AKBAR THE GREAT UNIFIER

On the morning of 31 August 1573, 3,000 horsemen of the imperial Mughal army paused at the banks of the river, Sabarmati. The rebels they were after lay just beyond the swollen river, but the soldiers were exhausted: they'd traversed 960 kilometres of difficult terrain in nine days, riding almost continuously.

Suddenly a warrior on a chestnut charger plunged into the raging torrent. As man and horse struggled on to the opposite bank, a thrill ran through the army. It was the emperor, Jalal-ud-din Akbar! With a roar the soldiers followed him across and within two days they had put down the rebellion so thoroughly that Gujarat remained in Mughal hands for the next 185 years.

Physical Prowess.

Few could have foreseen Akbar's place in history when he was born in Sind on November 23,1542. (Later, to frustrate hostile astrologers, the date was officially changed to October 15.) His father Humayun was then on the run, having been defeated by the Afghan Sher Shah. Humayun's father, the Turkish warlord Babur, had swept down from Afghanistan in the 1520s and established a loosely knit empire in northern India, but by 1540 Humayun, a clever but unstable man, had lost it all.

Humayun was so poor at the time of Akbar's birth that he didn't have money to celebrate. So he broke a pod of musk and distributed the pieces among his few followers saying wistfully that he hoped that the boy's fame would one day expand over the world just as the smell of musk now filled the tent. Few fond parental hopes have proved as prophetic.

A few months after Akbar's birth, Humayun crossed over into Persia, to seek Shah Tahmasp's help in regaining his kingdom. Akbar, meanwhile, was left behind and raised by his uncles.

The young prince's spirit and strength soon became evident. At the age of three, after Akbar had quarrelled with his cousin Ibrahim over a pair of kettledrums, his uncle arranged a wrestling match between the two boys. Akbar swaggered into the arena, dressed like a pahahvan and downed Ibrahim - 18 months his elder - in less than a minute. As he grew older his physical strength increased. When he was 19, he killed a tiger with a single stroke of his sword.

NAMASTE

Empress Salima Sultan , 2nd wife of the Emperor Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar