the month of Farwardín; the whole month of Ábán (the month in which His Majesty was born); and on several other days, to please the Hindus. This order was extended over the whole realm, and capital punishment was inflicted on every one who acted against the command. Many a family was ruined. During the time of these fasts, His Majesty abstained altogether from meat, as a religious penance, gradually extending the several fasts during a year over six months and even more, with the view of eventually discontinuing the use of meat altogether.
135.4.6
A second order was given that the Sun should be worshipped four times a day, in the morning, and evening, and at noon and midnight. His Majesty had also one thousand and one Sanscrit names of the Sun collected, and read them daily, devoutly turning towards the sun; he then used to get hold of both ears, and turning himself quickly round about, used to strike the lower ends of the ears with his fists. He also adopted several other practices connected with sun-worship. He used to wear the Hindu mark on his forehead, and ordered the band to play at midnight and at break of day. Mosques and prayer-rooms were changed into store rooms, or given to Hindu Chaukídárs. For the word jamá’at (public prayer), His Majesty used the term jimá’ (copulation), and for hayya ’ala, he said yalalá talalá. The cemetry within the town was ordered to be sequestered.” [p. 324.] “In the same year (991), His Majesty built outside the town two places for feeding poor Hindus and Muhammadans, one of them being called Khairpúrah, and the other Dharmpúrah. Some of Abulfazl’s people were put in charge of them. They spent His Majesty’s money in feeding the poor. As an immense number of Jogís also flocked to this establishment, a third, place was built, which got the name of Jogípiúrah. His Majesty also called some of the Jogís, and gave them at night private interviews, enquiring into abstruse truths; their articles of faith; their occupations; the influence of pensiveness; their several practices and usages;
135.4.7
the power of being absent from the body; or into alchemy, physiognomy, and the power of omnipresence of the soul. His Majesty even learned alchemy, and shewed in public some of the gold made by him. Once a year also during a night called Sivràt, a great meeting was held of all Jogís of the empire, when the emperor ate and drank with the principal Jogís, who promised him that he should live three and four times as long as ordinary men. His Majesty fully believed it, and connecting their promises with other inferences he had drawn, he got quite convinced of it. Fawning court doctors, wisely enough, found proofs for the longevity of the emperor, and said that the cycle of the moon, during which the lives of men are short, was drawing to its close, and that the cycle of Saturn was at hand, with which a new cycle of ages, and consequently the original longevity of mankind, would again commence. Thus they said, it was mentioned in some holy books that men used to live up to the age of one thousand years, whilst in Sanscrit books the ages of some men were put down as ten thousand years; and in Thibet, there were even now a class of Lámahs, or Mongolian devotees, and recluses, and hermits, that live two hundred years, and more. For this reason, His Majesty, in imitation of the usages of these Lámahs, limited the time he spent in the Harem, curtailed his food and drink, but especially abstained from meat.
135.4.8
He also shaved the hair of the crown of his head, and let the hairs at the sides grow, because he believed that the soul of perfect beings, at the time of death, passes out by the crown (which is the tenth opening of the human body) under a noise resembling thunder, which the dying man may look upon as a proof of his happiness and salvation from sin, and as a sign that his soul, by metempsychosis, will pass into the body of some grand and mighty king.