author
active 1805 Mazhar Ali Khan Vila
Known today mainly through early Urdu story collections, this little-documented writer helped carry older Indian tales into print at the start of the 19th century. The surviving record is slim, but the work linked to this name opens a window onto the literary world around Fort William College.
1 Audiobook
The Baitâl Pachchisi; Or, The Twenty-Five Tales of a Sprite Translated From the Hindi Text of Dr. Duncan Forbes
by John T. (John Thompson) Platts, Lallu Lal, active 1805 Mazhar Ali Khan Vila
About the author
Mazhar Ali Khan Vila is generally listed as an author active around 1805, and modern catalog records connect the name with The Baitâl Pachchisi; Or, The Twenty-Five Tales of a Sprite. Project Gutenberg also lists the author under the variant form Muzhar Ali Khan.
A second surviving work associated with this name is Madhwanal Aur Kam Kandla, dated 1801 in an Internet Archive record. That record says the text was rendered into Urdu at the request of Dr. Gilchrist from a Braj Bhasha version, placing Vila within the early phase of Urdu prose and translation activity tied to north India in that period.
Beyond those basic bibliographic traces, reliable biographical details appear to be scarce. No clear modern reference source found here gives a fuller life story, so Vila is best understood through the texts attached to the name rather than through a well-documented personal biography.