Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/341

 AKBAR AND SUN-WORSHIP 287 Prince Murad to learn a few lessons from the Gospel and to treat it with all due respect, while Shaikh Abu-1- Fazl was directed to translate it. On the other hand, Birbal the Hindu tried to per- suade the king that since the sun gives light to all, and ripens all grain, fruits, and products of the earth, and supports the life of mankind, that luminary should be the object of worship and veneration; that the face should be turned toward the rising, not toward the setting, sun; that man should venerate fire, water, stones, trees, and all natural objects, even down to cows and their dung; and that he should adopt the frontal mark and the Brahmanical cord. Several wise men at court confirmed what he said by representing that the sun was the chief light of the world and the benefactor of its inhabitants, that it was a friend to kings and that monarchs established periods and eras in conformity with its motions. This was the cause of the worship paid to the sun on the New Year of the Persian emperor Jalal-ad-din, and the reason why he had been induced to adopt that festival for the cele- bration of his accession to the throne. Every day, therefore, Akbar used to put on clothes of the particular colour which accorded with that of the regent planet of the day. He began also, at midnight and at early dawn, to mutter the spells which the Hindus taught him for the purpose of subduing the sun to his wishes. He prohibited the slaughter of cows and the eating of their flesh, because the Hindus devoutly worship them and esteem their dung as pure. He likewise declared