Vol. IT, No. 6.] Shaista Khan in Bengal. 257 
[N.S.] ° 
32. Shaista Khan in Bengal (1664-66). —By Javuyata Sarkar, 
M.A., rsa: Patna College, and ——— Asiatic Society of 
Bengal. 
When Mir Jumla cade: Kuch Bihar and Assam, he had in 
ain an officer named Shihabuddin 
ae. Talish, who has left a detailed history of 
the expedition, named a the arene the Fathiyyah- Pt te 
A long abstract of it given by Mr. “ep hman 
Society’s Journal for 1872, Part’ I, Nos 5; 64-96. Our 
Society has a fine old MS. ‘of this work (D. 72), Said the Khuda 
Bakhsh Library three others. All these end with the death of 
Mir Jumla, 31st March, 1663. 
But the Bodleian Library possesses a MS. of the work (No. 
Bod. 589, Sachau and Ethé’s Catalogue, Part I, No. 240), supposed 
to be the author’s autograph, which contains a ‘continuation (folios 
ae a-176, b.), ee the events immediately following and 
ing the his down to Buzurg Ummed Khan’s victorious 
entry into Chatgaon rehtag dirs as ey, 1666, This por- 
tion is absolutely unique ! and o importance for the his- 
tory of Bengal, as will be seen ais nea 8 give below. I have 
internal evidence is overwhelming in favour of the 
; Continuation bein om regarded as Shihabud- 
Authorship. — din Talish’s work. The style is marked by 
the same brilliancy of rhetoric; many fa favourite phrases and turns 
of expression are common to bo th ; iad one peculiar sentence, 
# dibeg Ede} ye wT Cyl ake (So Erle 
which I have found in no other Persian history, occurs in both 
(Conquest of Assam, p. 58 of our MS. D. 72, and Ciatinaiitions folio 
5a We have here (f. 156,06.) one instance of the author’s 
vicious habit of running the variations of a single simile through 
a whole page of which there are three examples in the Conquest. 
The writer is the same hero-worshipper, only Shaista Khan here 
takes the place of Mir Jumla. Neither of them is named, but 
both are indicated by laudatory titles, Mir Jumla being Nawwab 
Bape neice and Shaista Khan Nawwab Mu‘ala-alqab. 
chapters as in the Conquest, nd three headings (surkhi) being 
ate (ff. 150,6, 153,a, and 161,0.). Moreover, the author has 
1 I suspect that there is a scrap of it at the end of an India Office MS. 
of the work, which Ethé in his ese describes as narrating the conquest 
of Jatkam (should be Chatgaon 
