Bakhshi (Mughal Empire)

• 1. The Second Seat

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  In the Mughal Empire, the bakhshi was not a single official but a hierarchy of administrators. At its apex, the mir bakhshi held the second-highest rank in the entire realm, below only the imperial wazir. Emperor Akbar established these offices as part of a broader reorganization of imperial governance. The hierarchy extended from the central administration outward into every province and even the private staff of powerful nobles. Why would Akbar give a single administrative title such extraordinary prominence? And how did the office come to hold such a wide range of responsibilities in the Mughal state? The name bakhshi is the first place to look.

• 2. Roots and Design

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  The term bakhshi derives from the verb bakhshidan, meaning 'to give.' The historian William Irvine read the office's entire function into that etymology. In his view, the bakhshi was the official who gave entry into the army. The office had antecedents that preceded Akbar by centuries. During the 13th-century reign of Balban in the Delhi Sultanate, an office called the diwan-i-arz was created. Its purpose was to maintain a separate military administration as a check against the vizier. Scholars would later translate the mir bakhshi's position in English as 'paymaster general' or 'army minister.' Akbar pursued a similar goal of keeping military administration separate from the wazir's sphere. He added one critical design constraint: the mir bakhshi would not command the military. That authority was reserved for the emperor alone. The Ain-i-Akbari, a foundational text of Akbar's imperial administration, records a still-earlier prototype for the position called the mir-arz. Irvine identified the mir-arz as the immediate predecessor of the mir bakhshi. Akbar also ensured that each of the empire's provinces maintained its own bakhshi, extending the system far beyond the capital.

• 3. Seal and Supervision

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  In open court, the mir bakhshi presented every candidate seeking military appointment before the emperor. The official's seal then formally endorsed the new rank. These two gestures, the presentation and the seal, were the most visible expressions of a much wider set of responsibilities. The mir bakhshi recruited mansabdars and recommended suitable ranks for each. They regularly inspected the military units under these officials and determined their compensation, either in cash or as a jagir. Because every noble in the Mughal Empire held a mansab, the office's oversight reached well beyond the standing army. It encompassed the entire ruling class. Two subordinate officials, the second and third bakhshis, assisted at the imperial level. They handled lower-ranking mansabdars and the troops of the royal household. The mir bakhshi accompanied the emperor on royal expeditions and served as the court's formal intermediary for visiting ambassadors and state officials. The office operated as both a check on and a support for the imperial wazir. Together they served as two of the empire's four leading ministers. Many who occupied the position bore the additional honorific of Amir al-umara. On occasion, a mir bakhshi also served in the field as a military commander.

• 4. Watchers in Every Province

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  Waqia-navis, the empire's official news writers, were stationed across every province of the Mughal realm. Their reports traveled to the mir bakhshi at the capital, who gathered the intelligence and presented it directly to the emperor. This made the mir bakhshi the empire's central hub for provincial information. At the provincial level, each subah maintained its own bakhshi. This official reported not to the local governor, the subahdar, but directly to the mir bakhshi at the capital. Provincial bakhshis managed and paid the military forces of their subah. Many also served simultaneously as their province's waqia-navis, folding the intelligence function into the same office that handled military administration. Their oversight extended to all provincial mansabdars, including the most senior figures. Neither the subahdar nor the diwan was exempt from the bakhshi's reporting. This built-in scrutiny created friction, since the bakhshi's activities kept local officials answerable to the imperial center rather than to their own authority. In practice, the boundary was not always maintained. A provincial bakhshi's functions were sometimes combined with those of the subahdar or the diwan. Significant nobles also maintained their own bakhshis, who performed functions similar to those of the imperial office.

• 5. Faces of the Office

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  Shaikh Farid Bukhari, also known by his honorific title Farid Murtaza Khan, served as mir bakhshi under Emperor Akbar. The records place his tenure in the approximate period from the 1590s to 1605, the closing years of Akbar's reign. He stands as one of the earliest named holders of the position. The next documented name comes from Aurangzeb's court: Zulfiqar Khan Nusrat Jung, identified in the records as the son of Asad Khan. His tenure under Aurangzeb, who reigned from 1658 to 1707, ran approximately from the 1690s to 1707. A generation later, Khan Dowran VII is listed as mir bakhshi in the records of Muhammad Shah, who came to the throne in 1719. The records associate Khan Dowran's tenure with the years around 1713 to 1719. Together, these three names trace the position across more than a century of Mughal history. The office itself was also recorded under alternate designations: bakhshi-ul-mamalik and bakhshi-i-mamalik, names by which the position was also known.