It is also probable that Akbar, who saw and
heard everything, had learned of the horrors of the Inquisition at
Goa. Moreover, the clearness of Akbar's vision for the realities of
national life had too often put him on his guard to permit him to look
upon the introduction of Christianity, however highly esteemed by him
personally, as a blessing for India. He had broken the power of Islam
in India; to overthrow in like manner the second great religion of his
empire, Brahmanism, to which the great majority of his subjects clung
with body and soul, and then in place of both existing religions to
introduce a third foreign religion inimically opposed to them--such a
procedure would have hurled India into an irremediable confusion and
destroyed at one blow the prosperity of the land which had been
brought about by the ceaseless efforts of a lifetime. For of course it
was not the aim of the Jesuits simply to win Akbar personally to
Christianity but they wished to see their religion made the state
religion of this great empire.
As has been already suggested, submission to Christianity would also
have been opposed to Akbar's inmost conviction. He had climbed far
enough up the stony path toward truth to recognize all religions as
historically developed and as the products of their time and the land
of their origin.
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