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NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
which were brought to bear on His Majesty, there grew gradually, as the outline on a stone, the conviction in his heart that there were sensible men in all religions, and abstemious thinkers, and men endowed with miraculous powers, among all nationo. If some true knowledge was thus everywhere to be found, why should truth be confined to one religion, or a creed like the Islám, which was comparatively new, and scarcely a thousand years old ? why should one sect assert what another denies ? and why should one claim a preference without having superiority conferred on itself?
Moreover Sumanís' and Brahmins managed to get frequent private interviews with His Majesty. As they surpass other learned men in their treatises on morals, and on physical and religious sciences, and reach a high degree in their knowledge of the future, in spiritual power and human perfection, they brought proofs, based on reason and testimony, for the truth of their own, and the fallacies of other religions, and inculcated their doctrines so firmly, and so skilfully represented things as quite self-evident which require consideration, that no man, by expressing his doubts, could now raise a doubt in His Majesty, even if mountains were to crumble to dust, or the heavens were to tear asunder.
Hence His Majesty cast aside the Islamitic revelations regarding resurrection, the day of judgment, and the details connected with it, as also all ordinarices based on the tradition of our prophet. He listened to every abuse which the courtiers heaped on our glorious and pure faith, which can be so easily followed ; and eagerly seizing such opportunities, he showed, in words and gestures, his satisfaction at the treatment which his original religion received at their hands.
1 Explained in Arab. Dictionaries as a sect in Sind who believe in
1 Tona the transmigration of souls (tanásukh). Akbar, as will be seen from the following, was convinced of the transmigration of souls, and therefore rejected the doctrine of resurrection.
(Is not Sumaní here meant for Samana, i.e. Sramana ?-M.M.
