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80 the land, as a pageant, carrying in its train a moveable city, from one halting-place to another, to be set up under canvas in each camping ground.

For half a century during the reign of Akbar, the first and greatest of the Great Mughals, the country had enjoyed the best administration ever known in India under native rule, within historic times. Repression of armed injustice, enforcement of equitable procedure, toleration in religion, discouragement of persecuting bigotry, vindication of individual liberty under the bans and prohibitions of custom, moderation in the demand and collection of the land revenue, respect for the proprietary right of the people in the soil — caused the reign of Akbar to be surrounded with a halo that ought not to be dimmed even by the lapse of time. His guide, philosopher and friend, was Abul Fazl the Moslem, a name which stands second only to his own as regards nobility of conduct. But his great minister was a Hindu, namely Todar Mall, whose survey of village lands all over the country, whose assessment of the land tax, and whose registry of rights and interests are to this day remembered. After Akbar's death, this beneficent system went on for a while under his son Jahángír. But it fell off during Jahángír's reign, and still more under that of his son Sháh Jahán. It was restored partially for a time under his son Aurangzeb.

When Aurangzeb, the last of the effectively powerful though not the last of the titular Great Mughals, died at the very beginning of the eighteenth century,