[IO Islamic 276] گرشاسپ نامه

Garshâspnâma.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 893 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 276 here with notations and hyperlinks].

f. Initiations of the Shâhnâma.

893

Garshâspnâma ( گرشاسپ نامه).

The exploits of Garshâsp, prince of Sistân and ancestor of the chief hero of Firdausî’s poem, Rustam, the oldest epopee composed in imitation of the Shâhnâma, and generally ascribed to the poet Asadî, Firdausî’s teacher; but since all the copies of this rather rare mathnawî give unanimously as date of completion A.H. 458 (A.D. 1066), see here fol. 284a, l. 16, and old Asadi died in the reign of Sulṭân Mas’ûd bin Maḥmûd (A.H. 421-432=A.D. 1030-1040), i.e. at least twenty-six or twenty-seven years before the composition of the Garshâspnâma, the latter must needs be the work of a later author, who most likely was ‘Alî bin Aḥmad al-Asadî al-Ṭûsi, with the two Kunyas Abû-alḥasan .and. Abû-almanṣûr, the son of the older Asadî; see on this intricate question Dr. Ethé, ‘Ueber persische Tenzonen,’ in ’Abhandlungen des fünften Internationalen Orientalisten-Congresses zu Berlin, 1881; ‘Zweiter Theil, erste Hälfte, p. 64 sq., and the Bodleian Cat., Nos. 507 and 508; comp. also Rieu iii. p. 1088b; Mohl’s préface to the ‘Livre des rois,’ and Turner Macan’s edition of the Shâhnâma, vol. iv, appendix, pp. 2109-2133, where a portion of the text of the Garshâspnâma is published. Besides the two Bodleian copies and the Paris copy there are also recently four new ones added to the collection of the British Museum (Or. 2780, 2878, 2926, and 2976).

Beginning of the poem:

سپاس از خدا ايزد رهنماى

كه از كاف و نون كرد گيتى بناى

According to the last verse but one it contains 9000 baits (see the same statement in Elliott 141 of the Bodleian Library, whereas Elliott 140 of the same collection gives 10,000). Copied A.H. 1003 (A.D. 1594, 1595). This copy is in a very precarious state; many leaves are extremely injured and damaged by worms; there are besides many small blanks and omissions.

Some leaves are misplaced, but as most of the catchwords are missing, we can set right only ff. 168-177, the proper order of which is: 168, 176, 170-175, 169, and 177.

No. 276, ff. 285, 2 coll., each ll. 19; Nasta’lîḳ; size, 8½ in. by 4¼ in.