Āʾīn-i Akbarī

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The Ā'īn-i Akbarī ( Persian آئين اکبری, DMG Āʾīn-i Akbarī , "Akbar's Institutions") is the third part of Akbar-nāma , which the scholar Abū 'l-Fazl Allāmī wrote for the Mughal ruler Akbar and completed in 1598. The five-volume work contains an encyclopaedic description of almost all matters of the empire, with a separate volume devoted to Hinduism . Due to its unique wealth of statistical data and factual information, the Ā'īn-i Akbarī is of great importance for the historiography of the Mughal period. The Ā'īn-i Akbarī offers a wealth of factual information, which is primarily intended to show that Akbar is well informed about every detail in his kingdom and everything is regulated in the best possible way, so that his subjects live in a golden age of peace and justice .

The five books of Ā'īn-i Akbarī

Illustration from the edition of Ā'īn-i Akbarī by Sayyid Ahmad Khan. Above: Transporting jugs of Ganges water for Akbar. Below: cooling of drinking water with saltpetre.

first book

The first volume deals with the imperial household (Persian manzil ) in the broadest sense. Abū 'l-Fazl first names the state treasure and everything related to it: the classification of precious stones and pearls, the extraction and processing of precious metals, the imperial coin and the currency in circulation. The household also includes the ruler's private area (harem), the kitchen and the food used there, the clothing stores, the library with the workshops for the production of books, the arsenal and the stables. The rules for admission to the court, etiquette and imperial insignia are also mentioned. Information on the cost of building materials and craftsmen concludes the first volume.

second book

The second book of Ā'īn-i Akbarī is dedicated to the army (Persian sipāh ). It deals with different units and ranks, animals in the army and their feed consumption, the types of pay and the tasks of the chroniclers, which not only affect daily events, but also the amount of mansabs , fiefs, salaries, gifts, etc. have noted. Some chapters are devoted to hunting, others to various leisure activities. The book concludes with several lists of the most important personalities of the empire: first the men of the army, who are listed according to the height of their mansab, then the scholars, then the poets and finally the musicians.

Third book

The third volume deals with the empire (Persian mulk ) and its administration. Abū 'l-Fazl first introduces Akbar's new solar calendar, which was introduced in 1584, after an excursus on various time calculations. He then describes the hierarchy of administrative officials and their tasks, explains the different qualities of arable land and mentions the current length and area dimensions. The Ā'īn 14 contains extensive statistics on the tax revenue of the empire between 1561 and 1580, which also include the types of crops grown. The rest and the largest part of the book is taken up by an encyclopedic representation of the twelve provinces, (Persian subah ), their sub-provinces and cities, which belonged to the Mughal Empire around 1595.

Chaupar from a Ā'īn-i Akbarī manuscript that H.Blochmann used for his edition.

Fourth book

The fourth volume of the Ā'īn-i Akbarī is essentially a detailed description of the religion, philosophy and sciences of the Indians. In the foreword Abū 'l-Fazl explains that with this volume he wants to provide the informative basis for an encounter with the Indian doctrines in order to eliminate misunderstandings that are widespread among Muslims and to pave the way to peace. The reader first learns something about cosmogony and cosmography, caste beings, languages, some typical Indian animals and various weights. A long chapter introduces the six orthodox systems of classical Indian philosophy, the six darshanas . The heterodox systems of Indian philosophy, which also include Jainism and Buddhism , are also mentioned. The following is an overview of the eighteen sciences and their subgroups. These include, for example, the four Vedas and the six Vedangas . The author gives a lot of space to the karma vipaka , in which current life circumstances or illnesses are explained as the consequences of certain actions in previous lives and magical practices or atonement rites are recommended to eradicate bad karma. In the following he mentions various forms of divination and briefly describes some of the contents of the Kamashastra literature. After a chapter on art poetry, Abū 'l-Fazl goes into song, music and dance. There are explanations about the rights and duties of a king and the administration of justice in general. The religious life with its commandments and prohibitions, the ten avatars of Vishnu and a list of the holy places of pilgrimage complete the information on Hinduism. Before the fourth book of Ā'īn-i Akbarī ends, Abū 'l-Fazl added a chapter on famous mythological and historical personalities who were in India and another on important Sufis in India.

Fifth book

The fifth book is comparatively short. It consists of a collection of sayings from Akbar, a closing word by the author and a detailed life report of the same.

Sources for the Ā'īn-Akbarī

HS Jarrett writes in the foreword of his translation to Ā'īn-i Akbarī that he has carefully compared this book with al-Birunis Kitāb Tarīḫ al-Hind , and has come to believe that Abū 'l-Fazl's idea and arrangement of his work from its great predecessor. The similarities are not only of a structural nature, but also show in detail. For example, Abū 'l-Fazl's remarks on cosmogony and cosmography reveal his familiarity with the Kitāb Tarīḫ al-Hind . Of course, Abū 'l-Fazl also resorted to a large number of other sources and informants. He had the records from the courtly archives at his disposal, from which he was likely to have taken his information relating to administration and tax revenues. Larger passages in his account of the Sarkar of Kabul come from Babur's memoirs. He drew from Rajput sources for the historical reports on individual provinces. Jami used Sufi hagiography for some of the lives of Muslim saints in the third book. In the fourth book, H. S. Jarrett was also able to identify some underlying Sanskrit sources: in the chapter Karma -Vipaka he relies on Vishveshvara Bhatta. He had written a work on this in the second half of the 14th century with the title Madanamahārnava . In the chapter on art poetry, Abū 'l-Fazl is based on the Sahityadarpana (Skr. Mirror of composition ) by Vishvanatha Kaviraja (14th century). In the following explanations about song, music and dance he adheres to the Samgitaratnakara (Sanskrit "ocean of music and dance") by Sharngadeva (13th century). For the administration of justice in general and the rights and duties of a king in particular, Abū 'l-Fazl relies at least partially on the Manusmriti . The use of the above works should not obscure the fact that Abū 'l-Fazl, as he himself mentions, did not speak Sanskrit and therefore relied on the translations of the pundits who worked for him .

Editions and translations

Heinrich Blochmann and HS Jarrett

The commonly used edition of the Ā'īn-i Akbarī comes from Heinrich Blochmann and has been published in the form of fascicles since 1867 on behalf of the Asiatic Society of Bengal . The first volume was complete in 1872 and contained books 1 to 3. The second volume was completed in 1877 and included the remaining books 4 and 5 of the Ā'īn-i Akbarī .

Parallel to his work on the Persian edition, Blochmann had also begun an English translation, which, however, due to his untimely death, ends in Book 2. Books 1 and 2 are summarized in the first volume of the English translation, which was published in 1873. Henry Sullivan Jarrett (1839-1919) translated the remaining books into English. On behalf of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Book 3 was published in 1891, and Books 4 and 5 in 1894.

A reprint of the English translation by Blochmann appeared in a version revised by D. C. Phillott (1869–1930) in 1927. Volumes two and three (with books 3 and 4 and 5 of Ā'īn-i Akbarī ) were revised by Jadunath Sarkar, Above all, he has considerably shortened Jarrett's extensive comments or brought them up to date with the research of the time. It is these new editions of the translations by Blochmann and Jarrett that, reprinted again and again by various publishers, are now widely used.

Partial translations by Tiefenthaler and Gladwin

Blochmann was not the first European to study the Ā'īn-i Akbarī . The Jesuit missionary Joseph Tiefenthaler took longer passages from the third book in his geographical description of India, which appeared in Berlin from 1785–1787. The English translation by Francis Gladwin (around 1745–1812), co-founder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and professor of Persian, appeared in Calcutta from 1783–1786. This comprises a large part of the first book, a little more than half of books 2 and 3, and about a quarter of book 4.

Edition by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan

An illustrated edition of the Persian text was published by Sayyid Ahmad Khan as early as 1855/56 . In addition to various manuscripts, Blochmann also used this lithograph for his own edition. Ahmad Khan's edition, however, is considerably shorter than the later one: it does not include the geographical part of the third book, which makes up pages 386 to 599 in Blochmann's edition. All illustrations in the English translation by Blochmann are reproductions from the 1855 lithograph.

literature

  • The Ain-i-Akbari by Abul-Fazl-i-ʿAllami Edited in the original Persian by H. Blochmann. Vol. I. Printed for the Asiatic Society of Bengal in the Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta 1872. Vol. II 1877.
  • The Ā-īn-i Akbarī Vol. I. By Abu L-Fazl Allami. Translated into English by H. Blochmann, MA Calcutta, Madras. Ed. by Lieut.-Colonel DC Phillott. Low Price Publications. Delhi 1994. (Repr. 1927)
  • The Ā-īn-i Akbarī Vol. I. By Abu L-Fazl Allami. Translated into English by HSJarrett. Second Edition, corrected and further annotated by Sir Jadu-nath Sarkar. Vol. II-III (Bound in One). Low Price Publications, Delhi 1994. (Repr. 1949).
  • Gladwin, Francis: Ayeen Akbery: or the Institutes of the Emperor Akber. Translated from the original Persian by Francis Gladwin. In three volumes. Printed by William Mackay, Calcutta 1883, 1884, 1886.
  • Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas: Religious and Intellectual History of the Muslims in Akbar's Reign: With Special Reference to Abu'l Fazl. Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi 1975.
  • Sir Sayyid Aḥmad (Ed.): Ā'īn-i Akbarī. (Abū 'l-Faẓl ʿAllāmī). Sir Sayyid Academy, Aligarh, Muslim University 2005. (Repr. Delhi 1855) Digitized
  • Truschke, Audrey: "Abū al-Fażl 'Allāmī ibn Mubārak, Ā'īn-i Akbarī", in: Perso-Indica. An Analytical Survey of Persian Works on Indian Learned Traditions. ISSN 2267-2753. Digitized

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī II: 475-476.
  2. ↑ R. M. Eaton, “AKBAR-NĀMA,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I / 7, pp. 714f; online under digitized
  3. ↑ Conermann 2002, p. 169.
  4. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī I: 268f.
  5. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī II: 1-420.
  6. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī II: 75-93.
  7. ↑ The numbers offered here should be treated with caution. Irfan Habib points out that the different manuscripts contain completely different dates. Habib; Irfan: The Agrarian System of Mughal India. 1556-1707. Second, revised edition. Oxford University Press, New Delhi 1999. ISBN 0-19-565595-8 . Pp. 468-469.
  8. ↑ Blochmann 1877, p. 2, (4.); Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata. Annual Report 2014-15, p. 11 digitized
  9. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: 2-7.
  10. ↑ On the eighteen sciences cf. Desai-Breun, Kiran: Looking and Thinking, Talking and Writing: On the Structure of Philosophical Ability in Its Beginnings in India and Europe. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2007. ISBN 9783826034848 ; P. 48f.
  11. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: viii.
  12. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: 16 and III: 23. Digitized
  13. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: viii.
  14. ↑ ZB Ā'īn-Akbarī II: 267, in the personal Ed. I: 502; Rizvi 1975, p. 272.
  15. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: vii.
  16. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: 235.
  17. ↑ Madanamahārnava ; Losch, H .: "Viśveśvara Bhaṭṭa: Madanamahārṇava, ed. By E. Krishnamacharya and MR Nambiyar." (Book review) In: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung . Vol. 51, No. 5/6 (1956) p. 256.
  18. ↑ Ballantyne, JR and Pramadadasa, Mitra: The mirror of composition. A treatise on poetical criticism; being an English translation of the Sáhitya-darpana of Viśvanátha Kavirája. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1980. ISBN 978-3764813086 . Repr. Calcutta 1850-1875. (Bibliotheca Indica 9) Sahityadarpana
  19. ↑ Jarrett in Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: 254-257, and Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: 260. Cf. Ballantyne and Pramadadasa.
  20. ↑ Samgitaratnakara
  21. ↑ Jarrett Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: 261. On Sharngadeva cf. Alain Daniélou : Introduction to Indian Music. Florian Noetzel Verlag der Heinrichshofen-Bücher, Wilhelmshaven, 4th edition 1996. ISBN 3-7959-0183-9 . P. 176.
  22. ↑ Jarrett Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: 274 and 277. Bühler, Georg: The Laws of Manu. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1886. (Sacred Books of the East Vol. 25)
  23. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: 7 and 2; in the Persian edition vol. II: 2. Jarrett in Ā'īn-i Akbarī III: viii.
  24. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī Volume 1 ( digitized part 1 with book 1-2 , digitized part 2 with book 3 )
  25. ↑ Ā'īn-i Akbarī Volumes 2 and 3 digitized .
  26. ^ Volume I, translated by H. Blochmann; Volume II and Volume III translated by HS Jarrett.
  27. ↑ Blochmann in Ā'īn-i Akbarī , I: vii; Father Joseph Tieffenthaler's historical-geographical description of Hindustan ... 3 volumes. Bernoulli, Berlin and Gotha 1785–87.
  28. ^ First volume, Calcutta 1783 ( digitized version ); second volume, Calcutta 1784 ( digitized version ); third volume, Calcutta 1786 ( digitized version ).
  29. ↑ Blochmann in Ā'īn-i Akbarī I: vii.
  30. ↑ digitized version
  31. ↑ Blochmann Ain-i-Akbari Edition 1877, Vol. II: 3.