1891.] President — InscriiJtion of Ghiydsu-d-din Balhan. 3 



translate. The initial portion of eacli of the four lines, which no clonbt 

 occupied a slab to the right, is wanting, and something also appears 

 deficient at the end of the third line. The following is the text : 



{:j^r^^b ^h^^ ^y^ ^^"^ *^^"' ^-y <^* ^'^^^^^) ^ 



(1.) "The mighty Shahanshah Ghiyasu-d-dunya wa-d-din, father 

 of the Victorious 



(2.) [May God perpetuate his glory] and his rule : in the time of 

 the governorship of the King of the Kings of the East and China 



(3.) * * * (May his lofty dignity be eternal !) the Shahanshah 

 gave the order for (the erection of) this secure building 



(4.) On the tenth of the silent month of God, Rajab, in the j^ear 

 683." 



Only two other inscriptions of Balban have yet been described. 

 One is on the walls of the Jami' Masjid at Garhmuktesar in the Merath 

 <iistrict, and is dated 682. Its text will be found at p. 136 of Mr. E. 

 Thomas's " Pathan Kings of Delhi." In it the king is styled 



^y>lj ^ilLtJt^^t ^^i'^hj ^'^^\ ^'-i-^ ^i^Jl ( read ^Liui^^jf ) ^[(L\[:^ ^ii^^t ^'kUJ| 



The other is the inscription on the Minar of Koil (now preserved 

 in the Aligarh Institute, N.-W. P.) of which a facsimile and reading are 

 given at p. 129 of the same work. The translation of a more correct 

 reading, furnished by Mr. Blochmann, will be found at p. 486 of the 

 late Mr. E. T. Atkinson's Statistical Account of the Aligarh District 

 (Vol. II of his " Statistical, Descriptive and Historical Account of the 

 N.-W. Provinces of India.") The latter, which is dated 10th Rajab 

 652, was set up during the reign of the preceding king, Nasiru-d-din 

 Mahmiid, whose minister and brother-in-law Balban was. The Aligarh 

 inscription also contains the curious expression, applied therein to Balban 

 though he was then only the king's deputy (jSTaibu-s-saltanah), " malihu 

 'niuhiki-sh-sliarqi 2va-s-Sui " — " King of the kings of the East and of Chi- 

 na " — which occurs in the second line of the Manglaur inscription.* In 

 the latter it probably also refers, as is indicated by the words ^k^ *jy (^iy 



* This expression is used by the Arabic historians and geographers with re- 

 ference to Alexander's conquests in Asia; see, e. g., Kazvini's geography (ed. 

 Wiistenfeld) s. v. Herat. It amounts, therefore, in an inscription like the present, 

 to a description of the person named as " the Alexander of his age." 



