[Text, vol. ii. p. 261.] Fire-worshippers also came from Nausárí in Gujarát, proclaimed the religion of Zardusht as the true one, and declared reverence to fire to be superior to every other kind of worship. They also attracted the King's regard, and taught him the peculiar terms, the ordinances, the rites and ceremonies of the Kaiánians; and at last he directed that the sacred fire should be made over to the charge of Abú-l Fazl, and that after the manner of the Kings of Persia, in whose temples blazed perpetual fires, he should take care it was never extinguished either by night or day,—for that it is one of the signs of God, and one light from among the many lights of his creation.
From his earliest youth, in compliment to his wives, the daughters of the Rájás of Hind, he had within the female apartments continued to burn the hom, which is a ceremony derived from fire-worship; but on the New-year festival of the 25th year after his accession, he prostrated himself both before the sun and before the fire in public, and in the evening the whole Court had to rise up respectfully when the lamps and candles were lighted.
On the festival of the eighth day after the sun's entering Virgo in this year, he came forth to the public audience-chamber with his forehead marked like a Hindú, and he had jewelled strings tied on his wrist by Bráhmans, by way of a blessing. The chiefs and nobles adopted the same practice in imitation of him, and presented on that day pearls and precious stones, suitable to their respective wealth and station. It became the current custom also to wear the rákhí on the wrist, which means an amulet formed out of twisted linen rags. In defiance and contempt of the true faith, every precept which was enjoined by the doctors of other religions, he treated as manifest and decisive. Those of Islám, on the contrary, were esteemed follies, innovations, inventions of indigent beggars, of rebels, and of highway robbers, and those who professed that religion were set down as contemptible idiots. These sentiments had been long growing up in his mind, and ripened gradually into a firm conviction of their truth.