Monday, July 28, 2008

ACK-014:The Inimitable Birbal; & ACK-015: Ranadhira

Birbal (1528-1583) is surely one of the most popular figures in Indian history equally regarded by adults and children. Birbal's duties in Akbar's court were mostly administrative and military but he was a very close friend of Akbar too, because Akbar loved his wisdom, wit, and subtle humor. He was a minister in the administration (Grand Vizier or Wazīr-e Azam) of Mogul Emperor Akbar and one of the members of inner council of nine advisors, known as the navaratna, a Sanskrit word meaning nine jewels. Among these nine jewels, five people were more famous - Tansen, Todarmal, Abul Fazal, Maan Singh and Birbal.

1. Tansen for his singing art,

2. Dasvant - a great painter

3. King Todarmal was a financial wizard,

4. Abdu us-Samad - a brilliant calligrapher and designer of Imperil coins

5. Abul Fazal was a great historian whose brother

6. Faizi was a great poet,

7. Mir Fareh-ullah Shirazi - financier, philosopher, physician and astronomer,

8. King Maan Singh for his chivalry, and

9. Birbal for his valuable advice.

It is believed that he was a son of poor Brahmin of Trivikrampur (now known as Tikavanpur) on the banks of River Yamuna. Another version is born in the village Ghoghara of Sihawal tehsil in Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh. Raja Birbal died in the battle of Malandari Pass, attempting to quell unrest amongst Afghan or Pashtun tribes in Northwest India. Akbar was said to have mourned for a long time on hearing the news. The death was said to be caused by treachery, not military defeat.

The exchanges between Akbar and Birbal have been recorded in many volumes. Many of these have become folk stories in Indian tradition. He was a poet and an author too. Birbal's collection of poetry published under the pen name "Brahm" are preserved in Bharatpur Museum, Rajsthan, India.

Many courtiers were jealous with Birbal and often plotted for his downfall. There are many stories found on this issue too. There are a couple of other stories too which are of the same time and type and are as interesting as Birbal's ones.


Books on Akbar and Birbal

There are many books published about them, some of them are listed here.

1. Sawhney, Clifford. 50 Wittiest Tales of Birbal. Delhi: Pustak Mahal. [ISBN: 81-7806-050-7].

2. Moseley, James. The Ninth Jewel of the Mughal Crown. Pasadena, CA, Summerwind Marketing. 2001. (Children Books) [ISBN: 0970444710]

3. Sarin, Amita. Akbar and Birbal. Delhi: Penguin. 2005. [ISBN: 0-14-333494-8]

4. Matba Jauhar-e-hind. Lata'if-e-Akbar - Hissah Pahli: Birbal Namah. Delhi: Mahanarayan. 1888. (In Urdu language).

Download Comics (7.37 Mb)

Many many thanks to “Anonymous” for providing ACK scan.

*******************************************************************

An out of print ACK

If someone is interested, can provide summary.





Many many thanks to “Ajnaabi” for providing ACK scan.

32 comments:

  1. Thanks a lot to all the contributors to this site. I came across this site today as I was looking for online comics to show some american children here. They were very excited to read the stories that they have written a petition to their school teacher to order the entire set of ACK. Thanks a lot to everybody who contributed to this wonderful site.
    Thanks,
    Padma, USA

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Madam,

    It’s the best appreciation ever we had. The motive of this site is to tell about our great culture, history & heritage. I touched with the activity of children. It was my dream that all age group visitors visited our e-library, especially kids. You don’t know how I’m glad to know that we are going in right direction. In behalf of all other writers & contributors, I humbly bow before children for their application & love; and you for your kind words. Please keep visiting; there will be many ACK which are out of print. Check the list posted July 10, 2008. We are planning to post all ever published ACK. Please allow them to visit in future, we will maintain the level, it’s our guarantee.

    Thanks.
    Prabhat
    Russia

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Prabhat

    You have no idea how glad I was to chance upon your site.
    Many million thanks dude! You brought my childhood back in an awesome way
    Sai

    ReplyDelete
  4. Prabhat,

    As always 'Great Job' & Thanks a lot for this effort from everyone involved.

    Gokul

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sai:Welcome. Very glad to find one more fan of ACK. Keep visiting.

    கோகுல் சத்தியமூர்த்தி:Welcome friend. Thank you for your regular visit.

    ReplyDelete
  6. yes .... ur blog is simply great ....

    bt some comics have missing pages .... y dont u check before posting ...

    eg: chandra shekhar azad ....
    last 4 pges r missing ......

    could u plz, upload those pages besides that dlink ....

    hope 2 get a + ans ....

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you guys!

    Even in China, it was a wonderful surprise to get in touch with stuff that i'd lost touch with since childhood.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous: Dear Friend, Welcome. I don’t understand why only you are unable to download “Chandra Shekhar Azad” completely. It is a 36 page comic uploaded by ICC, I can’t change the links. In fact there is no need to change. To check the link, I downloaded it from 7 different computers and always got all pages. But specially for you, a new link - http://www.mediafire.com/?z3gtdmibxz9 (29.72 MB).
    If it is also not working, please check your computer.

    Sarabjeet: Welcome. Thanks for solving the mystery, I always wonder while checking sitemeter, who is logging from China. Keep visiting.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Cool post. Thanks to Prab & the original scanner.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Prabhat, this site is going global and really in a right direction. I was happy to see (now a trademark "double treat") posts as well as the comments this time. Nice to see that the purpose of the site is served well. People are learning and keen to know more about Indian culture.
    Great work and keep it up.
    I again request for some Hindi posts. :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. colonel worobu: Welcome friend.

    dm: Welcome friend. Trying to increase the number of comics in one post, to post all in next 2-3 years. Whenever there will be possibility we will post Hindi ACK too.

    ReplyDelete
  12. hi ! thank you for the comics as usual, and its good to know ACK has picked up the pace and is getting its rightful place in the blogging world. its all to the errorts of all the contributors. i was going through the old comments when the blog had just started and when it stoped abruptly as some of the contributors did not get any reply or comments and they stopped uploading, if only they can now look where ACK is.... i do feel we need to thank one particular individual out here called masayo whose commnets i saw on some other comic blogs requesting every one to upload again and restart the blog.
    neways everyone is doing a great job and the least i can do is say a big thank you ...
    muuuha

    ReplyDelete
  13. great work as usual, guys!

    ReplyDelete
  14. ruchi: Welcome friend! Glad to find out, we are on right direction.

    You are absolutely true; “Masayo” effort is remarkable. Sorry to find out, since a long time he is not in contact; hope everything is fine with him & soon he will be active again.

    Thanks to all other bloggers who supported to reactivate this blog.

    As regarding other members, I think who should think from other point of view: Life is very strange, sometime what looks is it not like that, may be there were many other factors which forced to leave or be inactive for particular time. Everything has it cycle, nothing is everlasting, even our universe. We should be thankful to all members for every single post, every post is helping to reach the final goal, isn’t it?


    anonymous: You are welcome, friend.

    ReplyDelete
  15. thanks a lot for the books ...... hope to see more ..... thanks for ur work......ihlwk

    ReplyDelete
  16. sir: Welcome Sir! You can hope to see rest all ACK.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I would like to thank all contributors of ACKs to this blog. I grew up on ACKs and other comics. I am glad that I shall be able to provide my kids with these timeless stories to educate them about our culture. I'm Really grateful for all the effort put in to make this project a success.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Great job, Prabhat!!!! You and your blog rocks - so regular and so many gems always published here!!!! Fantastic job!!! :)

    Say, how do you like Russia? I've always wanted to visit Russia...maybe I will in the future sometime!

    ReplyDelete
  19. anonymous: Welcome friend! I also promote kids of my family to read ACK, really it is the best way to give information about our great culture & history to kids. Not every elder are ready to read the originals, who are interested don't have time.

    adibud34:You are welcome! Hope time & energy will permit me in future to continue.
    I'm here since last 19 years, Russia is great country. If you are interested in Russia, write me through email send you some photographs of Russian cities & nature.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Wonderful...
    I was searching for Kanteerava`s story for a long while, ever since I read the skewed version in Peter Colaco`s book on Bangalore. I never knew ACK had answer to it.
    This puts the factors straight & the art & narrative are amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  21. premanand velu: It's really sad there is no details about him at net. ACK had really fulfilled the gap.

    ReplyDelete
  22. hi Prabhat's Books and Comics,

    i cannot download THAT big comic u uploaded "chandra shekhar azad", sorry abt that .... as am on limited net usage ....

    can u plz extract those last 4 images & post on ur blog 4 fewdays only OR post link HERE ..... after say 2 days just delete them .....

    plz frd a small request ....

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous: inform your email I send you these pages.

    ReplyDelete
  24. hi Prabhat's Books and Comics,

    revealling my email id is quite risky here .....

    i dont want any spammers 2 c my id ...

    plz can u upload those pages & post those links here .....

    ReplyDelete
  25. anonymous: Dear Friend! You are very interesting person; you want to be helped but afraid. You have lot of time to request many time to upload, but don’t have to download. Uploading will take a lot of time than sending you. What I can do offered you. Rest is your choice.

    ReplyDelete
  26. hello

    thanks for the out of print comics

    esp ranadhira & the golden sand

    brings back memories... great memories!

    ReplyDelete
  27. anonymous: Welcome. Visit regularly, many more are coming.

    ReplyDelete
  28. can u also upload

    shivaji
    tanaji
    tipu sultan
    rani laxmibai etc .....

    warrior ppl .... plz

    ReplyDelete
  29. hi Prabhat's Books and Comics,

    thanx 4 those pages .....

    & thanx again 4 removing my email link post ....

    u r great ..... NOW am a great FAN of ur site, expect more hits here ....

    as am gonna recommend 2 all my frds ....

    thanx again ....

    ReplyDelete
  30. My request to all "Anonymous", pls choose a nick name, it will be comfortable both of us in further conversation.

    anonymous: I will try to upload, pls wait sometime.

    anonymous: You are welcome friend. We are going to post all ACK ever published. Along with contributor’s collection, I can say now confidently, may be some problem will arise in #1 to #10 (which were based on non Indian topics).

    ReplyDelete
  31. hi Prabhat's Books and Comics,

    thanx 4 ur reply .....

    y dont u add shoutbox @top of ur blog ???

    its free ....

    & waiting 4 new uploads .....

    ReplyDelete
  32. piyush: Never used shoutbox, will check.

    ReplyDelete