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XIII. The Treasure of Akbar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Vincent A. Smith
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Extract

The unsatisfactory modern compositions in European languages which profess to treat of the life and reign of Akbar all omit many things which ought to be mentioned, and fail to give a true view of Abkar's personality. The design of writing a life of Akbar more veracious than any now current has long been present to my mind, but may never be fulfilled, although I have made considerable collections for the purpose. However that may be, it seems worth while to devote a special article to the consideration of the enormous cash reserve accumulated by Akbar, which is one of the numerous facts of importance neglected by historians and biographers.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , April 1915 , pp. 231 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1915

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References

page 233 note 1 My references are made te the reprint because I happen to possess a copy of it. The India Office Library has both issues.

page 233 note 2 “The Credit due to the book entitled The Voyages and Travels of J. Albert de Mandelslo into the East Indies”: JRAS., 1915, p. 245.Google Scholar

page 235 note 1 Both impressions are very rare. I have never known a copy of either to be offered for sale. The British Museum possesses both. The Bodleian has the 1649 impression, and All Souls College, Oxford, has that of 1653. I believe there is a copy of one or other in Calcutta.

page 236 note 1 What is the derivation of the form Nacassàr? Can it be a derivative from naḳsha, “register” ?

page 236 note 2 De Laët certainly had the use of some official documents, because on p. 147 he says that he took the list of Amīrs, Mansabdārs, and Ahadīs, with the numbers of elephants, camels, and other animals, as in Jahāngīr's reign, from the fragment of an Indian chronicle (“Haec è fragmento chronici ipsorum accepimus”). He also gives the strength of Jahāngir's field armies sent to the Deccan in 1609 and 1610. The figures must have been obtained from an official paper.

page 237 note 1 De Laët writes to the same effect: “Cæteri fere principes secreto res suas peragunt, hic vero omnia regni negotia propalam discutiuntur, nequidem ea quæ intra conclave peraguntur, curiosos latere possunt, exiguo modo donario scribis illius indulto” (p. 114).

page 237 note 2 The 230,000,000 should be 23 millions. = 766,666⅔. The pseudo-Mandelslo has the same mistake as to the millions. He reckons the ⅔ fraction as “twenty pence,” scil. takās, at 30 to the rupee. I abstain purposely from discussing numismatic questions suggested by the extracts.

page 238 note 1 Tavernier, 's TravelsGoogle Scholar, trans. Ball, V., vol. i, p. 26 and appendix.Google Scholar

page 238 note 2 Hawkins was at Agra from 1609 to 1611. He reckons two rupees as equal to one “Rial of eight” and 1,000 rupees as equivalent to £100 (Purchas his Pilgrimes, ed. Maclehose, , vol. iii, pp. 39, 40).Google Scholar

page 239 note 1 Purchas his Pilgrimes, p. 40 in Wheeler's reprint.Google Scholar

page 243 note 1 “Mandelslo” describes the books as manuscripts, but the Jesuit accounts indicate that a few volumes printed in Europe must have been included.