Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/160

Rh he was induced to reconsider his resolve to lead a life 'of proud retirement.' He was then only twenty-three, but he had exhausted the sources of knowledge available in his own country. To use his own words: 'My mind had no rest, and my heart felt itself drawn to the sages of Mongolia or to the hermits on Lebanon; I longed for interviews with the Llámás of Tibet or with the pádris of Portugal, and I would gladly sit with the priests of the Pársís and the learned of the Zend-ávestá. I was sick of the learned of my own land.'

From this period he was attached to the court, and there arose between himself and Akbar one of those pure friendships founded on mutual esteem and mutual sympathy, which form the delight of existence. In the Emperor Abulfazl found the aptest of pupils. Amid the joys of the chase, the cares of governing, the fatigues of war, Akbar had no recreation to be compared to the pleasure of listening to the discussions between his much regarded friend and the bigoted Muhammadan doctors of law and religion who strove to confute him. These discourses constituted a great event in his reign. It is impossible to understand the character of Akbar without referring to them somewhat minutely. Akbar did not suddenly imbibe those principles of toleration and of equal government for all, the enforcement of which marks an important era in the history of India. For the first twenty years of his reign he had to conquer to maintain his power. With the representatives of dispossessed dynasties in Bengal, in Behar, in Orissa, in