Sometime in the 1580s, Mughal Emperor Akbar ordered the planting of an orchard containing one hundred thousand mango trees at Darbhanga in what is now Bihar, a site remembered in Persian and Mithila records as the Lakhi Bagh, literally the garden of a hundred thousand. The orchard was both a work of imperial horticulture and a cultural statement, and its lineage of grafted cultivars shaped the mango varieties that Indian-American families in Round Rock, Houston, and Dallas enjoy today through modern import channels.
The Emperor Who Loved Mangoes
Abu’l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, Akbar’s court historian, wrote in the Ain-i-Akbari, completed in 1590, that the emperor held the mango in higher regard than nearly any other fruit. Abu’l-Fazl’s chapter on fruits describes mango cultivars by region, documents pickling and preserving techniques, and records Akbar’s personal preference for the fruit of eastern India. Modern translations by scholars including H. Blochmann and H.S. Jarrett remain accessible through archive.org and university libraries.
Akbar’s Horticultural Ambition
Mughal rulers from Babur onward had maintained ornamental gardens, but Akbar’s approach was systematic. He ordered the collection of cultivars from across his empire, commissioned grafting experiments, and directed the planting of orchards near strategic centers. The mango, native to the Indian subcontinent and domesticated for roughly four thousand years, was the centerpiece of this program.
The Lakhi Bagh at Darbhanga
Darbhanga, in the Mithila region of modern Bihar, was a culturally important city associated with Maithili scholarship and the Raj Darbhanga. According to regional chronicles preserved in the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library in Patna, Akbar ordered the planting of the Lakhi Bagh during one of his eastern campaigns, possibly around 1580-1590.
Why One Hundred Thousand
The number was not merely ornamental. An orchard of that scale guaranteed a continuous supply of ripe fruit across the long mango season, provided material for the royal kitchens and courtly gifts, and created a living demonstration of imperial reach. Courtiers from Kabul to Bengal received mangoes from the Lakhi Bagh, turning the fruit into a diplomatic currency.
Timeline of Mughal Mango Cultivation
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1526 | Babur conquers northern India; notes Indian fruits in Baburnama |
| 1556-1605 | Akbar’s reign; expansion of Mughal horticultural program |
| c. 1580-1590 | Lakhi Bagh of 100,000 mango trees planted at Darbhanga |
| 1590 | Ain-i-Akbari completed; mango cultivars cataloged |
| 1627-1658 | Shah Jahan’s reign; refinement of Malda and Langra cultivars |
| 1658-1707 | Aurangzeb exchanges mangoes as diplomatic gifts across the Islamic world |
Grafting: The Real Innovation
The Lakhi Bagh was not simply one hundred thousand seedling trees. Mughal horticulturists had mastered grafting, the technique of joining a desired cultivar onto a rootstock so that every resulting tree produces identical fruit. Without grafting, mango seeds produce wildly variable offspring. With grafting, an orchard can produce uniform, premium fruit across decades.
Persian and Sanskrit Horticultural Knowledge
Mughal gardeners drew on both Persian botanical tradition and older Sanskrit agricultural texts such as the Vrikshayurveda, attributed to Surapala. This fusion of knowledge systems produced techniques that remain in use in Indian orchards today, from Ratnagiri to Krishna District.
Named Cultivars of the Mughal Era
Several mango varieties familiar in modern times trace their names and sometimes their lineage to the Mughal period. Langra of Banaras, Malda of Bihar, Dussehri of Lucknow, and Chaunsa, named by emperor Sher Shah Suri after his victory at Chausa in 1539, all have documented origins in this era. Abu’l-Fazl lists several by name.
The Cultural Prestige of Named Fruit
To own a Langra tree or serve Malda at a royal banquet was a sign of refinement. The practice of naming cultivars after places, rulers, or physical characteristics took root in this era and continues today in varieties like Alphonso, named for sixteenth-century Portuguese nobleman Afonso de Albuquerque.
From Mughal Orchard to Texas Table
The cultivars perfected during the Mughal era are not abstractions; they are living inheritances. When a family in Round Rock or Houston opens a box of Kesar from Gujarat or Langra from Uttar Pradesh, they are eating fruit whose pedigree reaches back to the horticultural systems codified under Akbar and refined by his successors.
What Swadeshi Mangoes Delivers
Swadeshi Mangoes sources nine Indian varieties for Texas delivery during the April-July season, including several cultivars with Mughal-era heritage. Our varieties page describes each fruit’s regional origin, and our order form shows current availability. Texas diaspora families in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston can taste cultivars whose lineages stretch back more than four centuries.
What Remains of the Lakhi Bagh Today
The original Darbhanga orchard did not survive the centuries intact. Subsequent rulers, colonial land revenue systems, and twentieth-century urbanization reduced the site to fragments. Local residents still point to old mango groves in the Mithila region as descendants of the imperial planting, and Bihar’s horticultural department has, at various times, proposed commemorative replanting projects.
Living Mughal Orchards
While the Lakhi Bagh itself is largely gone, other Mughal-era orchards persist. The mango groves around Malihabad near Lucknow, famous for Dussehri, include trees that local growers maintain are several hundred years old. These sites function as living museums of subcontinental horticulture.
Why This History Matters in Texas
The Indian diaspora in Texas is one of the fastest-growing in the United States, concentrated in the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Austin-Round Rock regions. For these families, mangoes are not simply fruit; they are edible links to a civilization whose horticultural sophistication predates American statehood by two centuries. Read more historical explorations on our blog.
Mughal Mango Rituals and Court Life
The Mughal court treated the mango season as a cultural event. Abu’l-Fazl records that specially selected mangoes were cooled in Himalayan ice, a remarkable logistical achievement in the sixteenth century, and served to the emperor in individual silver bowls. Jahangir, Akbar’s son, continued this tradition and described his own favorite mangoes in the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, his memoir, translated by Alexander Rogers and Henry Beveridge in the early twentieth century. Jahangir expressed his preference for certain southern Indian varieties and praised the fruit as the finest in the Mughal realm.
Mango Gifting as Political Currency
Sending boxes of named mangoes to allied courts, regional governors, and visiting dignitaries became standard diplomatic practice. The seasonal shipment of Langra, Dussehri, or Malda between Mughal centers signaled political favor and imperial inclusion. Contemporary Indian and Pakistani heads of state continue a version of this tradition today, and Texas diplomats and academic institutions have sometimes been recipients of ceremonial mango shipments coordinated through APEDA.
From Mughal Horticulture to Modern Indian Agriculture
The horticultural infrastructure that Akbar and his successors built did not vanish with the empire. Cultivation techniques, grafting knowledge, and orchard designs were preserved through colonial-era agricultural departments, which documented Indian mango varieties in botanical surveys during the nineteenth century. Writers including Sir George Watt, whose Dictionary of the Economic Products of India was published in the 1890s, catalogued hundreds of named cultivars, many tracing their lineage back to Mughal-era patronage.
Post-Independence Research
After 1947, institutions like the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi, the Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture in Lucknow, and state agricultural universities continued to maintain germplasm banks of historic Mughal-era cultivars. This institutional memory ensures that cultivars documented by Abu’l-Fazl in 1590 are still recognizable to botanists today, and that the fruit reaching Texas tables is genuinely descended from the orchards of Mughal India.
The Darbhanga Raj and Regional Preservation
The Darbhanga Raj, which rose to prominence in Bihar during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, preserved Mughal-era horticultural practices in the Mithila region long after the imperial center declined. The Darbhanga royal family maintained mango groves as part of their estate agriculture well into the twentieth century. Some of the older trees documented in regional surveys from the 1950s and 1960s were estimated to be several centuries old, potentially descended from Akbar’s Lakhi Bagh planting.
FAQ
Did Akbar really plant one hundred thousand mango trees?
The Lakhi Bagh at Darbhanga is documented in Mughal-era chronicles and Mithila regional histories. While precise tree counts in premodern records can be approximate, Abu’l-Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari confirms Akbar’s large-scale horticultural program, and the name Lakhi Bagh literally means the garden of a hundred thousand in Hindi and Persian usage.
What is the Ain-i-Akbari?
The Ain-i-Akbari is the third volume of the Akbarnama, a detailed administrative gazetteer of Akbar’s empire compiled by his court historian Abu’l-Fazl and completed around 1590. It contains chapters on administration, revenue, military organization, and extensive descriptions of fruits, including the mango, with regional cultivars and preparation methods.
Which modern varieties come from the Mughal era?
Langra, Dussehri, Malda, and Chaunsa are all cultivars with documented origins in the Mughal period. Chaunsa was reportedly named by Sher Shah Suri after his 1539 victory at Chausa, while Dussehri traces to the Malihabad region near Lucknow. These varieties are still cultivated commercially and available for legal US import.
Can I buy Mughal-heritage mangoes in Texas?
Yes. Several of the nine varieties sold through Swadeshi Mangoes, including Kesar from Gujarat and Banganapalli from Andhra Pradesh, carry cultivar lineages shaped by Mughal-era grafting and selection. Texas customers in Houston, Dallas, Austin, and Round Rock can order these during the April-July season via our order form.
Does the Lakhi Bagh still exist?
The original orchard at Darbhanga did not survive as a single contiguous site. Local residents in the Mithila region point to surviving mango groves as descendants, and Bihar’s horticultural authorities have at times discussed commemorative replanting. Meanwhile, other Mughal-era orchards such as those at Malihabad near Lucknow still produce fruit today.
External references: Wikipedia: Ain-i-Akbari, Wikipedia: Akbar, APEDA India.
