WE now proceed to consider the authentic Memoirs of Jahángír. At the outset we are met with a difficulty about the proper name to ascribe to this autobiography, and the matter has been slightly alluded to in the preceding article. The names which are given to the Memoirs, whether spurious or genuine, vary greatly. Besides the Táríkh-i Salím-Sháhí and Túzak-i Jahángírí, they are also called Kár-náma Jahángírí,* the Wáki'át-i Jahángírí, the Bayáz-i Jahángír, the Ikbál-náma, the Jahángír-náma,* and the Makálát-i Jahángírí.*
Muhammad Háshim, in the Preface to his Muntakhabu-l Lubáb,
quotes among his authorities three several Jahángír-námas:
first, that by Jahángír himself; second, that by Mu'tamad
Khán; third, that by Mirzá Kámgár, entitled Ghairat Khán,
which was composed in order to correct sundry errors into
which Mu'tamad Khán had fallen. Neither of these works is
specially entitled to the name, the first being the “Memoirs,”
the second the Ikbál-náma*
Jahángírí, and the third the Ma-
I prefer calling this work the Wáki'át-i Jahángírí, as being not only in conformity with the title usually given to the autobiography of Bábar, but as being the one ascribed to it by the author of the Mir-át-i Áftáb-numá, and as being in a measure authorized by a passage in the Memoirs themselves under the transactions of the first year of the reign. Jahángír-náma and Bayáz would also appear to be not unauthorized by different passages of the Memoirs. Perhaps Malfuzát, after the precedent of Tímúr's Memoirs, might have been more appropriate; but no author has ever quoted them under that designation.
Gladwin, who extracts from the work in the “Reign of Jahángír,” published in A.D. 1788, speaks of them under the name of Túzak-i Jahángírí, which he says are the Commentaries of the Emperor written by himself. In the catalogue of Captain Jonathan Scott's Library the Túzak is said to be the same as the Ma-ásir-i Jahángírí, which is altogether wrong.
The copy of the authentic work which I have had an opportunity of examining is in the possession of Major-General T. P. Smith, of the Bengal Army. It was copied for him at Lucknow, and at his desire collated by Saiyid Muhammad Khán, who procured with much trouble copies for the purpose of comparison from the Libraries of the King of Dehlí, Rájá Raghúband Singh, chief of Úchhaira, Nawáb Faiz 'Alí Khán of Jhajjar, and several other places, and completed his task in the year 1843. A copy was sent to England for deposit in the Library of the East India House.
This work is prefaced by an Introduction and Conclusion by Muhammad Hádí, which will be noticed in another article. The autobiography is almost entirely different from the one translated by Major Price, and it may, therefore, perhaps be considered worthy of being translated, if it were only for the purpose of displacing the spurious version already given to the world, and which has attracted much observation from its supposed authenticity.
It is written in the form of Annals, giving chronologically the occurrences of each year of the reign. Major Price's translation, on the contrary, gives very few dates. The style is simple and inornate, and bears in some places the marks of negligence.
The royal author speaks of two different copies of his own Memoirs, the first edition comprising the period of twelve years only. In the transactions of the thirteenth year of the reign he tells us, that when the occurrences (wakái') of twelve years were transcribed from the Jahángír-náma into a fair copy (bayáz*), he directed the writers of the Royal Library to make several copies of the history of these twelve years, and to bind them into a separate volume, and then he distributed them amongst his dependents for circulation throughout his dominions, in order that they might become a study and exemplar for their observance. The first copy which was prepared he presented to Sháh Jahán, after writing on the back of it with his own hand the date and place of presentation. A little later, in the annals of the same year, we read of two more copies being given away.
The twelve-year work ends with the King's arrrival at Ahmadábád in Gujarát, which occurred at the beginning of the thirteenth year of the reign. In the language there is no difference between that and the complete Memoirs, and in the former there are very few omissions, not amounting to more than 500 lines, so that it is evident that it was not re-compiled for the purpose of being included in the complete work. I have seen two copies, both commencing and ending in the same way; but, from several omissions, one was a third less than the other. The best contained 482 pages of 13 lines each.
This smaller work is evidently the one which Gladwin speaks
of in his “Memoirs of Jahángír.” He says (p. 92), “They contain
a minute account of the political and private conduct of his
life from the commencement of his reign to the end of the
twelfth year. They are universally admired for the purity,
elegance, and simplicity of the style, and he appears in general
to have exposed his own follies and weaknesses with great
candour and fidelity. When he had completed the Memoirs of
twelve years, he distributed several copies of them amongst his
children and the principal officers of his Court. He continued these
Memoirs with his own hand till the commencement of the
seventeenth year of his reign, when, finding himself from ill-
It will be observed hereafter that the name of the continuator is wrongly given, and that the real Memoir is extant to the end of the eighteenth, or rather the beginning of the nineteenth year.
That Gladwin never saw the larger work is probable from the style in which he speaks of the Memoirs above, and from his extracting nothing from them after the twelfth year, as well as from the tables of routes at the end of the history, which do not extend beyond Jahángír's arrival at Mándú, which occurred in the twelfth year of the reign, leaving out all the subsequent progresses to and from Gujarát, and in Upper India and Kashmír. It is doubtful whether Colonel Polier's copy, to which he alludes, contained the continuation ascribed to Mu'tamad Khán, or the continuation by the Emperor himself beyond the first twelve years, or merely the Memoirs of these twelve years.
It is strange that the author of the Ma-ásiru-l Umará, who was a man of unusually large research, quotes in his Preface the Jahángír-náma, written by the Emperor, “in which he details the occurrences of twelve years of the reign,” so that he, too, could not have been in possession of a perfect copy, and we may therefore consider the Memoirs of eighteen years as a very rare work, almost unknown even in India itself. The author of the Critical Essay is among the few to whom it was known, because he says he never saw a copy which extended beyond the eighteenth year.
Respecting this more perfect work, Jahángír himself says in the annals of the seventeenth year of his reign, “On the 7th of the month of Ázur, the ambassadors of Sháh 'Abbás, who had been deputed several times to my Court, received honorary dresses, and took their leave. Sháh 'Abbás had despatched by Haidar Beg a letter to me, apologizing for his conduct in the matter of Kandahár. An account of it with the attendant circumstances was entered in this Ikbál-náma. * * *
“As I still suffered from the weakness which had affected me during the last two years, I had neither heart nor head to think about the foul copies of my Memoirs. It was about this time that Mu'tamad Khán returned from the Dakhin and kissed the threshold. He was a faithful servant and pupil, and conducted himself to my satisfaction. He knew my disposition, and understood me in every respect. He was before this employed to write the occurrences (wakái') of my reign, and I now gave him an order to continue the Memoirs from the date up to which I had been writing, and place his narrative at the end of my foul copies (musawidát). I told him to write it in the form of a diary (roznámcha), and after submitting it for my corrections, it was afterwards to be copied into a book (bayáz). Moreover, at this time my mind was seriously engaged in making preparations for the expedition to Kandahár, and distracted by the anxiety I sustained upon learning the disaffection and excesses of Khurram.”