Tuzuk-I-Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jahangir

Emperor Nur-ud-din Jahangir hails from the illustrious Babur family. The memoir-writing trend descended to Babur down from his great ancestor, Amir Timur. Inspite of his varied preoccupations in battles and other political knottings, Babur had well afforded to roll out his memories which outline more vividly as compared to that of his ancestors.

Jahangir kept up to the scene as the ‘Ruling Soul’ for a long duration of twenty-two years. The incentive of carrying on his memories ended in the seventeenth year of his rule for break down in his health after which they were continued by Mu’tamad Khan till the nineteenth year of Jahangir’s power, under his pseudo name. The memories were conclusively written out in the narrative of Iqbal-Nama of which Mu’tamad Khan was the distinguished author.

The present Tuzuk-I-Jahangiri or Memories of Jahangir give a lively picture of India in the early decades of the seventeenth century, and are a valuable supplement to the Akbarnama and other such writings of the time.

Preface

MR. ROGERS translated the Memoirs of Jahangir several years ago from the edition which Sayyid Ahmad printed at Ghazipur in 1863 and at Allyghur in 1864. Orientalists are greatly indebted to the Sayyid for his disinterested labours, but his text seems to have been made from a single and defective MS, and is often incorrect, especially in the case of proper names. I have collated it with the excellent MSS. in the India Office and the British Museum, and have thus been able to make numerous corrections. I have also consulted the MS. in the Library of the R.A.S., but it is not a good one. I have, with Mr. Rogers’s permission, revised the translation, and I have added m