[IO Islamic 935] ديوان قيصر

Diwân-i-Ḳaisar

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1602 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, 2 vols. (Oxford: India Office, 1903): volume 1, number 935 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1602

Diwân-i-Ḳaisar (ديوان قيصر).

Lyrical poems of a poet with the takhalluṣ Ḳaiṣar, who flourished in the second half of the eleventh century of the Hijrah, as a chronogram for A.H. 1071 (A.D. 1660, 1661), قطب زمان رفت بسوى جنان, proves, and is, therefore, no doubt identical with Ḳaiṣar Shâmlû, who was in the service of Ḥasankhân Shâmlû, the governor of Harât, and had literary controversies with the poet Mullâ Shukûhî, of Hamadân (see A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 91, l. 13), under Shâh ‘Abbâs. He was contemporary with Ṭâhir Naṣrâbâdî (see A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 94, last two lines), who completed his tadhkirah A.H. 1083 (A.D. 1672, 1673), but added some biographies later. Ḳaiṣar is stated there to have mostly resided at Harât, wherefore he is often called Harawî; see also Safînah, No. 660 (Bodleian Cat., col. 233).

This dîwân contains:

Ghazals, in alphabetical order, with one tarkîbband and a few rubâ’îs at the end.

Beginning of the initial ghazal, on fol. 1b:

از عشق تُست سوز دل بى زبان ما

وز شوق تُست نظم و نسق در جنان ما

Dated the 9th of Dhû-alḥijjah, A.H. 1154 (A.D. 1742, February 15).

No. 935, ff. 32, 2 coll., each ll. 17; Nasta’lîḳ; size, 8½ in. by 4½ in.