Rulers of India: Akbar Part 7

In the foregoing remarks I have alluded to the fact that Akbar allowed liberty of conscience in so far as that liberty did not endanger the lives of others. He gave a marked example of this in his dealing with the Hindu rite of Sati. It is not necessary to explain that the English equivalent for the word 'Sati' is 'chaste or virtuous,' and that a Sati is a woman who burns herself on her husband's funeral pile. The custom {165} had been so long prevalent among Hindu ladies of rank, that not to comply with it had come to be regarded as a self-inflicted imputation on the chaste life of the widow. Still, the love of life is strong, and the widow, conscious of her own virtue, and unwilling to sacrifice herself to an idea, had occasionally shown a marked disinclination to consent to mount the pile. It had often happened then that the priests had applied to her a persuasion, either by threats of the terrors of the hereafter or the application of moral stimulants, to bring her to the proper pitch of willingness.

Such deeds were abhorrent to the merciful mind of Akbar, and he discouraged the practice by all the means in his power. His position towards the princes of Rajputana, by whom the rite was held in the highest honour, would not allow him so far to contravene their time-honoured customs, which had attained all the force of a religious ordinance, to prohibit the self-sacrifice when the widow earnestly desired it. Before such a prohibition could be issued time must be allowed, he felt, for the permeation to the recesses of the palace of the liberal principles he was inaugurating. But he issued an order that, in the case of a widow showing the smallest disinclination to immolate herself, the sacrifice was not to be permitted.

Nor did he content himself with words only. Once, when in Ajmere, whilst his confidential agent, Jai Mall, nephew of Raja Bihari Mall of Ambar, was on a mission to the grandees of Bengal, news reached {166} him that Jai Mall had died at Chausa. Jai Mall had been a great favourite with Akbar, for of all the Rajputana n.o.bles he had been the first to pay his respects to him, and had ever rendered him true and loyal service. He had married a daughter of Raja Udai Singh of Jodhpur, a princess possessing great strength of will. When the news of her husband's death reached Ambar she positively refused to become a Sati. Under the orders of the Emperor she had an absolute right to use her discretion. But when she did use it to refuse, the outcry against her, headed by Udai Singh, her son, became so uncontrollable, that it was resolved to force her to the stake. Information of this reached Akbar, and he determined to prevent the outrage. He was just in time, for the pile was already lighted when his agents, one of them the uncle of the deceased, reached the ground, seized Udai Singh, dispersed the a.s.sembly, and saved the princess.

Attached as Akbar was to his learned and liberal-minded friends, Faizi and Abulfazl, he encouraged all who displayed a real love for learning, and a true desire to acquire knowledge. He hated pretence and hypocrisy. He soon recognised that these two qualities underlay the professions of the 'Ulamas (Muhammadan doctors of learning) at his court. When he had found them out, he was disgusted with them, and resolved to spare no means of showing up their pretensions.

'He never pardoned,' writes Professor Blochmann, 'pride and conceit in a man, and of all kinds of {167} conceit, the conceit of learning was most hateful to him.' Hence the cry of the cla.s.s affected by his action that he discouraged learning and learned men. He did nothing of the sort. There never has flourished in India a more generous encourager of the real thing. In this respect the present rulers of India might profit by his example. One of the men whose knowledge of history was the most extensive in that age, and who possessed great talents and a searching mind, was Khan-i-azam Mirza, son of his favourite nurse. For a long time this man held fast to the orthodox profession of faith, ridiculing the 'new religion' of Akbar, and especially ridiculing Faizi and Abulfazl, to whom he applied nicknames expressing his sense of their pretensions. But at a later period he had occasion to make the pilgrimage to Mekka, and there he was so fleeced by the priests that his attachment to Islam insensibly cooled down. On his return to Agra, he became a member of the Divine Faith. He wrote poetry well, and was remarkable for the ease of his address and his intelligence. One of his many aphorisms has descended to posterity. It runs as follows: 'A man should marry four wives--a Persian woman to have somebody to talk to; a Khorasani woman for his housework; a Hindu woman, for nursing his children; and a woman from Marawannahr (Turkistan), to have some one to whip as a warning to the other three.'

One of the ablest warriors and most generous of men in the service of Akbar was Mirza Abdurrahim, {168} son of his old Atalik or preceptor, Bairam Khan. For many years he exercised the office of Khan Khanan, literally 'lord of lords,' tantamount to commander-in-chief. But he was as learned as he was able in the field. He translated the memoirs of Babar, well described by Abulfazl as 'a code of practical wisdom,'

written in Turkish, into the Persian language then prevalent at the court of Akbar, to whom he presented the copy. Amongst other writers, the historians, Nizam-u-din Ahmad, author of the Tabakat-i-Akbari, or records of the reign of Akbar; the authors of the Tarikhi-i-Alfi, or the history of Muhammadanism for a thousand years; and, above all, the orthodox historian, Abul Kadir Badauni, author of the Tarikh-i-Badauni, or Annals of Badauni, and editor and reviser of a history of Kashmir, stand conspicuous.

Badauni was a very remarkable man. Two years older than Akbar, he had studied from his early youth various sciences under the most renowned and pious men of his age, and had come to excel in music, history, and astronomy. His sweet voice procured for him the appointment of Court Iman for Fridays. For forty years Badauni lived at court in company with Shaikh Mubarik and his sons Faizi and Abulfazl, but there was no real friendship between them, as Badauni, an orthodox Musalman, always regarded them as heretics. Under instructions from Akbar he translated the Ramayana from its original Sanscrit into Persian, as well as part of the _Mahabharata_. His {169} historical work above referred to as the Tarikh-i-Badauni, and which is perhaps better known under its alternative t.i.tle _Muntakhabat-ul-Tawarikh_, or _Selections from the Annals_, is especially valuable for the views it gives of the religious opinions of Akbar, and its sketches of the famous men of his reign.

Badauni died about eleven years before the Emperor, and his great work, the existence of which he had carefully concealed, did not appear until some time during the reign of Jahangir. It is a very favourite book with the bigoted Muhammadans who disliked the innovations of Akbar, and it continued to be more and more prized as those innovations gradually gave way to the revival of persecution for thought's sake.

It is perhaps unnecessary to give a record of the other learned men who contributed by their abilities, their industry, and their learning to the literary glory of the reign of Akbar. The immortal Ain contains a complete list of them, great and small. But, as concerning the encouragement given to arts and letters by the sovereign himself, it is fitting to add a few words. It would seem that Akbar paid great attention to the storing in his library of works obtained from outside his dominions, as well as of those Hindu originals and their translations which he was always either collecting or having rendered into Persian. Of this library the author of the Ain relates that it was divided into several parts.

'Some of the books are kept within, some without the Harem. {170} Each part of the library is subdivided, according to the value of the books and the estimation in which the sciences are held of which the books treat. Prose books, poetical works, Hindi, Persian, Greek, Kashmirian, Arabic, are all separately placed. In this order they are also inspected. Experienced people bring them daily, and read them before his Majesty, who hears every book from the beginning to the end. At whatever page the readers daily stop, his Majesty makes with his own pen a mark, according to the number of the pages; and rewards the readers with presents of cash, either in gold or silver, according to the number of leaves read out by them. Among books of renown there are few which are not read in his Majesty's a.s.sembly hall; and there are no historical facts of past ages, or curiosities of science, or interesting points of philosophy, with which his Majesty, a leader of impartial sages, is unacquainted.' Then follows a long list of books specially affected by the sovereign, some of which have been referred to in preceding pages.

I have, I think, stated enough to show the influence exercised by literary men and literature on the history of this reign. The influence, especially of the two learned brothers, Faizi and Abulfazl, dominated as long as they lived. That of Abulfazl survived him, for the lessons he had taught only served to confirm the natural disposition of his master. The principles which the brothers loved were the principles congenial to the disposition of Akbar. They were the {171} principles of the widest toleration of opinion; of justice to all, independently of caste and creed; of alleviating the burdens resting on the children of the soil; of the welding together of the interests of all cla.s.ses of the community, of the Rajput prince, proud of his ancient descent and inclined to regard the Muhammadan invader as an outcast and a stranger; of the Uzbek and Mughal n.o.ble, too apt to regard the country as his own by right of conquest, and its peoples as fit only to be his slaves; of the settlers of Afghan origin, who during four centuries had mingled with, and become a recognised part of the children of the soil; of the indigenous inhabitants, always ready to be moved by kindness and good treatment.

There was one cla.s.s it was impossible to conciliate: the Muhammadan princes whose families had ruled in India, and who aspired to rule in their turn; who, in Bengal, in Orissa, in Behar, and in many parts of Western India, still exercised authority and maintained large armies.

These men, regarding their t.i.tle as superior to that of Akbar, and not recognising the fact that whilst their predecessors had lived on the surface, Akbar was sending roots down deep into the soil, resisted his pretensions and defied his power. How he tried conciliation with these men, and how their own conduct compelled him to insist on their expulsion, has been told in the last chapter.

I propose now to relate how the broad principles natural to Akbar and confirmed by his a.s.sociation {172} with Faizi and Abulfazl, affected the system of administration introduced by the reforming sovereign.

In a previous page of this chapter I have quoted an expression of his own, to the effect that he had, at one time of his reign, forced Brahmans to embrace Muhammadanism. This must have happened because Akbar states it, but of the forced conversions I have found no record. They must have taken place whilst he was still a minor, and whilst the chief authority was wielded by Bairam. From the moment of his a.s.sumption of power, that is, from the day on which he gave the till then all-powerful Bairam Khan permission to proceed to Mekka, he announced his intention, from which he never swerved, to employ Hindus and Muhammadans alike without distinction. In the seventh year of his reign, he being then in the twenty-first year of his life, Akbar abolished the practice, heretofore prevailing, by which the troops of the conqueror were permitted to forcibly sell or keep in slavery the wives, children, and dependants of the conquered.

Whatever might be the delinquencies of an enemy, his children and the people belonging to him were, according to the proclamation of the sovereign, to be free to go as they pleased to their own houses, or to the houses of their relatives. No one, great or small, was to be made a slave. 'If the husband pursue an evil course,' argued the liberal-minded prince, 'what fault is it of the wife? And if the father rebel, how can the children be blamed?'

The same generous and far-seeing policy was {173} pursued with unabated vigour in the reform of other abuses. The very next year, the eighth of his reign, the Emperor determined to abolish a tax, which, though extremely productive, inflicted, as he considered, a wrong on the consciences of his Hindu subjects. There are no people in the world more given to pilgrimages than are the Hindus. Their sacred shrines, each with its peculiar saint and its specific virtue, abound in every province of Hindustan. The journeys the pilgrims have to make are often long and tedious, their length being often proportioned to the value of the boon to be acquired. In these pilgrimages the Afghan predecessors of the Mughal had recognised a large and permanent source of revenue, and they had imposed, therefore, a tax on all pilgrims according to the ascertained or reputed means of each.

Abulfazl tells us that this tax was extremely prolific, amounting to millions of rupees annually. But it was felt as a great grievance. In the eyes of the Hindu a pilgrimage was often an inculcated duty, imposed upon him by his religion, or its interpreter, the Brahman priest. Why, he argued, because he submitted his body to the greatest inconvenience, measuring his own length along the ground, possibly for hundreds of miles, should he be despoiled by the State? The feelings of his Hindu subjects on this subject soon reached the ears of Akbar. It was submitted to him by those who saw in the tax only an easy source of revenue that the making of pilgrimages was a vain superst.i.tion which the Hindus would not forego, and {174} therefore the payment being certain and continuous, it would be bad financial policy to abolish the tax. Akbar, admitting that it was a tax on the superst.i.tions of the mult.i.tude, and that a Hindu might escape paying it by staying at home, yet argued that as the making of pilgrimages const.i.tuted a part of the Hindu religion, and was, in a sense, a Hindu form of rendering homage to the Almighty, it would be wrong to throw the smallest stumbling-block in the way of this manifestation of their submission to that which they regarded as a divine ordinance. He accordingly remitted the tax.

Similarly regarding the jizya, or capitation tax imposed by Muhammadan sovereigns on those of another faith. This tax had been imposed in the early days of the Muhammadan conquest by the Afghan rulers of India. There was no tax which caused so much bitterness of feeling on the part of those who had to pay it: not one which gave so much opportunity to the display and exercise of human tyranny. The reason why the sovereigns before Akbar failed entirely to gain the sympathies of the children of the soil might be gathered from the history of the proceedings connected with this tax alone. 'When the collector of the Diwan,' writes the author of the Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, 'asks the Hindus to pay the tax, they should pay it with all humility and submission. And if the collector wishes to spit into their mouths, they should open their mouths without the slightest fear of contamination, so that the collector may do so.... The object of such humiliation {175} and spitting into their mouths is to prove the obedience of infidel subjects under protection, and to promote the glory of the Islam, the true religion, and to show contempt for false religions.' That the officials who acted in the manner here described contravened the true spirit of Islam, I need not stop to argue. There is not a religion which has not suffered from the intemperate zeal of its bigoted supporters; and Muhammadanism has suffered at least as much as the others. But the extract proves the extent to which it was possible for the agents of an unusually enlightened prince to tyrannise over and to insult the conquered race in the name of a religion, whose true tenets they perverted by so acting.

Akbar recognised not only the inherent liability to this abuse in the collection of such a tax, but also the vicious character of the tax itself. The very word 'infidel' was hateful to him. 'Who is certain that he is right,' was his constant exclamation. Recognising good in all religions, he would impose no tax on the conscientious faith of any man. Early then, in the ninth year of his reign, and in the twenty-third of his life, three years, be it borne in mind, before he had come under the influence of either of the two ill.u.s.trious brothers, Faizi and Abulfazl, he, prompted by his own sense of the eternal fitness of things, issued an edict abolishing the jizya.

Thenceforth all were equal in matters of faith before the one Eternal.

The dealings of Akbar with the Hindus were not confined to the abolition of taxes which pressed hardly {176} on their religious opinions. He endeavoured, with as little show of authority as was possible, to remove restrictions which interfered with the well-being and happiness of the people. What he did regarding Sati I have already related. The kindred question of the re-marriage of a widow met with the greatest encouragement from him. He even went further, and issued an edict rendering such re-marriage lawful. In the same spirit he forbade marriages before the age of p.u.b.erty, a custom deeply rooted amongst the Hindus, and carried on even at the present day, though theoretically condemned by the wisest among them. He prohibited likewise the slaughter of animals for sacrifice, and trials by ordeal. Nor was he less stringent with those of the faith in which he was born. His method with them took the form rather of example, of persuasion, of remonstrance, than a direct order.

He discouraged the excessive practice of prayers, of fasts, of alms, of pilgrimages, but he did not forbid them. These were matters for individual taste, but Akbar knew well that in the majority of instances open professions were merely cloaks for hypocrisy; that there were many ways in which a man's life could be utilised other than by putting on an austere appearance, and making long prayers.

The rite of circ.u.mcision could not, indeed, be forbidden to the Muhammadans, but Akbar directed that the ceremony should not be performed until the lad had attained the age of twelve. To humour the {177} prejudices of the Hindus, he discouraged the slaughter of kine.

On the other hand, he p.r.o.nounced the killing and partaking of the flesh of swine to be lawful. Dogs had been looked upon by Muhammadans as unclean animals, and the strict Muhammadan of the present day still regards them as such. Akbar declared them to be clean. Wine is prohibited to the Muslim. Akbar encouraged a moderate use of it.

In the later years of his reign (1592) he introduced, to the great annoyance of the bigoted party at his court, the practice of shaving the beard. In a hot country such as India the advantages arising from the use of the razor are too obvious to need discussion. But, although the order was not obligatory, the compliance or non-compliance with the custom became a distinguishing mark at the imperial court. Few things are more repugnant to a devout Musalman than the shaving of his beard. It was so then, and it is so now. The example set in this respect by the sovereign caused then many murmurs and much secret discontent.

Amongst others of the natural characteristics of Akbar may be mentioned his attachment to his relatives. Of one of these, a foster-brother, who persistently offended him, he said, whilst inflicting upon him the lightest of punishments: 'Between me and Aziz is a river of milk, which I cannot cross.' The spirit of these words animated him in all his actions towards those connected with him.

Unless they were irreclaimable, or had steeped their hands in the blood {178} of others, he ever sought to win them back by his gentleness and liberality. He loved forgiving, reinstating, trusting, and though the exercise of these n.o.ble qualities led sometimes to his being imposed upon, they told in the long run. He was a good son, a loving husband, and perhaps too affectionate a father.

His sons suffered from the misfortune of having been born in the purple. One of them, Prince Danyal, was a prince of the highest promise, but the temptations by which he was surrounded, unchecked by his tutors, brought him to an early grave. Similarly with Prince Murad. As to his successor, Jahangir, he was, in most respects, the very opposite of his father. Towards the close of the reign he set an example which became a rule of the Mughal dynasty, that of trying to establish himself in the lifetime of his father, whose dearest friend, Abulfazl, he had caused to be a.s.sa.s.sinated. Nothing could exceed the exemplary patience and forbearance with which Akbar treated his unworthy son. Again, Akbar abhorred cruelty: he regarded the performance of his duty as equivalent to an act of worship to the Creator.

In this respect he made no difference between great and small matters. He was not content to direct that such and such an ordinance should be issued. He watched its working; developed it more fully, if it were successful; and marked the details of its action on the several races who const.i.tuted his subjects. He had much confidence in his own judgment of men. He was admittedly {179} a good physiognomist. Abulfazl wrote of him that 'he sees through some men at a glance,' whilst even Badauni admits the claim, though with his usual inclination to sneering at all matters bearing on the Hindus, he declares that Akbar obtained the gift of insight from the Jogis (Hindu ascetics or magicians).

With all his liberality and breadth of view Akbar himself was not free from superst.i.tion. He believed in lucky days. Mr. Blochmann states that he imbibed this belief from his study of the religion of Zoroaster, of which it forms a feature. His courtiers, especially those who were secretly opposed to his religious innovations, attributed his undoubted success to luck. Thus Badauni writes of 'his Majesty's usual good luck overcoming all enemies,' whereas it was his remarkable attention to the carrying out of the details of laws and regulations which he and his councillors had thoroughly considered which ensured his success.

He was very fond of field sports, especially of hunting, but after the birth of the son who succeeded him he did not hunt on Fridays. If we can accept the authority of the Emperor Jahangir, Akbar had made a vow that he would for ever abstain from hunting on the sacred day if the mother of Jahangir should have a safe deliverance, and he kept it to the end of his life. There is abundant evidence to prove that Akbar was not only fond of music, but was very musical himself. He delighted in the old tunes of Khwarizm, and, according to Abulfazl, himself composed more than two hundred of these, 'which are the {180} delight of young and old.' The same authority states that 'his Majesty had such a knowledge of the science of music as trained musicians do not possess.' Every day the court was treated to an abundance of music, the sounds of which have in all times been especially agreeable to Eastern monarchs. He also was gifted, to a considerable extent, with the genius of invention. The Ain records how he invented a carriage, a wheel for cleaning guns, and elephant gear; how, further, he made improvements in the clothing of his troops and in his artillery.

In his diet Akbar was simple, taking but one regular meal a day. He disliked meat, and abstained from it often for months at a time. He was specially fond of fruits, and made a study of their cultivation.

Abulfazl records that he regarded fruits 'as one of the greatest gifts of the Creator,' and that the Emperor brought horticulturists of Iran and Turan to settle at Agra and Fatehpur-Sikri. 'Melons and grapes have become very plentiful and excellent; and water-melons, peaches, almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, etc., are everywhere to be found.' He adds that fruits were largely imported from Kabul, Kandahar, Kashmir, Badakshan, and even from Samarkand. The Ain contains a long list of these, which the reader who knows India will read with pleasure. It is interesting to find that, even in those days, the first place among the sweet fruits of Hindustan is given to the mango. This fruit is described as 'unrivalled in colour, smell, and taste; and some of the gourmands {181} of Turan and Iran place it above musk-melon and grapes.'

One word as to the daily habits of Akbar and to the manner in which he was accustomed to pa.s.s an ordinary day at Agra or Fatehpur-Sikri.

It would seem that he kept late hours, spending the evenings far into the early morning in conversation and discussion. In such matters he occupied himself, according to the record of Abulfazl, till 'about a watch before daybreak,' when musicians were introduced. At daybreak the sovereign retired into his private apartments, made his ablutions, dressed, and about an hour later presented himself to receive the homage of his courtiers. Then began the business of the day. Probably this was concluded often long before midday, when the one meal which Akbar allowed himself was usually served, though there was no fixed hour for it. The afternoon was the recognised hour of sleep. Sometimes Akbar devoted the early morning to field sports, and sometimes the late evenings to the game of chaugan, or polo, for which purpose b.a.l.l.s made of the palas wood were used. The hottest hours of the day were the hours of rest and recuperation.

Akbar had not reigned long ere he recognised the importance of attaching to his throne the Hindu princes of Rajputana by a tie closer even than that of mere friendship. It is interesting to note how he managed to overcome the inborn prejudices of the high caste princes of Rajast'han to consent to a union which, in their hearts, the bulk of them regarded as {182} a degradation. It would seem that his father, Humayun, had to a certain extent prepared the way. In his erudite and fascinating work,[3] Colonel Tod relates how Humayun, in the earlier part of his reign, became the knight of the princess Kurnavati of Chitor, and pledged himself to her service. That service he loyally performed. He addressed her always as 'dear and virtuous sister.' He also won the regard of Raja Bihari Mall of Amber, father of the Bhagwan Das, so often mentioned in these pages.

[Footnote 3: _Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han_, by Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod, second (Madras) edition, pp. 262, 282-3.]

Akbar subsequently married his daughter, and becoming thus connected with the House of Amber (Jaipur), could count upon Bhagwan Das and his nephew and adopted son, Man Singh, one of the greatest of all his commanders, as his firmest friends. Writing in another page of Bhagwan Das, Colonel Tod describes him as 'the friend of Akbar, who saw the value of attaching such men to his throne.' He adds, and few men have ever enjoyed better opportunities of ascertaining the real feelings of the princes of Rajputana, 'but the name of Bhagwan Das is execrated as the first who sullied Rajput purity by matrimonial alliance with the Islamite.' Prejudice is always strong, and, like the dog, it returns to its vomit.

Rajputana never produced greater or larger-minded princes than Bhagwan Das and his nephew. Their intimate union with Akbar contributed more than any other circ.u.mstance to reconcile the Rajputs to {183} the predominance of the Mughal. The union was further cemented by the marriage, already referred to, between Prince Salim and a daughter of Bhagwan Das. What the real influence of Akbar's administration was upon that chivalrous race may be gathered from the short summary which Colonel Tod, himself, more Rajput in his sympathies than the Rajputs themselves, devotes to his career.

'Akbar,' writes that author, 'was the real founder of the empire of the Mughals, the first successful conqueror of Rajput independence.

To this end his virtues were powerful auxiliaries, as by his skill in the a.n.a.lysis of the mind and its readiest stimulant to action, he was enabled to gild the chains with which he bound them. To these they became familiarised by habit, especially when the throne exerted its power in acts gratifying to national vanity, or even in ministering to the more ign.o.ble pa.s.sions.' Unable, apparently, to comprehend the principle which underlay the whole policy of Akbar, that of conquering that he might produce union, and regarding him as he rightly regarded his Afghan and Pathan predecessors, Colonel Tod attacks him for his conquests. Yet even Colonel Tod is forced to add: 'He finally succeeded in healing the wounds his ambition had inflicted, and received from millions that meed of praise which no other of his race ever obtained.' I need not add that if to render happiness to millions is one of the first objects of kingship, and if to obtain that end union has to be cemented by conquest, the means sanction {184} the end. Akbar did not conquer in Rajputana to rule in Rajputana. He conquered that all the Rajput princes, each in his own dominions, might enjoy that peace and prosperity which his predominance, never felt aggressively, secured for the whole empire.

From the Raja of Jodhpur, Udai Singh, at the time the most powerful of the Rajput princes, Akbar obtained the hand of his daughter for his son Salim. The princess became the mother of a son who succeeded his father as the Emperor Shah Jahan. In him the Rajput blood acquired a position theretofore unknown in India. Of this marriage, so happy in its results, Colonel Tod writes that Akbar obtained it by a bribe, the gift of four provinces which doubled the fisc of Marwar (Jodhpur). He adds: 'With such examples as Amber and Marwar, and with less power to resist temptation, the minor chiefs of Rajast'han, with a brave and numerous va.s.salage, were transformed into satraps of Delhi, and the importance of most of them was increased by the change.' Truly did the Mughal historian designate them as 'at once the props and ornaments of the throne.'

There surely could not be a greater justification of the policy of Akbar with respect to Rajputana and its princes than is contained in the testimony of this writer, all of whose sympathies were strongly with the Rajputs.

Whilst on the subject of the imperial marriages, I may mention that Akbar had many wives, but of these eight only are authoritatively mentioned. His {185} first wife was his cousin, a daughter of his uncle, Hindal Mirza. She bore him no children, and survived him, living to the age of eighty-four. His second wife was also a cousin, being the daughter of a daughter of Babar, who had married Mirza Nuruddin Muhammad. She was a poetess, and wrote under the _nom de plume_, Makhfi (the concealed). His third wife was the daughter of Raja Bihari Mall and sister of Raja Bhagwan Das. He married her in 1560. The fourth wife was famed for her beauty: she had been previously married to Abul Wasi. The fifth wife, mother of Jahangir, was a Jodhpur princess, Jodh Baei. As mother of the heir apparent, she held the first place in the harem. The sixth, seventh, and eighth wives were Muhammadans.

In the matter of domestic legislation Akbar paid considerable attention to the mode of collecting revenue. He found existing a system devised by Sher Shah, the prince who had defeated and expelled his father. The principles upon which this system was based were (1) the correct measurement of the land; (2) the ascertaining the average production of a block of land per bigha;[4] (3) the settlement of the proportion of that amount to be paid to the Government by each; (4) the fixing of the equivalent in money for the settled amount in kind.

Akbar proposed rather to develop this principle than to interfere with it. {186} With this object he established a uniform standard to supersede the differing standards theretofore employed.

[Footnote 4: A bigha is a portion of land measuring in the North-west Provinces nearly five-eighths of an acre. In Bengal, it is not quite one-third of an acre.]

'This laudable regulation,' we are told in the Ain, 'removed the rust of uncertainty from the minds of collectors, and relieved the subject from a variety of oppressions, whilst the income became larger, and the State flourished.' Akbar likewise caused to be adopted improved instruments of mensuration, and with these he made a new settlement of the lands capable of cultivation within the empire. We are told in the Ain that he was in the habit of taking from each bigha of land ten sers (about twenty pounds) of grain as a royalty. This was at a later period commuted into a money payment. In each district he had store-houses erected to supply animals, the property of the State, with food; to furnish cultivators with grain for sowing purposes; to have at hand a provision in case of famine; and to feed the poor.

These store-houses were placed in charge of men specially selected for their trustworthy qualities.

The land was in the earlier part of the reign divided into three cla.s.ses according to its fertility, and the a.s.sessment was fixed on the average production of three bighas, one from each division. The cultivator might, however, if dissatisfied with the average, insist on the valuation of his own crop. Five cla.s.sifications of land were likewise made to ensure equality of payment in proportion to the quality of the land and its immunity from accidents, such as inundation. Other regulations were {187} carefully formed to discriminate between the several varieties of soil, all having for their object the fixing of a system fair alike to the cultivator and the Government.

Gradually, as I have above indicated, as the Government became settled, a better principle was introduced to fix the amount payable to the State. For this purpose statements of prices for the nineteen years preceding the survey were called for from the village heads.

From these an average was struck, and the produce was valued at the current rates. At first these settlements were annual, but as fresh annual rates were found vexatious, the settlement was made for ten years, on the basis of the average of the preceding ten.

To complete this agricultural system, Akbar made at the same time a new division of the country for revenue purposes. Under this scheme the country was marked out in parcels, each yielding a karor (ten millions) of _dams_, equal to twenty-five thousand rupees. The collector of each of these parcels was called a karori. Whenever a karori had collected the sum of two lakhs of _dams_,[5] he was required to send it to the Treasurer-General at head-quarters. It was found, however, after a time, that the arbitrary division based simply upon a mathematical theory produced {188} confusion and disturbed ancient ways, of all others most congenial to the Hindus.

After a trial, then, the artificial division was abandoned in favour of the ancient system of the people, under which the lands were parcelled out in conformity with the natural features of the country and the village system prevailing therein.

[Footnote 5: Two hundred thousand _dams_, equivalent to five thousand rupees. A _dam_ is a copper coin, the fortieth part of a rupee. The coin known as the _damri_, used at the present day for the purposes of calculation, is the eighth part of a _dam_.]

Against the farming of the revenue, as a certain mode of oppression, Akbar was very strong. He particularly enjoined upon his collectors to deal directly, as far as was possible, with the cultivator himself, rather than with the village headman. This was an innovation which, though based upon the best intentions, did not always answer.