The Ain-i Akbari was the culmination of a large historical, administrative project of classification undertaken by Abu’l Fazl at the order of Emperor Akbar. It was completed in 1598. The Ain was part of a larger project of history writing commissioned by Akbar. The Ain is made up of five books (daftars), of which the first three books describe the administration.
The first book, called manzil-abadi, concerns the imperial household and its maintenance.
The second book, sipah-abadi, covers the military and civil administration and the establishment of servants. This book includes notices and short biographical sketches of imperial officials (mansabdars), learned men, poets and artists.
The third book, mulk-abadi, is the one which deals with the fiscal side of the empire and provides rich quantitative information on revenue rates, followed by the “Account of the Twelve Provinces”
The fourth and fifth books (daftars) deal with the religious, literary and cultural traditions of the people of India and also contain a collection of Akbar’s “auspicious sayings”.
- Historians who have carefully studied the Ain point out that it is not without its problems. Numerous errors in totalling have been detected.
- Another limitation of the Ain is the somewhat skewed nature of the quantitative data. Data were not collected uniformly from all provinces.
- Further, while the fiscal data from the subas is remarkable for its richness, some equally vital parameters such as prices and wages from these same areas are not as well documented.
- These limitations notwithstanding, the Ain remains an extraordinary document of its times. By providing fascinating glimpses into the structure and organisation of the Mughal Empire and by giving us quantitative information about its products and people.
- The information it contains on people, their professions and trades and on the imperial establishment and the grandees of the empire which enables historians to reconstruct the social fabric of India at that time
