[IO Islamic 1234] Kâshî Treatises

Kâshî Treatises

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1812 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 1234 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1812

Two treatises by Afḍal Kâshî.

Afḍal-aldîn Muḥammad Kâshî, the great rubâ’î-writer (see a collection of his quatrains in Bodleian Cat., No. 749, and Rieu ii. p. 739a, No. 4), who ranks in the line of Ṣûfic epigrams with Abû Sa’îd bin Abûalkhair and ‘Umar bin Khayyâm, died A.H. 707 (A.D. 1307, 1308), see Haft Iḳlîm, No. 937 (col. 446 in this Cat.); Âtashkada, No. 553 (Bodleian Cat., col. 281); Khulâṣat-alafkâr, No. 6 (ib., col. 302, last line); Makhzan-algharâ’ib, No. 27 (ib., col. 317, where he is called an uncle of Naṣîr-aldîn Ṭûsî); Taḳî Kâshî, see A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 17, No. 54. Of his numerous ethical and metaphysical treatises of a more or less mystic tendency (see Bodleian Cat., No. 1445, and Rieu ii. p. 829 sq.), the present copy contains:

1.A Persian translation and analysis of Aristotle's Περὶ Ψυχῆς or treatise on the soul, entitled Kitâb-i-nafs (كتاب نفس), in three maḳâlas, on ff. 2b, 5b, and 14a respectively, beginning, on fol. 1b: بنام ايزد بخشايندۀ بخشايشگر همگى آنچه داناى يونان ارسطوطاليس ياد كرد در كتاب نفس الخ .

Other copies of the same are noticed (without the translator's name) in Bodleian Cat., No. 1422, viii (where a fuller description and the necessary references are given), and Rieu ii. p. 834b, No. XXIII; see also further below in No. 1921, 4.

2.A treatise on accidental matters (عرض), in contrast to the essential ones (گوهر), entitled ‘Araḍnâma (عرض نامه), and divided into four عرض, viz. 1.عرض اجسام, on fol. 23b. 2.عرض كنندگان, on fol. 32a. 3. عرض دانستها, on fol. 36a. 4.عرض دانندگان, on fol. 47b. It begins, on fol. 21a, thus:خداوندا بفزونئ جود و فروغ وجودت كه جان الخ.

Another copy of the same is contained in No. 1921, 13 (see further below).

On fol.23b, l. 4, another mystical treatise of Afḍal-aldîn Kâshî is mentioned, viz. the مدارج الكمال , which was originally written in Arabic, but then translated by the author himself into Persian under the title of ترجمۀ مدارج الكمال, in eight sections (called گشايش or درّ), see further down in Nos. 1921, 2, and 1922, 14 ; comp. also Rieu ii. p. 830b, No. XIX, and Ḥ. Khalfa v. p. 469.

No date.

No. 1234, ff. 1-54, ll. 22; small Nasta’lîḳ; size, 8 in. by 43/8 in.