A Manuscript’s journey to and from the Mughal Imperial Library
The origins of the British Library’s Delhi collection have been a matter of scholarly debate. On the one hand, some scholars believe it represents to a substantial extent the remnants of the Mughal imperial library, confiscated by the British in 1857.1 Other scholars have emphasised the presence within the Delhi collection of manuscripts from private collections beyond the imperial court.2 A hitherto unstudied manuscript, Delhi Persian 918, allows us to shed more light on this debate.
Delhi Persian 918 is a copy of the Żakhīrat al-Mulūk by Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī (d.786/1385). Hamadānī was a Kubrawī Sufi, after whom his followers were divided into Ẕahabiyya and Nūrkbakhshiyya. He was an influential figure in Hindustan (esp. Kashmir).3 The Żakhīrat al-Mulūk is a political treatise with a religious approach, parts of which are translation of Ghazzālī’s Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. This copy was transcribed in 956/1549-50. Although the text is represented in numerous manuscripts, this copy unveils its trajectory and with it, parts of the dynamics of the Mughal Imperial Library.
Folios 1r and 2r of DP 918 have many notes and seals. Most of the are erased, damaged and not easily legible. Nevertheless, there are other copies in the Delhi Persian Collection which help researcher make sense of them and put them in chronological order.
On 21 Jumādā I 1020 (31 August 1611), some six decades after its production, DP 918 entered the library of a certain Muḥammad Yūsuf. The next notes on the page are identifiable. The circular seal of Shāh Jahān’s librarian, ʿInāyat Khān Shāhjahānī, shows that it had entered the Mughal Library by the 31st year of Shah Jahan’s reign ([106]8/1657). ʿInāyat Khān, with the sobriquet Āshnā, was from a high-status household. Amongst other jobs and contributions, he composed the Shāhjahān-nāma and was for years in charge of the Mughal Library. His inspection note dated 30 Rajab year 32 [of Shah Jahan] 3 May 1658 is also seen on Delhi Persian 1263.4
Another, almost illegible seal can be identified as Sayyid ʻAli al-Ḥusaynī murīd-i [ʻĀlam-gīr pādshāh]. The seal has been preserved better in the aforementioned DP 1263. Here the year is 106[9] sanah aḥad (hence corresponding 1658/59). This seal in damaged form is also seen in Delhi Persian 44. These three manuscripts all belonged to the Mughal Library for a few decades. The circular seal of Aurangzeb’s librarian Qābil Khān, khāna-zād-i ʻĀlamgīr Pādshāh appears in all three of them – in both DP 44 and 1263 with the regnal year 29 (1097/1685-6). The next note mentions a transfer of the manuscript to the care of Munʻim Bayg on 27 Zu’l-Ḥijjah year 41 [of Aurangzeb’s reign], 17 June 1697). Munʿim Bayg was in charge of the Mongol Imperial Library for more than two decades, as DP 1263 has a transfer note to him dated 6 Rajab year 19 (i.e., 1087, 14 Sept 1676). Then DP 918 was transferred from the care of Munʻim Bayg to Murād Bayg on 2 Rabīʿ I, regnal year 3. This must correspond with the 3rd year of Bahadur Shah’s reign (1707-12), 12 May 1709. A few years before DP 918, DP 44 was also transferred from Muʻnim Bayg to Murād Bayg on 29 Zu’l-Ḥijjah year 50 (1117, 13 April 1706).5
Murād Bayg transferred DP 918 to the care of another librarian on 6 Zu’l-Hijjah year 1.6 This is possibly of Shah Alam (r.1707-12) or Farrukh Siyar (r.1712-1719), therefore 28 February 1708 or 14 Jan 1713. DP 44 has the transfer note from Murād Bayg to ʻAẓīm Bayg, dated 7 Rajab year 2 (22 Sept 1708 or 19 July 1714). Therefore, in either 1708-09 or 1713-14, this Munʿim Bayg was transferring his responsibilities to other librarians.
This is the last record related to the Mughal Library. The next seal on f.2r belongs to Żiyā al-Daulah Saʻd al-Dīn Khān Bahādur and was dated the year 30 [of Muhammad Shah’s reign] 1161 (1748). As yet the identity of this individual is unclear, beyond the fact he was evidently, from his titles, a member of the Delhi political elite. Most probably the manuscript was confiscated from one of his descendants in 1857.
In sum, Delhi Persian 918 was not produced for the Mughal court but was either purchased by the court library or was presented to the rulers between 1611 and 1657 (most likely during Shah Jahan’s reign) and was kept there at least until Shah Alam’s reign, 1708 (or Farrukh Siyar’s reign, 1713). But by 1748 towards the end of Muhammad Shah al-Sultan al-Azam’s reign, it had left the court library. This date is shortly after Nadir Shah’s army plundered Delhi. DP 918 must have been lost during the chaos of this event, although it is not certain if it was plundered and later sold, or was lost and later found and picked up by the next owner.
Perhaps the obliterated notes in DP 918 had some information about this. However, the existing notes show clearly that manuscripts from the Mughal library had already been deaccessioned long before any British involvement, but circulated among the Delhi elite. Thus, these private sub-collections within the Delhi collection also have the potential to offer insights not just into the intellectual atmosphere of late Mughal Delhi, but also into the imperial library.
- See for example, Ursula Sims-Williams, ‘The Arabic and Persian Collections in the India Office Library’ in Collections in British Libraries on Middle Eastern Islamic Studies (London, 1982). Reading and identifying the notes and seals for this blog would not have been possible without Ursula’s help, for which I am grateful. ↩︎
- See Nur Sobers-Khan, ‘Muslim Scribal Culture in India Around 1800: Towards a Disentangling of the Mughal Library and the Delhi Collection’ in C. Bahl and S. Hanß (eds.), Scribal Practice and the Global Cultures of Colophons, 1400–1800 (Basingstoke, 2022). ↩︎
- For a recent and comprehensive study on Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī see Muḥammad Sūrī and Sayyid Riżā Bāqiriyān’s preface in Safīna-yi Shāh-i Hamadān: Nuskha-bargardān-i Majmūʿa-yi Khaṭṭī-yi Āthār-i Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī-yi Hamadānī dar Kitābkhāna-yi Shahīd ʿAlī Pāshā ba Shumāra-yi 2794 (Qom, 1400/2021). A shorter version of the preface was published as a paper; see idem, ‘Safīna-yi Shāh-i Hamadān: Muʿarrifī-yi Nuskha-yi Khaṭṭī-yi Majmūʿa-yi Āthār-i Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī-yi Hamadānī’, Āfāq-i Ishrāq 3, 1402/2024, 44-76. ↩︎
- This is the famous copy of the Ibtidānāma which was allegedly written by Sulṭān Valad himself and once belonged to Dara Shikuh. ↩︎
- Here the transfer was certified by the inspector (mushrif) Muḥammad Rashīd. ↩︎
- His name has been written as مىحدی بیک, the first word of which could be Munjadī or perhaps Muḥammadī written with a calligraphic imprecision. ↩︎
