Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/172

Rh 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 Rájpútána, 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 Rájá Bihárí Mall of Ambar, was on a mission to the grandees of Bengal, news reached