Unraveling the Ethos of Literary Imagination in the Basātin al-ons of Akhsetān Dehlavi

Abstract Basātin al-ons (The Gardens of Fondness, 1325–26) is the sole surviving work of an erudite courtier named Akhsetān Dehlavi (1301–51), who spent most of his adult life in the service of the sultan Gheyās al-Din Toghloq ( r . 1320–24) and his son Mohammad b. Toghloq Shāh ( r . 1324–51). This work exemplifies one of the earliest efforts by an Indian writer to interweave history, autobiography, eulogy, and folklore in the Persian genre of stylized prose ( nasr ). Against this backdrop, my essay examines the preface of the Basātin al-ons to elucidate the factors that motivated Akhsetān Dehlavi to narrate a collection of Hindavi tales in Persian prose.