From Sanskrit to Persian: the Book of War

[Mahabharata]. Razm-nama [The book of war].

Auf Anfrage

The Sanskrit Mahabharata in all eighteen books of its Persian incarnation, the Razmnama. This Persian text was a feat of translation originally commissioned in 1582 by the Mughal emperor Akbar; the resulting Razmnama is not a literal translation of the Sanskrit original, but the content and the narrative itself are relatively unchanged. Its source text, the Mahabharata, is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India alongside the Ramayana. It is one of human history's longest epic poems, and tells the story of the Kurukshetra War, with rich layers of philosophy and religious contemplation.

The translation of the Mahabharata was an important milestone in Mughal India, and part of a wider effort by Akbar to translate important Sanskrit texts into the Persian used by his court, and required intensive collaboration between Muslim and Hindu scholars. Perhaps the most famous narrative included within the Sanskrit Mahabharata is the Bhagavad Gita, and the eighteen chapters of the Persian prose version cover the full range of its many narratives and philosophical quandries.

This manuscript includes all eighteen chapters of the Razmnama, lacking only a few leaves from the beginning of the seventh chapter. Each chapter begins with its own dedicated miniature in the Indian style, illustrating classic scenes, often of battles, and highlighted in silver and gold gilt.