Razmnama

Razmnama leaf Brooklyn Museum.

The Razmnama (Book of War) (رزم نامہ) is a Persian translation of the Mahabharata. In Persian, “Razm” means “war” and "nama" means “tale” or “epic”; Razmnama therefore means a tale of war. In 1574 Akbar started a Maktab Khana or a house of translation works in Fatehpur Sikri. He endorsed the work to few officials to take translation works of the Sanskrit books Rajatarangini, Ramayana and Mahabharata into the Persian language.^[1]

First copy

In 1582 it was ordered to translate Mahabharata into Persian. The translation work of Mahabharata which has one lakh Slokas was done during 1584–1586. Today the copy of this translation work can be seen in “City Palace Museum” of Jaipur.^[2] Mushfiq has contributed the paintings to this book. The speciality of this Razmnama is the paintings of the events of Mahabharata in the book.^[3]

Second copy

The second copy of Razmnama was completed between 1598 and 1599. If compared with the first copy, the second copy has elaborated one. In this copy the 161 images of paintings can help to understand the Mahabharata well. The paintings were the token of the Akbar’s period’s Excellency of the artists. It clearly shows the patronage of artists during Akbar’s period. The copies were sent to the Royal family members as gift to understand the Hindu religion better. According to the Akbar’s courtier Abd al-Qadir Badayuni, Akbar ordered to send the copies to all the Amirs of his kingdom, and ordered to receive them as the gift from God. According to Abul Fazl, the intention behind these gifts and distribution was so pious.^[1]

References

Sources

• "Welcome to Project MUSE". muse.jhu.edu. Retrieved 2014-08-26. 

• "Brooklyn Museum: Items Tagged "Razm-nama"". brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved 2014-08-26.