Primary sourceArtifactc. 1590-1595

Victoria and Albert Akbarnama

c. 1590-1595

The first illustrated manuscript of the Akbarnama, made for Akbar himself with 116 paintings showing events from his reign.

This imperial manuscript was commissioned for Akbar and painted in his own royal workshops during his reign.

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Painted Mughal miniature showing Akbar's elephant Hawai in a riverside scene: elephants and men on a sandy bank, boatmen in wooden boats struggling in choppy water, figures at a red fort wall above, and Persian inscriptions at the bottom. — Akbarnama manuscript, c. 1590-1595. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

About this source

What it is

This is the earliest illustrated copy of the Akbarnama, produced in Akbar's royal workshops even as Abu'l-Fazl was still writing the text, around the 1580s-1590s. Its second volume, with 116 paintings covering events from 1560 to 1577, is held today at the Victoria and Albert Museum; the first volume is in Tehran.

Why it matters

Because the manuscript was being illustrated while the text was still being revised, many pages were patched and pasted over to match new wording — physical evidence of how the history was being actively shaped. Later Mughal emperors Jahangir and Aurangzeb valued and marked the manuscript with their own seals, showing how it was treasured as an imperial object long after Akbar's death.

Look closer

What do the pasted-over text panels tell you about how this manuscript was made and revised?
Why might later emperors want to keep and seal a history of their predecessor's reign?
What does it mean that the images were created almost at the same time as the events or text, rather than much later?

This artifact is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Akbar the Great on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.