Akbar, Emperor of India, Richard von Garbe [ebook offline .txt] 📗

Provincial assented to this demand and how carefully he proceeded with the selection of the fathers who were to be sent away with such great expectations. As gifts to the Emperor the Jesuits brought a Bible in four languages and pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary, and to their great delight when Akbar received them he laid the Bible upon his head and kissed the two pictures as a sign of reverence.[37]

In the interesting work of the French Jesuit Du Jarric, published in 1611, we possess very detailed accounts of the operations of these missionaries who were honorably received at Akbar's court and who were invited to take up their residence in the imperial palace. The evening assemblies in the 'Ibâdat Khâna' in Fathpur Sikrî at once gave the shrewd Jesuits who were schooled in dialectics, an opportunity to distinguish themselves before the Emperor who himself presided over this Religious Parliament in which Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Brahmans, Buddhists and Parsees debated with each other. Abul Fazl speaks with enthusiasm in the Akbarnâme of the wisdom and zealous faith of Father Aquaviva, the leader of this Jesuit mission, and relates how he offered to walk into a fiery furnace with a New Testament in his hand if the Mullahs would do the same with the Koran in their hand, but that the Mohammedan priests withdrew in terror before this test by fire. It is noteworthy in this connection that the Jesuits at Akbar's court received a warning from their superiors not to risk such rash experiments which might be induced by the devil with the view of bringing shame upon Christianity.[38] The superiors were apparently well informed with regard to the intentions of the devil.

In conversation with the Jesuits Akbar proved to be favorably inclined towards many of the Christian doctrines and met his guests half way in every manner possible. They had permission to erect a hospital and a chapel and to establish Christian worship in the latter for the benefit of the Portuguese in that vicinity. Akbar himself occasionally took part in this service kneeling with bared head, which, however, did not hinder him from joining also in the Mohammedan ritual or even the Brahman religious practices of the Rajput women in his harem. He had his second son Murâd instructed by the Jesuits in the Portuguese language and in the Christian faith.

The Jesuits on their side pushed energetically toward their goal and did not scorn to employ flattery in so far as to draw a parallel between the Emperor and Christ, but no matter how slyly the fathers proceeded in the accomplishment of their plans Akbar was always a match for them. In spite of all concessions with regard to the excellence and credibility of the Christian doctrines the Emperor never seemed to be entirely satisfied. Du Jarric "complains bitterly of his obstinacy and remarks that the restless intellect of this man could never be quieted by one answer but must constantly make further inquiry."[39] The clever historian of Islam makes the following comment: "Bad, very bad;—perhaps he would not even be satisfied with the seven riddles of the universe of the latest natural science."[40]

To every petition and importunity of the Jesuits to turn to Christianity Akbar maintained a firm opposition. A second and third embassy which the order at Goa sent out in the nineties of the sixteenth century, also labored in vain for Akbar's conversion in spite of the many evidences of favor shown by the Emperor. One of the last Jesuits to come, Jerome Xavier of Navarre, is said to have been induced by the Emperor to translate the four Gospels into Persian which was the language of the Mohammedan court of India. But Akbar never thought of allowing himself to be baptized, nor could he consider it seriously from political motives as well as from reasons of personal conviction. A man who ordered himself to be officially declared the highest authority in matters of faith—to be sure not so much in order to found an imperial papacy in his country as to guard his empire from an impending religious war—at any rate a man who saw how the prosperity of his reign proceeded from his own personal initiative in every respect, such a man could countenance no will above his own nor subject himself to any pangs of conscience. To recognize the Pope as highest authority and simply to recognize as objective truth a finally determined system in the realm in which he had spent day and night in a hot pursuit after a clearer vision, was for Akbar an absolute impossibility.

Then too Akbar could not but see through the Jesuits although he appreciated and admired many points about them. Their rigid dogmatism, their intolerance and inordinate ambition could leave him no doubt that if they once arose to power the activity of the Ulemâs, once by good fortune overthrown, would be again resumed by them to a stronger and more dangerous degree. It is also probable that Akbar, who saw and heard everything, had learned of the horrors of the Inquisition at Goa. Moreover, the clearness of Akbar's vision for the realities of national life had too often put him on his guard to permit him to look upon the introduction of Christianity, however highly esteemed by him personally, as a blessing for India. He had broken the power of Islam in India; to overthrow in like manner the second great religion of his empire, Brahmanism, to which the great majority of his subjects clung with body and soul, and then in place of both existing religions to introduce a third foreign religion inimically opposed to them—such a procedure would have hurled India into an irremediable confusion and destroyed at one blow the prosperity of the land which had been brought about by the ceaseless efforts of a lifetime. For of course it was not the aim of the Jesuits simply to win Akbar personally to Christianity but they wished to see their religion made the state religion of this great empire.

As has been already suggested, submission to Christianity would also have been opposed to Akbar's inmost conviction. He had climbed far enough up the stony path toward truth to recognize all religions as historically developed and as the products of their time and the land of their origin. All the nobler religions seemed to him to be radiations from the one eternal truth. That he thought he had found the truth with regard to the fate of the soul in the Sûfi-Vedântic doctrine of its migration through countless existences and its final ascension to deity has been previously mentioned. With such views Akbar could not become a Catholic Christian.

The conviction of the final reabsorption into deity, conditions also the belief in the emanation of the ego from deity. But Akbar's relation to God is not sufficiently identified with this belief. Akbar was convinced that he stood nearer to God than other people. This is already apparent in the title "The Shadow of God" which he had assumed. The reversed, or rather the double, meaning of the sentence Allâhu akbar, "Akbar is God," was not displeasing to the Emperor as we know. And when the Hindus declared him to be an incarnation of a divinity he did not disclaim this homage. Such a conception was nothing unusual with the Hindus and did not signify a complete apotheosis. Although Akbar took great pains he was not able to permanently prevent the people from considering him a healer and a worker of miracles. But Akbar had too clear a head not to know that he was a man,—a man subject to mistakes and frailties; for when he permitted himself to be led into a deed of violence he had always experienced the bitterest remorse. Not the slightest symptom of Cæsaromania can be discovered in Akbar.

Akbar felt that he was a mediator between God and man and believed "that the deity revealed itself to him in the mystical illumination of his soul."[41] This conviction Akbar held in common with many rulers of the Occident who were much smaller than he. Idolatrous marks of veneration he permitted only to a very limited degree. He was not always quite consistent in this respect however, and we must realize how infinitely hard it was to be consistent in this matter at an Oriental court when the customary servility, combined with sincere admiration and reverence, longed to actively manifest itself.

Akbar, as we have already seen, suffered the Hindu custom of prostration, but on the other hand we have the express testimony to the contrary from the author Faizî, the trusted friend of the Emperor, who on the occasion of an exaggerated homage literally says: "The commands of His Majesty expressly forbid such devout reverence and as often as the courtiers offer homage of this kind because of their loyal sentiments His Majesty forbids them, for such manifestations of worship belong to God alone,"[42] Finally however Akbar felt himself moved to forbid prostration publicly, yet to permit it in a private manner, as appears in the following words of Abul Fazl[43]:

"But since obscurantists consider prostration to be a blasphemous adoration of man, His Majesty in his practical wisdom has commanded that it be put an end to with ignorant people of all stations and also that it shall not be practiced even by his trusted servants on public court days. Nevertheless if people upon whom the star of good fortune has shone are in attendance at private assemblies and receive permission to be seated, they may perform the prostration of gratitude by bowing their foreheads to the earth and so share in the rays of good fortune. So forbidding prostration to the people at large and granting it to the select the Emperor fulfils the wishes of both and gives the world an example of practical wisdom."

The desire to unite his subjects as much as possible finally impelled Akbar to the attempt to equalize religious differences as well. Convinced that religions did not differ from each other in their innermost essence, he combined what in his opinion were the essential elements and about the year 1580 founded a new religion, the famous Dîn i Ilâhi, the "religion of God." This religion recognizes only one God, a purely spiritual universally efficient being from whom the human soul is derived and towards which it tends. The ethics of this religion comprises the high moral requirements of Sufism and Parsism: complete toleration, equality of rights among all men, purity in thought, word and deed. The demand of monogamy, too, was added later. Priests, images and temples,—Akbar would have none of these in his new religion, but from the Parsees he took the worship of the fire and of the sun as to him light and its heat seemed the most beautiful symbol of the divine spirit.[44] He also adopted the holy cord of the Hindus and wore upon his forehead the colored token customary among them. In this eclectic manner he accommodated himself in a few externalities to the different religious communities existing in his kingdom.

Doubtless in the foundation of his Dîn i Ilâhi Akbar was not pursuing merely ideal ends but probably political ones as well, for the adoption of the new religion signified an increased loyalty to the Emperor. The novice had to declare himself ready to yield to the Emperor his property, his life, his honor, and his former faith, and in reality the adherents of the Dîn i Ilâhi formed a clan of the truest and most devoted servitors of the Emperor. It may not be without significance that soon after the establishment of the Dîn i Ilâhi a new computation of time