[IO Islamic 2415] Anonymous Compilation

Anonymous Compilation.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 692 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 2415 here with notations and hyperlinks].

692

A very large universal biography of Persian poets, with copious extracts, comprising, according to the index on ff. 1a-17a, 2200 names, by an anonymous author, without preface and colophon. This big volume, which is (to judge from the blank leaves left between chapters and single names ) the first sketch of a tadhkirah only, must have been compiled between A.H. 1170 and 1180 (A.D. 1757-1766), for on fol.95a the death of Sirâj-aldîn ‘Alîkhân Ârzû (see Nos . 680 and 681 above) is fixed in A.H. 1170 (contrary to the usual statement), and on fol. 663b Mîr Shams-aldîn Faḳîr, who died, according to A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 394, A.H. 1180 or 1181 (A.D. 1766 , 1767), is spoken of as still alive. Perhaps we have got in this copy the very rare -and as yet never met with – تذكرۀ بينظير , which was compiled A.H. 1172 or 1178 (A.D. 1758, 1759, or 1764, 1765), by Mîr ‘Abd-alwahhâb Daulatâbâdî (see A.Sprenger, Catal., p. 144, No. 11). The arrangement is alphabetical; each letter forms a حديقه , and each حديقه is subdivided into three گلشن (ancient, middle, and modern poets), the last of which comprises again two چمن (viz. poets of Îrân and Tûrân, and poets of India). The first name on fol. 19b is Shaikh Abû-alḥasan Kharaḳânî. As for the old poets in particular, the biographical dates are very incorrect; Kharaḳânî’s death, for example, being fixed in A.H. 352 (instead of A.H. 425), and Nâṣir bin Khurau’s even in A.H. 119 (!!).

No. 2415, ff. 936, 3 coll., ll. 15 in each; written by different hands in Nasta’lîḳ and Shikasta; size, 121/8 in. by 8 in.