metadata [IO Islamic 940] مرآت القدس

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 940 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, no. 619, here with annotations and hyperlinks]

619

Mirât-alḳuds (مرآت القدس).

The life of Christ according to the Gospels, a work, the materials of which were first collected and arranged by the Portuguese Jesuit, Padre Geronimo Xavier, and afterwards translated under his superintendence into Persian by Maulânâ ‘Abd-alsattâr bin Ḳâsim Lâhûrî at Âgra, A.D. 1602 (A.H. 1010, 1011), at the request and for the sake of the emperor Akbar. Xavier died as missionary in Goa, A.D. 1617; comp. on this work. Bodleian Cat.[Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî and Pushtû Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library]., No. 364; Rieu, i. p. 3 [Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts]; W. Pertsch, p. 57; Cat. des MSS. et Xyl., p. 243 sq., etc. This work was edited with a Latin translation by Louis de Dieu: ‘Historia Christi Persice,’ Lugd. Bat., 1639. It is from this printed edition, according to a note on fol. 1a, that the present copy was transcribed for Mr. Richard Johnson, A.H. 1185 (A.D. 1771, 1772), at Calcutta. The date given at the conclusion of the work, viz. A.H. 1027 (A.D. 1618), is apparently that of the original MS. on which Louis de Dieu based his edition; see Rieu, loc. cit.

Beginning of the preface, on fol. 1b:

راهنمونی و هدایت صاحب ترجمه برای خوانندگان، ای عزیزان و محبوبان من این داستان مسیح را پادری ژیرونیمو شویر بپاکیزگی الخ

The preface ends on fol. 5a, first line, and the whole space from there to fol. 9a is left blank.

Beginning of the life of Christ, on fol. 9b, with the first bâb (Christ’s childhood):

در طفولیّت مسیح و ولادت مریم و پرورش یافتن، چون مسیح بواسطۀ مرد از مریم مقدّس زاده شد الخ

Second bâb (Christ’s miracles and teaching): در معجزها و تعلیم, on fol. 43b.

Third bâb (Christ’s sufferings and death): در جفاها و محنتها و مرگ مسیح, on fol. 151a.

Fourth bâb (Christ’s resurrection and ascension to heaven): در برخاستن مسیح از قبر و رفتن او بر آسمان, on fol. 171b.

Conclusion, on fol. 186a.

As title is given on the fly-leaves, ترجمۀ قصّۀ حضرت عیسی; the proper title, مرآت القدس, only appears in the preface.

No. 940, ff. 186, II. 13; Nasta’lîḳ; worm-eaten throughout; size, 81/4 in. by 51/2 in.

[ed note: The prime appears to be the copy in the Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 2005.145. See: Carvalho, Pedro de Moura, and W. M. Thackston. Mirʼāt al-quds (Mirror of holiness): a life of Christ for Emperor Akbar: a commentary on Father Jerome Xavier's text and the miniatures of Cleveland Museum of Art, Acc. no. 2005.145. Leiden: Brill, 2012.]