Delhi Persian 1238 (Oriental Manuscripts, British Library)
India Office Library
Miscellaneous works on poetry, 3 items (a-c)
Contents
Language(s): Persian and Arabic
Item a.
Semiautobiographical mas̲navī mixed with ghazal compositions on the theme of ʿishq or spiritual love, celebrating the author’s close relationship with an unnamed male companion in Ilāhābād (Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh), composed by the munshīʾ [Muḥammad] Faz̤l ʿAẓīm, who travelled from Lakhnaʾū to Dihlī, and Barīlī (Bareilly) via Khayrābād, finally settling in Ilāhābād. The author may be the same as the poet and historian writing a versified account of the British East India Company’s attack on the Jāt stronghold at Bharatpūr, entitled Vaqāʾiʿ-i jang-i Bharatpūr.
Chronogrammatic title encodes the date of completion as 1224/1809-10.
Dated colophon (f. 57v): completed at Ḥiṣār [Fīrūzah] (Hisar, Haryana), 14 Jumādá al-Avval 1232 (1 April 1817), equating to March 1817 ʿĪsavī.
Scribal nastaʿlīq and shikastah āmīz written in two columns.
Recipe for sun baked spiced tobacco (f. 1r).
Item b.
Untitled tabulated list for the rulers of Hindūstān from the period of Rājah Rāy Pithawrā (Prithviraj Chauhan, d. 1192), here dated to the hijrī year 444/1052-3.
The list of rulers is full of errors, with omissions, repetitions, and anachronisms.
The period of rule for each monarch is given in raqm reckoning below each entry.
Not dated at end. Datable to the period of the Timurid or Mughal ruler, Emperor Akbar Shāh II, described as ‘mawjūd’.
Four unattributed Persian and Urdu bayt transcribe obliquely along the inner (right) margin.
Scribal shikastah āmīz.
Item c.
Fragment from an untitled collection of correspondence in inshāʾ or refined prose.
Defective at end.
Not dated at end.
Scribal nastaʿlīq and shikastah āmīz written at alternating horizontal and oblique angles by multiple hands.
Physical Description
Hand(s)
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Purchased by the Government of India at sale organised by Delhi Prize Agents, 1859; administrative deposit India Office Library, 1876
1876
Government of India
Availability
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Funding of Cataloguing
BL
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