The Mughal Bureaucracy: Kitab Khana, Waqia-Navis, and Imperial Records
The Mughal empire was, by the standards of the early modern world, an exceptionally bureaucratic state. The emperor ruled through a graded service of military-administrative officers, the mansabdars, but the actual writing, recording, transmitting, and verifying of imperial business was carried out by a parallel and in some respects more permanent body of writers, news reporters, archivists, and confidential correspondents. The present page treats the structure of that bureaucracy, the distinction between the imperial household and the imperial service, the central record office of the kitab khana, the network of waqia-navis and sawanih-navis, the dak chowki postal system, the forms of imperial orders, and the discipline, salary, and ethos of the service. The broader administrative framework is surveyed in the Mughal administration overview, and the related intelligence and courier network is examined in the Mughal intelligence network page.
The Imperial Household and the Imperial Service
A first distinction must be made between the imperial household, the khadim-i-khas or inner service, and the imperial bureaucracy, the khidmat-i-diwani or outer service. The imperial household, including the personal attendants, the eunuchs, the mir bakhshi of the household, the mir saman, the sadr-us-sudur, and the masters of the royal hunt and the royal kitchen, served the emperor in his private capacity and was organized on a separate hierarchy of ranks and perquisites. The imperial bureaucracy, by contrast, served the state in its public capacity and was organized on the mansabdari ranking supplemented by the subordinate offices of diwan, bakhshi, qazi, sadr, kotwal, faujdar, and the long tail of clerical and secretarial staff.
The growth of a distinct imperial bureaucracy was substantially the work of Akbar the Great and his successors, and the Ain-i-Akbari of Abu’l Fazl gives a detailed account of the offices, ranks, and procedures of the service. The bureaucracy was, by intention, a relatively impersonal instrument. The mansabdar held a rank that could be transferred, demoted, or revoked; the diwan could be moved from province to province; the bakhshi was expected to keep a register in which promotions and demotions were recorded; and the emperor retained, in theory, the power to dismiss any officer at will.
The Kitab Khana and the Central Records
The central record office of the empire was the kitab khana, the imperial library and archive, located in the palace complex and administered by a kitabdar or librarian-in-chief. The kitab khana was more than a library. It was the principal archive of the imperial correspondence, the repository of the firmans, parwanas, and sanads issued by the emperor, the place where the mir bakhshi’s register of the mansabdari was kept, the place where the diwan’s financial records were deposited, and the place where the histories and genealogies maintained by the sawanih-navis were preserved. Abu’l Fazl himself, the principal biographer of Akbar, was at one point associated with the office.
The kitab khana maintained several distinct collections. The daftar-i-diwan contained the financial records of the diwan, the daftar-i-bakhshi the military-administrative records of the mir bakhshi, and the daftar-i-insha the correspondence of the mir saman and the secretariat. Each daftar had its own staff of writers, and the records were kept in duplicate or triplicate so that the loss of one copy would not destroy the documentation. The Ain-i-Akbari contains a celebrated account of the kitab khana under Akbar, including the catalogue of the library and the names of the principal calligraphers and binders employed by the office.
The Waqia-Navis and the Sawanih-Navis
The intelligence and reporting arm of the bureaucracy was the network of waqia-navis, the news reporters, and sawanih-navis, the annals writers. The waqia-navis was an officer stationed in each important city, fort, and provincial capital, and his duty was to send a regular weekly or fortnightly report, the waqia, of all newsworthy events in his area to the imperial court. The reports were written in Persian, in a standardized form, and were addressed to the emperor, the mir bakhshi, the diwan, or the sadr-us-sudur, depending on the subject.
The sawanih-navis was a parallel officer, generally stationed in a provincial capital or a major city, whose duty was to maintain a continuous record of events in his area over a longer period. The sawanih-navis’s reports, the sawanih, were more historical in character than the waqia and were intended to provide the central government with an annual or biennial summary of provincial events. The system is treated in more detail in the Mughal intelligence network page.
The Dak Chowki: The Imperial Postal System
The reports of the waqia-navis and sawanih-navis, the orders of the emperor, and the routine correspondence of the central and provincial offices travelled by the dak chowki, the imperial postal and courier system. The dak chowki consisted of a chain of post-houses, the sara-i or rest houses, placed at intervals of approximately ten to fifteen miles along the principal roads of the empire. At each sara-i a relay of runners, the dak runners or qasid, was maintained, and the imperial dispatches were passed from one runner to the next, day and night, until they reached their destination. The system was supplemented by a body of mounted couriers for urgent messages.
The dak chowki was not, in the strict sense, a public post. It was an imperial post, operated by the state for the transmission of state business, and private individuals who wished to use the system were required to obtain a dak permit from the relevant authority. The system was extensive, and the great roads of the empire were marked by a continuous chain of sara-i that served both as post-houses and as inns for official travellers.
The Writing of Imperial Orders
The Mughal state produced four principal types of written order. The farman was the highest form, a direct order of the emperor to a high official, a province, or a body of officials, written on paper or cloth, sealed with the imperial seal, and authenticated by the tughra or calligraphic flourish of the chief secretary. The parwana was a subordinate order, issued by a high official in the name of the emperor and conveying the emperor’s instructions to a lower officer. The sanad was a certificate of appointment, a confirmation of rank, a grant of revenue, or a similar formal document. The hukm was a more informal instruction, generally a short written order issued in routine circumstances.
Salaries, Ranks, and Discipline
The salaries of the bureaucratic service were determined by the mansab ranking and were paid in cash, in jagir, or in a combination of the two. The smaller clerical and secretarial offices, the bitikchi or writer, the mirza or secretary, the darogha or superintendent, the qassab or accountant, and the potdar or assayer, were paid in cash from the local treasury, calibrated to the cost of living of the station. The higher offices were paid by the combination of mansab rank and jagir assignment treated in connection with the mansabdari system.
The discipline of the service was maintained by several mechanisms. The most important was the system of ghisibarda or inspection, in which an imperial officer was sent from the centre to inspect a provincial or district office and to report on its conduct. The second was the mazalim or grievance court, treated in the Mughal justice system page. The third was the periodic transfer of high officials, generally every three to four years, which prevented the consolidation of local power. The fourth was the emperor’s personal supervision, exercised in the daily durbar and in the regular review of the reports of the waqia-navis and sawanih-navis. The combination of these mechanisms made the Mughal bureaucracy one of the most disciplined and best-documented services of the early modern world.
Sources
- M. Athar Ali, Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (1966).
- I.H. Qureshi, The Administration of the Mughal Empire (Karachi, 1966).