[IO Islamic 980] دارابنامه

Dârâbnâma.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 787 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 980 here with notations and hyperlinks].

787

Dârâbnâma (دارابنامه).

A slightly incomplete copy of one of the numerous historical romances or collections of romantic stories, founded on Persian legends, by Abû Ṭâhir of Ṭarsus (or with his full name, Abû Ṭâhir Muḥammad bin Ḥasan bin ‘Alî bin Mûsâ Ṭarṭûsî or Ṭarsûsî), the fruitful author of prose-epopees in imitation of Firdausî’s Shâhnâma, comp. Mohl, Livre des Rois, i. préface, pp. 74 and 75. Other works of Abû Ṭâhir are the Ḳahramânnâma (also called Dâstân-i-Ḳahramân or Ḥikâyat-i-Ḳahramân-i-Ḳâtil, see W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 993; and on the Turkish translation of the same, W. Pertsch, Berlin Turkish Cat., p. 460 sq., and Fleischer, Cat. Lips., p. 522) and the Ḳirân-i-Ḥabashî (in Turkish translation in Bodleian Cat., No. 2101; Rieu, Turkish Cat., p. 219 sq., etc.). Abû Ṭâhir’s original version of the present romance on Darius and Alexander had, according to the conclusion, on fol. 444a, been preserved in the library of the emperor Akbar and put into its present form by Kaiḳubâd bin Mihyâr, at the request of another eminent Persian, Nûshirwân bin Bahmânshâh. From the brouillon of that compiler, the present copy was made by ‘Abd-alraḥmân, and finished the 8th of Jumâdâ-alawwal, A.H. 1026 (A.D. 1617, May 14).

The beginning is missing; it opens in the middle of the mythical account of Dârâb’s youth, in the usual manner of all Oriental fairy tales.

The first and several other leaves are greatly injured.

No. 980, ff. 444, ll. 25 on ff. 1-94 with many blanks, ll. 21 on ff. 95-443; written by two different hands in Naskhî; size, 111/4 in. by 71/8 in.