Akbar, Emperor of India Part 1

Akbar, Emperor of India.

by Richard von Garbe.

The student of India who would at the same time be an historian, discovers to his sorrow that the land of his researches is lamentably poor in historical sources. And if within the realm of historical investigation, a more seductive charm lies for him in the a.n.a.lysis of great personalities than in ascertaining the course of historical development, then verily may he look about in vain for such personalities in the antiquity and middle ages of India. Not that the princely thrones were wanting in great men in ancient India, for we find abundant traces of them in Hindu folk-lore and poetry, but these sources do not extend to establis.h.i.+ng the realistic element in details and furnis.h.i.+ng life-like portraits of the men themselves. That the Hindu has ever been but little interested in historical matters is a generally recognized fact. Religious and philosophical speculations, dreams of other worlds, of previous and future existences, have claimed the attention of thoughtful minds to a much greater degree than has historical reality.

[Footnote A: This essay is art enlarged form of an address delivered on the occasion of the birthday of King Wilhelm II of Wurttemberg, on February 25, 1909.]

The misty myth-woven veil which hangs over persons and events of earlier times, vanishes at the beginning of the modern era which in India starts with the Mohammedan conquest, for henceforth the history of India is written by foreigners. Now we meet with men who take a decisive part in the fate of India, and they appear as sharply outlined, even though generally unpleasing, personalities.

Islam has justly been characterized as the caricature of a religion.

Fanaticism and fatalism are two conspicuously irreligious emotions, and it is exactly these two emotions, which Islam understands how to arouse in savage peoples, to which it owes the part it has played in the history of the world, and the almost unprecedented success of its diffusion in Asia, Africa and Europe.

About 1000 A.D. India was invaded by the Sultan Mahmud of Ghasna.

"With Mahmud's expedition into India begins one of the most horrible periods of the history of Hindustan. One monarch dethrones another, no dynasty continues in power, every accession to the throne is accompanied by the murder of kinsmen, plundering of cities, devastation of the lowlands and the slaughter of thousands of men, women and children of the predecessor's adherents; for five centuries northwest and northern India literally reeked with the blood of mult.i.tudes."[1] Mohammedan dynasties of Afghan, Turkish and Mongolian origin follow that of Ghasna. This entire period is filled with an almost boundless series of battles, intrigues, imbroglios and political revolutions; nearly all events had the one characteristic in common, that they took place amid murder, pillage and fire.

[Footnote 1: E. Schlagintweit, _Indien in Wort und Bild_, II, 26 f.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.

From Noer's _Kaiser Akbar_, (Frontispiece to Vol. II).]

The most frightful spectacle throughout these reeking centuries is the terrible Mongolian prince Timur, a successor of Genghis-Khan, who fell upon India with his band of a.s.sa.s.sins in the year 1398 and before his entry into Delhi the capital, in which he was proclaimed Emperor of India, caused the hundred thousand prisoners whom he had captured in his previous battles in the Punjab, to be slaughtered in one single day, because it was too inconvenient to drag them around with him. So says Timur himself with shameless frankness in his account of the expedition, and he further relates that after his entry into Delhi, all three districts of the city were plundered "according to the will of G.o.d."[2] In 1526 Baber, a descendant of Timur, made his entry into Delhi and there founded the dominion of the Grand Moguls (i.e., of the great Mongols). The overthrow of this dynasty was brought about by the disastrous reign of Baber's successor Aurungzeb, a cruel, crafty and treacherous despot, who following the example of his ancestor Timur, spread terror and alarm around him in the second half of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Even to-day Hindus may be seen to tremble when they meet the sinister fanatical glance of a Mohammedan.

[Footnote 2: A. Muller, _Der Islam im Morgen-und Abendland_, II, 300 f.]

Princes with sympathetic qualities were not entirely lacking in the seven centuries of Mohammedan dominion in India, and they s.h.i.+ne forth as points of light from the gloomy horror of this time, but they fade out completely before the luminous picture of the man who governed India for half a century (1556-1605) and by a wise, gentle and just reign brought about a season of prosperity such as the land had never experienced in the millenniums of its history. This man, whose memory even to-day is revered by the Hindus, was a descendant of Baber, Abul Fath Jelaleddin Muhammed, known by the surname Akbar "the Great,"

which was conferred upon the child even when he was named, and completely supplanted the name that properly belonged to him. And truly he justified the epithet, for great, fabulously great, was Akbar as man, general, statesman and ruler,--all in all a prince who deserves to be known by every one whose heart is moved by the spectacle of true human greatness.[3]

[Footnote 3: From the literature on Emperor Akbar the following works deserve special mention: J. Talboys Wheeler, _The History of India from the Earliest Ages._ Vol. IV, Pt. I, "Mussulman Rule," London, 1876 (judges Akbar very unfairly in many places, but declares at the bottom of page 135, "The reign of Akbar is one of the most important in the history of India; it is one of the most important in the history of the world"); Mountstuart Elphinstone, _History of India, the Hindu and Mahometan Periods_, with notes and additions by E.B.

Cowell, 9th ed., London, 1905; G.B. Malleson, _Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire_, Oxford, 1890 (in W.W. Hunter's _Rulers of India_); A. Muller, _Der Islam im Morgen-und Abendland_, Vol. II, Berlin, 1887; but especially Count F.A. von Noer, _Kaiser Akbar, ein Versuch uber die Geschichte Indiens im sechzehnten Jahrhundert_, Vol. I, Leyden, 1880; Vol. II, revised from the author's ma.n.u.script by Dr. Gustav von Buchwald, Leyden, 1885. In the preface to this work the original sources are listed and described; compare also M. Elphinstone, pp.

536, 537, note 45.]

When we wish to understand a personality we are in the habit of ascertaining the inherited characteristics, and investigating the influences exercised upon it by religion, family, environment, education, youthful impressions, experience, and so forth. Most men are easily comprehensible as the products of these factors. The more independent of all such influences, or the more in opposition to them, a personality develops, the more attractive and interesting will it appear to us. At the first glance it looks as if the Emperor Akbar had developed his entire character from himself and by his own efforts in total independence of all influences which in other cases are thought to determine the character and nature of a man. A Mohammedan, a Mongol, a descendant of the monster Timur, the son of a weak incapable father, born in exile, called when but a lad to the government of a disintegrated and almost annihilated realm in the India of the sixteenth century,--which means in an age of perfidy, treachery, avarice, and self-seeking,--Akbar appears before us as a n.o.ble man, susceptible to all grand and beautiful impressions, conscientious, unprejudiced, and energetic, who knew how to bring peace and order out of the confusion of the times, who throughout his reign desired the furtherance of his subjects' and not of his own interest, who while increasing the privileges of the Mohammedans, not only also declared equality of rights for the Hindus but even actualized that equality, who in every conceivable way sought to conciliate his subjects so widely at variance with each other in race, customs, and religion, and who finally when the narrow dogmas of his religion no longer satisfied him, attained to a purified faith in G.o.d, which was independent of all formulated religions.

A closer observation, however, shows that the contrast is not quite so harsh between what according to our hypotheses Akbar should have been as a result of the forces which build up man, and what he actually became. His predilection for science and art Akbar had inherited from his grandfather Baber and his father Humayun. His youth, which was pa.s.sed among dangers and privations, in flight and in prison, was certainly not without a beneficial influence upon Akbar's development into a man of unusual power and energy. And of significance for his spiritual development was the circ.u.mstance that after his accession to the throne his guardian put him in the charge of a most excellent tutor, the enlightened and liberal minded Persian Mir Abdullatif, who laid the foundation for Akbar's later religious and ethical views.

Still, however high we may value the influence of this teacher, the main point lay in Akbar's own endowments, his susceptibility for such teaching as never before had struck root with any Mohammedan prince.

Akbar had not his equal in the history of Islam. "He is the only prince grown up in the Mohammedan creed whose endeavor it was to enn.o.ble the limitation of this most separatistic of all religions into a true religion of humanity."[4]

[Footnote 4: A. Muller, II, 416.]

Even the external appearance of Akbar appeals to us sympathetically.

We sometimes find reproduced a miniature from Delhi which pictures Akbar as seated; in this the characteristic features of the Mongolian race appear softened and refined to a remarkable degree.[B] The shape of the head is rather round, the outlines are softened, the black eyes large, thoughtful, almost dreamy, and only very slightly slanting, the brows full and bushy, the lips somewhat prominent and the nose a tiny bit hooked. The face is beardless except for the rather thin closely cut moustache which falls down over the curve of the month in soft waves. According to the description of his son, the Emperor Jehangir, Akbar's complexion is said to have been the yellow of wheat; the Portuguese Jesuits who came to his court called it plainly white. Although not exactly beautiful, Akbar seemed beautiful to many of his contemporaries, including Europeans, probably because of the august and at the same time kind and winsome expression which his countenance bore. Akbar was rather tall, broad-shouldered, strongly built and had long arms and hands.

[Footnote B: Noer, II as frontispiece (comp. also pp. 327, 328); A.

Muller, II, 417.]

Akbar, the son of the dethroned Emperor Humayun, was born on October 14, 1542, at Amarkot in Sindh, two years after his father had been deprived of his kingdom by the usurper Sher Chan. After an exile of fifteen years, or rather after an aimless wandering and flight of that length, the indolent pleasure-and opium-loving Humayun was again permitted to return to his capital in 1555,--not through his own merit but that of his energetic general Bairam Chan, a Turk who in one decisive battle had overcome the Afghans, at that time in possession of the dominion. But Humayun was not long to enjoy his regained throne; half a year later he fell down a stairway in his palace and died. In January 1556 Akbar, then thirteen years of age, ascended the throne. Because of his youthful years Bairam Chan a.s.sumed the regency as guardian of the realm or "prince-father" as it is expressed in Hindi, and guided the wavering s.h.i.+p of state with a strong hand. He overthrew various insurgents and disposed of them with cold cruelty.

But after a few years he so aroused the illwill of Akbar by deeds of partiality, selfishness and violence that in March 1560 Akbar, then 17 years of age, decided to take the reins of government into his own hand. Deprived of his office and influence Bairam Chan hastened to the Punjab and took arms against his Imperial Master. Akbar led his troops in person against the rebel and overcame him. When barefooted, his turban thrown around his neck, Bairam Chan appeared before Akbar and prostrated himself before the throne, Akbar did not do the thing which was customary under such circ.u.mstances in the Orient in all ages. The magnanimous youth did not sentence the humiliated rebel to a painful death but bade him arise in memory of the great services which Bairam Chan had rendered to his father and later to himself, and again a.s.sume his old place of honor at the right of the throne. Before the a.s.sembled n.o.bility he gave him the choice whether he would take the governors.h.i.+p of a province, or would enjoy the favor of his master at court as a benefactor of the imperial family, or whether, accompanied by an escort befitting his rank, he would prefer to undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca.[5] Bairam Chan was wise enough to choose the last, but on the way to Mecca he was killed by an Afghan and the news caused Akbar sincere grief and led him to take the four year old son of Bairam Chan under his special protection.

[Footnote 5: Noer, I, 131.]

Mahum Anaga, the Emperor's nurse, for whom he felt a warm attachment and grat.i.tude, a woman revengeful and ambitious but loyal and devoted to Akbar, had contributed in bringing about the fall of the regent.

She had cared for the Emperor from his birth to his accession and amid the confusion of his youth had guarded him from danger; but for this service she expected her reward. She sought nothing less than in the role of an intimate confidante of the youthful Emperor to be secretly the actual ruler of India.

Mahum Anaga had a son, Adham Chan by name, to whom at her suggestion Akbar a.s.signed the task of reconquering and governing the province of Malwa. Adham Chan was a pa.s.sionate and violent man, as ambitious and avaricious as his mother, and behaved himself in Malwa as if he were an independent prince. As soon as Akbar learned this he advanced by forced marches to Malwa and surprised his disconcerted foster-brother before the latter could be warned by his mother. But Adham Chan had no difficulty in obtaining Akbar's forgiveness for his infringements.

On the way back to Agra, where the Emperor at that time was holding court, a noteworthy incident happened. Akbar had ridden alone in advance of his escort and suddenly found himself face to face with a powerful tigress who with her five cubs came out from the shrubbery across his path. His approaching attendants found the nineteen year old Emperor standing quietly by the side of the slaughtered beast which he had struck to the ground with a single blow of his sword. To how much bodily strength, intrepidity, cold-blooded courage and sure-sightedness this blow of the sword testified which dared not come the fraction of a second too late, may be judged by every one who has any conception of the spring of a raging tigress anxious for the welfare of her young. And we may easily surmise the thoughts which the sight aroused in the minds of the Mohammedan n.o.bles in Akbar's train.

At that moment many ambitious wishes and designs may have been carried to their grave.[6]

[Footnote 6: Noer, I, 141.]

The Emperor soon summoned his hot-headed foster-brother Adham Chan to court in order to keep him well in sight for he had counted often enough on Akbar's affection for his mother Mahum Anaga to save him from the consequences of his sins. Now Mahum Anaga, her son and her adherents, hated the grand vizier with a deadly hatred because they perceived that they were being deprived of their former influence in matters of state. This hatred finally impelled Adham Chan to a senseless undertaking. The embittered man hatched up a conspiracy against the grand vizier and when one night in the year 1562 the latter was attending a meeting of political dignitaries on affairs of state in the audience hall of the Imperial palace, Adham Chan with his conspirators suddenly broke in and stabbed the grand vizier in the breast, whereupon his companions slew the wounded man with their swords. Even now the deluded Adham Chan counted still upon the Emperor's forbearance and upon the influence of his mother. Akbar was aroused by the noise and leaving his apartments learned what had happened. Adham Chan rushed to the Emperor, seized his arm and begged him to listen to his explanations. But the Emperor was beside himself with rage, struck the murderer with his fist so that he fell to the floor and commanded the terrified servants to bind him with fetters and throw him head over heels from the terrace of the palace to the courtyard below. The horrible deed was done but the wretch was not dead. Then the Emperor commanded the shattered body of the dying man to be dragged up the stairs again by the hair and to be flung once more to the ground.[7]

[Footnote 7: J.T. Wheeler, IV, I, 139, 140; Noer, I, 143, 144.]

I have related this horrible incident in order to give Akbar's picture with the utmost possible faithfulness and without idealization. Akbar was a rough, strong-nerved man, who was seldom angry but whose wrath when once aroused was fearful. It is a blemish on his character that in some cases he permitted himself to be carried away to such cruel death sentences, but we must not forget that he was then dealing with the punishment of particularly desperate criminals, and that such severe judgments had always been considered in the Orient to be righteous and sensible. Not only in the Orient unfortunately,--even in Europe 200 years after Akbar's time tortures and the rack were applied at the behest of courts of law.

Mahum Anaga came too late to save her son. Akbar sought with tender care to console her for his dreadful end but the heart-broken woman survived the fearful blow of fate only about forty days. The Emperor caused her body to be buried with that of her son in one common grave at Delhi, and he himself accompanied the funeral procession. At his command a stately monument was erected above this grave which still stands to-day. His generosity and clemency were also shown in the fact that he extended complete pardon to the accomplices in the murder of the grand vizier and even permitted them to retain their offices and dignities because he was convinced that they had been drawn into the crime by the violent Adham Chan. In other ways too Akbar showed himself to be ready to grant pardon to an almost incomprehensible extent. Again and again when an insubordinate viceroy in the provinces would surrender after an unsuccessful uprising Akbar would let him off without any penalty, thus giving him the opportunity of revolting again after a short time.

It was an eventful time in which Akbar arrived at manhood in the midst of all sorts of personal dangers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAUSOLEUM OF AKBAR'S FATHER, HUMaYUN.]

I will pa.s.s over with but few comments his military expeditions which can have no interest for the general public. When Akbar ascended the throne his realm comprised only a very small portion of the possessions which had been subject to his predecessors. With the energy which was a fundamental characteristic of his nature he once more took possession of the provinces which had been torn from the empire, at the same time undertaking the conquest of new lands, and accomplished this task with such good fortune that in the fortieth year of his reign the empire of India covered more territory than ever before; that is to say, not only the whole of Hindustan including the peninsula Gujerat, the lands of the Indus and Kashmir but also Afghanistan and a larger part of the Dekkhan than had ever been subject to any former Padishah of Delhi. At this time while the Emperor had his residence at Lah.o.r.e the phrase was current in India, "As lucky as Akbar."[8]

[Footnote 8: J.T. Wheeler, IV, I, 180.]

It was apparent often enough in the military expeditions that Akbar far surpa.s.sed his contemporaries in generals.h.i.+p. But it was not the love of war and conquest which drove him each time anew to battle; a sincere desire inspired by a mystical spirit impelled him to bring to an end the ceaseless strife between the small states of India by joining them to his realm, and thus to found a great united empire.[9]

[Footnote 9: Noer, II, 8, 390, 423.]

More worthy of admiration than the subjugation of such large territories in which of course many others have also been successful, is the fact that Akbar succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng order, peace, and prosperity in the regained and newly subjugated provinces. This he brought about by the introduction of a model administration, an excellent police, a regulated post service, and especially a just division of taxes.[10] Up to Akbar's time corruption had been a matter of course in the entire official service and enormous sums in the treasury were lost by peculation on the part of tax collectors.

[Footnote 10: For the following compare Noer I, 391 ff.; M.

Elphinstone, 529 ff.; G.B. Malleson, 172 ff., 185 ff.]

Akbar first divided the whole realm into twelve and later into fifteen viceregencies, and these into provinces, administrative districts and lesser subdivisions, and governed the revenues of the empire on the basis of a uniformly exact survey of the land. He introduced a standard of measurement, replacing the hitherto customary land measure (a leather strap which was easily lengthened or shortened according to the need of the measuring officer) by a new instrument of measurement in the form of a bamboo staff which was provided with iron rings at definite intervals. For purposes of a.s.sessment land was divided into four cla.s.ses according to the kind of cultivation practiced upon it.

The first cla.s.s comprised arable land with a constant rotation of crops; the second, that which had to lie fallow for from one to two years in order to be productive; the third from three to four years; the fourth that land which was uncultivated for five years and longer or was not arable at all. The first two cla.s.ses of acreage were taxed one-third of the crop, which according to our present ideas seems an exorbitantly high rate, and it was left to the one a.s.sessed whether he would pay the tax in kind or in cash. Only in the case of luxuries or manufactured articles, that is to say, where the use of a circulating medium could be a.s.sumed, was cash payment required. Whoever cultivated unreclaimed land was a.s.sisted by the government by the grant of a free supply of seed and by a considerable reduction in his taxes for the first four years.

Akbar also introduced a new uniform standard of coinage, but stipulated that the older coins which were still current should be accepted from peasants for their full face value. From all this the Indian peasants could see that Emperor Akbar not only desired strict justice to rule but also wished to further their interests, and the peasants had always comprised the greatest part of the inhabitants, (even according to the latest census in 1903, vol. I, p. 3, 50 to 84 percent of the inhabitants of India live by agriculture). But Akbar succeeded best in winning the hearts of the native inhabitants by lifting the hated poll tax which still existed side by side with all other taxes.

The founder of Islam had given the philanthropical command to exterminate from the face of the earth all followers of other faiths who were not converted to Islam, but he had already convinced himself that it was impossible to execute this law. And, indeed, if the Mohammedans had followed out this precept, how would they have been able to overthrow land upon land and finally even thickly populated India where the so-called unbelievers comprised an overwhelming majority? Therefore in place of complete extermination the more practical arrangement of the poll tax was inst.i.tuted, and this was to be paid by all unbelievers in order to be a constant reminder to them of the loss of their independence. This humiliating burden which was still executed in the strictest, most inconsiderate manner, Akbar removed in the year 1565 without regard to the very considerable loss to the state's treasury. Nine years later followed the removal of the tax upon religious a.s.semblies and pilgrimages, the execution of which had likewise kept the Hindus in constant bitterness towards their Mohammedan rulers.

Sometime previous to these reforms Akbar had abolished a custom so disgusting that we can hardly comprehend that it ever could have legally existed. At any rate it alone is sufficient to brand Islam and its supreme contempt for followers of other faiths, with one of the greatest stains in the history of humanity. When a tax-collector gathered the taxes of the Hindus and the payment had been made, the Hindu was required "without the slightest sign of fear of defilement"

to open his mouth in order that the tax collector might spit in it if he wished to do so.[11] This was much more than a disgusting humiliation. When the tax-collector availed himself of this privilege the Hindu lost thereby his greatest possession, his caste, and was shut out from any intercourse with his equals. Accordingly he was compelled to pa.s.s his whole life trembling in terror before this horrible evil which threatened him. That a man of Akbar's n.o.bility of character should remove such an atrocious, yes devilish, decree seems to us a matter of course; but for the Hindus it was an enormous beneficence.

[Footnote 11: Noer, II, 6, 7; G.B. Malleson, 174, 175.]