The Brahman, Parsi and the Mussulman, The Buddhist and the Jew his word obeyed; Conflicting claims of hostile tribes and states Impartial justice, wise administration found. Full measure and just weight to all alike Within the market-places were proclaimed. Throughout the empire well-built roads did serve The lonely traveler and the caravan;
The highway robber and the petty thief
In vain sought refuge from the keen-eyed law. Reluctant maid no more was wed perforce,
Nor 'gainst her will need widow mount the pyre. Not all preoccupied by state affairs,
Great Akbar prized the fruits of intellect,
The painter's vivid portraiture of life,
The sculptor's chiseled block, the poet's dream, While the creations of his architects Evoked before the spellbound gazer's eye The dazzling beauty of Alhambra's halls Or marvels of the Eastern Caliphate. Constructions vast as the Cyclopes reared. They seemed the work of a Titanic hand; Yet decorations delicate bewrayed Artistic goldsmith, lapidary deft.
Like birds with wings outspread, the palaces, In labyrinthine courts and colonnades, With shady groves and cooling fountains girt, Recalled what time their nomad ancestors, A tented tribe, with nature did consort. The blue enamel roofs did simulate Celestial azure; on the walls of stone, Sculptured in bold relief, stood forth to view. The pomegranate, the grape, and every vine And fruit and blossom that the tropics yield. In plentitude of life and might, aware
No human king the King of Terror stays,
Where bloomed Sikandra's gardens, Akbar reared Palatial mausoleum to abide
Imperishable witness to his fame;
In mingled Arabesque and Buddhist styles, Symbolic of the toleration broad
Enjoyed by votaries of every faith
That lodgment found within his empire vast.
To Akbar's catholic and cultured court,
From north and south, from east and west, repaired
The pilgrim, scholar, and the merchantman.
Of whatsoever men of every race
Were thinking, doing, saying, tidings came;
E'en rumor told of Albion's Queen Bess
And lands new found o'er evening's purpled tide.
'Tis Islam's Sabbath; on this holy eve,
The moon, enskied in full-orbed brilliancy, Effuses floods of mellow radiance
To enhance the emerald hue of field and grove, And shed a silver sheen o'er lake and stream.
Within the boscage trills the nightingale, While from far jungle sounds the tiger's roar. The Town of Victory which, from her proud height Surveys the fertile lowlands, groves and streams, Is in a rare effulgency enwrapped.
The slender minarets and walls inlaid
Gleam with the lustre of Golconda's gems.
. Within the royal hall of audience,
The Emperor is seated on his throne, Surrounded by his gay and brilliant court, To hear expositors of divers faiths
Set forth the merits of their several creeds. The Moslem Mollah, gaudily attired; The Parsi priest, in flowing, snow-white robe; The Buddhist monk, in yellow vesture clad; The Twice-born Brahman with the sacred cord; The Jew in all his pride of lineage;
Are present to address this court august
As champions of their respective faiths.
The Vizier silence now proclaims and says:
Your Emperor, in royal purple dight, Extends his sceptre, as a sign of grace,
And deigns to hearken to your spoken words, While promising to be impartial judge.
With the permission of his majesty,
In order due, set your religions forth.
The Moslem, taking up the proffered word, Relates the necessary duties five
Imposed on Mussulmans by the Koran: Belief in Allah, one and only God, Omnipotent, omniscient, everywhere, And in his holy prophet Mahomet; Due distribution to the poor of alms, And fasting in the month of Ramadan From daybreak till the going-down of sun; Prayer with the face to holy Mecca turned, At dawn, noon, afternoon, at eve and night, Announced by the muezzin from the mosque ; The Hajj to Mecca and the Kaaba shrine, Obligatory once in life on all. Usury, wine, and every game of chance, Making the likeness of whate'er hath life, Are to the followers of the Faith forbid.
In Paradise, the least of the redeemed, 'Mid sweetest music, fragrances most rare, Shall be in costliest of raiment clad, And evermore on luscious viands feast, While those to whom most recompense is due, Throughout an endless day that knows no night, The Beatific Vision shall behold.
The Parsi priest, whose ancestry of yore, Amid the fair Iranian hills and dales, Like sunflowers turned to greet the orb of day. Proclaims the sacred and Protean fire An emblem of Ahura Mazda's might. At war with Ahriman, the power of ill, From the beginning; in the latter days Will Ormazd found a realm of righteousness And all Hell's opposition overthrow.
To purity of thought and word and deed, The prophet Zarathustra recommends The soul devout, to reverence of the good, Dread of the Evil One, and charity.
The Buddhist next the might of Karma tells Which predetermines each successive link Within that misery-entailing chain
Of mortal births which men must undergo Until Nirvana be through virtue gained. Desire is the engenderer of pain;
Pain may be ended through the Eightfold Path Revealed to Buddh beneath the peepul-tree; Right judgment, language, purpose, practice, faith. Right meditation, effort, and right thought. To abstain from lying, thieving, homicide, And show unlimited unselfishness,
Such was the message Gautama addressed
To castes and outcasts hanging on his lips,
And seeking a release from mortal ills.
The Brahman with o'erweening pride of caste, In Vedas, Brahmanas, Upanishads,
And philosophic systems erudite,
Takes up in turn apologetic speech.
Amid the multiplicity of gods
And worship rendered beasts and stocks and stones
By the unlettered proletariat,
The truly philosophical discern
A single, all-pervading deity.
Constrained to sojourn here in many lives, The true believer, as the highest goal
Of life and conduct meritorious And end of self, a reabsorption seeks Into the Atman, Brahma, the All-soul. The Song of the Celestial One reveals
Its special line of duty to each caste; To reverence, rectitude and purity, Religiousness of act and speech and mind, Doth Krishna, avatar of Brahm, incite. Before th'august, imperial divan,
As last apologist stands forth the Jew, Declaring how Elohim viewed the world, Newly create, to find that all was good, But man through sin from Paradise did fall And forfeited his sonship in the skies Unless atonement with his God be made. With waxing eloquence, the speaker paints The great historic moments of his race: How Moses did receive, 'mid lightning flash And thunder peal, on Sinai's lofty head The God-writ marble tablets of the Law. And taught of Yahveh, theocratic king, Founded the commonwealth of Israel; Egyptian bondage, desert wanderings o'er, The welcome entrance to that Promised Land Where milk and honey for God's folk should flow;
The golden age of Hebrew monarchy
Beneath the sway benign of Solomon,
For wisdom far as Sheba's borders famed;
The splendor of Moriah's temple cult,
With sound of trumpet, psaltery, flute and harp,
With purple-girdled priests that serve in course With altar smoke conveying to the skies
A savor grateful unto the Most High; Within the Holiest, behind the veil, The luminous Shekinah brooding o'er The winged cherubim and Mercy-seat; The Babylonian captivity,
The imposition of the yoke of Rome,
The desolation of Jerusalem,
And the dispersal through the ethnic tribes;
Yet how a new Jerusalem will rise,
To be the marvel of the latter days,
So that all nations from earth's utmost bounds
With gladsome footsteps Zionward shall haste. The speaking o'er, the Emperor applauds
The eloquence the orators have shown. While pleased to note the jealous eagerness With which each champions his special faith, A higher pleasure has his mind received, Since, 'neath exterior diversity, Appears a common faith in might unseen, A common code of duties ethical. As from his presence he dismisses now The orators and members of his court,
He would exhort his subjects, one and all, To banish from their minds, with firm resolve, Religious, race and caste antipathy,
To seek the welfare of the commonweal, And in fraternal harmony to dwell.
Upon the coral strand of Malabar,
Engirt with spice-trees and with cocoa-palms, The Lusitanian emporium
Of Goa vies in brilliancy of life
With Mogul Agra, Delhi, Fathipur.
Da Gama found the ocean highway there, While Albuquerque by his sword acquired A second Portugal in India
And second Lisbon, the renown of which Inspired the epic muse of Camoens. To Goa came the holy Xavier,
To preach to Ind the Tidings of Great Joy, And thence embarking for the farther east, He sought to win by his apostolate, For Holy Church, Zipangu and Cathay.
To Akbar's court have travelers brought report Of white-winged fleets that crowd its busy docks, Or with rich cargoes sail for western seas; Of marshalled troops assembled for parade, And prancing chargers rich caparisoned;
Of Goanese hidalgoes congregate
Within the Viceroy's palace to enjoy
The feast's good cheer or whirl in merry dance:
Of the cathedral ceremonial,
The swelling music echoing through the aisles, The vested priests intoning Latin prayers, And of the mitred metropolitans.
To Goa Akbar sends an embassy,
The choicest of his brilliant entourage, With greeting to the Viceroy and request That he some faithful priests will delegate To preach the Gospel to the Agra folk And to expound the new Christianity. With benison in name of Mother Church, The Viceroy sends an apostolic band With gifts and greetings unto Akbar's court. In Agra now, the cross of Christ is raised; The nave and choir resound with organ peal And with the canticle antiphonal,
And fragrant incense fills the peopled aisles, What time the priest doth consecrate the Host; While holy men, inspired of God, set forth
In the divans the doctrines of the Church,
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