Significance of Faizi's Nal Daman in Indo-Persian Literature

Abstract

The Persian language and literature flourished in India in the Mughal period specially during the period of Akbar when Maktabkhana or the house of translation was established, and the courtiers was assigned the works of translation from Sanskrit to Persian. Poet laureate Faizi who was one of the distinguished poets of Akbar's court, translated the story of Nala and Damayanti from Mahabharata and produced a masterpiece Masanawi Nal Daman on Indian theme for the first time in Indo- Persian literature. It had changed the tradition of Masanawi narration in India. Many poets from Faizi's contemporary time and even later periods i.e. poets from the reign of Jahangir, Shahjahan and Aurangzeb also followed the tradition of translating Indian stories in Persian Masanawis. This paper attempts to discover about the Masanawi of Nal Daman and its impact on the later poets of Indo-Persian literature.