Persian MS 1014 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

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Persian Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: A Persian, Bengali, and English vocabulary of verbs, ruled in five columns, provides terms written in Arabo-Persian script together with their romanized pronunciations and English translations. Probably completed in Bengal by a British patron who hired scribes to write the foriegn script terms and completed the remainder himself. He did so together with Persian MS 1013, a vocabulary of nouns, in the late eighteenth century. The Chetham Library in Manchester subsequently acquired it from an unidentified source, possibly its creator, sometime before 1826. Unlike the companion volume, this one retains its original binding in bright red goatskin with gold-blocked scalloped central mandorlas, cornerpieces, and detached pendants on the boards.

Author: Anonymous

Title: A Persian, Bengali, and English vocabulary of verbs

Language(s): Persian, Bengali, and English

Physical Description

Form: codex

Layout

Written in 5 columns with 10 lines per page. Ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.

Hand(s)

Written in both neat red and black nasta‘līq and hasty English hands.

Decoration

Ruling: ruled in single red vertical columns throughout.

Binding

Probably originally uniformly bound as a set together with Persian MS 1013 in , which was subsequently rebound, whereas this volume still retains it.

Sewn at 2 stations, unsupported, edges trimmed, coloured yellow, with endbands omitted. Covered in full bright crimson goatskin leather, tight-backed, over pasteboards, flush-cut with the edges, but without a flap (Type III binding per Déroche).

Subsequently repaired by Manchester bookbinder William Boddington, who recased the volume with with marbled endpapers at beginning and end and titled the spine. leather, their excess widths adhered as hinges connecting to the first and last flyleaves to the cover, with strips of paper applied over top to disguise the joins.

Boards decorated with gold-blocked central scalloped mandorlas, detached pendants, and cornerpieces, with blind single lines connecting the last along the board margins. Spine titled
‘VOCABULARY OF VERBS’.

Binding in fair but condition, with exterior abrasion and cracked joints. Boxed.

History

Origin: Probably completed by an unidentified scribe together with Persian MS 1013 as a set with the patron in the Indian subcontinent; undated, but probably late 18th-century CE.

Provenance and Acquisition

While the circumstances under which these volumes arrived in Britain remain unclear, Chetham's Library, Manchester subsequently acquired it sometime before 1826, when Greswell published it in his catalogue that year.

Purchased in 1981 by the John Rylands Library, together with other oriental manuscripts for £2000.

Record Sources

Manuscript description by Jake Benson in 2025.

Availability

To book an in-person or online appointment to consult the manuscript, visit Using the Special Collections Reading Rooms. For any other enquiries please email uml.special-collections@manchester.ac.uk.

Bibliography

Persian MS 1013

G. P. Greswell, Bibliotheca Chethamensis: Sive Bibliothecæ Publicæ Mancuniensis Ab Humfredo Chetham Armigero Fundatæ Catalogus, Vol. III (Mancunii: Henricus Smith, 1826), p. 164, no. 7991 [Rylands Persian MS 1014].

Funding of Cataloguing

The John Rylands Research Institute and Library and the Soudavar Memorial Foundation.

Subjects

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