62 E. D. Maclagan — Jesuit Missions to the Emperor Akbar. [No. 1, 
The following is the account of the receipt of this invitation, written 
by the Provincial in his report of November 1590! :— 
‘Tt is now nearly nine years since the Great Mogul Akbar summoned 
to his Court some Fathers of the Society of Jesus, including Father Rodolfi 
Aquaviva. The same Prince has now in this year, under God’s guiding, 
again written to the Viceroy at Goa, asking for Fathers for his Court and 
using the same arguments as before. The letter was brought by a Greek 
sub-deacon of the name of Leo Grimon, who while returning to his country 
happened to go aside to the Court of the Mughal and the Emperor hoping 
thereby to attain his end added presents for the Viceroy and the College, 
and some even for the Father Provincial. He desired besides to load the 
sub-deacon with 5000 gold pieces for the poor of Goa, and when the latter 
suggested that the Emperor had poor in his own kingdom on whom the 
money could be spent, he answered that he would never waste money on 
slaves of the devil. But when the sub-deacon drew attention to the risk 
he would run in carrying this amount of money over so great a distance 
of road, the Mogul ordered him to be given precious stones and other 
articles of the value of 2000 gold pieces and the amount was distributed 
to the poor at Goa, who were then much in want. He also sent to the 
Viceroy at Cambay an order (of which a copy is enclosed)? to the affect 
that the Fathers when passing through Cambay to his Court, shuuld be 
treated courteously and furnished with a guard and rations. And from 
what the sub-deacon tells us at Goa, it appears that this excellent Emperor 
is most anxious to establish the fundamental truths of Christianity, and 
has induced the Prince his son, and his chief general to hold the same views. 
On the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin he held a festival, 
setting forth in an elevated situation the picture of the Virgin which Father 
Rodolfi and his companions had given him, and called on his relations and 
courtiers to kiss the picture with due reverence. They had asked that 
the Prince his son should do so and he consented with the greatest alacrity. 
The Emperor turned all the mosques of the city where he lived into stables 
for elephants or horses, on the pretence of preparation for war. Soon 
however, he destroyed the Alcorans’ (which are the turrets from which 
the priests call with loud voices on Muhammad), saying that if the mosques 
could no longer be used for prayer there was no need for the turrets: 
and this he did in his hatred for the Muhammadan sect and in his affection 
for the Gospel. The sub-deacon also said that the name of Muhammad was 
as hated at the Mughal’s Court as in Christendom, and that the Emperor had 
restricted himself to one wife, turning out the rest and distributing them 
among his courtiers. Moreover that he had passed a law that no Muham- 
madan was to circumcise his son before the fifteenth year of his age, and 
that the sons should be at liberty on attaining years of discretion to embrace 
what religion they chose. 
1 Spitilli, Brevis et compendiosa narratio. 
2 See above. 
8 An error for Manars. Other writers of the period make the same mistake. 
