[Footnote 42:  In Noer, II, 409.]

  [Footnote 43:  In Noer, II, 347, 348.]

“But since obscurantists consider prostration to be a blasphemous adoration of man, His Majesty in his practical wisdom has commanded that it be put an end to with ignorant people of all stations and also that it shall not be practiced even by his trusted servants on public court days.  Nevertheless if people upon whom the star of good fortune has shone are in attendance at private assemblies and receive permission to be seated, they may perform the prostration of gratitude by bowing their foreheads to the earth and so share in the rays of good fortune.  So forbidding prostration to the people at large and granting it to the select the Emperor fulfils the wishes of both and gives the world an example of practical wisdom.”

The desire to unite his subjects as much as possible finally impelled Akbar to the attempt to equalize religious differences as well.  Convinced that religions did not differ from each other in their innermost essence, he combined what in his opinion were the essential elements and about the year 1580 founded a new religion, the famous Din i Ilahi, the “religion of God.”  This religion recognizes only one God, a purely spiritual universally efficient being from whom the human soul is derived and towards which it tends.  The ethics of this religion comprises the high moral requirements of Sufism and Parsism:  complete toleration, equality of rights among all men, purity in thought, word and deed.  The demand of monogamy, too, was added later.  Priests, images and temples,—­Akbar would have none of these in his new religion, but from the Parsees he took the worship of the fire and of the sun as to him light and its heat seemed the most beautiful symbol of the divine spirit.[44] He also adopted the holy cord of the Hindus and wore upon his forehead the colored token customary among them.  In this eclectic manner he accommodated himself in a few externalities to the different religious communities existing in his kingdom.

  [Footnote 44:  M. Elphinstone, 524.]

Doubtless in the foundation of his Din i Ilahi Akbar was not pursuing merely ideal ends but probably political ones as well, for the adoption of the new religion signified an increased loyalty to the Emperor.  The novice had to declare himself ready to yield to the Emperor his property, his life, his honor, and his former faith, and in reality the adherents of the Din i Ilahi formed a clan of the truest and most devoted servitors of the Emperor.  It may not be without significance that soon after the establishment of the Din i Ilahi a new computation of time was introduced which dated from the accession of Akbar to the throne in 1556.

After the new religion had been in existence perhaps five years the number of converts began to grow by the thousands but we can say with certainty that the greater portion of these changed sides not from conviction but on account of worldly advantage, since they saw that membership in the new religion was very advantageous to a career in the service of the state.[45] By far the greatest number of those who professed the Din i Ilahi observed only the external forms, privately remaining alien to it.