Write short notes on the following:

(a) Painting during Akbar’s reign.

(b) Akbar’s religious policy.

(c) Akbar’s social and educational reforms.

(a) Painting during Akbar's reign — During Akbar's reign, painting was organised in royal karkhanas, where painters from different parts of the country used to make beautiful paintings. These artists blended the Persian and Indian style of paintings. The scenes depicted in these paintings included hunting and court scenes in peacock blue and red colours. Paintings were also used for illustrating Persian books. The most important work on painting in this era was Dastan-i-Amir-Hamza or Hamzanama which has about 1200 paintings. Jaswant and Daswant were the two famous painters of Akbar’s court.

(b) Akbar's religious policy — Akbar followed a policy of religious tolerance and believed in administering equal justice to the followers of all religions. He took a number of measures to provide equal rights to all citizens, irrespective of their religious beliefs.

1. He abolished Jizya, the tax collected from non-Muslims and the pilgrim tax on bathing at holy places such as Prayag and Banaras.
2. He treated all his subjects equally, gave high posts according to merit without any distinction of caste, creed or religion.
3. He married Rajput princesses and allowed them freedom to practise their own faith. He also allowed them to celebrate festivals like Diwali and Holi and himself used to take part in these festivals.
4. He gave land grants to persons of merit, irrespective of their religious belief.

(c) Akbar's social and educational reforms — During Akbar’s reign, a number of social and educational reforms took place.

1. 'Sati' pratha was abolished and widow remarriage was legalised.
2. Age of marriage was raised to 14 for girls and 16 for boys.
3. Sale of wine and spirits was restricted.
4. Akbar revised the educational syllabus and laid more stress on moral education and on secular subjects rather than on religion and theology.
5. Akbar set up a translation department for translating works in Sanskrit, Arabic and Greek.