Even this volume’s subtitle might seem at first too broad, since this volume is essentially the first translation and detailed study of Abū al-Faz̤l’s Preface to the Razmnāmah, the Persian translation of the Mahābhārata commissioned by the emperor Akbar and probably the best known of the works produced in his maktab khānah. In reality, however, the volume does justify both its title and its subtitle by the emphasis it places on, and its implications for, related issues ranging from the earlier history of translations of Sanskrit texts into Persian, which are traced as far back as the now lost translation of the Pañcatantra made for the Sassanid ruler Anūshīrvān, through Abū al-Faz̤l’s relationship to Akbar as his king and patron to the reception of the Razmnāmah within the Mughal court in its then millennial context as a warning of the instability of power.
The collaborative first chapter addresses a range of background topics. Its five authors note that the specific manuscript being studied (BL Add. 5641–5642) came into the British Museum collection through the purchase of Nathaniel Halhed’s library in 1830 (going to the British Library when that was separated from the British Museum) but that it had been in the imperial Mughal library from 1599 to 1609. The authors examine in detail the evidence that the text was first explained in Hindī by various named brahmins (with their identities probed and their standing explored in some detail) and was then translated into Persian by Naqīb Khān, while noting also that Abū al-Faz̤l himself did not actually know Sanskrit. They also address the question of what Sanskrit manuscripts or manuscripts of the Mahābhārata the translation might have been based upon, since most available manuscripts are later than those of the Razmnāmah (as is also the case for other translations made for Akbar such as that of the Rāmāyaṇa). This is in the main well handled, although I doubt whether its treatment of the Bhagavadgītā has any bearing on the debate about when that was included within the Mahābhārata (p. 20 n. 83).
The lynchpin of the whole volume is the second and longest chapter, comprising an annotated translation by Hajnalka Kovacs of the Preface based on the edition printed in Tehran between 1979 and 1981. This seems careful and accurate, including its rendering of the ornateness of Abū al-Faz̤l’s difficult prose; the care with which the discrepancies of readings between the BL manuscript studied (dated Dhū al-Ḥijjah 1007/June–July 1599 CE) and the Tehran edition is particularly notable. As remarked at various points elsewhere in the volume, this demonstrates the instability of the text in manuscripts of Mughal translations, let alone those of the Sanskrit Mahābhārata. The Preface (called by Abū al-Faz̤l himself a khuṭbah) begins with an extensive and sycophantic eulogy of Akbar. It then outlines the four yugas and Hindu cosmology before turning to the Mahābhārata, with an outline of the narrative, including the life of Kṛṣṇa (taken from the Harivaṃsa and more negatively presented in the BL manuscript than elsewhere), and these are followed by a piece on Vyāsa as author and a list with brief contents of the parvans, simply taken over second hand by Abū al-Faz̤l.
The third chapter, by three of the five contributors to the first chapter, considers Abū al-Faz̤l’s views about the Razmnāmah and its purpose, organised around three themes which follow the tripartite organisation of the Preface itself: writing for Akbar, the ‘Emperor of the Age’, reading the Razmnāmah, and pondering over the nature of the Mahābhārata. Abū al-Faz̤l here presents Akbar as the ultimate answer to the problems of the current state of affairs, while including a sideswipe at the orthodox elite. The authors point out that the context for this is the approach of the year 1000, due to start in October 1591, just five years after Abū al-Faz̤l began writing his Preface. Abū al-Faz̤l’s praise of Akbar’s benevolence, extending to a love of animals and an inclination to avoid eating meat, is also placed in context, as is Abū al-Faz̤l’s presentation of Akbar’s commissioning of translations of ‘the revered books of both groups’ as the antidote to bigotry. The authors of this chapter make here two significant points: the concentration on classical Sanskrit texts to the exclusion of bhakti-oriented vernacular works and the time frame of the Mahābhārata as a corrective to orthodox Islamic views. They also note that here, in relation to the origin of the Mahābhārata, Abū al-Faz̤l does not name Vyāsa as its author but rather Brahmā, thus emphasising it as a timeless text.
The fourth chapter, by the editor, Michael Willis, alone is entitled ‘Post-Script’, but it is in many ways a continuation of the discussion of the implications of Abū al-Faz̤l’s work in the third chapter. Abū al-Faz̤l’s declaration that he felt unequal to the task of writing the Preface is interpreted as his absence of any acquaintance with the Mahābhārata before Akbar’s commissioning of the Persian translation. Noting that the summaries of the parvans, which are essentially taken over by Abū al-Faz̤l from indigenous sources, nevertheless include the comments that the Śalyaparvan should have been divided into two and the Śānti and Anuśāsana parvans combined into one. Willis suggests that these remarks came from a discussion between other members of the translation team and Naqīb Khān on the topic. Almost the final point made in this chapter is the significant one that there are a number of places where the BL manuscript copy distances itself from Abū al-Faz̤l’s equation of Akbar with God that is found in other manuscripts. There then follow four appendices: by John Seyler on the notations in the British Library; by Muntazir Ali on the colophon of the Jaipur Rasmnāman and its seals and notations; by Vafa Movahedian on the Philadelphia fragment of Abū al-Faz̤l’s Preface; and by Muntazir Ali on the colophon, notations, and seal of a Razmnamah in the India Office Collection (IO Islamic 642). The volume concludes with a monochrome reproduction of the Preface in BL Add. 5641–5642.
It is regrettable that for a volume of such value it has not been better proofread. There are frequent omissions or misplacements of the definite article and of prepositions, but fortunately none that cannot be worked out. The nearest to a real problem that I noticed was ‘excused’ for ‘excised’ (p. 20). In all other respects, this volume is to be welcomed and has set a high standard to reach for subsequent volumes in the series (Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State) which it inaugurates.
