Akbar of Hindustan

Akbar the Great is a figure familiar to most Indians. He is celebrated as an exceptional warrior, a great administrator, and a visionary ruler whose ideas of pluralism and religious tolerance helped him strive to unite India, a land inhabited by people of diverse faiths. At the national level, however, Akbar has increasingly become a subject of heated and conflicting debates. Familiar as he may be, he remains an enigma trapped within his own legends: admirable, yet difficult to understand.

What was Akbar really like—as a little boy, a father, a friend, and an enemy? What were his emotional states—his anger, his grief, his deepest passions, and his laughter? How did a thirteen-year-old boy, deprived of his father’s protection and surrounded by ambitious advisers and nobles, become the most powerful king in the world? And how did he cope with this astonishing rise to power? Was Akbar a sceptic, or did he believe that he possessed divine and miraculous powers?

This biography unravels Akbar’s complex and fascinating personality. It also traces how his ideas and ideals of kingship evolved during his reign, how he consolidated political and religious authority in his own hands, and how moments of supreme self-confidence coexisted with his doubts and his relentless pursuit of justice.

Rich in detail and filled with unforgettable characters, the biography combines humour with intense drama, presenting a vivid picture of the world in which Akbar lived. Based on extensive research and written with elegance, Parvati Sharma’s portrait of Akbar the Great brings to life, in an unprecedented way, a remarkable yet imperfect human being who ruled for nearly fifty years and has continued to live in the Indian imagination for almost half a millennium.