Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/14

8 challenge comparison with the greatest of European kings. He was himself the spring and fount of the sagacious policy of his government, and the proof of the soundness of his system is the duration of his undiminished empire, in spite of the follies and vices of his successors, until it was undone by the puritan reaction of his great-grandson Aurangzíb.

Akbar's main difficulties lay in the diversity and jealousies of the races and religions with which he had to deal. It was his method of dealing with those difficulties which established the Mughal Empire in all the power and splendour that marked its sway for a hundred years to come. It was Aurangzíb's reversal of this method which undid his ancestor's work and prepared the way for the downfall of his dynasty.

Akbar had not studied the history of India in vain. He had realized from its lessons that, if his dynasty was to keep its hold on the country and withstand the onslaught of fresh hordes of invaders, it must rest on the loyalty of the native Hindús who formed the bulk of the population, supplied the quota of the army, and were necessarily entrusted with most of the civil employments. His aim was to found a national empire with the aid of a national religion. 'He accordingly constructed a State Religion, catholic enough, as he thought, to be acceptable to all his subjects. Such a scheme of a universal religion had, during two hundred years, been the dream of Hindú reformers, and the text of wandering preachers