Akbar, Emperor of India Part 3

This in short is a picture of the life and activities of the greatest ruler which the Orient has ever produced. In order to rightly appreciate Akbar's greatness we must bear in mind that in his empire he placed all men on an equality without regard to race or religion, and granted universal freedom of worship at a time when the Jews were still outlaws in the Occident and many b.l.o.o.d.y persecutions occurred from time to time; when in the Occident men were imprisoned, executed or burnt at the stake for the sake of their faith or their doubts; at a time when Europe was polluted by the horrors of witch-persecution and the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholemew.[46] Under Akbar's rule India stood upon a much higher plane of civilization in the sixteenth century than Europe at the same time.

[Footnote 46: Noer, I, 490 n.]

Germany should be proud that the personality of Akbar who according to his own words "desired to live at peace with all humanity, with every creature of G.o.d," has so inspired a n.o.ble German of princely blood in the last century that he consecrated the work of his life to the biography of Akbar. This man is the Prince Friedrich August of Schleswig-Holstein, Count of Noer, who wandered through the whole of Northern India on the track of Akbar's activities, and on the basis of the most careful investigation of sources has given us in his large two-volumed work the best and most extensive information which has been written in Europe about the Emperor Akbar. How much his work has been a labor of love can be recognized at every step in his book but especially may be seen in a touching letter from Agra written on the 24th of April, 1868, in which he relates that he utilized the early hours of this day for an excursion to lay a bunch of fresh roses on Akbar's grave and that no visit to any other grave had ever moved him so much as this.[47]

[Footnote 47: Noer, II, 564, 572.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]