Some Early Documents in Persian (II)

V. Minorsky

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00098178

Some Early Documents in Persian (II)

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

V. Minorsky

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

In 1932 my friend Professor P. Pelliot handed to me eleven photographs of the Persian documents discovered at Bāmiyān. The originals must have been brought to Paris by the French Archæological Mission to Afghanistan, but I understood that they were to be returned to Kabul.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 75 , Issue 1-2 , January 1943 , pp. 86 - 99

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00098178 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1943

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 87 note 1} Jītal (jaytal?) was a copper coin usually taken for one-sixty-fourth of a silver tanga. It is mentioned in the Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī, tr. Raverty, 603. For the beginning of the fifteenth century see Masālik al-abṣār, tr. Quatremère, , Notices et Extraits, xiii, p. 212Google Scholar, and Husain, M., The Rise and Fall of Muhammad b. Tughluq, 1938, p. 237Google Scholar; cf. Maṭla' al-sa'dayn, tr. Quatremère, , Not. et Ext., xiv, 363, 449, and 508Google Scholar.

^{page 87 note 2} The natural interpretation of (elsewhere ) would be *ghalla “corn”, but in this context I prefer the less common meaning “pieces of money rejected by the State but taken by merchants”, Lane, p. 2278.

^{page 88 note 1} The term is unusual in Persian. See Lane, 2122: 'akkām “one who binds the burden upon the camels . . . one who has the charge of the baggage and tents“.

^{page 88 note 2} I.e. the sovereign king.

^{page 88 note 3} Vide infra, p. 92, note 1. Y.kjūy, b.kjūy, n.kjūy? must be a coin or a measure. Perhaps *yak-javī “weighing one grain”, though this would be too light for a coin.

^{page 88 note 4} Chahrīkār is evidently Chārīkār, the well-known town to the south-west of the junction of the Ghorband and Panjshīr Rivers. The other two names must be looked for in the same neighbourhood.

^{page 89 note 1} As usual s appears with three dots under it. [The same practice with regard to d, r, s, and ṣ is found in a Tatar will of a.d. 1639, see Veliaminov-Zernov, , The Kings of Kasimov (in Russian), iii, 241Google Scholar.]

^{page 89 note 2} Dīnawarī (d. a.d. 895), p. 360, calls the maces of Abū Muslim's henchmen kāfar-kūb.

^{page 91 note 1} scil. “on the fire of separation”.

^{page 92 note 1} The reading of the word is uncertain. Possibly it is ṭāy which is found in document F, lines 11,12, and 13, with the meaning of some kind of coin or measure. It is curious that in document (A) three dots appear under the final stroke. One might read ṭāy “a basin” (taken as a measure) or ṭilla “a gold coin” (worth 14·35 roubles in 1832, see Khanïkov, , Opis. Bukhar. khanstva, p. 114Google Scholar), but these two readings are not quite satisfactory from the palæographic point of view.

^{page 92 note 2} The writer accuses Shujā' al-din of unreadiness and compares him with his. colleagues Har haft means “all the seven adornments of the bride” (before the wedding).

^{page 92 note 3} With a possible pun on āb.

^{page 93 note 1} Does the writer mean that the addressee has fallen in love with the saline “as if it were a woman”, or is it some additional hint at some love affair? Namakī (but not namak-abī) is the usual Persian term for “coquettish”.

^{page 93 note 2} Banda jahd mī-kard? az rāh dūr? The meaning is clear but two words are doubtful. Immediately after kard one might distinguish yrq (for q, cf. line 7). Vullers, ii, 1514, quotes Turkish yaraq “peecatum, crimen”, which perhaps should be restored *yazuq. The meaning suits our text and in the thirteenth century there were numerous Turks in the region of Hindukush, see Minorsky, , “The Khalaj” in the BSOS., x/2, 1940, p. 431Google Scholar, but as there are no other Turkish elements in our texts I hesitate to endorse the reading. A suitable verb would be uftad (perhaps ūftad), but the dots of t do not appear on the photograph; āvarad is unlikely.

^{page 93 note 3} Or, perhaps, “Rashīd's receipts to the Lord”? It is also possible that the receipts are sent “on behalf of myself and the others”.

^{page 93 note 4} Some danger from kāfirs is referred to in line 44. Cf. also document B.

^{page 94 note 1} See Barthold, , Turkestan, 227Google Scholar.

^{page 94 note 2} Cf. also line 62: Rashīd al-din-i Makhdūm, this iḍāfat expressing the relation of a servant to a master, and not, as usual, of a son to a father.

^{page 94 note 3} Such as Sulṇān Jalāl al-dīn Mangburni whom his father the Khwārazmshāh Alā, ai-dīn appointed governor of Ghaznī in 612/1215.

^{page 96 note 1} Cf. Raverty, 257.

^{page 97 note 1} Calcutta, 1864, pp. 110, 131; Raverty's transl. 434, 496.

^{page 97 note 2} Thus according to Lane-Poole. Zambaur gives a.h. 602–9.

^{page 97 note 3} On the other hand Minhāj mentions the end of Sulṣān 'Alī before he speaks of the occupation of Ghaznīn by the Khwārazm-shāh in 612/1215. Minhāj adds that as the Khwārazm-shāh was returning from 'Irāq he turned off to Bāmiyān from the River J.zār (or J.vār). This mutilated name may be identical with J.zūrān which Raverty, 258, quotes on the road from Balkh to Herat. The name should be possibly restored as *Gurzivān in Gūzgān, see Ḥudūd al-'alam, p. 335.

^{page 97 note 4} Kūshk is the usual equivalent of Arabic qaṣr, see Ḥudūd al-'ālam, p. 105.

^{page 98 note 1} The king of Ghazna Shihāb al-din Ghōrī was also called Sulṭān-i Islām, see Barthold, op. cit., 351, but after his death (in a.d. 1206) no one of the family appears to have merited this appellation.

^{page 98 note 2} The reading of the peculiar Ghōrī names is still obscure. Raverty, 433, reads the second name Kharoshti, but the text, 109, has a variant *Kh.rūsh which also appears in I.Athīr, see Barthold, , Turkestan, 345Google Scholar. The name may be derived from the principal residence of Ghōr which Abul-Faḍl Bayhaqi, ed. Morley, 130, spells J.rūs (*Kh.rūsh ?). But even this is uncertain for Minhāj, 33–4 (Raverty, 306, 308, 311) spells out the name of an ancient residence Mandēsh of which the other forms may be mere misspellings.

^{page 98 note 3} See Barthold, , Turkestan, 323 sqqGoogle Scholar.

Article contents

Some Early Documents in Persian (II)

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests