Person · r. 1556 – 1605

Akbar

اکبر

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The Mughal emperor under whom the Rajput alliance system was built — by marriage, by rank, and by the calculation that a served empire is cheaper than a conquered one.

A full-length standing figure in profile on a plain green ground, in an orange turban and a plain yellow jama with a patterned sash, a pearl necklace, a gold halo, a grey-and-white falcon on the raised hand, red-and-white striped leggings and yellow shoes — a court painting of the period, not a likeness.
A full-length standing figure in profile on a plain green ground, in an orange turban and a plain yellow jama with a patterned sash, a pearl necklace, a gold halo, a grey-and-white falcon on the raised hand, red-and-white striped leggings and yellow shoes — a court painting of the period, not a likeness.http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/portrait-of-akbar-with-falcon-148505 (artist: unknown, c. 17th century) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Draft. This entry is an unreviewed first draft. It has not yet been checked by a subject reviewer — see sources and method.

The reign as the sources date it

Abu’l Fazl reckons by the Ilahi year, and the Akbarnama fixes the sixth of them precisely: it began after “9 hours, 59 minutes” of the night of 10 March 1561. The Amber alliance falls inside that year, which is why this archive does not print a bare “1562” for it without saying so.

The alliance as policy

The Amber arrangement was not an isolated favour. Blochmann’s register shows Rajput chiefs entering the same graded system of *mansab* rank as Irani, Turani and Afghan nobles, and rising within it — culminating in Man Singh’s seven thousand. Whether that is best read as tolerance, as recruitment, or as the cheapest available frontier policy is a question the sources argue rather than settle, and this archive keeps the argument.

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Referred to by

Sources