The Book of Akbar 5.1

5.1

glorious Sun? It is sufficient honour and glory to describe itself in that Presence as an insignificant atom. In that Presence where the favoured magnates of the Court to whom the power of recommending a tiny ant has not been vouchsafed, have not received permission to express their wishes, how can it be proper for one who, like myself, is remaining on the threshold and is without right of access, to solicit grace and favour for the chosen courtiers and to ask pardon and paradise for them. If he should, from inconsideration, lengthen the tongue of boldness, by what name would he be called in the justice-hall of discernment, and what reproach would he not receive from the Inquisitor of Justice! I therefore gave up that idea and made myself ready, so that, if my abilities permitted and the Divine aid were vouchsafed to me, I might reduce to writing the auspicious description of the King of manifestation and reality, the leader of religion and realm (dīn u dunyā), and might bring together his beautiful and awful attributes and the praises of his majesty and perfection; to wit,—the marvellous festivals, wondrous wars, exalted devotions, and pleasant ways of this chosen one of God, without the disagreeable admixtures of poetical prose writers. So that I might acquit myself of my duties of (1) worship, (2) loyalty, (3) gratitude, and might also establish a claim to the regard of newcomers to the world and of future travellers by life’s caravans.