King · Folk · North India · Agra, Fatehpur Sikri and Lahore

Akbar

Also called: Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, Akbar the Great

The third Mughal emperor (reigned 1556 to 1605), who held court at Lahore from the 1580s; the Punjabi ballads remember his centralised land revenue, the officers who collected it and the hanging of Dulla Bhatti in Lahore in 1599, and the Gudi Padwa and Durga Puja stories of the Lore name him as the emperor of their day.

Sources: Dulla Bhatti, Wikipedia; There is an agrarian backstory to the legend of Dulla Bhatti (Down To Earth, 2023, excerpting Ishwar Dayal Gaur, Martyr as Bridegroom, 2008); Who is Dulla Bhatti, the Robin Hood of Punjab immortalised in the Lohri song? (The Quint) · see Akbar's web

Relations 2

Akbar appears in

Pohela Boishakh, the Bengali New Year (Festival) All traditions · The ledger opened before Ganesha (the haal khata and how the Bengali year began)
Tradition credits his Tarikh-e-Ilahi of 1584, counted from 1556, with the Bangla san and the revenue day that became the haal khata.

Akbar slew

Dulla Bhatti (Rai Abdullah Khan Bhatti) (Mortal) Folk · The songs for Dulla Bhatti (Lohri)
Ordered his public execution in Lahore in 1599, as the ballads and the historians agree; the manner is told differently.

Stories 2

The songs for Dulla Bhatti (Lohri)
Folk tale · as the emperor whose officers he fought · 2 tellings
The ledger opened before Ganesha (the haal khata and how the Bengali year began)
Folk tale · as the emperor whose solar year Bengal keeps · 2 tellings

Akbar

Relations 2

Akbar appears in

Akbar slew

Stories 2

Cited