Persian MS 991 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Persian Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: A copy of the Bahār-i Dānish (Spring of Wisdom) by ʻInāyat Allāh (d. ca. 1671), relates the romantic adventures of Jahāndār Sulṭān and Bahravar Bānū, which serves as a frame story interwoven with other tales. An unidentified scribe completed this volume in Awadh on 17 Rajab 1153 AH (8 Oct. 1740 CE), possibly in Awadh, where the French mercenary Jean-Baptiste Joseph Gentil (d. 1799). One of six copies held in the Rylands, this redaction lacks the preface by the author's younger brother and pupil Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ often found in other volumes, and instead opens with his own introduction, in which he explains how he adapted the tale from one that he heard a young Brahmin recite. The volume also contains a glossary appended to the text that explains many terms.

Author: ʻInāyat Allāh, d. ca. 1671;
‘Ināyat Allāh Kanbū Lāhūrī;
Kanbū, ‘Ināyat Allāh;
عنايت الله;
عنايت الله كنبو لاهوری;
كنبو، عنايت الله

Title: Bahār-i Dānish

Title: بهار دانش

Incipit: (basmala) برگ ۱پ (folio 1b): و بتاج پیرایه ده دیباچه سخن حمد حگیمی است که ملک معنی را بوساطت ⟨تیغ⟩ ناطقه...

Explicit: سیه کاری مکن چون خامهٔ خویش * بشو از چشم بر خون نامه‌ٔ خویش | زبان را گوشمالی خاموشی ده * که هست از هرچه کوئی خاموشی به.

Colophon: ۱تمت هذا النسخه البدلو(؟) المسمی بهار دانش تصنیف عنایت‌الله بتاریخ هفتدهم ۱۷ شهر رجب المرجب سنه ۱۱۵۳ هجری مطابق سنه ۱۱۴۸ فصلی موافق ۲۳ جلوس واله محمد شاه بادشاه عالمگیر غازی خلد الله ملکه به خط بنده درگاه بهاکر داس ولد بهسکر رخ(؟) ابن بهار ملوک ساکن شاه‌ریار(؟) دلیرخانی(؟) نفس صورت تحریر یافت.

Colophon: Completed by Bhākar Dās valad-i Bhaskar Rukh ibn Bihar Mulūk(?) resident of Shāhrīyār Dalīkhānī(?) on 17 Rajab 1153 AH (8 Oct. 1740 CE), ‘equal to 1148 Faṣlī in concordance with the 23rd year of Muḥammad Shāh's reign’.

Language(s): Persian

Author: Anonymous

Title: Glossary of terms in the Bahār-i Dānish

Language(s): Persian

S. H. Qasemi documents 244 manuscripts and printed editions of this work. C. A. Storey also notes various manuscripts and translations into English, German, French, Turkish, and Urdu. For other copies of this work held in the Rylands, see Persian MS 88, 199, 463, 919, and and 1017. For another glossary of terms found in this work entitled Rang-i Bahār by ‘Abd al-Bāqī, see Persian MS 477.

Physical Description

Form: codex

Extent: 231 folios, 3 flyleaves (ff. ii + 231 + 11 + i).

Dimensions (leaf): 270 × 154 mm.

Dimensions (written): 210 × 115 mm.

Foliation: Hindu-Arabic numerals references in this record written in black ink at the top-centres of the a sides on folios 1a to 22a, then switch the upper-right corners of the b sides thereafter.

Foliation: Modern Arabic folio numerals on the upper-right corners of the b sides, which run from right-to-left.

Collation

Undetermined. Possibly quaternions throughout. Catchwords throughout most of the lower-left corners of the b sides.

Condition

Handle text with caution. Beware of fold-outs at the fore-edge throughout. In fair but condition, with moderate water and insect damage and extensive historical repairs throughout.

Layout

Written in 1 column with 19 lines per page. Ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.

Hand(s)

Written in a hasty black shikastah hand with red subheaders.

Additions:
Inscriptions: The second right flyleaf a side (f. iib) numbered ‘Nº 18’ in pencil at top, with a French description of the work underneath:
‘Roman sur les minauderies simagrées des femmes por un Secretaire de Chadjahan Nommé Enayatolla’.

Binding

Probably rebound for the Univeristy of Manchester Library in the mid-20th century, together with Persian MS 978 and 997.

Resewn, with modern, heavy-weight, ivoury-coloured, machine-made wove endpapers added at the beginning and end. Edges left untrimmed, spine lined, with one machine-made headband adhered to the head only. Covered in quarter artificially grain 'chieftain' goatskin leather with commercially printed 'shell'-patterned marbled paper sides.

Spine bears four false raised bands. Bands paletted with two parallel single fillets with trefoils at right and left, and a blind lines on either side. Titled:
‘BAHĀR-I
DĀNISH’ and
‘‘INAYAT
ALLAH’.

280 × 178 × 46 mm.

Handle binding with caution. In fair but stable condition, tightly very sewn with restricted openings to the gutter margins.

Seal(s):

The first right flyleaf a side (f. ia) bears a rectangular black seal impression, intaglio-carved in three stacked nasta‘līq lines, double-ruled, read from top, the bottom to the middle, with the name of Jean-Baptiste Joseph Gentil dated 1182 AH (1768–69 CE):
‘مدیر الملک رفیع الدوله جنتیل بهادر ناظم جنگ ۱۱۸۲’
18 × 22 mm.

Accompanying Material

A letter hinged between the second right folio b side (iib) to 1a bears a folded letter dated 30 June 1918 written by University of Manchester lecturer of Semitic languages Maurice A Canney to the Vice-Chancellor when he returned the volume with his assesmentof it.
A quaternion appended to the end of the volume bears a glossary of terms in the text in a hasty shikastah hand (compare with Persian MS 477) followed by Arabic prayers interspersed with Persian commentaries, written in hasty naskh and nasta‘līq respectively.
Another singleton follows that bears random passages in yet another hasty shikastah hand that include a sleep remedy, verses, and anecdotes.

History

Origin: Completed by Bhākar Dās valad-i Bhaskar Rukh ibn Bihar Mulūk(?) resident of Shāhrīyār Dalīkhānī(?), possibly in Awadh; 17 Rajab 1153 AH (8 Oct. 1740 CE).

Provenance and Acquisition

Later acquired by French military figure Jean-Baptiste Gentil (1726–1799 CE), as per his seal impression on the second right flyleaf a side (f. iia). He fought the British East India Company in Pondicherry, Bengal, and Awadh, the latter fighting on behlaf of Shuja‘ al-Dawlah.

After Gentil retired and returned to France in 1778, he offered his collection for sale under the guise of the late ‘Chevalier de Caunun, Ancien Gouverneur de Chandernagor’ on 9 July 1789.

While the circumstances under which this volume arrived in Britain remain unclear, John Haddon Hindley subsequently acquired it and offered it for sale through the London firm of Leigh and Sotheby on 10 Mar. 1793

Subsequently acquired by one ‘Mrs. Barnston’ (or possibly ‘Bainston’?) who presented it to the University of Manchester Library; however the exact date remains unclear. She may possibly be Mary Emma Barnston (1837–1918), wife of Maj. William Barnston (1832–1872), and sister in-law of Maj. Roger Barnston (1826–1857) of Crewe Hill, Farndon, Cheshire. The latter served in India and ultimately died at Kanpur of wounds received at Lucknow in 1857. Hence, he may have acquired the volume during his career. After Roger's death, his brother William inherited Crewe Hill which Emma then managed after her husband passed, it until her son came of age in 1891. Note that although Rafiee-Rad implies this volume formerly belonged to Samuel Robinson of Wilmslow, no internal nor external evidence suggests anyone other than Gentil, Hindley, and Barnston owned it.

Transferred to the John Rylands Library in circa 1975 after it merged with the University of Manchester.

Record Sources

Bibliographical description derived from Siavash Rafiee-Rad, 'Persian Manuscripts in Samuel Robinson’s Collection in The John Rylands Library' (2017).

Record created, description augmented, and provenance corrected by Jake Benson in 2022 with reference to the volume in hand, and in consultation with Prof Charles Melville, University of Cambridge, regarding the Hindley then Ford's acquisition of Gentil's manuscripts.

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

Anonymous, Notice de manuscrits persans, après le décès de M .C ***, Maréchal des Camps et Armées du Roi, Ancien Gouverneur de Chandernagor. ([Paris?], Leclerc Pere & fils, 1789), p. 3 no. VIII.

A. S. Bazmee Ansari, 'ʿInāyat Allāh Kanbū' Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Vol. III (Leiden: Brill, 1971), pp. 1203–1204.

‘Abd al-Muqtadir, Catalogue of the Arabic and Persian Manuscripts in the Oriental Public Library at (Bankipore) Patna, Vol. VIII (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1925), p. 182, nos. 741–742.

A. Ashraf, A Catalogue of the Persian Books and Manuscripts in the Library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1890), p. 48, nos. E 34–36.

M. Dirāyatī and M. Dirāyatī, Fihristgān: Nuskhahʹhā-yi Khaṭṭī-i Īrān (Fankhā) (Union catalogue of Iran manuscripts), Vol. 6 (Tehran: Sāzmān-i Asnād va Kitābkhānah-i Millī-i Jumhūrī-i Islāmī-i Īrān, 1391 S. H. [2012–13 CE]), pp. 155–158 [Mashhad Maybudī MS no. 137, &c.].

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ʻInāyat Allāh, Tales, translated from the Persian of Inatulla of Delhi. In two volumes. [Translated by Alexander Dow] Dublin: Printed for P. and W. Wilson, H. Saunders, W. Sleater, B. Grierson, D. Chamberlaine, J. Potts, J. Williams, and C. Ingham, 1769.

ʻInāyat Allāh Kanbū Lāhūrī, Bahar-Danush; or, Garden of Knowledge. An Oriental Romance. Translated by Jonathan Scott. Shrewsbury: Printed by J. and W. Eddowes, 1799.

ʻInāyat Allāh Kanbū Lāhūrī, Bahār-i Dānish. Edited by Ḥasan Z̲ū al-Faqārī and ʿAbbās Saʿīdī. Tehran: Rushdʹāvarān, 1392 SH (2013 CE)

Leigh and Sotheby, A catalogue of the curious and very valuable library of books, and classical and oriental manuscripts, of the Rev. John Haddon Hindley... (London: Leigh and Sotheby, 1793), p. 42, no. 1240.

D. N. Marshall, Mughals in India: A Bibliographical Survey. Vol. 1. Manuscripts (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1962), pp. 203–204, no. 715(ii).

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‘A. Nawshāhī, Fihrist-i Nuskhahā-yi Khaṭṭi-yi Fārsi-yi Pākistān (Fihrist-i 8000 nuskha-yi khaṭṭi-yi kitābkhānahā-yi shakhṣī va dawlatī), Vol. 3 (Tehran: Mīrās̱-i Maktūb, 1398 SH [2017 CE]), pp. 1529–1532.

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S. H. Qasemi, A Descriptive Catalogue of Persian Translations of Indian Works (New Delhi: National Mission for Manuscripts, 2014), pp. 189–201, nos. 1955-2203.

S. Rafiee-Rad, 'Persian Manuscripts in Samuel Robinson’s Collection in The John Rylands Library', Manuscripta: A Journal for Manuscript Research, Vol. 61, No. 2 (2017): pp. 289–291 [Rylands Persian MS 991].

C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the British Museum, Vol. II (London: British Museum, 1881), pp. 765–766 [British Library Add. 18409].

E. Sachau and H. Ethé, Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstani, and Pushtû manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889), cols. 434–435, nos. 466–472 [Bodleian Ouseley 233, etc.].

I. H. Siddiqui 'ʿEnāyat-Allāh Kanbo', Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 4 (1998), pp. 429–430.

C. A. Storey [Online] (2021), Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey, Vol. III, Pt. 3 Tales no. 728.

P.P. Subrahmanya, A descriptive catalogue of the Islamic manuscripts in the Government Oriental manuscripts library, Madras, Vol. I (Madras: Government Press, 1939), pp. 394–397, nos. 323–326

Ḥ. Z̲ū al-Faqārī, 'Bahār-i Dānish' Dā'irat al-Ma‘ārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī, Vol. 13 (Tehran: Dā'irat al-Ma‘ārif Buzug-i Islāmī, 1383 SH (2004-05 CE), p. 93.

Funding of Cataloguing

The John Rylands Research Institute and Library

The Soudavar Memorial Foundation

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