The Book of Akbar 5.5

5.5

I also exerted myself energetically to collect the rough notes and memoranda of sagacious and well-informed men. By these means, I constructed a reservoir for irrigating and moistening the rose garden of fortune. But inasmuch as, notwithstanding all this apparatus and these rich treasures of information, the House of History was become decayed from lapse of time, and there were contradictions and imperfections in the accounts and no sufficient means of clearing up difficulties,—I begged the correction of what I had heard from his Majesty who, by virtue of his perfect memory, recollects every occurrence in gross and in detail, from the time he was one year old—when the material reason came into action—till the present day when he is, by his wisdom, the cynosure of penetrating truth-seekers. By repeated interviews I arrived at correctness and erased doubts and difficulties with the knife of investigation and ascertainment. When peace had possessed my soul, I made honesty and lavish labour, conductors of the lofty undertaking. I trust that I shall, by help of sincerity, accomplish my task, and that, having gathered such of the wondrous new fruit of the garden of creations, and catalogue of the Creator’s masterpieces as my understanding can grasp, I may display them so that a lamp of vision may be set up at the head of Wisdom's Way for the darkened of heart, and that the store of the enlightened may be augmented. Laus Deo !