Akbar Confers the Title Jagadguru on Hiravijaya Suri

In 1583, the Mughal emperor Akbar conferred the title Jagadguru, teacher of the world, on the Svetambara monk Hiravijaya Suri, three hundred fifty five years after Jagatchandra Suri founded the Tapa Gaccha at Anandpur in 1228, already recorded here, and three hundred twenty two years before Jains built their first temple outside India, in Zanzibar, in 1905, also recorded here. Hiravijaya had traveled on foot from Gujarat to Akbar's court at Fatehpur Sikri in 1582 at the emperor's invitation, joining Muslim, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish representatives Akbar had already begun summoning to debate before him in the Ibadat Khana, the House of Worship, as part of his wider policy of religious inquiry. Akbar granted Hiravijaya's request for a farman prohibiting the slaughter of any living being for the twelve days of the Jain festival of Paryushan across his territories, and a further order lifting the pilgrim tax the state had levied on Jain holy sites including Shatrunjaya, Girnar and Sammed Shikharji. Successive farmans over the following years extended a six month ban on animal slaughter in Gujarat and released caged birds from the imperial aviary. Hiravijaya himself declined further imperial favor, returning to a wandering ascetic's life rather than remaining at court, but the patronage his visit secured outlived him: later Tapa Gaccha leaders renewed the Jain community's standing with Akbar's successors on the same footing his farmans had established.