The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c6.s1.82

c6.s1.82

In the year 1656 the Mogul (Mussalman) Prince Mohammed Dārā Shukoh invited several Hindu Pandits from Benares to Delhi, and induced them to translate the Upanishads into Persian. Dārā Shukoh was the oldest son of that Mogul Emperor Shah Jehān, who built at Agra, as a mausoleum for his favourite Sultana, the Taj Mahal, perhaps the most beautiful edifice on earth. He was afterwards deposed from the throne by another son of his, the bloody and powerful Emperor Aurengzeb. Dārā Shukoh was a man of another sort. He was the spiritual follower of the famous liberal Emperor Akbar, and wrote a book intended to reconcile the religious doctrines of the Hindus and Mohammedans. Hence his extraordinary desire to spread the knowledge of infidel writings. Three years after the accomplishment of the Upanishad translation he was put to death (1659) by his brother Aurengzeb, on the ground that he was an infidel, dangerous to the established religion of the empire; as a matter of fact, because he was the legitimate successor to the throne of Shah Jehān.¹ India, in more than one respect the land of origins, is also the country from which came the first suggestions of a comparative study of religions. The Buddhist Emperor Açoka, 250 years before Christ, had the spirit of perfect religious freedom. Emperor Akbar, Prince Dārā Shukoh, and Rāja Rammohun Roy are another trifolium of this sort. The last-named enlightened prince wrote in 1824 a book entitled *Against the Idolatry of all Religions*; told the Hindus that caste divisions "are as destructive of national union as of social enjoyment"; expressed belief in the divine authority of Christ; and yet confidently did regard the Upanishads as the true source of the higher religious life of the Hindus. This class of men are the advance guard of the modern scholars who study gentile religions in a spirit of sympathy and fairness.