What Akbar did for people
Binging the Hindus and the Muslims together
As Akbar himself was a Muslim King, he tried his best to close the bonds between the Hindus and the Muslims. By abolishing tax on the Hindus, he enabled them to lead less hard lifes. As such, he was widely respected throughout the empire. Also, by appointing many Hindus to have high posts lke generals and officials to serve in his court, he soon won over the their trust. He also commanded the translating of Hindu literary texts, participated in many of thie Hindu festivals and adopted part of their culture. Lastly, he himself ,married a a princess from the Rajput family, a prominent Indian warrior family. Thus,t through the above measures, he suceeded in bringing together the Hindus and the Muslims.
Comparison to Asoka : Asoka did not have the need of bringing the people together as he himself was a Hindu (later converting to Buddhism)
Fostering language and arts and the tolerance of religion
Determined to learn about the arts, culture and language(Akbar was illiterate as he ascended the throne at only 13 and had to plan for military campigns and look after matters of the court), Akbar invited many learned men from many distant places to his court for study. These included holy men, poets, arhitects, scribes, readers, calligraphers, musicians etc. Out of all these, the most famous were Tansen the legendary musician, Birbal the witty minister(wazir)and Raahim the poet who were probably the best of the land. Also setting up a library of many languages, it stored over 24 000 books. From the above measures, Akbar the Great managed to turn his palace into a flourishing centre for the language and the arts. As for religion, he was extremely tolerant of other religions besides Hindusim and Islam, allowing them to flourish and propogate their teachings. He even tried to bring all the religions together to form the Dini-Ilahi (the Divine Faith), which inlcuded teachings of Islam, Hinduism
Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. Although, he did not suceed, he had learned a lot from the different sages and holy men in his court.
Comparison to Asoka : Asoka too had a tolerance of religion but did not gather many skilled men to learn from them. Asoka, however, effectively propogated Buddhism, thus allowing it to become a World religion.