1876.] Annual Report. 25 



dus, and numerous critical works on Persian lexicography, grammar, and 

 idiom, were written. Among them, the Farhang i Rashidi holds a promi- 

 nent place. The numerous Persian dictionaries which had before been com- 

 piled and had more or less been eclipsed by Jamal uddin Injii's 'FarTimig i 

 Jahdngiri, were now for the first time critically examined : Sayyid 'Abdur- 

 rashid discovered in the older dictionaries a large number of words that 

 never existed in the language and had found their way into the dictionaries 

 through bad MSS. and careless copyists. Again, words had been entered 

 into the older dictionaries with wrong meanings, because the passages in 

 which they occurred had been wrongly explained." These and other defects 

 were corrected by Sayyid 'Abdurrashid. His work forms thus the basis of 

 Persian lexicography, and has been used as such by later writers, such as 

 Arzu, Waris, and Tek Chand. The Society's edition of the Farhang will 

 therefore be of the greatest use to European scholars. Maulawis Zulfaqar 

 'All and 'Aziz urrahman, the editors, have not only carefully collated the 

 several MSS. which the Society had placed at their disposal, but they have 

 also added valuable notes from Sururl, Jahangiri, and the Siraj. The nu- 

 merous quotations from Persian poets have in all cases been compared with 

 those in the Jahangiii (where they are generally quoted at full length), and 

 the editors have seen that they are given metrically correct. 



Of the Ai'abic biographical work, entitled ' the l9abah', no fasciculus 

 was issued during last year ; but Nawab Muhammad (^iddiq Hasan Khan, 

 Prime-Minister of Bhopal, has offered to the Society the loan of a complete 

 copy of this rare work. On the receipt of the MS., the work will again be 

 continued by Maulawi 'Abdul Hai, of the Calcutta Madi-asah. 



Major Eaverty has issued two more fasciculi (Nos. V and VI,) of his 

 annotated English translation of the Tahaqdt i NciQiri, which brings the work 

 down to the reigns of the first Muhammadan kings and governors of Ben- 

 gal. 



Of the Aklarndmah, Maulawi 'Abdurrahim, of the Calcutta Madrasah, 

 has issued two quarto fasciculi (Nos. Ill andIV), and has thus nearly com- 

 pleted the j)ortion which is often called the first volume of the Akbarnamah. 

 The work in consequence of an unfavourable notice of it in the History of 

 India by Elphinstone, had hitherto been looked upon by European historians 

 as a mere panegyric of the emperor Akbar, and therefore of little historical 

 value. Native historians, on the other hand, have always considered it as a 

 truthful account of the events of Akbar's reign and as a model of 

 historical style. This correcter estimate of Abul Fazl's work has also lately 

 bean adopted by Professor Dowson in his notes on the Akbarnamah (Elliot's 

 History of India, Vol. VT). 



