Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c18.s1.5

c18.s1.5

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