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Ain-I-Akbari
Introduction
Ain-I-Akbari was one of the famous works of Abdul Fazl (Akbar’s court historian). This is a 16th century document written in Persian. The document covers all the administrative rules that need to be abided by the people amid Akbar’s ruling period.
Abul Fazl started writing Ain-I-Akbari in the year 1589 and it took him 13 years to finish Akbar Nama. The Akbar Nama was segregated into three parts. The first part talked about the Akbar’s ancestors. The second part talked about Akbar’s reign and the third part is Ain- I-Akbari which talked about Akbar’s administrative rules. The administrative rules of Akbar included the household, army, revenue and geographical rules of the empire.
About Ain-I-Akbari
Ain-I-Akbari was a 16th century administrative document written by the famous historian Abul Fazl. The book was written in the Persian language and this was the third part of the Akbar Nama. This book described Emperor Akbar as a heroic figure as in all the other volumes of Akbar Nama.
Abul Fazl mentioned that Akbar wanted to bring the highest amount of people possible under his liberal, just, tolerant and peaceful administrative system. Akbar wanted to do that to provide the maximum political benefit to the people.
Ain-I-Akbari: Historical Source
Ain-I-Akbari discussed the administrative system enforced by Akbar in India. Abul Fazl wrote the book in a decorative writing style which was used for the reader’s spiritual introspection. He tried to highlight the spiritual consequences caused by Akbar’s administrative decisions. This spiritual introspective attempt at the administrative process made the book difficult to interpret for the common people. This book was written in Sanskrit language and Abul Fazl consulted various Sanskrit scholars before writing this book.
The consultation was needed to provide this book with a simpler form while he chose the word used for the book. Fazl mentioned that the Hindus had a more accepting religious outlook and they were welcoming towards guests or other foreigners.
Abul Fazl described that the emperor respected the Hindus and their seriousness, honesty and innocence in an open and straightforward manner. He accepted the monotheist Hindus just like Al-Biruni.
Abul Fazl mentioned many reasons that created differences for the different religious followers. The first reason was that it was difficult to interpret the different religious contexts due to the inability to understand the foreign language. The foreign language made it time-consuming to interpret those contexts. This created the second instance, as they were less zealous to invest the extra amount of time to understand the context of a different religion.
Lastly, the experts in both the language and religious thoughts were very less which made it impossible to understand the other religious contexts. The people there overall were not very keen to learn the teachings of other religions. There were also some people who were narrow-minded and they were also the culprit for the lesser spread of different religions. They did not want the other people to thrive and started new rules and policies for the people of different religions.
Ain-I-Akbari: Contents
Ain-I-Akbari was divided into five volumes and the contents of this book are mentioned below −
Volume 1 − The first volume mentioned 90 Ain or rules to deal with various administrative and employment aspects of that time. The imperial mint, mint workers and the process of extracting usable gold and silver were written in various Ain. It talked about the dirham and dinar, the two coins, in these rules.
Ain 15 talked about the imperial harem, Ain 20 talked about the royal seals, Ain 23 talked about the imperial kitchen and the cuisine and Ain 26 talked about the various governing laws. This volume talked about various businesses and trades of vegetables, fruits, carpets, perfumes and other artistic stuff like painting.
This volume talked about the strength and procedures of the Mughal army during Akbar’s period. The weaponry usage and maintenance rules were discussed from Ain 35 onwards. These rules also discussed the maintenance produces of the royal horses, mules, camels and elephants. This volume talked about labour compensation, construction estimate rules and various other matters.
Volume 2 − This volume talked about the employees of the emperor such as the military and civil servants, the court attendants with various literary and musical prowesses. The emperor felt encouraged by these court attendants and praised the artistic value of the work.
Volume 3 − This volume had been written about the judicial and executive regulations of the empire such as land surveying, tribal divisions and finance minister’s rent-roll.
Volume 4 − This volume explained the social positioning and the literary activities of the Hindus. Those positions and activities were based on their philosophy, law and political developments. The emperor was very attentive towards the well-being of the Hindus. This volume also talked about the foreign conquerors and travellers and Muslim saints.
Volume 5 − This last volume was the compilation of the moral sentences, epigrammatical sayings, pearls of wisdom and observations of Akbar.
Conclusion
Henry Beveridge transcribed the original Ain-I-Akbari into English during the twentieth century. Manzil-Abadi was the name of the first volume of Ain-I-Akbari which talked about the imperial home and the upkeep. Sipah-Abadi was the second volume of Ain-I-Akbari that talked about the emperor’s civil and military servants. The third volume covered the imperial administrative rules of the executives and judiciaries. The fourth volume talked about social norms, Hindu philosophy, science and literature and the last part covered all the Akbar’s sayings.
FAQs
Qns 1. What was Babur Nama?
Ans. Babur Nama was the autobiography of Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur that was written in the Chagatai Turkic language. He was the grandfather of the empire Akbar from the Mughal dynasty.
Qns 2. What was Akbar Nama?
Ans. Akbar Nama was written by Akbar’s court historian Abul Fazl ibn Mubarak. This was a chronicle of the third Mugal Emperor Akbar’s reign
Qns 3. What important factors were covered in Ain-I-Akbari?
Ans. Ain-I-Akbari provided various traditional and cultural details of the common people. It also provided the statistical details of the yields, crops, wages and prices.
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