Pursuing an elusive seeker of universal truth - The identity and environment of the author of the dabistān-i maz̄hib

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Volumn 9, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 365-373

  Ali, M Athar ^a  

^a NONE

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Indexed keywords

EID: 62649108329     PISSN: 13561863     EISSN: 14740591     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s1356186300011512     Document Type: Review

References (33)

1. Dabistān-i Mazāhib, pub. Ibrāhīm ibn Nūr Muhammad (Bombay, 1292/1875, hereafter cited as DM), p. 327.
2. DM, p. 103.
3. See D. N. Marshall, Mughals in India (Bombay, 1967), i, p. 299, for an incomplete list of the catalogued MSS.
4. 'Alī Asghar Mustafawī's ed. (Teheran, 1361 Solar/1982) is a mere offset reprint of this edition, with a rather light-weight introduction added.
5. Marshall, op cit., reports earlier editions, Teheran, 1260/1844, and Bombay, 1266/1849-50 and 1277/1860-1.
6. Data about translations derived from C. Rieu Catalogue of the Persian MSS in the British Museum (London, 1879), p. 142a.
7. See Jivanji Jamshedji Modi, "A Parsee High Priest" (Dastur Azar Kaiwan, 1529-1614 A.C.) with his Zoroastrian Disciples in Patna in the 16th and 17th Century A.C), Journal of the K.R. Cama Oriental Institute (hereafter JKRCOI), XX (1932), p. 7 & n.
8. Under the title Nānak Panthīs, originally appearing in Journal of Indian History, XIX(2). Characteristically, the translator commends the author of the Dabistān-i Mazāhib for giving "an impartial account of what he saw and heard of the Sikhs and their Gurūs during his contact with them" (p. 3).
9. While rejecting the identification of the author of Dabislān with Muhsin Fānī, J. J. Modi (JKRCOI, pp. 8-11) still falls into the error of accepting the date of the death of Muhsin Fānī as that of our author.
10. As stated for example as in the title given to the Dabistān in Dr. Mus. MS. Add. 7613 (Rieu, i, 143a).
11. Br. Mus. MSS. Add. 16,670 (A.D. 1792) and Add. 16,671 (A.D. 1797);
12. Rieu, i, p. 142b.
13. Ghiyās u'l Lughāt, s.v. mobad. Muhammad Ghiyāsuddin, the author of this very comprehensive dictionary, completed it in A.H. 1242/1826-7.
14. Rieu, i, pp. 142a-143a.
15. Ma'āsir u'l Kirām (Hyderabad (Dn), 1910), i, p. 22.
16. Dabistan or School of Manners, tr. D. Shea and A. Troyer (London, 1843), i, pp. xii-xv.
17. Rieu, i, pp. 141a-142a.
18. DM, p. 144. There is no sanction in the Dabistān for Modi's statement that the author was bom in Persia and then brought to India (JRKCOI, XX, p. 9).
19. For Jahāngīr's meetings with Jadrūp, see Tūzuk-i Jahāngīrī, ed. Saiyid Ahmad (Ghazipur & Aligarh, 1863-4), pp. 175-6, 250-3, 279-81.
20. His description of Jadrūp matches that of Chatrūpa in the Dabistān, pp. 146-7; the Dabistān also speaks of the high regard that Jahāngir had for him.
21. DM, pp. 32-3.
22. Cf. Modi, JKRCOI, XX, pp. 40-1.
23. There seems to be no sanction in the Dabistān for Modi's suggestion (JKRCOI, XX, pp. 9-10) that he visited Navsari, the famous Parsi settlement near Surat, and obtained information about Zoroastrianism from Dastūr Dirzo Kamdin there.
24. Rieu, i, p. 142a.
25. He is right in contesting the reference to "the Shores of Persia" in the Shea-Troyer translation, ii, p. 2.
26. DM, pp. 26-44.
27. I take it that nez here is a mistranscription for bad.
28. draws up a list of the beliefs of Āzar Kaiwān and his disciples and traces their antecedents; on pp. 75-85 he compares them with those of earlier Zoroastrian tradition. A very perceptive and sympathetic treatment will be found in H. Corbin, "Āzar Kayvān", Encyclopaedia Iranica, i, pp. 183-7, where the iIshrāqī antecedents of the school are strongly brought out.
29. (Nānakpanthīs, tr., p. 20).
30. Rieu, i, p. 141b. The editor of the Teheran reprint of DM, in his preface, p. xvii, justifiably points out that it would have been very difficult for a Muslim to attribute the original foundations of Mecca and Medina to Parsi shrines of the Moon (mah) as the author does (pp. 15-16).
31. Nabi Hadi, Dictionary of Indo-Persian Literature (New Delhi, 1995), pp. 360-1.
32. He was also the author of Azhrang-i Mānī (DM, p. 36), which may be the Shahristān, litho. pub. Bombay, 1851
33. Khurram ān roz kazīn manzil-i wīrān bi-tawain, etc. ("Happy the day I leave this desolate stage of journey"), DM, p. 38. The author himself quotes from an elegy he composed for Shaidosh upon his death in 1040/1630-1 (p. 39).