Quoting Old and New Poets in ‘Abd al-Baqi’s Ma’asir-i Rahimi

By the seventeenth century, poetry was used in almost all kinds of Indo-Persian prose texts, whether historical or belle-lettristic, ostensibly to break the monotony of the narrative. By this time writers had a large corpus of poetry to draw upon, from the so-called classical, middle and modern periods. How then were choices made about quoting particular poets and did this have any significance in the way a work was received and read? These questions will be taken up in a close analysis of one section of ‘Abd al-Bāqī’s Ma’āsir-e Rahīmī, a massive biography of the Mughal general, ‘Abd al-Rahīm Khānkhānan (1556-1626), completed in 1616. This work includes an account of the Khānkhānān’s military exploits, his building activities, as well as a biographical dictionary of individuals who benefited from his liberal artistic and literary patronage. In attempting to identify the models that ‘Abd al-Bāqī had before him for composing a work that was also novel in several respects, this paper will examine the use of poetic quotations in the text that allowed the author to commemorate certain classical poets, such as Anvarī, Khāqānī and Amīr Khusraw, while also including verses by recent poets from his own circle of friends. Given that the Ma’āsir-e Rahīmī was written in a milieu that was extremely conscious of the political implication of literature, the poetry included by the author in it becomes a fundamental part of its contents. The prosimetrum features of Mughal texts have not been studied seriously by scholars, the problem being compounded by unpublished texts and inadequate editions.