Muntakhab al-tawarikh 78.44.7

78.44.7

Several wise men at Court confirmed what he said, by representing that the sun was "the greater light" of the world, and the benefactor of its inhabitants, the patron of kings, and that kings are but his vicegerents. This was the cause of the worship paid to the sun on the Nou-roz-i-Jalali, and of his being induced to adopt that festival for the celebration of his accession to the throne. Every day he used to put on clothes of that particular colour which accords with that of the regent-planet of the day. He began also, at midnight and early dawn, to mutter the spells, which Hindus taught him, for the purpose of subduing the sun to his wishes. He prohibited the slaughter of cows, and the eating of their flesh, because the Hindus devoutly worship them, and esteem their dung as pure. Instead of cows they sacrifice fine men. This reason was also assigned, that physicians have represented the flesh of cows to be productive of sundry kinds of sickness, and to be difficult of digestion.