The Mughal Empire

The Akbarnama

The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, completed in the 1590s, is the most important and the most famous of the official chronicles of the Mughal court, and it is one of the major historical and literary works of the early modern world. Composed in a carefully crafted Persian prose that drew on the Shahnameh tradition, the Tarikh-i-Alfi of the Lodi period, and the Tarikh-i-Firishta of the Bahmani and Deccani histories, the Akbarnama is a detailed account of the reign of Akbar from his birth in 1542 to the forty-sixth regnal year (1602), and it is one of the principal primary sources for the political, military, administrative, religious, and cultural history of the period. The third book of the Akbarnama, the Ain-i-Akbari (“Institutes of Akbar”), is a detailed compendium of the institutions of the empire — the mansabdari hierarchy, the revenue administration, the diwan-i-am and diwan-i-khas of the court, the imperial household, the kitab khana, the imperial kitchen, the zarb khana, the fauj, the bahri, the religious establishment, the madaris, the karkhanas, and the geography, climate, and produce of the provinces — and it is single sources for the social, administrative, and economic history of the period. The composition of the Akbarnama by Abu’l Fazl and his brother Faizi, the structure of the text, the language, the celebrated illustrated manuscript, the English translation by Henry Beveridge, the place of the work in the wider tradition of Mughal historical writing, and the modern editions of the text are treated in detail below.

The Author: Abu’l Fazl ibn Mubarak

Abu’l Fazl ibn Mubarak (1551–1602) was the principal court historian of Akbar’s reign, a Persian prose stylist of great accomplishment, the leading alim of the imperial Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri, and figures of the imperial religious and intellectual establishment. Abu’l Fazl was born in Agra to a family of religious scholars, the son of Shaykh Mubarak Nagauri, and he was a younger brother of the poet Faizi. He joined the Mughal court in the 1570s, became a member of the Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri, and rose rapidly in the imperial service to become the sadr-us-sudur (the chief religious officer) of the empire and the principal chronicler of the reign. The relationship between Abu’l Fazl and Akbar was a close one, and the Akbarnama is in many respects a personal monument to the imperial vision of the emperor.

The composition of the Akbarnama was a major project of the late reign. The work was begun in the 1580s, and it was completed in the 1590s, the third book (the Ain-i-Akbari) being completed last. Abu’l Fazl was assisted in the composition by his brother Faizi, by the staff of the imperial kitab khana and maktab khana, and by a substantial body of translators, scribes, and copyists. The work was illustrated in a celebrated illustrated manuscript produced by the imperial atelier, and the darogha-i-kitab khana of the period, the principal painter of the manuscript, was the Hindu master Basawan. The composition of the Akbarnama was accompanied by the composition of a number of related works: the Ain-i-Akbari, the Tabaqat-i-Akbari of Nizam-ud-din Ahmad, the Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh of Abdul Qadir Badauni (a critical counterpoint to Abu’l Fazl), the Tarikh-i-Alfi (a comprehensive history commissioned by Akbar), and a substantial body of related historical writing.

The Structure of the Akbarnama

The Akbarnama is divided into three books, of which the first two are a chronological account of the reign of Akbar, and the third (the Ain-i-Akbari) is a systematic account of the institutions of the empire.

Books I and II: The Chronicle of the Reign

Book I of the Akbarnama covers the period from the birth of Akbar in 1542 to the beginning of the reign proper, including the early regency of Bairam Khan, the panipat and the khanwa of the early reign, the conquest of Malwa, Gondwana, and the early Rajput campaigns, and the period up to the 1570s. Book II of the Akbarnama covers the period from the 1570s to the forty-sixth regnal year (1602), including the formal assumption of power by Akbar, the conquest of Gujarat, Bengal, Kashmir, Sindh, and Orissa, the rajput campaigns, the Ibadat Khana discussions, the promulgation of the Din-i-Ilahi, the mahl and khanazad reform, the jahangiri and shah jahan succession crisis, and the various other major events of the period. The two books are organised by regnal year (sal), and each year is treated in a series of sections dealing with the principal events of the year: the military campaigns, the administrative appointments, the religious and cultural events, the durbars, the firman of the emperor, and the principal incidents of the court.

Book III: The Ain-i-Akbari

Book III of the Akbarnama, the Ain-i-Akbari (“Institutes of Akbar”), is a systematic account of the institutions of the empire, organised into five ain (sections) covering the imperial household, the mansabdari hierarchy, the revenue administration, the diwan-i-am and diwan-i-khas, the geography and produce of the provinces, and the religious and cultural establishments. The Ain-i-Akbari is divided into the following principal sections:

  • The Ain-i-Mansabdari, the account of the mansabdari hierarchy, including the mansab ranks, the zat and sawar classifications, the dagh and chehrah branding, the siyada rules, and the regulations governing the recruitment, payment, and deployment of the imperial mansabdari nobles. The Ain-i-Mansabdari is sections of the Ain-i-Akbari for the administrative history of the period.
  • The Ain-i-Diwani, the account of the revenue administration, including the zabt and ghalla-bakshi systems, the amal-i-jama and tashkhis-i-jama, the kharaj, the bhaga, the sair, the muqaddam and the chaudhri, the qanungo and the patwari, the karkuns, and the regulations governing the land revenue of the empire. The Ain-i-Diwani is sections of the Ain-i-Akbari for the revenue and agrarian history of the period.
  • The Ain-i-Khas, the account of the imperial household, including the daulat khana-i-khas (the imperial treasury), the kitab khana (the library), the bawarchi khana (the kitchen), the sharab khana (the wine cellar), the zarb khana (the mint), the atah khana (the elephant stables), the asp khana (the horse stables), the shahin khana (the falcon house), the farrash khana (the wardrobe), the tosh khana (the gift house), the naqqar khana (the drum house), and the various other departments of the imperial household. The Ain-i-Khas is sections of the Ain-i-Akbari for the social and material history of the period.
  • The Ain-i-Juz, the account of the geography and produce of the provinces, including the subah of Delhi, Agra, Allahabad, Awadh, Bihar, Bengal, Gujarat, Malwa, Multan, Kabul, Kashmir, and the Deccan. The Ain-i-Juz is sections of the Ain-i-Akbari for the geographical and economic history of the period.
  • The Ain-i-Sair, the account of the religious and cultural establishments, including the ulama, the mashayikh, the pirs, the brahmins, the jains, the jesuits, the zoroastrians, and the various other religious and cultural communities of the empire. The Ain-i-Sair is sections of the Ain-i-Akbari for the religious and cultural history of the period.

The Language of the Akbarnama

The Akbarnama was composed in a carefully crafted Persian prose that drew on the conventions of the classical Persian insha (formal prose) tradition, the Shahnameh of Firdausi, the Tarikh-i-Yamini of Utbi, the Tarikh-i-Jahan-Gusha of Juvaini, the Tarikh-i-Guzida of Hamdallah Qazvini, the Rauzat-us-Safa of Mirkhwand, and the wider tradition of Indo-Persian historical writing. The Persian of Abu’l Fazl is a high, ornate, and rhetorically sophisticated prose, marked by the use of the classical Persian saj (rhetorical prose), the radif (the repeated word of the rhyme), the qafiya (the rhyme), the tarsi (the balanced phrase), the muharraf (the alliterative composition), the laff-o-nashr (the dissimulation and explication), the tajnis (the paronomasia), the kinaya (the metonymy), the istiara (the metaphor), and the various other rhetorical devices of the Indo-Persian prose tradition. The Akbarnama also contains a substantial body of verse — qasidas, ghazals, rubais, and masnavis — composed by Faizi, Abu’l Fazl, and the other court poets, and the text is interspersed with the waqia (narrative) and the bayan (description) of the principal events of the reign.

The Persian of the Akbarnama also contains a substantial vocabulary of Indian origin, including the Hindi vocabulary of the indigenous Indian administration, the Sanskrit vocabulary of the Hindu religious and philosophical tradition, the Hindi vocabulary of the regional geography, the Persian-Arabic vocabulary of the Islamic religious and legal tradition, and the Turki vocabulary of the Timurid and Mughal imperial household. The Akbarnama is therefore an important document of the Indo-Persian linguistic register of the late sixteenth century, and it has been used extensively by historians of the period for the study of the linguistic history of the Mughal Empire.

The Illustrated Manuscript of the Akbarnama

The Akbarnama was illustrated in a celebrated illustrated manuscript produced by the imperial atelier, the tasvir khana of Akbar’s court, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The principal painters of the manuscript included Basawan (the leading master), Daswanth, Miskin, Lal, Mukund, Farrukh Beg, Kesu Das, Manohar, and a substantial body of other painters of the imperial workshop. The illustrations of the Akbarnama are among the most accomplished works of the Mughal painting tradition, and they represent the mature phase of the Akbar-period style: the synthesis of Persian, Indian, and European elements, the careful attention to facial types, the careful treatment of the human figure, the use of European techniques of perspective and shading, the careful draftsmanship, the careful colouring, the careful composition, and the careful integration of the various elements of the painting.

The illustrated manuscript of the Akbarnama exists in several copies. The Victoria and Albert Museum copy, the most famous, contains 116 illustrations and is one of the major treasures of the Museum’s collection. The Chester Beatty Library copy, in Dublin, contains a substantial number of illustrations. The British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art hold other copies or fragments of the illustrated manuscript. The illustrations of the Akbarnama have been the subject of extensive scholarly study, and the Akbarnama manuscripts are among the most thoroughly studied illustrated manuscripts of the early modern world.

The English Translation by Henry Beveridge

The Akbarnama was translated into English by Henry Beveridge (1837–1929), a member of the Indian Civil Service, between 1897 and 1939. The Beveridge translation, published under the auspices of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, is a monumental work of scholarship, and it is the standard English translation of the Akbarnama. The translation is based on the text of the Akbarnama as edited by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and it includes the Ain-i-Akbari as a separate volume. The Beveridge translation has been the principal English-language reference for the Akbarnama since its publication, and it has been used extensively by historians, art historians, and literary scholars of the period.

The Ain-i-Akbari was translated separately into English by H. Blochmann (1868–1873) and H. S. Jarrett (1891–1894), and the Blochmann-Jarrett translation, published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, is the standard English translation of the Ain-i-Akbari. The Blochmann-Jarrett translation has been the principal English-language reference for the Ain-i-Akbari since its publication, and it has been used extensively by historians of the period.

The Place of the Akbarnama in World Historical Literature

The Akbarnama holds a distinctive place in the wider literature of world history. It is one of the great imperial chronicles of the early modern world, alongside the Chinese Shiji, the Roman Annals, the Persian Shahnameh, the De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni of the Western tradition, the Ottoman Tarih-i-Al-i-Osman tradition, and the various other major historical works of the early modern world. The Akbarnama is distinguished by its comprehensive scope, its careful documentation, its elaborate prose, its literary sophistication, and its importance as a primary source for the period. The Akbarnama has been the subject of extensive scholarly study, and it has been the foundation of the modern historiography of the Mughal period. The principal modern editions of the Akbarnama include the Asiatic Society of Bengal edition (the basis of the Beveridge translation), the Bibliotheca Indica edition of the Ain-i-Akbari, and a number of more recent critical editions of the text. The principal modern studies of the Akbarnama include the works of S. R. Sharma, I. H. Qureshi, M. Athar Ali, S. A. A. Rizvi, R. P. Tripathi, S. N. Sen, Satish Chandra, J. F. Richards, M. N. Pearson, S. K. Pannikar, and a substantial body of other modern scholarship.

The Akbarnama has been subject to substantial critical evaluation. The principal criticism of the work is that it is a panegyric, an official history written to glorify the emperor, and that it is therefore not a fully reliable source for the political and military events of the reign. The Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh of Abdul Qadir Badauni, the principal critical counterpoint to the Akbarnama, was written by a religious scholar who was personally unsympathetic to many of Akbar’s religious policies, and it provides a critical perspective on the events of the reign. The modern historiography of the period has drawn extensively on the Akbarnama, the Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, the Tabaqat-i-Akbari, the Tarikh-i-Firishta, and the various other chronicles of the period, and it has produced a rich and complex picture of the political, military, administrative, religious, and cultural history of the period.

The Legacy of the Akbarnama

The Akbarnama remains primary sources for the history of the Mughal period, and it has been the foundation of the modern historiography of the period. The illustrated manuscript of the Akbarnama remains one of the major treasures of the imperial Mughal painting tradition, and the paintings of Basawan, Daswanth, Miskin, Lal, Mukund, Farrukh Beg, Kesu Das, Manohar, and the other masters of the imperial atelier are among the most accomplished works of the early modern painting tradition. The English translation of the Akbarnama by Henry Beveridge remains the standard English reference for the work, and the Blochmann-Jarrett translation of the Ain-i-Akbari remains the standard English reference for the Ain-i-Akbari. The Akbarnama continues to be studied, translated, and edited, and it remains a major chapter in the history of the literature of the early modern world.

Sources

  • Abu’l Fazl, Akbarnama, trans. Henry Beveridge, 3 vols. (1907–39; reprint Low Price Publications).
  • S.R. Sharma, Mughal Government and Administration (1939), on Abu’l Fazl as a source.

For the broader context of the literary and linguistic tradition, see the Mughal literature and languages page. The official chronicle of the reign of Shah Jahan, the Padshahnama, is treated in The Padshahnama. The Persian literary tradition of the imperial court is treated in Persian literature at the Mughal court. The painting tradition of the imperial atelier, which produced the celebrated illustrated manuscript of the Akbarnama, is treated in Mughal painting under Akbar and on the Mughal art and miniature painting page. The historical context of the reign of Akbar, the period covered by the Akbarnama, is treated in greater detail in the entry on Akbar. The translation movement of Akbar’s reign, of which Abu’l Fazl was a leading figure, is treated in the Mughal culture overview and the Hindu-Muslim relations pages.