1875. J Beale — Letter on a Persian MS. on Agrah buildings. 117 



Regarding Nurullah, vide my Ain translation, I, p. 515. 

 Nu'ra'ba'd, near Dholpur. 

 The Tomb of Ganna Beg am. 



"Ganna Begam was celebrated for her personal accomplishments, 

 as well as for the vivacity of her wit and the fire of her poetical genius. 

 Several of her lyric compositions in the Urdu language are still sung and 

 admired. She was the daughter of Nawab 'AH Quli Khan, a mansabdar of 

 5000 horse, who was commonly called ' Chhanga' or ' Shash-angushti', from 

 his having six fingers on each hand. She was betrothed to Shuja'uddaulah, 

 the son of Nawab Safdar-jang of Audh, but afterwards married to ISTawab 

 'Imad-ul-mulk Ghaziuddin Khan, prime minister of the emperor 'A'lamgir 

 II. ; and this rivalship is said to have in part laid the foundation of the 

 enmity which afterwards subsisted between that Wazir and Safdar- 

 jang. Adjoining to the village of Nurabad near Dholpur, two miles from 

 Chhota Sarai, is a pretty large garden, the work of the emperor Aurangzib 

 'Alamgir, built in the year 1100 A. H. (1688 A. D.), over the gate of 

 which is an inscription bearing the chronogram of the year of its erection, 

 (metre, Tchafif- — the first micra' is not metrical) — 



j^jQ j$M }A. ^ylga* <J^- o^ # ja£«JU && I XI. ^flj Zj$ 



" Within this garden is the monument of Ganna Begam. Her shrine 

 bears the following inscription : — 



Alas ! a sigh, for Ganna Begam ! 



" The inscription is a chronogram ; hence she died in A. H. 1189, or 

 A. D. 1775." 



The poets Sauda and Mir Qamaruddin Minnat often corrected her 

 verses. A poem by the latter was translated and published by Sir W, 

 Jones in the 1st Volume of Asiatic Researches ; but it is there wrongly 

 ascribed to Ganna, Begam. She wrote under the nom-de-plume of ' Man- 

 zar.' Vide also Sprenger, Catalogue of Oudh MSS., p. 227 ; Garcin de Tas- 

 sy, Lit. Hind., I, p. 488. 



' Ganna' means ' sugarcane ripe for cutting.' 



Mr. Blochmann also read the following letter received from Mr. Beale 

 on a Persian MS., entitled ' Imarat ul-Akbar, which is the best work we 

 possess on the buildings in Agrah from Akbar's time. 



' About the year 1829-30, a student of the Agrah Government College, by 

 the name of Munshi Chhitar Mai, akayasth, by the orders of Doctor Jamea 



