Delhi Persian 554A (Oriental Manuscripts, British Library)
India Office Library
Contents
1 copy of Miftāḥ al-khazāʾin by Jay Rām
The first volume (alif to bāʾ) of a Persian dictionary of Persian based on the authority of copious literary citations, written by Jay Rām Dās ibn Lālah Mangal Sayn Khatrī ibn Rāy Harī Singh Shaykhar takhalluṣ Shūkhī (?).
The author dedicates the work to the Timurid (Mughal) ruler, Emperor Akbar Shāh II, completing it in RY 8 or 1228/1813, around the age of forty-one. The author lists his sources, poetic in the main, in the preface to the work.
The work focuses primarily on the range of metaphor, allegory, and conceits current in ancient and modern Persian literature.
Not dated at end.
Tight miniscule nastaʿlīq on pale orange, pink, and cream tinted papers.
Copious annotations by multiple hands in margins.
Stamped foliation and separately foliated earlier with neatly transcribed Persian numerals.
Original covers lost.
Binding of combed marbled papers over pasteboard edged with brown leather, damaged (doubleurs lined with EIC ledgers); labels.
Folios unbound; cropped, water stains, wormholes.
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
Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card for admissions procedures contact British Library, Registering for a Reader Pass. Contact apac-enquiries@bl.uk for further information on the availability of this manuscript. For information on catalogues and ordering manuscripts see Finding and ordering Persian manuscripts in the British Library.
Funding of Cataloguing
BL
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