In my two previous posts on this topic, I looked at palm leaf manuscripts from central Thailand and the northern Thai regions. In this final post on the beauty of palm leaf manuscripts in Tai manuscript cultures, I will take a closer look at traditional retrieval aids, and storage and preservation methods. Some temple libraries held large numbers of manuscripts which were stored in specially made furniture. Due to the fact that many manuscripts were wrapped in a piece of cloth, and the title or contents were rarely mentioned on the front leaf or front cover of a manuscript, quick retrieval of a particular manuscript was only possible if certain finding aids and methods were in place. For example, the manuscripts could be arranged in a systematic order within one cabinet, and several cabinets could be placed in a systematic order in the library building. One important finding aid was the title indicator. A title indicator, which could constitute a beautiful little work of art itself, was attached to a rope, and the rope was wound around the manuscript.     

Wooden title indicator covered with black lacquer, and text incised in Tham script on gold background. Lanna, 19th century. British Library, Or.16555. Acquired from Dr Henry Ginsburg’s bequest, in memory of Dr Henry Ginsburg.

Title indicators made from wood or bamboo were important means of identifying manuscripts when these were stored together in large numbers in wooden cabinets. The length of a title indicator could range from 100 to 400 mm. Bamboo and wooden indicators were often simple strips with the title and list of contents of the manuscript incised or written on, but sometimes wooden and ivory indicators could be carved with beautiful floral ornaments. Often they were lacquered red or black and decorated with gold leaf before the text was incised.     


Two wooden title indicators covered with red lacquer, with text incised in Tham script on a gold background. Lanna, 19th century. British Library, Or.14528-9.

Manuscript racks were used to hold manuscripts that had been selected to be worked with, for example to be read or discussed during Buddhist ceremonies and other events, or to be studied by an individual monk, or a monk with novices. These wooden stands can be decorated with intricate carvings, lacquer and/or gold leaf.

A wooden manuscript rack with carved decorations found in Pakse, Champassak Province, Laos. On the rack are four wooden manuscript boxes. Photograph by Harald Hundius. Courtesy of Preservation of Lao Manuscripts Programme (PLMP), © National Library of Laos.

Wooden manuscript cases that were custom-made for a particular palm leaf manuscript were often decorated in the same technique and design as the manuscript covers. These decorations included floral designs, animals or mythological figures, or lattice patterns. Gold leaf on black or red lacquer was one popular technique in the Northern Thai/Lanna, Lao and Shan traditions.

Wooden case with Kammavācā palm leaf manuscript in Tham script inside. The decoration of the manuscript covers is repeated on the case. Lanna or Laos, 19th century. British Library, Or.16893. Photograph courtesy of Michael Backman. © Michael Backmann Ltd.

However, most palm leaf manuscripts were not equipped with their own case but were stored in a larger casket, either a chest with a lid or a cabinet with lockable doors. Thick layers of lacquer helped to prevent damage to the chests and cabinets by the humid climate and insects. Long legs on the cabinets, and pedestals to stand the chests on, served to protect the manuscripts from flooding.  

Wooden manuscript chest from Lanna or Shan State decorated with red lacquer, raised gilt lacquer as well as carved and gilt wooden applications, 19th century. British Library, F1060. Bequest from Doris Duke’s Southeast Asian Art Collection.

Whereas in southern Laos the lai rot nam technique enjoyed great popularity, in northern Laos and Lanna the gold-on-lacquer stencil painting technique was more widespread. This technique, which was also used by the Shan, Tai Khoen and and Tai Lue, involved creating designs on paper which were cut into stencils afterwards. The paper stencil was then placed over a pre-lacquered surface and gold leaf was applied. The gold leaf easily adhered to the pre-lacquered surface (Warren 2004, p. 109). However, both techniques could be combined.

Large chests and cabinets were produced for the storage of manuscripts in Buddhist temple libraries (hǭ tai) or in royal and local palaces. The largest cabinets could be over 2 metres high and were designed to house an extensive collection of manuscripts belonging to the Tipitaka. Accordingly they were called tū traipitok. They were often lavishly decorated with scenes from the Jātakas, mythological animals in the Himavanta heaven, and floral designs (Kō̜ngkǣo 1980-88).

Regular communal ceremonies called bun bai lān were - and still are - organised to preserve the palm leaf manuscripts that are stored at Buddhist libraries, which are valuable treasures of the local communities (see DLLM). At such ceremonies, which can take place annually or once every several years, the palm leaf manuscripts are removed from the storage furniture, cleaned from dust, dead insects and dry mould by wiping them with a clean, soft piece of cotton or a brush made from soft animal hair on a bamboo stick. The furniture is cleaned as well on this occasion. The cleaning tasks are carried out by lay volunteers and novice monks.

Procession on occasion of a Bun bai lān ceremony. Atsaphon District, Savannakhet Province, Laos, 2002. Courtesy of Preservation of Lao Manuscripts Programme (PLMP), © National Library of Laos.

Damaged manuscripts can be repaired or copied onto new palm leaves by trained monks and novices, and broken covers, title indicators or torn wrappers can be replaced with new ones. At the end of this work which may be carried out over several days, monks would usually bless the manuscripts and thank the members of the community in a ceremony. Afterwards, the members of the community, novices and monks help to carry the manuscripts back to the temple library in a colourful procession.

A traditional wooden manuscript repository (hǭ tai). Vat Canthasalo in Ban Nong Lam Can, Camphon District, Savannakhet Province, 1994. Courtesy of Preservation of Lao Manuscripts Programme (PLMP), © National Library of Laos.

Traditional manuscript repositories (hǭ tai) could be found in Buddhist temples, where special buildings were erected on high base walls, stilts or pillars in order to keep the manuscripts safe from leaf-eating animals and floods.   

References

DLLM (Digital Library of Lao Manuscripts) (retrieved 05.12.2014)

Kō̜ngkǣo Wīrapračhak and Niyadā Thāsukhon. Tū lāi thǭng = Thai lacquer and gilt bookcases. 3 vols. Bangkok, 1980-88

Tingley, Nancy. Doris Duke. The Southeast Asian Art Collection. New York: The Foundation for Southeast Asian Art and culture, 2003

Warren, William. Lanna style. Art and design of Northern Thailand. 3rd ed. Bangkok: Asia Books, 2004

Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian

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During the rule of the Mamluks who ruled in Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517, the presence of Crusaders coming from Europe seems to have stimulated a great interest in the military arts, weaponry and cavalry training among rulers in the Near and Middle East. The cavalry training was designed to improve the skills of soldiers who practised jousting exercises and equestrian games to prepare them not only for battle against the Crusaders but also for entertaining large crowds of spectators in specially-built stadia or hippodromes.

A horseman impales a bear, from Book three of Nihāyat al-su’l which gives instructions on using lances. Dated 773/1371 (Add. MS. 18866, f. 113r)

A fourteenth-century Mamluk manual on horsemanship, military arts and technology from the British Library’s collection of Arabic manuscripts (Add. MS 18866) has just been uploaded to the Qatar Digital Library. Its author, Muḥammad ibn ‘Īsá ibn Ismā‘īl al-Ḥanafī al-Aqṣarā’ī, died in Damascus in 1348. The colophon states that this near contemporary copy of the manual was completed on 10 Muḥarram 773 (25 July 1371) by the scribe Aḥmad ibn ‘Umar ibn Aḥmad al-Miṣrī, but it is not certain whether in Egypt or Syria. The manuscript came into the Library of the British Museum (now British Library) in 1852, having been purchased at the auction of the estate of Sir Thomas Reade, one time jailer of Napoleon Bonaparte (for more on the manuscript’s provenance see our earlier post 'Sir Thomas Read: knight 'nincumpoop' and collector of antiquities'). A very similar illustrated copy of the same work, dated 788/1366, is preserved at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (CBL Ar 5655).

The colophon giving the name of the scribe Aḥmad ibn ‘Umar ibn Aḥmad the Egyptian (al-Miṣrī) and the date of completion as 10 Muḥarram 773 (25 July 1371). Although the scribe was Egyptian, it is not certain whether the manuscript was copied in Egypt or Syria (Add. MS 18866, f. 292r)

The title-page names the work Nihāyat al-su’l wa-al-umnīyah fī ta‘allum a‘māl al-furūsīyah (‘An End of Questioning and Desiring [Further Knowledge] concerning Learning of the Different Exercises of Horsemanship’) which is an example of furūsīyah, a popular genre of mediaeval Arabic literature embracing all aspects of horsemanship and chivalry. The manuscript itself deals with the care and training of horses; the weapons which horsemen carry such as the bow, the sword and the lance; the assembling of troops and the formation of battle lines.

Diagram of a parade ground (Add. MS 18866, ff. 93v-94r)

This early dated manuscript from the Mamluk period is a veritable treasure in itself containing some of the most magnificent examples of Mamluk manuscript painting. It includes eighteen colour paintings depicting horses, riding equipment, body armour and weapons and twenty-five instructive diagrams on the layout of a parade ground, dressage and various military insignia. Beyond the military and equestrian arts, the paintings in this manuscript are full of details relating to contemporary costume and decorative style. It is one of the highlights of the British Library’s illustrated Arabic manuscripts and is notable also for its beautiful calligraphy and tooled leather Islamic binding that is likely to be contemporary with the manuscript.

Brown goat-skin binding with envelope flap decorated with blind-tooled circular designs on both covers and flap; probably 8th/14th century with signs of later repair (Add. MS 18866, binding)

Below is a list of the manuscript’s eighteen paintings. For most of them the author provided his own captions which are given below. Please click on the hyperlinks to see the full images:

(f. 97r) ‘Illustration of two horsemen whose lance-heads are between each other's shoulder-blades’.

(f. 99r) ‘Illustration of a number of horsemen taking part in a contest, their lances on their shoulders’.

(f. 101r) ‘Illustration of a horseman taking part in a game with a lance, the lance-head being in his hand and its shaft to his rear’.

(f. 109r) Without caption; a horseman carrying two horizontal lances.

(f. 113r) Without caption; a horseman impales a bear with his lance.

(f. 121r) ‘Illustration of a horseman performing a sword exercise’.

(f. 122v) ‘Illustration of a horseman with a sword in his hand and his sleeve wound over his hand as he rises out of his saddle and strikes with the sword’.

(f. 125r) ‘Illustration of a horseman with a sword in his hand with which he strikes from the horse's ear as far back as its right croup'.

(f. 127v) 'Illustration of a horseman with the edge of the sword under his right armpit, the hilt in his left with the reins'.

(f. 129v) 'Illustration of a horseman with a small shield around his neck and a sword in his hand which he brandishes to left and right'.

(f. 130r) 'Illustration of a horseman with a hide shield over his face, the sword edge under his right armpit and the hilt on his left'.

(f. 131v) 'Illustration of a horseman with an iron helmet on his head, with a sword. A fire is lit on the helmet, the sword blade and in the middle of the shield'.

(f.132v) 'Illustration of a horseman with a sword in his right hand, its blade on his left shoulder and a sword in his left hand whose blade is under his right armpit'.

(f. 134r) 'Illustration of a horseman with a sword in his left hand and its tip under his left arm pit'.

(f. 135r) 'Illustration of two horsemen wheeling around, with a sword in each one's hand on the horse's back'.

(f. 136r) 'Illustration of a horseman with two swords and two small hide shields, on up at his face and the other in his hand with the sword'.

(f. 138v) 'Illustration of a horseman with a lance in his hand which he is dragging behind him, and a shield in his other hand'.

(f. 140r) 'Illustration of four horsemen, each one with a sword and a hide shield, and each one carrying his shield on his horse's croup'.

Further reading

G.Rex Smith, Medieval Muslim Horsemanship: A Fourteenth-Century Arabic Cavalry Manual, London, The British Library, 1979.

Abul Lais Syed Muhammad  Lutful-Huq, A critical edition of Nihayat al-sul wa'l-umniyah fi ta'lim a'mal al-furusiyah of Muhammad b. 'Isa b. Isma'il al-Hanafi, Ph.D. diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1955. Download free from British Library Electronic Theses Online Services (ETHoS).

L. Mercier, tr. and ed., La parure des cavaliers et l’insigne des preux, Paris: P. Geuthner, 1924.

D. Haldane,  Mamluk Painting, Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1978.

E. Atıl, Renaissance of Islam: Art of the Mamluks, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press 1981.

Article on furūsīyah and the farasnāmah in Persian: Iraj Afshar, Faras-nāma, in Encyclopaedia Iranica Online.

 

 

Colin F. Baker, Lead Curator, Middle Eastern Studies
     

 

Note from editor:

Thanks to the efforts of our colleagues Daniel Lowe and Annabel Gallop, we have identified the seal on folio 292r as that of the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II (reigned 1481-1512), providing another missing link in the history of this remarkable manuscript. 

A useful explanation of the components of Bayazid's tughra (and other Ottoman Sultans) can be found here.

 

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Editor: On 31 October 2014 we held a successful one-day symposium ʻBritish Library Persian Manuscripts: Collections and Researchʼ at which Dr. Stephan Popp of the Institut für Iranistik, Vienna spoke on ʻHoroscopes as propaganda under Akbar and Shāh Jahānʼ. Although he is planning an expanded version of his paper for future publication, he has kindly agreed to summarise it for us here.

The birth of Timur showing astrologers on the right, drawing up his horoscope. From an imperial copy of Abu l-Fażl's Akbarnāma, c. 1602. Painting ascribed to Sūrdās Gujarātī (Or.12988, f. 34v)

In the 16^th century, astrology was still an approved science both in Europe and in India, and many princes between Lisbon and Dhaka relied on the counsels of astrologers. Especially so the chronicle of the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605), the Akbarnāma by Abu l‑Fażl, which uses the emperor’s horoscope extensively to prove his claim to power. Akbar claimed to be the mujaddid (restorer of Islam) of the second Islamic millennium and the pre-destined perfect ruler. But first, some remarks on Mughal astrology and how it was supposed to work.

For this reason, let us then have a quick look at Akbar’s horoscope as it appears in the Akbarnāma:

Akbar’s nativity as drawn at his birth by the astrologer Maulānā Chānd (Akbarnāma, p. 70)

A horoscope is a diagram showing the sky over a given place at a given time. It consists of: 1) the zodiac, 2) the houses, i.e. a second zodiac constructed with the ascendant (i.e. the point that is just rising) as the starting point, and 3) the planets at their places for that particular time. This horoscope is constructed on a square grid, with the east on top (modern horoscopes are in the form of a circle, with the north on top). The twelve fields are not the zodiac signs but the houses. They are equated with the zodiac sign their first degree falls in, although this is at the very end in the case of Akbar. House I is top centre, and the other houses follow counter-clockwise. The planets are entered, but without their exact position in the zodiacal sign. Aspects, i.e. significant angles between objects that strengthen or weaken their power, are not indicated in this horoscope but are mentioned in the text where necessary. Moreover, several kinds of subdivisions of zodiac signs also have properties that strengthen or weaken a planet, which in turn strengthens or weakens a house.

Thus, a horoscope contains ca. 250 interrelated data, and the art of the astrologer consists in picking the right influences and interpreting them in an appropriate way. This is obviously highly subjective, even if the planets had influences. No wonder, as Abraham Eraly has observed (Eraly, p. 109), astrologers have been called the psychiatrists or confessors of the Mughal Empire.

Akbar’s horoscopes

This blog will show how astrologers acted not only as the psychiatrists but also as the spin doctors of the Mughal Empire. Abu l‑Fażl ibn Mubārak, Akbar’s mentor on policy and official chronicler, had a genuine interest in astrology. That he regarded it as a fully-fledged science is clear from the fact that he comes up with four different horoscopes of Akbar and discusses their differences (Akbarnama, pp. 119–123). Eva Orthmann (p. 108 below) proves that the horoscopes are based on genuine calculations and not made up by Abu l‑Fażl. Abu l‑Fażl writes that an Indian and a Western horoscope were cast at Akbar’s birth in 1542 by Jyotik Rai and by Maulānā Chānd. The results were different due to the different definitions of zodiacal signs in Vedic and Western astrology. Indian astrology defines the zodiac as the constellations in the sky whereas western astrology defines the zodiac as the ecliptic divided into twelve equal parts beginning from the spring point (where the sun rises at the spring equinox). The spring point, however, slowly moves backward through the constellations, so that at the present time it is at the end of Pisces, not in Aries.

The precession of the spring point (0° Aries) in the last 6000 years. Kevin Heagen via Wikimedia Commons

Because of this movement, Abu l‑Fażl says, the Vedic results were 17° behind the Western ones in Akbar’s time (whereas now they are 25° behind). Thus, Akbar’s ascendant fell in Leo according to the Indians, which suited an emperor, but in the Western horoscope, it fell in Virgo. Abu l‑Fażl discusses this difference, effectively discrediting the Indian astrologers (pp. 119–122). Still, as acknowledged by Orthmann (p. 110), ‘royal’ Leo would have been a much more suitable ascendant for an aspiring emperor than Virgo.

When the great scientist and physician Fatḥullāh Shīrāzī joined Akbar’s court in 1583, Abu l-Fażl asked him to correct the two horoscopes. Instead, Fatḥullāh cast his own, using the old “star tables of the Greeks and Persians” of ca. 830 AD instead of the new ones of Ulugh Beg. In this way, he arrived at the ascendant falling at the very end of Leo (28°36’) instead of 7° Virgo. Abu l-Fażl calls this “the most reliable horoscope” (p. 94) although containing outdated data, and devotes two chapters to its description and predictions.

How Fatḥullāh Shīrāzī managed to put the ascendant back into ‘royal’ Leo. The old tables shift the house grid 9½ degrees back. The grid has also passed over Venus, so that it is at the beginning of the second house now, not at the end of the first.

When the diagram was ready, the task of the astrologer was to pick those influences that suited successful rule. Combining the right influences from the vast data, Fatḥullāh Shīrāzī sings Akbar’s praises (p. 111):

As this (4^th) house is a Fixed Sign, and its lord (Mars) is in exaltation and has a beneficent aspect, territory will continually be coming into the possession of the King’s servants…,

and even (p. 108):

The Native will exceed the natural period of life, viz., 120 years.

Abu l‑Fażl's chapter describing Fatḥullāh Shīrāzī's horoscope.  Although the diagram has been left blank, the details are all supplied in the Persian text (Or.12988, f. 15r) 

Overall, the horoscopes emphasize Akbar’s success in conquest, acquiring wealth and in administration, and his supreme reason by which he guides the state and settles disputes. Moreover, the astrologer Maulānā Chand argues that Akbar is greater than Timur because Akbar’s Mars is stronger (p. 79). That the horoscopes contradict themselves is only superficial, Abu l‑Fażl concludes, for, he claims, God hides Akbar’s greatness from the undeserving (p. 123):

Owing to the jealousy of God, the truth of the holy nativity remained under the veil of concealment and was hidden behind the curtain of contradiction. But… if each of the horoscopes be looked at with the eye of judgment… it becomes plain that… there is nothing equal to them.

A person deserving special mention was, according to Abu l‑Fażl, Akbar’s father Humāyūn, an accomplished astrologer and “by the perfection of his personality enlightened by flashes of forthcoming events” (p. 124). Humāyūn danced with joy when he read the horoscope, Abu l-Fażl says. In this way, he tries to make his readers believe that if they see nothing but contradiction, this is because they do not see well enough. Even the astrologers, accomplished scientists, did not see everything. But they did their very best to combine their data in the way that Akbar and Abu l‑Fażl wanted them to: to “discover” that Akbar was the king of kings.

 

Further reading
Abu l‑Fazl ʿAllāmi: The Akbarnama of Abu-l-Fazl, tr. Henry Beveridge. 3 vols. Calcutta 1897–1939 (1907 reprint digitised by Google available here).
– The History of Akbar, vol. 1; edited and translated by Wheeler M. Thackston. Harvard University Press, 2015. This newly published edition includes the original Persian with parallel English translation.
Abraham Eraly: The Mughal World, Life in India’s Last Golden Age, New Delhi: Penguin, 2007.
Kushyār Ibn Labbān: Introduction to astrology, ed. and transl. by Michio Yano, Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1997.
Māshā’allāh Ibn Asari: The astrological history of Māshā'allāh, ed. E. S. Kennedy and David Pingree. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1971.
A. Azfar Moin: “Challenging the Mughal Emperor: The Islamic Millennium according to ʿAbd al‑Qadir Badayuni”, in Metcalf, Barbara: Islam in South Asia in Practice, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Eva Orthmann: “Circular Motions: Private Pleasure and Public Prognostication in the Nativities of the Mughal Emperor Akbar,” in: Günther Oestmann, H. Darrel Rutkin, and Kocku von Stuckrad (ed.): Horoscopes and Public Spheres, Essays on the History of Astrology, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005, pp. 101–114.

 

Stephan Popp, Institut für Iranistik, Vienna (email: [email protected])

 

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The story of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyyah – a son of the caliph ‘Alī by a captive from the tribe of the Banū Ḥanīfah, and half-brother to the Prophet’s grandsons Ḥasan and Ḥusayn – was composed in Persian by an anonymous author in the fourteenth century, and very soon after that translated into Malay, probably around the court of Pasai in north Sumatra. In this tale the otherwise marginal figure of the historical Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyyah is transformed into a quintessential Islamic hero, emerging victorious after numerous battles.   

Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah, with decorated initial frames, copied by Muhammad Kasim on 29 Jumadilakhir 1220 (25 August 1805), probably in Penang. British Library, MSS Malay B.6, ff.1v-2r.

The Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah became popular throughout the Malay world, with its stature as a spur to valour cemented by an iconic episode in the most famous Malay chronicle. The Sulalat al-Salatin, popularly known as the Sejarah Melayu or ‘Malay Annals’, was composed sometime in the sixteenth century to record for posterity the glory of the great kingdom of Melaka, before its defeat by Portuguese forces under Afonso d’Albuquerque in 1511. In the Sejarah Melayu, the night before the Portuguese attack, the young knights of Melaka sent a message to the sultan requesting the recitation of the Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah. The sultan tests their resolve by offering instead a tale of a lesser hero, the Hikayat Amir Hamzah. The nobles reply that as long as the sultan’s courage matches that of Muhammad Hanafiah, they will match that of his generals, whereupon the sultan accedes to their request. The full episode from the Sejarah Melayu is reproduced below, in C.C. Brown’s translation:

‘That night the war-chiefs and the young nobles were waiting in the hall of audience, and the young nobles said, “Why do we sit here idly? It would be well for us to read a tale of war that we may profit from it.” And Tun Muhammad Unta said, “That is very true, sir. Let us ask the Raja to give us the Story of Muhammad Hanafiah.” Then the young nobles said to Tun Aria, “Go, sir, and take this message to the Ruler, that all of us crave from his the Story of Muhammad Hanafiah, in the hope that we may obtain profit from it, for the Franks [i.e. Portuguese] are attacking tomorrrow.” Tun Aria accordingly went into the palace and presented himself before Sultan Ahmad, to whom he addressed the young nobles’ request. And Sultan Ahmad gave him the Story of Hamzah saying, “We would give you the Story of Muhammad Hanafiah did we not fear that the bravery of the gentlemen of our court falls short of the bravery of Muhammad Hanafiah! But it may be that their bravery is such as was the bravery of Hamzah and that is why we give you the Story of Hamzah.” Tun Aria then left the palace bearing the Story of Hamzah and he told the young nobles what Sultan Ahmad had said. At first they were silent, but presently Tun Isak Berakah replied to Tun Aria, “Represent humbly to the Ruler that he has spoken amiss. If he will be as Muhammad Hanafiah, we will be as war-chief Bania’ [i.e. of Beniar, the headquarters of the historical Muhammad al-Hannafiyyah]: if his bravery is that of Muhammad Hanafiah, ours will be that of war-chief Bania.” And when Tun Aria took this message from Tun Isak Berakah to Sultan Ahmad, the king smiled and gave them the story of Muhammad Hanafiah instead.’ (Brown 1970: 162-3).  

In fact, neither of the two manuscripts of the Sejarah Melayu in the British Library include this episode. Or. 14734, copied in Melaka in 1873, omits any mention of the nobles' request for Hikayat Muhammad Hanfiah on f.174v, perhaps part of a late tendency to erase any possible Shi'i tinges from Malay literature. In Or. 16214, copied in Singapore around 1832, the chapter on the Portuguese attack is missing.

Final page of Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah, copied by Mahmud ibn Husain on 14 Syaaban 1220 (7 November 1805): tamatlah Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah anakda cucuda nabi s.a.w. pada sanat 1220 tahun2 wau pada empat belas haribulan Syaaban pada malam Arba' wa-katibuhu Mahmud ibn Husain. British Library, MSS Malay D.5, f.80r.  

The Malay Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah was the subject of a detailed study by Lode Brakel (1975), who traced thirty manuscripts, including three in the British Library, which have now all been digitised. Two, from the John Leyden collection, were both copied in Penang or Kedah in 1805 (MSS Malay B.6 and MSS Malay D.5, Brakel’s source ‘F’). A third manuscript, from the collection of John Crawfurd (Add. 12377, Brakel’s source ‘G’), may have been acquired in Java but the use of the titles Teuku and Teungku sugggest a link with Aceh. The tale is also known in Acehnese, Bugis, Javanese, Makasarese, Madurese, Minangkabau and Sundanese versions.

Final pages of Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah, copied by Teungku Kecik and owned by Teuku Itam: tamat wa-katibuhu Teungku Kecik menyurat dia Teuku (t.a.’.k.w) Itam empunya {empunya} surat ini tamat. British Library, Add.12377, ff. 185v-186r.

Brakel also documented two manuscripts of the Persian original, one – at the time thought to be unique – in the British Library (Add. 8149), and another in St. Petersburg. By comparing the Malay manuscripts with Add. 8149 (a copy from Murshidabad in Bengal, written in 1721), Brakel was able to show that the Malay text was a direct translation from the Persian original, in some cases even preserving the order of words (Brakel 1975: 12-13).

Opening page of the Persian Hikāyat Muḥammad Ḥanafiyyah, following on from a tale of Ḥasan and Ḥusayn, Murshidabad, 1721. British Library, Add. 8149, ff. 28v-29r.

Further reading:

L.F. Brakel, The Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiyyah: a medieval Muslim-Malay romance.  The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975. (Bibliotheca Indonesica; 12).

L.F. Brakel, The story of Muhammad Hanafiyyah: a medieval Muslim romance.  Translated from the Malay by L.F. Brakel.  The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977. (Bibliotheca Indonesica; 16).

C.C. Brown, Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals.  An annotated translation by C.C.Brown, with a new introduction by R.Roolvink.  Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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Historically there has been a close cultural and linguistic relationship between the Tai peoples in Southeast Asia (Northern Thai/Lanna, Lao, Phu Thai, Phuan, Shan, Tai Khoen and Tai Lue, to mention some of the larger groups). Tai groups that have embraced Buddhism have also adopted the tradition of making palm leaf manuscripts. The reputation of the famous Pali school of Chiang Mai, the capital of the former kingdom of Lanna, may have contributed significantly to the spread not only of Buddhism in the area, but also of the making of palm leaf manuscripts and the use of the Tham script. Palm leaf manuscripts clearly play an important role especially for the preservation of Buddhist texts and commentaries, but were also used to record historical accounts and traditional knowledge relating to social values, customary laws, herbal medicine and traditional healing practices, astrology, divination and horoscopes, non-Buddhist rituals and ceremonies, and literary texts (folklore).

Buddhist manuscript in Tham script from Lanna or Laos with black lacquered covers and gilt floral decorations, 19th century. British Library, Or.16734.

Whereas Buddhist texts are often in Pali language and/or in Dhamma (Tham) script, other treatises are usually written in Tai languages like Lao, Northern Thai, Tai Khoen, Tai Lue, or Shan. Local scripts like Lik Tai, Tham Lao, Tham Lanna, and Lao buhan were used.

For the production of a palm leaf manuscript, very large fan-shaped leaves from a lān palm (corypha) were cut into a long rectangular shape, soaked in a herbal mixture, then dried or  baked in a kiln, and finally pressed. These fan palm trees were the preferred type in the Northern Thai/Lanna, Lao and Shan manuscript traditions, and are still commonly planted as ornamental trees in temple grounds. The text was usually inscribed with a sharp wooden or metal stylus, then wiped over with a mixture of resin and/or oil and carbon soot to make the writing more visible.

Most of the extant palm leaf manuscripts from the Tai traditions were produced during the 18th and 19th centuries, but some date back to the early 16th century (see DLLM). The introduction of modern printing methods in mainland Southeast Asia resulted in a rapid decline of palm leaf manuscript production during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Shan tradition, palm leaf manuscripts were largely replaced by bound or folded paper books (Terwiel 2003, p. 26). However, in some places palm leaf manuscripts are still being produced today, or their production has been revived due to the fact that the sponsoring and donation of manuscripts to temples is still regarded as an important meritorious act in the Buddhist context.

Precious manuscripts or palm leaves containing important texts were covered with two wooden or bamboo boards, which were sometimes left blank, but often they were beautifully carved or decorated. Such covers could be lacquered in red or black, and decorated with gold leaf, mirror glass, mother-of-pearl inlay or even with crystals or precious stones.

Covers from a Shan Buddhist manuscript. The wooden covers are decorated with raised gilt lacquer forming flower ornaments, which were inlaid with mirror glass.19th century. British Library, Or.16114. Bequest from Doris Duke’s Southeast Asian Art Collection.

Black or red lacquer was a popular material to apply on wooden manuscript covers as it provided good protection against damage by water and humidity. At the same time, the shiny black and bright purple of the lacquer were ideal background colours on which gold leaf or gold paint could be applied.

Manuscript in Tham script from Lanna or Laos with red lacquered and gilt bamboo covers, 19th or early 20th century. British Library, Or.16790.

Bamboo strips cut to match the size of the palm leaves were popular covers for manuscripts in Lanna, Laos and among the Shan. The manuscript covers shown above replicate floral decorations made in the stencil technique that can be seen on wooden pillars and beams in many temples in Northern Thailand, Laos and Shan State. This manuscript also has a custom-made wrapper made from cotton with interwoven bamboo strips.

Besides gold leaf or gold paint, other materials were applied on the lacquer as well. Mother-of-pearl inlay was very popular in central Thailand, but it was also adopted in Lanna and Laos due to close cultural relationships and exchange or transfer of Buddhist scriptures.  

Kammavācā text in Tham script from Chiang Mai with black and red lacquered covers and mother-of-pearl inlay, 19th century. British Library Or.16077. Bequest from Doris Duke’s Southeast Asian Art Collection.

Rough shells or their parts were cut into platelets of various shapes before inlaid into the lacquer. The production of items with such intricate decorations required special skills and experienced craftsmanship. Traditionally, mother-of-pearl inlay was used in Thailand exclusively for ecclesiastical objects and was under royal patronage until the end of the 19th century. The manuscript covers shown above are thought to have been produced in central Thailand and may have been given to a royal monastery in Chiang Mai.

Another method of decorating wooden manuscript boards was to cover them with black lacquer, then to use a stylus to incise floral ornaments once the lacquer had dried. Afterwards, red lacquer was rubbed on the incisions in order to create a contrasting black and red design. This technique may have been imported into Lanna and Laos from the Burmese and Shan traditions.   


Wooden lacquered cover of a Kammavācā manuscript dated 1918 in Tham script from Lanna or northwestern Laos. British Library Or.13157.  

To provide additional protection against dust and mould, palm leaf manuscripts were often wrapped in a piece of cloth, which could either be custom-made or simply an unused lady’s skirt, a hand-woven shawl or an imported piece of cloth (for example printed Indian cotton). Custom-made palm leaf wrappers could also be made from local or imported silk. Occasionally such wrappers were interwoven with bamboo strips to provide extra stability for palm leaf manuscripts which had no covers. Another type of manuscript cloth took the form of a long cotton or silk bag that was sewn to match exactly the size of the palm leaves.

Bundles of palm leaves in Tham script with a hand-woven lady’s skirt from northern Laos used as a manuscript wrapper, 19th or early 20th century. British Library, Or.16895.

References

Conway, Susan. The Shan. Culture, art and crafts. Bangkok: River Books, 2006

DLLM (Digital Library of Lao Manuscripts) (retrieved 05.12.2014)

Guy, John. Palm-leaf and paper, illustrated manuscripts of India and Southeast Asia. With an essay by O.P. Agrawal on Care and conservation of palm-leaf and paper illustrated manuscripts. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1982

Terwiel, Barend J. Shan manuscripts, part 1. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2003

Tingley, Nancy. Doris Duke. The Southeast Asian Art Collection. New York: The Foundation for Southeast Asian Art and culture, 2003

Warren, William. Lanna style. Art and design of Northern Thailand. 3rd ed. Bangkok: Asia Books, 2004

Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian

Thanks to a chance encounter with a Scottish artist in Calcutta in 1810, we are in possession of a rare portrait of one of the Malay scribes responsible for copying a number of Malay manuscripts now held in the British Library. Ibrahim, who was born in Kedah in 1780, was the younger son of Hakim Long Fakir Kandu, a prominent merchant from the south Indian Chulia community. Ibrahim and his older brother Ahmad both worked in Penang as scribes for the British – Ahmad for the merchant Robert Scott, while Ibrahim was employed by Thomas Stamford Raffles. In 1810 Ahmad visited Bengal in the company of Scott, and recorded his impressions in the Hikayat perintah negeri Benggala (Add.12386). By great coincidence, that same year Ibrahim too sailed to Calcutta with his employer, Raffles. At a gathering at Government House on 15 September 1810, Ibrahim caught the eye of Maria Graham: ‘The most singular figure of this motley group was a Malay moonshi, whom Dr Leyden had brought to the assembly’, and her portrait of Ibrahim adorns the frontispiece to her Journal of a Residence in India (1812).  Ibrahim, aged thirty, is portrayed sitting cross-legged wearing a head covering, jacket, shirt and sarong, all made of checked Indian pelikat trade-cloth, with a large pending or almond-shaped belt buckle, holding an octagonal silver tobacco box and with his his keris (dagger) beside him.

Portrait of Ibrahim in 1810, from Maria Graham, Journal of a Residence in India (Edinburgh, 1812). British Library, V8668, frontispiece.

Raffles had arrived in Penang in September 1805, having studied Malay on the voyage out from England. Probably acting on the advice of his intellectual mentor (and convalescent house guest) John Leyden, around January 1806 Raffles gathered a team of six scribes to copy Malay books for him. Among the Malay manuscripts which have recently been digitised are at least four volumes bearing Ibrahim’s name as scribe. Three specify that they were copied for Raffles, but were evidently presented to Leyden, for they came to the India Office Library in Leyden’s estate in 1824. 

The earliest of the manuscripts to mention Raffles's name is a copy of Hikayat Parang Puting (MSS Malay D.3), concerning the adventures of Budak Miskin, son of the princess of Langkam Jaya, one of a few Malay works which according to Braginsky (2004: 72) may best preserve the primordial pre-Islamic 'monomyth' of the sacral cosmic marriage of the male and female principles.

Decorated title page of Hikayat Parang Puting, with an outline of the contents, set within rectangular borders filled with floral and foliate motifs: Inilah cetera orang dahulu kala diceterakan oleh orang yang empunya cetera hikayat Parang Puting anak dewa laksana dewa dari kayangan terlalu indah perkataan maka ia berperang dengan naga di dalam laut dengan sabab tuan puteri hendak diambil naga itu inilah ceteranya. British Library, MSS Malay D.3, f.1r.

Colophon, dated 29 Syawal 1220 (20 January 1806): pada sanat 1220 tahun2 wau pada sembilan likur hari bulan Syawal pada hari Selasa ditamatkan surat Hikayat Parang Puting Tuan Mister Raffles empunya surat ini wa-katibuhu Ibrahim. British Library, MSS Malay D.3, f.63v (detail).

Later that same year, Ibrahim also copied the Hikayat Mesa Tandraman (MSS Malay C.3) for Raffles. Described as a Javanese story, it tells of two divine brothers Sang Dermadewa and Dewa Kisna Indra. The latter became a hermit on the mountain Puspagiri and the former became king of Kuripan.

The colophon, dated 6 Rejab 1221 (19 September 1806), states that the owner was Mister Raffles and the scribes were Ibrahim and Ismail: pada sanat 1221 tahun2 dal akhir pada enam hari bulan Rejab kepada hari Jumaat waktu pukul empat ditamatkan hikayat ini adapun yang empunya hikayat Tuan Mister Raffles wa-katibuhu wa-syahidahu Ibrahim yang menyuratnya dengan Ismail. British Library, MSS Malay C.3, f.164r (detail).

The third manuscript, Hikayat Isma Yatim (MSS Malay C.5), is a well-known story which may have been a personal favourite of Malay scribes because the hero, for once, is not a prince but a writer.

The colophon of Hikayat Isma Yatim giving the date of completion as 29 Jumadilakhir 1222 (3 September 1807), and naming the owner as Mister Raffles and the scribe as Ibrahim: maka ditamatkan hikayat ini kepada malam Arba' waktu pukul dua belas kepada sanat 1222 tahun2 alif pada sembilan likur hari bulan Jumadilakhir adapun hikayat ini tuan Mister Raffles yang empunya dia wa-katibuhu Ibrahim tamat. British Library, MSS Malay C.5, f.108r (detail).

The fourth manuscript is a copy of the Syair Silambari (MSS Malay B.3), also called the Syair Sinyor Kosta, concerning the conflict between a Portuguese and a Chinese in Melaka over a woman. Written 11 days earlier than Hikayat Parang Puting, it may also have been comissioned by Raffles.

The opening pages of Syair Silambari, decorated with floral borders in pen and ink, outlined in red.
British Library, MSS Malay B.3, ff.22v-23r.

The closing lines of Syair Silambari state that the manuscript was completed by Ibrahim on 18 Syawal 1220 (9 January 1806): sanat 1220 tahun tahun wau pada dualapan belas hari bulan Syawal kepada hari Arb'a bahwa pada ketika itu ditamatkan kitab Silambari namanya kisah Feringgi ambil bini Cina di dalam negeri Melaka jadi perang besar dengan Wilanda adapun yang empunya surat ini wa-katibuhu Ibrahim. British Library, MSS Malay B.3, f.36r (detail).

Following on immediately from the copy of Syair Silambari, on the reverse of the same sheet of paper and hence also certainly written by Ibrahim, is another poem in the form of a love letter to a lady, entitled Syair surat kirim kepada perempuan, which may be Ibrahim’s own literary creation.

Opening pages of Syair surat kirim kepada perempuan, also copied by Ibrahim in 1806. British Library, MSS Malay B.3, ff.36v-37r.

As can be seen from the images above, Ibrahim’s handwriting is very distinctive: his hand is small, neat, round, and upright, without a discernible slope to left or right.  Certain letters which are particularly characteristic are concave/convex tail of conjoined final nga/'ain, and the almost parallel shape of the ‘head’ of the letter-form jim/ca/ha/kha in its isolated position, as seen in the detail below.

The words 'siraja helang' from Syair surat kirim kepada perempuan, showing Ibrahim's characteristic 'parallel-headed' letter jim, and the concave-convex tail of nga. British Library, MSS Malay B.3, f.45r (detail).

On the basis of the handwriting, it is possible to identify a few more manuscripts in the British Library that may have been (at least partially) copied by Ibrahim, such as a copy of the last chapters of the Hikayat Hang Tuah (MSS Malay B.1) shown below.  In addition Ibrahim is known to have copied two MSS of the Sejarah Melayu now in the Raffles collection in the Royal Asiatic Society (Raffles Malay 35, dated January 1808, and Raffles Malay 39, dated March 1812). 

Ibrahim's distinctive letter jim can be seen in the word raja at the start of the top line on the right hand page, and his nga in the word yang on the bottom line of the left hand page, in this MS of Hikayat Hang Tuah. British Library, MSS Malay B.1, ff.139v-140r.

Further reading:

Ahmad Rijaluddin’s Hikayat Perintah Negeri Benggala. Edited and translated by C. Skinner.  The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982. (Bibliotheca Indonesica; 22).

V.I. Braginsky, The heritage of traditional Malay literature: a historical survey of genres, writings and literary views.  Leiden: KITLV, 2004.

A merry senhor in the Malay world: four texts of the Syair Sinyor Kosta, ed. A. Teeuw, R. Dumas, Muhammad Haji Salleh, R. Tol and M.J. van Yperen. Leiden: KITLV, 2004. Vol.1, pp. 15-20, 193-200 (contains a full transliteration of Syair Silambari).

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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The 'Palmer Family' is now on display at the British Library. Visitors to the Library can view the painting on the 3rd floor landing, near the entrance to the Science Reading Room and opposite the entrance to the Asian & African Studies Read Room. Due to the popularity and the high number of requests to be viewed by both researchers and descendants of William Palmer, the portrait has returned to the public area.

Major William Palmer with his second wife, the Mughal princess Bibi Faiz Bakhsh by Johann Zoffany, 1785. Oil on canvas; 40 by 50 ins (127 by 101.5 cms). British Library, F597.

Purchased by the India Office Library in 1924, this striking group portrait features Major William Palmer, Bengal Artillery (1740-1816), with his wife, Bibi Faiz Bakhsh ‘Faiz-un-Nisa’ Begum (died 1828), on his right and her sister Nur Begum on his left. His children in order of age are William (baptised 20 March 1782), Mary (b. 1783), Hastings (baptised 27 December 1785). Three women attendants complete the group. Major Palmer wears a red military coat and yellow waistcoat and the women and children are wearing cream dresses. They are seated on a red carpet in a courtyard with palm and plantain trees.

Palmer was ADC to Warren Hastings in 1774 and Military Secretary between 1776 and 1785. He was at the Lucknow court at various times between 1782 and 1785 as Hastings’ confidential agent for the extraction of loans from the Nawab and to report on the Residents Middleton and Bristow and their staff, and acting Resident after their departure. He left Lucknow in July 1785, and was in 1786 appointed by Cornwallis to be Resident at Sindhia’s court, where he remained until 1798, and at the Peshwa’s court in Poona 1798-1801. He afterwards commanded the 4th Native Infantry until his death at Berhampore in 1816. His will describes his wife as ‘his devoted companion of more than 30 years’.

This unfinished painting had long been attributed to Johann Zoffany (1733-1810), but was in the 1970s reattributed to Francesco Renaldi. (1755-c.1799). Of Italian descent, Renaldi lived in England and studied at the Royal Academy in 1776. He went to India and reached Calcutta in August 1786, remaining there until 1789 when he visited Dacca. From 1790-95 he worked in Lucknow and returned to Calcutta, leaving India in February 1796. However, the ages of the children, especially that of the infant Hastings in Faiz Bakhsh’s arms, who cannot be more than a few months old, strongly indicate that the painting cannot be as late as August 1786, and must therefore have been painted between Zoffany’s arrival back in Lucknow in April 1785, and Palmer’s departure in July for Calcutta. This would explain the unfinished state of the canvas.

Mildred Archer discusses the reattribution in ‘India and British Portraiture’ (London, 1979), 281-86, where she also states that the lady on Palmer's left is his second or Lucknow wife, on account of what she thinks is their intimacy, but the evidence for this is decidedly dubious (she is not for example actually leaning on Palmer's leg as Archer states - it is his own hand that is visible there). The lady in question is almost certainly Bibi Faiz Bakhsh’s sister Nur Begum, who subsequently married General Benoit de Boigne, Commandant in the army of the Maratha general Sindhia, and who left India in 1797. He abandoned this lady in England and remarried in France, while she under the name of Helen Bennet remained in Horsham, where she died and is buried. The eldest child in the painting is William Palmer, founder and head of the notorious Hyderabad firm of Palmer and Co. 

 

A previous posting on this remarkable manuscript, one of the British Library’s greatest treasures, introduced the volume and discussed a few of its pages. In this piece we discuss the inscriptions which it contains, beginning with the elaborate illuminated double-pages opening (folios 2v-3r) which contain the dedication of the manuscript to its patron.

The opening of Timur’s grandson Iskandar Sultan’s pocket miscellany containing 23 works. Copied 813-4/1410-11 (Add.27261, ff. 2v-3r)

The opening of Timur’s grandson Iskandar Sultan’s pocket miscellany containing 23 works. Copied 813-4/1410-11 (BL Add.27261, ff 2v-3r)
- See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2014/03/the-miscellany-of-iskandar-sultan-add27261.html#sthash.UxOo0y4y.dpuf

The text in the upper and lower panels is written in an especially ornate version of floriated Kufic script (compare, for example, the much clearer decorative title headings for two poems, Kitāb Jām-i Jam (f. 420v) and Sa‘ādat-nāma (f. 504v). The text appears to consist of supplicatory phrases. The present writer has begun, but not completed, the struggle to decipher them. Perhaps some readers of this blog can do better, in which case we should be glad to hear from them. In any case, the contents complement the prayer in Arabic for the manuscript’s patron, Iskandar Sultan, inscribed in thulth script in the lobed circular central panel on the right hand page (f. 2v):

O God, perpetuate the rule of the most mighty Sultan, the most just and noble emperor, sovereign of the sovereigns of the Arabs and non-Arabs…

The continuation, in the panel on the left hand page (3r), reads:

…the Shadow of God upon all regions of the Earth, the Champion of Water and Clay [i.e. Defender of the Interests of Mankind], the Reliant [upon God], the Supreme King, Glory of the Nation and Faith [of Islam] Iskandar, may God make his dominion eternal.

Close up of (left) f. 3r and (right) f. 2v

Among the special ‘personal touches’ found elsewhere in the manuscript are the inscriptions half-concealed in the ornately illuminated margins of three pages: folios 343v, 344r, and 345r. All are in verse, and here they appear to be addressed to Iskandar Sultan, although that does not necessarily mean that they were originally composed for him; their authorship has yet to be established.

Folio 343v, which incidentally is featured (as are folios f. 2v and f. 3r) in the ‘Turning The Pages’ presentation of selected pages of this Miscellany, contains geometrical theorems from the first Book of Euclid’s Principles. Written in gold, half-hidden within the decorative cartouches ranged along the margins of this and the following page (f. 344r), are verses praising the manuscript's royal patron using imagery entirely appropriate to a bibliophile:

Add. 27261, f. 343v

Ay daftar-i iqbāl-rā naqsh-i ḥavāshī nām-i tū

bar lawḥ-i taqdīr az qaẓā nukḥustīn ḥarf kām-i tuDawlat ba-kilk-i ma‘dalat āyāt-i faẓl u makramat binvishta matn u ḥāshiya bar ṣaḥfa-’i ayyām-i tu.

O you whose name has been marked down
   in the margins of Success’s book!
Your will is, by the decree of Fate,
   the first letter on Destiny’s Tablet.
With the pen of Justice, Good Fortune
   wrote the signs of virtue and greatness
upon the page of these, your times,
   in both the text space and the margins.

The inscription contained within four cartouches in the margin of folio 344r is much easier to read:

Add. 27261, f. 344r

Nigīn-i sa‘ādat / ba-nām-i tū bād

Hama kār-i dawlat / ba-kām-i tū bād

May Fortune’s signet ring
    be [inscribed] with your name;
and all matters of state
    accord with your desire.

As if the preceding eulogies were not enough, they are followed by a still more flattering single bayt or couplet on f. 345r, together with the name ‘Alī in gold on blue, calligraphed in square Kufic.

Add. 27261, f. 345r
 


Ay az bihisht / tu juzvī / vaz raḥmat āyatī / Ḥaqq-rā ba-rūzgār-i / tū bā mā ‘ināyatī

You who are a part of Heaven, a portent of [Divine] Mercy;
in this your era, God [has shown His] favour and concern for us.

Let us now turn our attention to the various colophons in Add. 27261. The first of these occurs on f. 112v, at the end of Ilāhī-nāma (‘Book of the Divine), a didactic poem by the great mystical poet Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār (d. ca. 1220). In it, one of the two calligraphers who worked on this Miscellany, Muḥammad al-Ḥalvā’ī, states that he finished copying the text in Jumādā l-avval (sic: normally in the feminine form Jumādā l-ūlā) 813, which month began on September 9th 1410. Here, as in another of his colophons (see below), which are in Arabic as convention dictates, this scribe employs phrases which show him to have been an admirer of the mystical Path and its people, and perhaps a Sufi himself.

Colophon in the margin at the end of ʻAṭṭār's Ilāhī-nāma (‘Book of the Divine), dated 813/1410. Add.27261, f. 112v
:

[This copy of] “The Book of the Divine”, by the Sultan of the Knowers and Lovers [of God], Protector of the Protégés of the Ancients and Moderns, the Unique One of the World and the Faith (Farīd al-Dunyā wa l-Dīn) Muḥammad known as ‘the Perfumer’ (‘Aṭṭār) – may God cool his resting-place, illumine his dwelling-place (mathwā), and make the Pool of Paradise his drinking-place (ma’rā) – was completed on Saturday 27th of Jumādā l-awwal 813. Praise is due to God alone, and God’s salutations and innumerable greetings be upon the Best of His Creation Muḥammad and his goodly, pure Family, one and all. By the hand of the weak and feeble servant, wholly reliant upon [God] the Eternally Self-Sufficient Sovereign: Muḥammad known as al-Ḥalvā’ī (‘The Sweetmeat Man’), may God improve his condition and put his mind at rest.

By contrast, the colophon written by al-Ḥalvā’ī on f. 294r at the end of Niẓāmī’s Khamsa (‘Five Poems’) is exiguous and looks as though it may have been composed and executed in haste. No acknowledgement to the Creator, salutations to the Prophet, or honorifics for the author; the scribe’s name is there, but has just been squeezed in at the end of a line:

End of the book known as the Khamsa of Niẓāmī. Written by Muḥammad, and [may Divine] forgiveness [be his], in Jumādā l-ūlā of the year 814’ (equivalent to late August-September 1411.

Another inscription of interest, which occurs on f. 302r, appears in the form of a flattering addition to what is announced as Niẓām al-tavārīkh, an abridgement and continuation of this short history of Persia from earliest times down to 674/1275 by ‘Abd Allāh al-Bayẓāvī. Immediately after a brief notice of the Mongol Īlkhān Abū Sa‘īd (d. 736/1335) we find this:

And [today, God’s] creatures are in the shade (sāya, repeated again on the next line) of the justice and the shadow of the compassion of the Just King…Jalāl al-Dunyā va l-Dīn Iskandar Bahādur, may God perpetuate his rule…’ (the remainder of the text resembling that of the prayer on f. 340r translated below).

The colophon (f. 340r) which concludes a selection of ghazals or lyric verses by several different poets, is almost as long as that on f. 112v and yet contains no date; in this respect the volume exhibits no standard style. In it we read:

The ghazals have been completed, with the help and goodly aid to success of God, Transcendent and Exalted is He. Salutations and peace be upon Muḥammad, the Best of His Creation, and his Pure Family. Written by the poor servant Muḥammad, scribe to the Majestic Sovereign Iskandar (al-kātib al-Jalālī al-Khāqānī al-Iskandarī), may God perpetuate his (i.e. the sovereign’s, not – as the syntax suggests – the scribe’s) kingship and establish his justice and beneficence throughout the universe, by the Prophet and his goodly descendants.

Colophon concluding a collection of ghazals. Add.27261, f 340r

After this point in the manuscript there are no further lengthy colophons. Whereas the opening of the more famous Manṭiq al-ṭayr and Ilāhī-nāma, found earlier in the volume, are marked only by episode headings, the poems Jām-i Jam and (part of) Sa‘ādat-nāma both have ornamental title headings. Neither of the latter, however, has any kind of inscription at the end. And although there remain some artistic pyrotechnics to come, as regards the textual content the Miscellany rather peters out. The last colophon (f. 542v) consists of two lines of text directly below the end of the treatise on astronomy with which the Miscellany concludes. Instead of being configured in the conventional keystone form, these two lines are written exactly as if they were part of the text. The first line announces the conclusion of of Rawẓat al-munajjimīn (‘Astronomers’ Garden’), while the second reads:

Katabahu turāb al-fuqarā’ va l-sālikāin Nāṣir al-Kātib, aḥsana Llāh ‘avāqibahu, fī salkh Jumādā l-sānī 814

Written by [one who is] dust [at the feet] of the dervishes and the [spiritual] wayfarers, Nāṣir the Scribe – may God grant him a goodly life Hereafter – at the end of Jumādā l-sānī 814 (equivalent to early October 1411).

Colophon at the end of Rawẓat al-munajjimīn (‘Astronomers’ Garden’), dated 814/1411. Add.27261, f. 542v

Lastly, there are two very different inscriptions which were added by later owners of the manuscript at the end of it. These have been described and discussed in the ‘Turning The Pages’ presentation of the Miscellany of Iskandar Sultan, together with a selection of 74 other pages.

A detailed catalogue description with links to the individual works and paintings can be read or downloaded here.

Muhammad Isa Waley, Asian and African Studies

 

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