But he had no qualms about crushing any resistance he met, reducing it to dust and ashes. An ambitious ruler, he was also a ruthless warrior of unbridled violence and fury, an intrepid commander who marched in advance of his troops, and a fiery orator who could melt iron or turn it to steel with his words. At the same time he profligately gave away his personal treasure of gold and silver coins as if to purge his hands of contamination. He astonishes not only for this but also for his curiosity about other cultures and his naive advocacy of peace. This great adventurer was at the same time a dauntless explorer who penetrated unknown lands such as the Himalayas, where no one else had dared to go. At once a brilliant melancholic who masterfully orchestrated his royal interests, and a loner and misfit who vacillated between reality and abstract metaphysical thought, he was both loved and regarded as eccentric. But however he is perceived, in the end, as he himself put it, he ushered in ‘a new age’ and after him ‘nothing was ever the same as it had been before.’