The Jesuits and the Great Mughal

Being interested in comparative religious studies, which included the study of all religions, Akbar had invited some Jesuit missionaries to his court. This is an account of what happened next.

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The Jesuits chosen to answer the Emperor's call were Rudolf Aquaviva as leader of the expedition, Antonio Monserrate as its historian, and Francisco Henriques as interpreter, because in spite of his Portuguese name he was a genuine Persian and a former Mohammedan. Henriques, however, does not count, for the others soon discovered to their great embarrassment that he had forgotten whatever he once knew of the Persian language, the Latin of the Mogul Empire.

The journey by ship and caravan to Fatehpur Sikri began on November 17th, 1579, and was crowded with such adventures and hardships as explain the original identity of the words "travel" and "travail." At Surat the caravan halted for nearly a month because in the opinion of the Moham- medan guides there was something wrong with the looks of the moon, but on January 24th they started again, "greatly to the delight of the Fathers, who did not approve of this delay and its superstitious cause, and were inexpressibly eager to reach the King's court, for they were confident that he would embrace Christianity."7 The route lay by Mandu, Ujjain, Sarangpur, Sironj, Narwar, Gwalior and Dholpur, all of which places and the religious customs of their peoples Monserrate describes with equal fidelity and distaste. He had not come to praise Zoroastrianism, Hinduism or Mohammedanism, but, so far as in him lay, to bury them.

At last, towards the end of February, Sikri bloomed suddenly out of the sand before them like a gigantic rose, where-upon "the Fathers gave hearty thanks to the Eternal God who had 4 Chiefly among the low-caste, half-savage pearl fishers of Cape Comorin, on whom he expended so much devotion that they developed into grand Christians, in many cases rose to wealth and eminence, and are today a bulwark of the Church in India.

brought them safe to their destination, and then began to gaze with the keenest delight upon the great size and magnificent appearance of the city." Their entry caused a sensation but they were not embarrassed by the staring, questioning crowds. It may be doubted whether Father Aquaviva even noticed the crowds, or the lovely fountains and jasmine gardens which made the city a fairy-land. His eyes were turned inwards on a beautiful dream—Akbar's baptism and the mass conversion of the teeming millions who regarded him almost as a god. The first item on the Em-) peror's programme for the entertainment of his visitors was to introduce them to his wives, which must have been a long ceremony, as Monserrate says that he possessed more than three hundred such ladies. However, like Babur his grandfather, the woman he loved best in the world was his old mother.

But the wives, as Monserrate quickly sensed, constituted an argument against Christianity not so easily to be demolished by texts or syllogisms, and that fact added new fuel to his already intense Spanish detestation of "the worthless Mohammed," that "precious prophet." Akbar showed the Fathers every courtesy, even dressing as a Portuguese in "a scarlet cloak with gold fastenings" to make them feel at home. The very first evening he pressed them to accept a gift of 800 pieces of gold, which they refused, to his great admiration and astonishment. They were delighted with their kindly reception, and despite the three hundred wives, "were conducted rejoicing to their quarters, for they were persuaded that these signs foretold the speedy conversion of the King to the true religion and the worship of Christ."

On March 3rd they took Akbar their big present, a magnificent polyglot Bible in seven volumes, one of which he reverently kissed and placed upon his head. Then he invited them to his private apartments "where he opened the volumes with great reverency and joy." But genius though he was, he could not read a line of his own or any language, nor so much as write his own name. Tutors he had had in plenty as a boy, but he evaded all their efforts to instruct him and grew up a magnificent sportsman, incorrigibly illiterate. Yet then, at thirty-eight, he had acquired vast stores of knowledge, for there was nothing that he loved better than to pick other men's brains and listen to their discussions. He there-fore at once invited the Jesuits to engage in debates with the Moslem doctors at his Court, which, having been brought up on such tourneys at home, they enthusiastically agreed to do.

The sessions were held at night in the Hall of Worship, Akbar presiding, seated cross-legged on a divan in the midst of the magnificent Mogul grandees whose silks and jewelled turbans and ropes of pearls flashed in the light of a hundred lanterns. To judge by his report of the proceedings, Father Monserrate's eyes flashed also, for as a Spaniard he had a heavy score to settle with that "impious villain and rascally impostor Mohammed."

Akbar, whose own allegiance to Mohammed had been for some time steadily waning, generally took the side of the Fathers in the lively argument, as did his "Jonathan" and historian, Abul Fazl, but both felt obliged to warn their proteges against unduly provoking the mullahs, who were dangerous men. Worsted in debate, the Moslems challenged the "Nazarene sages" to an ordeal by fire, which proposal the Emperor warmly seconded because, like a much worse king of old, he "hoped to see some sign wrought," and at the same time to get rid of a particularly obnoxious mullah by persuading him to enter the flames.


Finding Father Aquaviva obdurate against such a tempting of Providence, and hoping to save at least the second part of his scheme, Akbar said : "Well, then agree to this. I myself will loudly announce that you will ascend the pyre. You shall remain silent." To which Aquaviva replied : "If you make this announcement publicly, 0 King, we shall as publicly declare that we will do no such thing." Whereupon, adds Monserrate, the nobles standing around "applauded with remarkable enthusiasm." It may be doubted whether the King of Kings and Shadow of God at whose frown sultans and rajahs quailed had ever before heard such language, yet the incident and many others like it, including outspoken lectures on the irregularities of his private life, seemed but to increase his esteem and even affection for Aquaviva and Monserrate, those two babes in the very dark wood, armed only with their integrity and the slogan of their crusading ancestors, "The Christians are right, the Heathen are wrong."

He lodged them close to his own apartments in the palace, sent them meats from his own table in the hall where pictures of Jesus and Mary looked down upon him as he dined, entrusted them with the education of his second son, whom they instructed by his desire in the first principles of Christianity, and when a council was being held made them sit beside him on the divan. The most intimate of Monserrate's vignettes is of a courtyard, maybe in the moon-light, where two figures are pacing up and down among the flowering jasmin, Akbar "with his arm round Rudolf's shoulders. "8

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