The Institutes of Akbar 2.3.2

2.3.2

At the age of fifteen, he showed the mental precocity so often observed in Indian boys; he had read works on all branches of those sciences which go by the name of hikmí and naqlí, or ma’qúl and manqúl. Following the footsteps of his father, he commenced to teach long before he had reached the age of twenty. An incident is related to shew how extensive even at that time his reading was. A manuscript of the rare work of Içfahání 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. Abul Fazl, 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 repeated 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 Abul Fazl had worked himself into the style and mode of thinking of a difficult author.