Description
In 1582 the Mughal emperor Akbar underwrote a Persian translation of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, thus transforming the great Indian epic into a Mughal courtly text. The court poured many resources into producing the translation, and the resulting text, called the Razmnamah (Book of War), remained a seminal literary work in Mughal circles for decades. While scholars have long been aware of the Razmnamah and its centrality to Mughal literary culture, few have seriously treated the textual content of this translation. Indologists have spilled much ink in repeatedly listing the dozen or so Sanskrit-Persian translations produced in Akbar’s court, including the Razmnamah.