Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/173

166 him that Jai Mall had died at Chausá. Jai Mall had been a great favourite with Akbar, for of all the Rájpútána nobles he had been the first to pay his respects to him, and had ever rendered him true and loyal service. He had married a daughter of Rájá Udai Singh of Jodhpur, a princess possessing great strength of will. When the news of her husband's death reached Ambar she positively refused to become a Satí. Under the orders of the Emperor she had an absolute right to use her discretion. But when she did use it to refuse, the outcry against her, headed by Udai Singh, her son, became so uncontrollable, that it was resolved to force her to the stake. Information of this reached Akbar, and he determined to prevent the outrage. He was just in time, for the pile was already lighted when his agents, one of them the uncle of the deceased, reached the ground, seized Udai Singh, dispersed the assembly, and saved the princess.

Attached as Akbar was to his learned and liberal-minded friends, Faizí and Abulfazl, he encouraged all who displayed a real love for learning, and a true desire to acquire knowledge. He hated pretence and hypocrisy. He soon recognised that these two qualities underlay the professions of the 'Ulamás (Muhammadan doctors of learning) at his court. When he had found them out, he was disgusted with them, and resolved to spare no means of showing up their pretensions.

'He never pardoned,' writes Professor Blochmann, 'pride and conceit in a man, and of all kinds of