e adopted to attain this end, I
propose to say a few words on a subject which may be said to underlie
the whole question, the conformation of his mind and the manner in
which it was affected by matters relating to the spiritual condition
of mankind. Than this there cannot be any more important
investigation, for it depended entirely on the structure of his mind,
and its power to accept {147} without prejudice, and judge
impartially, views differing from those of his co-religionists,
whether the chief of the Muhammadans, few in number when compared
with the entire community, could so obtain the confidence and
sympathy of the subject race, doomed to eternal perdition in the
thought of all bigoted Musalmans, as to overcome their prejudices to
an extent which, had they been consulted previously, they would have
declared impossible. The period was undoubtedly unfavourable to the
development of what may be called a liberal policy in this matter.

The Muhammadans were not only conquerors, but conquerors who had
spread their religion by the sword. The scorn and contempt with which
the more zealous among them regarded the religion of the Hindus and
those who professed it may be traced in every page of the writings of
Badauni, one of the contemporary historians of the period. Nor was
that scorn confined solely to the Hindu religion. It extended to
every other form of worship and to every other doctrine save that
professed by the followers of Muhammad.

Akbar was born in that creed. But he was born with an inquiring mind,
a mind that took nothing for granted. During the years of his
training he enjoyed many opportunities of noting the good qualities,
the fidelity, the devotion, often the nobility of soul, of those
Hindu princes, whom his courtiers, because they were followers of
Brahma, devoted mentally to eternal torments. He noted that these
men, and men who {148} thought like them, constituted the vast
majority of his subjects. He noted, further, of many of them, and
those the most trustworthy, that though they had apparently much to
gain in a worldly point of view by embracing the religion of the
court, they held fast to their own. His reflective mind, therefore,
was unwilling from the outset to accept the theory that because he,
the conqueror, the ruler, happened to be born a Muhammadan, therefore
Muhammadanism was true for all mankind. Gradually his thoughts found
words in the utterance: 'Why should I claim to guide men be