Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c21: Addendum on the Question of Akbar's Illiteracy
Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c21
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Addendum on the Question of Akbar's Illiteracy
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IN continuation of Book II, Chap. III, pp. 139-142 of this work, I should like to add a few remarks on the question whether or not Akbar could read or write the alphabet or the numerals. My erudite friend, Mr. Beveridge, who holds the opposite view, relies on the statements of Catholic missionaries as set forth below :—
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(I.) A Monserrat: "He (Akbar) can neither read nor write, but he is very curious, and has always men of letters about him, whom he gets to discuss on sundry topics and tell him various stories." [*Father A. Monserrate's Account of Akbar* (26th Nov., 1582)," edited and translated from Portuguese by Rev. H. Hosten, S.J., in *J.A.S.B.*, 1912, p. 194. See also *Memoirs of A.S.B.* (edited by Rev. H. Hosten, S.J.), vol. iii. No. 9, p. 643, for the Latin text of the passage. *Cf.* J. B. Peruschi, S.J., *Informatione del Regno e stato del gran Re di Mogor . . .,* Brescia, P. M. Morchetti (1597), which contains extracts from various letters, and is based for the greater part on Monserrate's *Relaçam do Equebar, Rei dos Mogores* (see *Memoirs of A.S.B.*, vol. iii., No. 9, p. 540). The *Asiatic Review*, July 1, 1915, p. 52, gives from this compilation a passage bearing on Akbar.]
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(II.) Jerome X'avier: "The king (Akbar) is gifted with a wonderful memory, so that, although he can neither read nor write, he knows whatever he has heard learned men discoursing about, or whatever has been read to him." ["*Father Jerome X'avier*," by Mr. H. Beveridge, in *J.A.S.B.*, 1888, p. 37, giving an extract from a letter of Father Jerome X'avier, dated 1598 A.D. It has been utilized by E. D. Maclagen in *J.A.S.B.*, 1896, p. 77. I 207]
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ADDENDUM
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consulted Rev. H. Hosten, S.J., St. X'avier College, Calcutta, about this point. He kindly supplied me with many of the references quoted here.]
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Monserrat was at Akbar's Court from 1580 to 1582, and Jerome X'avier was also there for a few years; and statements proceeding from such personages are no doubt worthy of belief and respect. But should any remarks be found in their works or letters, which are found to be contradicted by the cumulative evidence of quite a number of facts and circumstances, the force of which is strong enough, the precise value of the aforesaid kind of evidence has to be carefully weighed.
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In this connection I should like to point out how the evidence of the Greek "observers" of India is valued by the critical methods of historical research. As an instance, Professors Macdonell and Keith, while treating of the position of the king in regard to land in those times, refers to the Greek notices on the subject as those "in which unhappily it would be dangerous to put much trust, since they were collected by observers who were probably little used to accurate investigations (of such matters), and whose statements were based on inadequate information." [*Vedic Index of Names and Subjects*, vol. ii, p. 214; cf. Professor Hopkins, *Journal of the American Oriental Society*, xiii, pp. 87, 88 f.n., for an example of the way in which Megasthenes' description of the "seven social orders" has to be taken for historical use,]
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In the present case, to get at a correct knowledge of the truth or degree of the Emperor's literacy or illiteracy was not very easy for foreign missionaries in the environment of distrust and suspicion in which they lived and moved in the Court of a Mughal monarch surrounded with his peculiar "pomp and circumstance," which did not at all favour curious inquiries into a personal question of the present kind relative to the Emperor. At best, remarks on such a question would be based on hearsay evidence, and not at all on first-hand, and would be valued as such. In holding this opinion on the present point, I am but following Monserrat himself, who does not say that all the information garnered in his work is first-hand. Says he: "As to the particulars concerning Cinguiscan, Temurbeg, the Scythians and the Mongols
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(i.e. Mughals), which I have, so to say, borrowed and inserted after my narrative, at the end of this first book, I learned them, in the first place, from King Zelaldin himself; then from a journal containing an account of the travels of a certain ambassador of Henry IV, King of Castille, to Temur; finally, from many writers of no mean authority." [*Memoirs of A.S.B.*, vol. iii, No. 9 (also quoted above), p. 520.]
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Besides, it should be noted that observations in the accounts left by the Catholic missionaries are not always absolutely flawless. Rev. H. Hosten points out several inaccuracies in Monserrat's account; *e.g.* (1) his speaking of persons kissing (instead of putting their heads on) the Emperor's foot (*J.A.S.B.*, 1912, p. 202, f.n. 4); (2) his mention of the river Narbadā passing through Aḥmadābād (*Ibid.*, p. 206, f.n. 4); (3) his mention of the Chambal as an affluent of the Indus (*Ibid.*, p. 206, f.n. 5); (4) his reference to the rule of Christian kings at Delhi in Timur's time (*Ibid.*, p. 207, f.n. 11); (5) his mention of commands of 12,000 or 14,000 in Akbar's military organization (*Ibid.*, p. 210, f.n. 3).
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The evidence quoted below, on the other hand, has every reason to be regarded as first-hand, coming as it does from one who was the Emperor's co-religionist and personal favourite, and had greater facility for observing his habits and movements in his informal hours. Abul Faẓl, in his *A'īn-i-Akbarī* (Bibl. Indica edition, Bk. I, *A'īn*, 34, p. 115, lines 11, 12), mentions that Akbar used to listen daily to the perusal of books by paid readers, their remuneration depending on the number of leaves read; and that on the last of the leaves perused, Akbar wrote daily with his own pen in numerals the number of leaves gone through, on the basis of which the remuneration was calculated and paid in cash to the readers there and then. The passage runs thus: "Wa har ruz ke badān jā rasad, ba shumārah-i-ān, *hindisah baqalam gauharbār naqsh kunand*. Wa ba'adad awrāq khwānandah rā naqd az surkh wa sufaid bakhshish shawad." ["Whatever place (of the book, the reader) daily reached, he (Akbar) wrote with his own jewelled pen numerical figures according to the number of leaves (read). He paid the readers cash in gold or silver according to the number of leaves (read)."] Blochmann's rendering of this passage is not explicit, owing to his omission to take note of the
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word "hindisah (numerical figures)." [See Blochmann's *Ā'ini-Akbarī*, p. 103; cf. Gladwin's *Ā'ini-Akbarī*, p. 85, which mentions Akbar's practice of writing the date of the month on the page where the reader stopped.] The passage plainly attributes to Akbar a knowledge of the numerical figures and their daily transcription with his own hand and pen on the pages of the books. It is a common practice to make a boy learn and write the numerical figures along with or even subsequent to the letters of the alphabet, and I do not think that Akbar had been in his boyhood an exception to this rule. Be that as it may, the passage testifies to Akbar's ability to write, and read at least the numerical figures.
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There are also a few facts worthy of mention in this connection. Akbar was the son of a learned father who was remarkable for his literary tastes, and as became such a father and the responsible head of the imperial household, the education of the heir-apparent came to be the care of the State at the earliest possible moment. As soon as "consciousness" dawned upon the child, there was appointed a regular tutor to take charge of his training. Maulānā A'ẓamuddin was engaged in 1547 when Akbar was only four years, four months, four days old—the customary age with the Muhammadans for beginning education. He was succeeded in his office by Maulānā Bāyazīd, who was again followed by a number of teachers. Mīr 'Abdul Laṭīf, Pīr Muḥammad Khān and Ḥājī Muḥammad Khān were some of his tutors at different times, whose names we know. There were, besides, the military tutors, *e.g.* Munī'm Khān charged with the duty of training up the future Emperor in the art of war to which he owed his extensive conquests. [For the references, see pp. 140-142 of this work. The Urdu work, *Darbār-Akbarī* (by Maulānā Muḥammad Ḥusain Āzād, Professor of Arabic, Government College, Lahore) mentions, at pp. 112, 113, the first four of the aforesaid tutors, and adds one, Maulānā 'Abdul Qādir. As no references are found in it to the authorities upon which the statements are based, it cannot be of much help to me for the present purpose.]
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Thus we see that care for Akbar's literary education commenced from 1547, when he was only about five years old, and
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continued up to 1555, the year of Humāyūn’s death, and a few years beyond it, even assuming that no teachers were engaged for him after the last of the aforesaid five. Of this period of training, even though limited by the above assumption, no less than eight years (1547 to 1555) belonged to the period of Humāyūn’s fatherly solicitude for his son’s training, the remaining years being passed under Bairam’s guardianship. In 1555, Akbar was still a boy of about thirteen years of age. He was under the stern Bairam’s guardianship for about five years. The many dismissals of tutors indicate that both Humāyūn and Bairam paid attention to his education. Even granting that he was idle and fond of sports, I do not understand how a boy, however recalcitrant he might be, could so systematically resist all attempts at training him for at least ten or twelve years on the part of his guardians so as to come out at the end of the period without the modicum of capacity for reading and writing the few letters of the alphabet. Nor can it be believed that the child of five or the boy of fourteen and still in tutelage could insist on his own peculiar mode of training himself so as to enjoy the luxury of having books read out to him in order to make himself educated by the use of his ear alone. Akbar was very intelligent, and a month or two snatched out for studies out of the whole period of his training, or devoted to them under the fear of his guardians, could, no doubt, have enabled him to read and write the alphabet, which even the dullest boy does not take long to master.
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As regards the passage in the *Tūzak-i-Jahāngīrī*, on which Mr. Beveridge relies, I now notice that it is capable of a different interpretation. The word “ummi” in the text has been taken to mean “unable to read or write,” but the *Muḥīṭu’l-Muḥīṭ* (vol. i. p. 40) includes among the meanings of the said word that of “taciturn” (al-qalīlu’l-kalām), and this meaning will be quite in accord with the context of the aforesaid passage. The passage thus interpreted would run as follows:—
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“My father (Akbar) often kept company with the learned men of all persuasions, particularly with the Paṇḍits and learned men of Hindustan. Though he was taciturn, yet from his constant association with the learned and wise, nobody could discover in his conversation that he was a man of taciturn disposition. In
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regard to the elegances of prose and poetry, there was nobody more proficient than he."
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Had Akbar been actually illiterate, he could have certainly, by dint of his genius, managed as satisfactorily the State affairs as other distinguished Eastern administrators devoid of literary equipment had done. But as things stand, he does not appear to belong to this class.
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I should also remark, at the risk of repetition, that Akbar appreciated abstruse controversies and elegances of literary compositions, took part in discussions with learned men, composed poetry, recited odes of Ḥāfiẓ, and was well-read in history. These as well as the learning they imply come as more natural corollaries to his knowledge of the alphabet than to his ignorance thereof. [For the references, see pp. 139-142 of this work.]
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In concluding this note, I may state that Mr. Beveridge himself has not felt positive about the subject under discussion. In his translation of the *Akbar-Nāmah* (vol. i. p. 518 n.), he writes, "It seems *probable*, too, that Akbar never knew how to read and write."