[IO Islamic 3213] ديوان سلمان

Dîwân-i-Salmân.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1241 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 3213 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1241

The same.

This copy, which appears to have been made from one of the earliest collections of Salmân’s poems, but has unfortunately a lacuna after fol. 11, begins with a long artificial ḳaṣîdah ( قصيدۀ مصنوع), on fol. 1b, of the same manner of taushîḥ as those poems of Ahlî Shîrâzî, described at length in the Catalogue of the Bodleian Library, coll. 652, 653. The chief subtlety is, that all the words of two and two, or three and three baits, written in red ink, form together a new distich, usually a mathnawî-bait, and every bait of this kind represents a different metre and a different tropical figure; for instance, from the first two baits of the ḳaṣîdah:

صواى صفوت رويت بريخت آب بهار

هواى جنّت كويت ببيخت مشك تتار

اگر خبر زصفاى تو گلستان دارد

گل از حياى رخت جاودان ندارد بار

There springs this mathnawî-bait in the metre of هزج مثمّن سالم, and representing التّرصيع و الاشتقاق:

صواى صفوت رويت صفات گلستان دارد

هواى جنّت كويت حيات جاودان دارد،

Besides, (I) all the initial letters of the baits give a ḳiṭ’ah of three distichs, containing a dedication to the Wazîr Ghiyâth-aldîn Muḥammad; (2) from the حشو, i.e. specially-selected letters, of the words in all the first hemistiches springs a ḳiṭ’ah of eight distichs, in which no alif appears; (3) from the حشو of the words in all the second hemistichs springs another ḳiṭ’ah of seven distichs, in which no diacritical point appears; and (4) by another arrangement of select letters, a ghazal of five distichs is formed. Comparing this ḳaṣîdah of Salmân’s with the above-mentioned three ḳaṣîdas of Ahlî Shîrâzî, it is evident that the latter based his poems on that of his predecessor to such an extent that it may almost be called a plagiarism.

The other contents of the dîwân are:

Ḳaṣîdas, tarjî’bands, and ḳiṭ’as, without any order, beginning abruptly, on fol.12a, in the middle of a poem (one leaf being left blank); the initial poem of the following copy (No. 2458), viz. در درج در عقيق الخ, is found here on fol. 30a. Ghazals, likewise without any order, on fol. 202b, beginning:

تا تو دل در بند جان دارى و جان در بند تن

چون مرا در خویش گیری در کنار خویشتن

Rubâ’îs, on fol. 266b, beginning: اى كارگذاران الخ .

Some words and whole lines are occasionally left blank, on ff. 19a, 19b, 84a, and 268b-274a.

No date. A seal from A.D. 1799 on the last page.

No. 3213, ff. 274, 2 coll., each ll. 19; Nasta’lîḳ; illuminated frontispiece on fol. 1b; size, 9½ in. by 6 in.