Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/66

44 mans on his wrists to represent the sacred thread. He was not above charms and sortileges. He studied alchemy as well as astronomy, and is reported to have exhibited the gold he had professedly transmuted, and he took boundless interest in the tricks and miracles both of the Hindu ascetics, or yogis, and of the Moslem fakirs.

The truth is that Akbar was singularly sensitive to religious impressions of every kind, and that his new religion, the Din-i-Ilahi, or "divine faith," an eclectic pantheism, contained elements taken from very diverse creeds. While overthrowing nearly every ceremonial rule, whether of Islam or of Hinduism, and making almost all things lawful save excess, he took ideas from learned Brahmans as well as from Portuguese missionaries; he adopted the worship of the sun as the symbol of the Creator, and himself daily set the example of "adoring Him the Timeless in the flame that measures Time"; as the starting-point of his new Ilahi era he introduced the solar year which begins at the vernal equinox; he forbade cow-eating, in deference to Indians, and had himself ceremonially weighed in Hindu fashion on both his solar and his lunar birthday; he instituted the sacred fire adored of the Parsis, and encouraged the hom sacrifice of the Hindus in his palace. The new cult was cordially professed only by a small band of courtiers calling themselves "the elect," and including Faizi, Abu-l-Fazl, and other Persians, chiefly poets, as well as one Hindu, Birbal, but the rest, even of the court, remained indifferent, when