Mughal Administration c16.s3.1

c16.s3.1

As regards the style of official correspondence, namely letters from the Emperor and despatches and petitions to him, it was highly ornate, prolix, redundant like a legal deed, and superlatively superlative as regards the use of epithets. They all felt bound to follow the vicious style used by Abul Fazl in his letters written on behalf of Akbar. In addition to having this bad model, the *munshis* were also fettered by official convention which fixed the epithets for the princes and high officers beforehand,—sometimes running to six lines of foolscap folio in the case of a ruling sovereign, aud three lines for a minister. All official letters had to follow a set form, like the ‘‘I beg most respectfully to state’’ and ‘‘I have the honour to be your most obedient servant’’ of our own days,—at the beginning and the end, and also in introducing particular topics or communicating orders of a particular kind. Thus, making a transcript of a fully drafted letter (other than the fair copy actually sent to the addressee) was a wearisome labour, to shorten which the ‘‘editor’’ or copyist has, in some MSS., dropped all the long-drawn-out and flowery nonsense at the beginning and started with *mi-rasānad ke*, or ‘submits that—.’