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20. Life and letters of Malik ‘Aynu’l-Mulk Mahra, and 
side-lights on Firtiz Shih’s expeditions to 
Lakhnauti and Jajnagar. 
By Mauuavi ‘Appu’s Watt, Khan Sahib. 
Lately I re-examined the Bengal Asiatic Society's Persian 
Manuscript, No. F. 11 entitled “ The Insha-i-Mahru,’’ by the 
publication, in the Roval Asiatic Society’s Journal, of a short 
note by W. Ivanow.! The ‘‘ Insha-i-Mahrii”’ or more correctly, 
the Tarassul-i-‘Aynwl-Mulki, bears the seal of Tipii Sultan's 
Library of Siringapatam. This manuscript together with a 
large number of valuable manuscripts were once kept in the 
now defunct ‘ College of Fort William” and transferred to the 
Asiatic Society on the abolition of the College. The /nsha 
Consists of about 270 folios of Octavo size, written in a pecu- 
liar Shikista character. The scribe has noted under or beside 
each difficult or unusual word its meaning in Persian. There 
are several lacuna. Seven folios from the beginning are miss- 
ing. The seal of the College of Fort William is affixed, on 
folio 8. The manuscript is in an indifferent condition. 
The Insha, as will be seen, later, used once to be extensively 
read, but I doubt if another copy of it can now be procured 
i India. The high flown despatches and letters of Akbar, 
embodied in Abu’l Fadl’s Insha@, and the inimitable Rug‘al of 
Aurangzib-‘ Alamgir, as well as many other similar attempts 
ave nearly displaced and made obsolete the previous epis- 
tolary style. Yet how much similarity is to be found in both. 
The stndent of Persian letters as well as of medieval history of 
Purkish Sultans of India will, 1 daresay, find many side-lights 
in “Avnu’l-Mulk’s quaint pages. ‘Aynu'l-Mulk’s letters are in. 
Certain respects complementary to his two contemporaries— 
the authors of the Tarikh-i-Firizshaht. Contemporaneous to 
the celebrated Nizamu’d-Din Aulya, and two of the most famous 
P ersian poets—Amir Khusrau and Amir Hasan—and sove- 
Frelgns of such diverse character as ‘Alau’d-Din Muhammad 
Shams-i Siraj ‘Afif’s history cannot but give a lively interest 
to the searchers of valuable informations on ‘social, political, 


mg a, Letters of Mahrii’ by W. Ivanow, J.B.A S., October 1922, pp. 
-.. 30. His assertion that several letters are addressed to Hasan Gangu, 
bess Soratining of the Bahmanide dynasty in Deccan does not appear to be 
rect, 
