The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c17.81

v4.c17.81

Jahāngīr was well versed in Persian literature and occasionally composed himself. His memoirs contain many references to verses he admired for their beauty, wit or aptness to a special occasion. An attendant at court who discovered that the numerical values in Arabic notation of the letters in the name of the emperor and in the phrase *Allahu Akbar* were equal was rewarded and a couplet recording the fact was placed on the coins with a bacchanalian effigy. A poet, Nāsirī of Nīshāpur, “who excelled other men in the art of poetry”, was attracted to the Indian court. Jahāngīr’s love of nature led him to admire the description by Hindu poets of the bee as an attendant on flowers, and he calls their account of it sublime, as recalling the Persian poets on the subject of the nightingale. As in the case of architecture, however, Jahāngīr’s taste for literature was dilettante and had less effect on the progress of culture than his successor’s.