Tuzk-e-Jahangiri or Tuzk-i-Jahangiri is the autobiography of Mughal Emperor Nor-u-Din Muhammad Jahangir

Jahangir

Jahangir was the ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1605 until his death. The name Jahangir is from Persian جهانگیر,meaning "Conqueror of the World"...

 (1569-1609). Also referred to as Jahangirnama , Tuzk-e-Jahangiri is written in Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, and follows the tradition of his great-grandfather, Babur

Babur

Babur was a Muslim conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty of South Asia. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother...

 (1487-1530), who had written the Baburnama

Baburnama

Bāburnāma is the name given to the memoirs of Ẓahīr ud-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur , founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great-great-grandson of Timur...

; though Jahangir went a step further and besides the history of his reign, he includes details like his reflections on art, politics, and also information about his family.

The writer

Jahangir was a good writer and loved nature. Jahangir recorded detailed description about wildlife in his autobiography. Jahangir admired paintings and collected them in his palace. Many of them survived and are found in museums around the world.

Overview

The text details the first nineteen years of his reign, but gave up the writing of his Memoirs in the seventeenth year of his reign. He then entrusted the task to Mu‘tamad Khān, the author of the Iqbal-nama, who continued the Memoirs to the beginning of the nineteenth year. From where, it was taken up by Muhammad Hadi, who continued it to Jahangir's death. It forms an important reference point for the era along with his father, Akbar's, Akbarnama

Akbarnama

The ' , which literally means Book of Akbar, is the official chronicle of the reign of Akbar, the third Mughal Emperor , commissioned by Akbar himself and written in Persian by his court historian and biographer, Abul Fazl who was one of the nine jewels in Akbar's court...

. First important printed version of 'Jahangirnama', was by, Sayyid Ahmad printed at Ghazipur in 1863 and at Aligarh in 1864

Jahangir’s autobiography also reflects the royal ideology of Jahangir’s views on various political, religious and social issues. Within the memoir, he noted many of his local level legislative policies in his large empire consisting of all of modern day India. Among them were his decrees to manage and regulate the jagirdars. Jagirdars were holders of the jagir

Jagir

In historic India, a jagir was a small territory granted by the ruler to an army chieftain in fairly short terms usually of three years but not extending beyond his lifetime, in recognition of his military service...

, the emperor’s land grant title. The jagirdars were to take the income of the land and use it mainly to finance the maintenance of the troops and to address the town needs. Jahangir made various attempts to halt corruption within the jagirdars. He prohibited each of them from using the money for personal profit by ordering that part of the land income to go to hospitals and infirmaries and for each town to be equipped with religious buildings according to the religion of that area. Jahangir also kept the jagirdars from gaining interest in family or land riches by ordering for jagirdars to seek his approval before marrying someone from the town they ruled in.

Further reading

• The Tūzuk-i-Jahangīrī Or Memoirs Of Jahāngīr, Alexander Rogers and Henry Beveridge
  Henry Beveridge
  Henry Beveridge was an Indian Civil Service officer and Orientalist in British India. He is one the few administrator-historians who studied Indian affairs with a radical outlook....
  
  . London, Royal Asiatic Society, 1909–1914.
• The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India by Jahangir, tr. Wheeler M. Thackston. Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  , 1999. ISBN 0195127188.

Work online

• The Tūzuk-i-Jahangīrī Or Memoirs Of Jahāngīr, Alexander Rogers and Henry Beveridge. Royal Asiatic Society, 1909–1914.