1896.] KE. D. Maclagan—Jesuit Missions to the Emperor Akbar. 5 
rat ;! and it was during one of these lessons that the incident related 
by Badauni (page 41 above) is said by the Fathers to have taken place. 
The Jesuit version is that the Prince in writing Portuguese was taught 
to begin with the words ‘In the name of God’ and that when the 
Emperor heard this he at once ordered him to add the words ‘and ef 
Jesus Christ, the true Prophet and’Son of Ged.’ 
The Emperor allowed the Fathers full liberty to preach and to make 
conversions. When a Portuguese died at Court the Emperor allowed him 
to be buried with all publicity, a large precession marching through 
the town with crucifixes and lighted tapers. He also allowed the 
Fathers to build a hospital out of the subscriptions collected from 
Portuguese residents, and to conduct what would now be called a ‘ medical 
mission’. In matters of difficulty he bade them consult Aba-l-fazl and 
confide their troubles to him as they would to himself. Abi-l-fazl, we 
are told, sought instruction from them regarding the faith, but the 
Fathers doubted ‘whether he did so in order to embrace Christianity or 
in order to please the Emperor and be able to give him information on 
the subject as occasion offered.’ In any case the fathers received many 
favours from him, as also from the Emperor’s physician. ? 
Meantime there were constant disputes with the Muhammadans. We 
have but to read the letter® sent by Aquaviva to the Rector at Goa in 
September 1580 to see how unswerving, and even rancorous, was the 
abhorrence felt towards Islam by that enthusiastic priest. ‘They call 
Jesus a prophet,’ he writes, ‘they deny him the title of Son of God. I 
know not such a Jesus. I cannot speak of Jesus save as God’s Son. 
But when to soothe my spirit I say ‘ Jesus Christ the Sor of God,’ then 
is my affliction multiplied, for one cries out ‘ Stafarla’ [Istaghfaru-llah | 
an exclamation of disgust: another closes his eyes: one laughs, another 
blasphemes.’ And so on. We can imagine Badauni’s attitude !—The 
details of these public disputes have been in some measure preserved, 
and we learn how Father Rodolfi attacked the morals of Muhammad, 
the material pleasures of his paradise, the want of continuity between 
the Hebrew scriptures and Muhammad’s revelation, and so forth. All 
this was put forward with so much zeal that the Emperor had privately 
to warn the Father to be more temperate, and there seems to have been 
little enough of the calmness so praised by Abu-l-fazl in the passage 
quoted at p. 42 above. As regards the ordeal by fire, however, (p. 41 
above) the Jesuit version of the story is that the idea originated 
with the Emperor himself and that the Christian Fathers had the good 
! ‘Ventura’ in Noer II. 331 seems to be a mistake for ‘ Monserrat.’ 
2 We have no means apparently of identifying this physician. 
3 Bartoli, Missione p. 197. 
