192 H HOSTEN ON 



ing to the father, said : ' Oh, Mr. moosafir [traveller] and respected merchant, will 

 you give me or not your son, so that I may adopt him, for I have no son ? ' Mr. Jacob 

 having bowed replied : c My lord King, live for ever. Although I and mine are your 

 servants, yet I shall not give him willingly, for I am an Armenian by nationality and 

 a Christian, and you are a Turk and Mohammedan ; if I were to give you my child 

 and you make him a Mohammedan, I shall be disgraced amongst my own people and 

 they will upbraid me by saying that either for money or through force I gave my 

 son to the King.' The King was greatly pleased at this pious and fearless reply, and 

 he swore that he would never interfere with the religion of either the child or the 

 parents. f Remain firm in your religion,' he said, f I shall be exceedingly glad; 

 but, as I have no child, I shall adopt this child.' 



Ci Then he ordered that, dressed in regal robes, they should be taken to his 

 palace and that the child be kept in every kind of comfort as his son as long as he 

 remained in Kashmir. Then, when he returned to Akbarabad [Agra], he took with 

 him this very adopted Qulqurnell with his parents and there gave to Mr. Jacob for 

 his residence a place near the Seakhana ' (or Armoury) of the King. He then ordered 

 that they should build a Church, have an Armenian priest brought out and follow 

 the r ancestral faith. Hearing this, there came to Akbarabad from Julfa an Archi- 

 mandrite, 2 a priest and many Armenian families, who were very well received by the 

 King, who granted them 5000 bigahs of land at Akbarabad for building houses, 

 gardens, farms and other important places. But Qulqurnell, the adopted son of the 

 King, was always at the Palace, where he was a great favourite of both the King and 

 the Queens, and you may say he was being taken from the arms of one to another. 



" God knows how to make his beloved respected before foreign nations, because the 

 King was kind enough to allow an Armenian child to remain pure in his religion and 

 for h's sake show respect to his nation; therefore God too was pleased to reward him 

 according to his wishes ; hence, in the year 1563, on the 17th of Rabi-ul-avval, He gave 

 the King a ma'e child, from his favourite Queen, and he was called Mir Salim Salathin, 

 that is to say, heir-apparent. The mighty Emperor too was not unaware of this divine 

 favour, for it is said that he would always say, ' CxoJ looked at me and gave me this 

 my second child through the coming of the Armenians and my favourite son Qulqur- 

 nell.' And thus the two children growing up together were verjr fond of each other, 

 and the King seeing their innocent love was exceedingly pleased. 



" When Qulqurnell came of age, Akbar gave him landed properties, namely Jagirs, 

 the town of Hooghly in Bengal, the province or pergannah of Samar [Sambhar] in 

 the district of Akbarabad, whence comes good salt, and the country of Punjab in 

 Lahore. Then Qulqurnell commenced building himself grand palaces with shops all 

 round, and he had jewellers, that is Johurris," whom he occupied, for they say he 

 himself was very fond of buying and selling precious stones. It seems he was by 



1 Silah-khana. 



2 There is question of an Armenian Bishop who, unab e to proceed to Malabar by sea for fear of the Tortuguese, went 

 to North India by Persia, but died on the journey in or before 1600. His books were robbed and came by and by into 

 J. Xavier's possession. Cf. Antonio CoiAfo, S.J., Relcifam Annul. . . .de 600. y 601 (Translated from Pr. Guerreiro's Por- 

 tuguese Relaxant), Valladolid, 1604, p. 60. — H. H., S.J. 3 Jaaliari — jeweller. 



