I have at last finished the translation of the historical part of the Akbarnāma. It has occupied me, with occasional interruptions, for over twenty years, and I must confess that the work has not been always congenial. In fact, I must say that I began it with a feeling of aversion. I had the idea that Abu-l-Faẓl was a rhetorician and a shameless flatterer. And I admit that the feeling still remains. I must also say that his style, especially in the later volumes, is tortuous and obscure. Possibly, this is due to the loss, during the progress of the work, of Faiẓī, his elder brother, who was a poet and who revised part of the book, and who, presumably, improved Abu-l-Faẓl's style. Left to himself, he may have adopted a still more stilted and archaic style which, perhaps, he picked up from 'Abdullah Waṣṣāf and others, with the result that he became even more obscure than he was originally. But I must go on to say that his indomitable industry, and his accuracy wherever he was not, from prudential motives, suppressing the truth, have at length overcome me, and I leave him with greater feelings of respect than I began with. After all, when everything has been said that can be said against Abu-l-Faẓl, should we not be grateful to him for his book? If he had not given so many years of nights and days to his task, where would we have looked for a knowledge of many important facts of Indian history? And what a pity it is that Jehāngīr, Akbar's unworthy son, should have murdered the author, when he was approaching the end of his task and when there were not wanting signs that he was beginning to see that there were spots on his sun and that his idol had not worked out the beast!

I believe that I am indebted to my learned friend Dr. Hoernle, C.I.E., for having led me to undertake the translation of the Akbarnāma. He it was who, as Philological Secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, set me on a task for which I, a poor opsimath, was very imperfectly fitted. I hope I have improved as I went on, but the want of early training in scholarship can never be made good.

Since I finished the translation, I have been engaged in making the Index. Not that I have any skill in such work, but I have thought that if I did not do it, no one else was likely to undertake it, and that my translation, to use the expression quoted by Mr. Norton, the Indian Barrister, might remain a costly tool without a handle. So, I have begun it and have nearly got to the end of the letter M which is by far the biggest letter in an index to a Muḥammadan work. I have also made a list of Errata and Addenda. I am sorry that they are so many and so important, but it is satisfactory that I have found them and acknowledged them. I do not think that it would repay any one to read through my translation of the Akbarnāma, and I very much doubt if any one will do so. I think the world is too busy for this. What I would recommend is that somebody should abridge the book. He, or she, might profitably omit the horoscopes and the biographies of Akbar's real or imaginary pre­decessors and ancestors before Bābur. He might also omit the strings of names, the discussion about comets and a digression, in the third volume, into Persian History. He might also cur­tail occasional verbiage. On the other hand, he might, I think, add “The Sayings of Akbar” in Colonel Jarrett's translation, with perhaps some additions and corrections, and Abu-l-Faẓl's account of his early struggles. He might also add, in the original Latin, Monserrate's description of Akbar's person, pp. 640-41 of his Commentary, A.S.B. edition. I am too old and feeble for such work and shall only say “Exoriare aliquis nostris e vocibus auctor.”

Abu-l-Faẓl is not a picturesque writer, nor are his reflections profound or affecting. Very seldom does he make an interesting remark. He has not the charm of Herodotus, nor the outspoken­ness and raciness of the crabbed, bigoted and sinful Badāūnī. He seldom tells a story without spoiling it. See, for instance, the account of Akbar's chivalrous rescue of the Jodhpūr Rajah's daughter from a compulsory Satī. We are not told her name, nor the length of Akbar's ride, nor any other of the little details which would have enhanced the interest of the narrative. Perhaps the best instance of his picturesqueness is the account of Rūpmatī's death, and his most sensible remark is that in the third volume where he says that the accounts of a battle are like the blind men's descriptions of an elephant.

On the other hand, Abu-l-Faẓl's love for sources—the Quellen of the Germans—is far in advance of his age. To him we owe not only the Akbarnāma but also the Memoirs of Gulbadn Begam, Jauhar the ewer-bearer, Bajazat (Bāyazīd) Biyat and, perhaps, Niāmu-d-dīn's history. But I have treated of this matter in a paper published in the J.P.A.S.B., Vol. XIV, 1918, p. 469.

I should also like to say something about Abu-l-Faẓl's flattery of Akbar. It is gross, but it is not unnatural, and is in part the result of an honest hero-worship. We must remember the position of the two men. Akbar was emperor of India and a very remarkable man. He had raised Abu-l-Faẓl and his family from indigence and obscurity to affluence and power. It must also be borne in mind that Akbar was the elder of the two men. He was born in October, 1542, and Abu-l-Faẓl in January, 1550, so that there were seven years and more between them. Akbar therefore was in the position of an elder brother. This, when added to the attraction of Akbar's position as sovereign, was more than human nature could withstand. Even Badāūnī felt this I believe too that Abu-l-Faẓl really thought that the fact of Akbar's ignorance of reading and writing, when combined with his mental gifts, placed him in the category of inspired beings or super-men and placed him on a level with such prodigies as Buddha, Zoroaster and Muḥammad, if indeed he was not superior to them. That Abu-l-Faẓl really believed in Muḥammad's spiritual greatness, seems to be proved by his occasional involuntary ejaculations, and by the labour and cost which he bestowed on making copies of the Qorān and in publishing an elaborate commentary on it. It is also well-known that all orientals used to believe, and probably do so still, in mystics and fanatics. See also Akbar's own saying, Jarrett, III, 385: “The prophets were all illiterate. Believers should therefore retain one of their sons in that condition.” He did not, however, keep any of his three sons uneducated.

Abu-l-Faẓl's general accuracy has been vindicated against Elphinstone, who has made a charge against him which is based on Elphinstone's own imperfect knowledge of Persian. I refer to a note in the latter's History of India, p. 452 of the 4th edition, 1857, which I have quoted at p. 731 of my translation; Elphin­stone says there that A. F., after giving a full description of the disaster in Afghānistān, concludes by stating the loss at (only) 500 men. Now the work in the original for “men” is kas, and this in Persian has two meanings. Firstly, it means ordinary persons or “no-account men.” Secondly, it means persons of distinction, that is, personages, and the context shows that the word is used here by A. F. in the secondary sense. On this point see Vullers' Dict., II, 831, where kas is rendered by vir dignus, and Richardson, 1008a. And that the 500 of A. F. here means 500 notables or men of rank, is sufficiently evidenced, I think, by the fact that Ferishta and Badāūnī, while stating the loss at 8,000 and more, make no comment on A. F.'s 500 which would have been quite contrary to their statements if kas had been understood by them to mean the total loss. Blochmann, too, in p. 345 of his Āīn translation, has “500 officers fell.” Here it may be remarked in passing that Blochmann has inadvertently said that the disaster took place in the Khyber. It should have been Kekur or Balandarī in the Yūsufzai country. A. F.'s character for accuracy is also supported by Monserrate's Com­mentary where he describes the campaign against Muḥammad Ḥakīm in Afghānistān. Indeed, the two accounts, A. F.'s in the Akbarnāma and Monserrate's in the Commentary, agree so well that one thinks they must have discussed the expedition together. Both of them were in it, but Monserrate's is fuller, and where he states something more than A. F. does, for example, where he describes the interview of Muḥammad Ḥakīm's sister with Akbar in Cabul, where she pleaded the cause of her brother, Monserrate's statement should be preferred.

Lord Macaulay, in his History of England, remarks: “To speak the whole truth concerning William Penn, is a task which requires some courage, for he is rather a mythical than a historical character. Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonising him.” A similar remark might be made about Akbar, and my point is not affected by doubts as to whether Sir James Makintosh and Macaulay were right in identifying the go-between in the affair of the pardons with the apostle of Pennsylvania. They may have been wrong. This is a question I am not com­petent to decide, but on account of my love and admiration for Macaulay's writings, I may be allowed to say that I have never seen any proof that Penn the intriguer and Penn the Quaker were two different persons. All I think that Macaulay's detrac­tors have shown is that there was another Penn who dabbled in the political intrigues of the day, and that so he may have been the guilty person in the affair of the pardons. But proof that he was so, seems to be wanting. I admit, however, that Macaulay's note is not as conclusive as, perhaps, it might have been.