Akbar, Emperor of India | Page 9

bulwark. On the plain at its summit which measured over twelve kilometers in circumference a city well supplied with water lay within the fortification walls. There an experienced general, Jaymal, "the Lion of Chitor," was in command. I have not time to relate the particulars of the siege, the laying of ditches and mines and the uninterrupted battles which preceded the fall of Chitor in February, 1568. According to Akbar's usual custom he exposed himself to showers of bullets without once being hit (the superstition of his soldiers considered him invulnerable) and finally the critical shot was one in which Akbar with his own hand laid low the brave commander of Chitor. Then the defenders considered their cause lost, and the next night saw a barbarous sight, peculiarly Indian in character: the so-called Jauhar demanded his offering according to an old Rajput custom. Many great fires gleamed weirdly in the fortress. To escape imprisonment and to save their honor from the horrors of captivity, the women mounted the solemnly arranged funeral pyres, while all the men, clad in saffron hued garments, consecrated themselves to death. When the victors entered the city on the next morning a battle began which raged until the third evening, when there was no one left to kill. Eight thousand warriors had fallen, besides thirty thousand inhabitants of Chitor who had participated in the fight.
With the conquest of Chitor which I have treated at considerable length because it ended in a typically Indian manner, the resistance of the Rajputs broke down. After Akbar had attained his purpose he was on the friendliest terms with the vanquished. It testifies to his nobility of character as well as to his political wisdom that after this complete success he not only did not celebrate a triumph, but on the contrary proclaimed the renown of the vanquished throughout all India by erecting before the gate of the imperial palace at Delhi two immense stone elephants with the statues of Jaymal, the "Lion of Chitor," and of the noble youth Pata who had performed the most heroic deeds in the defense of Chitor. By thus honoring his conquered foes in such a magnanimous manner Akbar found the right way to the heart of the Rajputs. By constant bestowal of favors he gradually succeeded in so reconciling the noble Rajputs to the loss of their independence that they were finally glad and proud to devote themselves to his service, and, under the leadership of their own princes, proved themselves to be the best and truest soldiers of the imperial army, even far from their home in the farthest limits of the realm.
The great masses of the Hindu people Akbar won over by lowering the taxes as we have previously related, and by all the other successful expedients for the prosperity of the country, but especially by the concession of perfect liberty of faith and worship and by the benevolent interest with which he regarded the religious practices of the Hindus. A people in whom religion is the ruling motive of life, after enduring all the dreadful sufferings of previous centuries for its religion's sake, must have been brought to a state; of boundless reverence by Akbar's attitude. And since the Hindus were accustomed to look upon the great heroes and benefactors of humanity as incarnations of deity we shall not be surprised to read from an author of that time[17] that every morning before sunrise great numbers of Hindus crowded together in front of the palace to await the appearance of Akbar and to prostrate themselves as soon as he was seen at a window, at the same time singing religious hymns. This fanatical enthusiasm of the Hindus for his person Akbar knew how to retain not only by actual benefits but also by small, well calculated devices.
[Footnote 17: Badaoni in Noer, II, 320.]
It is a familiar fact that the Hindus considered the Ganges to be a holy river and that cows were sacred animals. Accordingly we can easily understand Akbar's purpose when we learn that at every meal he drank regularly of water from the Ganges (carefully filtered and purified to be sure) calling it "the water of immortality,"[18] and that later he forbade the slaughtering of cattle and eating their flesh.[19] But Akbar did not go so far in his connivance with the Hindus that he considered all their customs good or took them under his protection. For instance he forbade child marriages among the Hindus, that is to say the marriage of boys under sixteen and of girls under fourteen years, and he permitted the remarriage of widows. The barbaric customs of Brahmanism were repugnant to his very soul. He therefore most strictly forbade the slaughtering of animals for purposes of sacrifice, the use of ordeals for the execution