Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c18.s1: I. Jahāngīr

Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c18.s1

Language: English

I. Jahāngīr

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JAHĀNGĪR, though far inferior to his great father, was not without some literary taste. His education was, as we can anticipate, well cared for, but certain bad traits in his character vitiated his career. Of his preceptors, we hear of Maulānā Mīr Kalān Muḥaddiṣ, who had come to Hindustan from Hirāt in the reign of Akbar¹ and 'Abdul-Raḥīm Mīrzā, whom we have noticed before.² We also learn that Quṭbuddīn Muḥammad Khān was appointed as his tutor (987 A.H., 1579 A.D.) and a great levee was held in celebration of this event. The tutor presented the Emperor, as is customary on such occasions, with rich presents, such as elephants, etc., worthy of his post, and, taking the prince upon his shoulders, ordered dishfuls of gold and jewels to be scattered to the people.³ Over and above his knowledge of Persian, the Emperor himself tells us, he

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¹ *Muntakhabul-Mir'ātul-'Ālam*, MS. in Boh. Coll., p. 29; Elliot viii, p. 159.

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² Noer's *Akbar*, vol. ii, p. 247.

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³ *Muntakhabul-Tawārīkh*, vol. ii, (Lowe), p. 278.

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was not deficient in reading and writing Turkish, though he was brought up in Hindustan. Hawkins, who knew Turkish, found the Emperor well versed in that language.¹ This knowledge enabled him to read the *Memoirs of Bābar* (*Wāqi’āti-Bābarī*) in the original. The copy that Jahāngīr possessed was written with Bābar’s own hand, but four sections of it were wanting. Jahāngīr copied these portions himself and added them to the book, writing therein a few lines in Turkish to show that the addition was made by him.² He had a taste for history and had, in common with the other Mughal Emperors, a desire to leave behind a record of the events of his reign. With this object in view, he wrote his memoirs with his own hand, but two historians had a hand in the work, viz. Muḥammad Ḥādī and Mu’tamad Khān. When it was completed, he ordered the mutaṣaddīs (scribes) of his library to prepare copies to be distributed among the chief government officers, and to be sent to great and influential men in all parts of the country. The first copy was presented to Shāh Jahān.³

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¹ Elphinstone (9th ed.), p. 548.

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² *Wāqi’āti-Jahāngīrī*, Elliot vi, p. 315.

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³ *Ibid.*, Elliot vi, p. 360.

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Jahāngīr’s name is associated with a regulation which he promulgated in all his dominions and by which he ordained that whenever a well-to-do man or a rich traveller died without any heir, his property

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would escheat to the Crown and be utilized for building and repairing *madrasahs*, monasteries, etc.¹

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¹ Khāfī Khān’s *Muntakhabul-Lubāb* (Bibl. Indica), Pt. i, p. 249; *Tārīkhi-Akbarī*, MS. in ASB, leaf 66.

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It is recorded in the *Tārīkhi-Jān-Jahān* that after his accession to the throne, Jahāngīr *repaired even those madrasahs that had for thirty years been the dwelling-places of birds and beasts, and filled them with students and professors*.²

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² *Tārīkhi-Jān-Jahān* by Jān Jahān Khān, MS. in ASB. We learn that in 1623 A.D. Muḥammad Ṣafī, Diwan of the Subah of Gujrāt founded *madrasahs* at Jubbalpūr in front of the gate of the fort Irk, and beside Sayif Khān’s *madrasah* (*Mir’āti-Aḥmadī* by ’Alī Muḥammad Khān, vol. i, p. 209).

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Agra, which in Akbar’s time rose high as a centre of education, continued, it seems, in the same state during Jahāngīr’s reign. It is thus described in the *Tūzak*:—“The inhabitants of Agra exert themselves greatly in the acquirement of crafts and the search after learning. Various professors of every religion and creed have taken up their abode in the city.”³

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³ *Tūzaki-Jahāngīrī*, by Rogers and Beveridge, p. 7.

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During Jahāngīr’s reign, Maktūb Khān was a superintendent of the Royal Library and the Picture Gallery.⁴ When Jahāngīr went to Gujrāt, he took a library with him, which shows that love of books which was so marked a trait in his father’s character was inherited by him. To the Shaikhs of Gujrāt, he

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⁴ *Ibid.*, p. 12.

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presented from this library such books as the *Tafsīri-Ḥusainī*, the *Tafsīri-Kashshāf* and the *Rauzatul-Aḥbāb*; and on the back of each of the books, he wrote the day of his arrival in Gujrāt and the date of presentation.¹

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¹ *Tūzaki-Jahāngīrī*, by Rogers and Beveridge, pp. 439, 440.

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Jahāngīr was a great lover of books. Mr. Martin says—

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“Collectors (of books) complain of the exorbitant prices they are called upon to pay for Persian munuscripts, and yet the highest prices now paid are small in comparison with the sums they cost their former owners. The manuscript for which Jahāngīr paid 3000 gold rupees—a sum equivalent to £10,000—would not fetch £2000 at a sale in Paris to-day. From notes and calculations I have made, miniatures by Bihzād (the famous Persian painter) were worth hundreds of pounds each, and certain of his manuscripts were then worth ten times more than now. Some decades ago, when bibliophiles still existed in the East, far higher prices were paid there than in London or Paris to-day. Through the following centuries, the same love for old books prevailed, and ridiculous prices were paid for them, as high in proportion as Americans now pay for Rembrandts and Van Dycks. The Mongols, the Timurides, the Mughals, Emperors and Amirs, all paid prices which we hardly understand, and it was not unusual for a celebrated manuscript of the *Qur’ān* to realize a sum that would be equivalent to about a million francs in modern currency.”²

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² Martin’s *Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia, India and Turkey*, vol. i, p. 58.

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Jahāngīr was a lover of paintings, and gave much encouragement to painters. Farrukh Beg was the greatest painter of the time.³ Abul Ḥasan, a great painter of the time, presented the Emperor

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³ *Tūzaki-Jahāngīrī*, by Rogers and Beveridge, p. 159.

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with a picture of his Court, which he used as frontispiece to his *Jahāngīr-Nāmah*. Ḥasan was also a good hand at drawing portraits. Manṣūr was another great painter, who was invested with the title of *Nādir-ul-Aṣr*.¹

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¹ Wāqi’āti-Jahāngīrī, Elliot vi, p. 359. “Jahāngīr was a great lover of birds, and had a painter Manṣūr who portrayed his favourites (birds) in a way often worthy of Dürer.”—Martin’s *Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia, India and Turkey*, vol. i, p. 88. For an account of the painters of Jahāngīr and their paintings existing in the British Museum and other places, see *ibid.*, pp. 131, 132.

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Painting in Jahāngīr’s reign reached a great excellence. Says Catrou: “In this time, there were found in the Indies native painters who copied the finest of our European pictures with a fidelity that might vie with the originals.”²

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² Catrou’s *History of the Mughal Dynasty*, p. 178.

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Sir Thomas Roe, during his stay in Jahāngīr’s Court, presented the king with a picture. Jahāngīr’s chief painter, who was sent for to see it, said that he could paint like it. After some time, the Emperor showed Sir Thomas six pictures, five of which were painted by his own painter. They were so very similar that by candle-light one could not be distinguished from the other. It was only after a close and minute scrutiny that Roe could make out the picture presented by himself. The ambassador says that he did not expect that the painter could perform so well.³

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³ *Purchas His Pilgrims*, vol. iv, pp. 344 ff.

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Jahāngīr employed painters to illustrate his *Jahāngīr-Nāmah* with pictures of the animals that were brought to him from the seaport of Goa by Muqarrab Khān, with the object that their "actual likeness might afford a greater surprise to the reader than mere description."¹

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¹ *Wāqi’āti-Jahāngīrī*, Elliot vi, p. 331.

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The *Iqbāl-Nāmah* mentions the following singers of Jahāngīr’s Court: Jahāngīrdād, Chatar Khān, Parwīzdād, Khurramdād, Makhū and Ḥamzah.

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Among the learned men of his Court may be mentioned Mīrzā Ghiyāṣ Beg, unrivalled in elegant composition and arithmetic.² Naqīb Khān was noted for his knowledge of history—a subject on which he wrote much. Mu’tamad Khān, whom we have noticed above, and Ni’matullah were Jahāngīr’s historiographers.³ Under Jahāngīr’s patronage, Ni’matullah systematized into a book the materials collected by Haibat Khān of Sāmāna regarding the history of the Afġhāns.⁴ ’Abdul Ḥaqq Dihlawī, one of the most learned men of the time, came to wait upon Jahāngīr and presented him with a book upon the lives of the Shaikhs of India.⁵

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² *Price’s Jahāngīr*, p. 26.

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³ Elliot v, p. 67, and vi, p. 280. For Naqīb, see B. p. 449.

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⁴ See Dorn’s Preface to *Makhzani-Afġhānī*.

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⁵ *Wāqi’āti-Jahāngīrī*, Elliot vi, p. 366.

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Jahāngīr tells us in the *Tūzak* that on Friday evenings he used to associate with *learned men*, darwishes and recluses.¹

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¹ *Tūzak-i-Jahāngīrī*, by Rogers and Beveridge, p. 21.

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The *Iqbāl-Nāmah-i-Jahāngīrī* gives us a list of some learned men and poets contemporary with the sovereign.

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The learned men were—
(1) Mullā Rūzbahān Shīrāzī,
(2) ,, Shukarullāh Shīrāzī,
(3) ,, Tuqyai Shūstarī,
(4) Mīr Abul Qāsim Gīlānī,
(5) A’mī A’marī,
(6) Mullā Baqar Kashmīrī,
(7) ,, ,, Tuhta’ī,
(8) ,, Maqsūd ’Alī,
(9) Qāzī Nūrullāh,
(10) Mullā Fāzil Kābulī,
(11) ,, ’Abdul Hakīm Siyālkūtī,
(12) ,, ,, Muttālib Sultānpūrī,
(13) ,, ,, Rahmān Bhurah Gujrātī,
(14) ,, Hasan Farāghī Gujrātī,
(15) ,, Husain Gujrātī,
(16) Khwājah ’Usmān Hisārī,
(17) Mullā Muhammad Jaunpūrī.²