12 Contributions to Persian Lexicography. [No. 1, 



6. vsjij^ \j»J^ ^ 



The first edition of Sururi's Majma'ulfurs appeared in A. H. 1008, 

 nine years before the next dictionary. As thirty years later, A. H. 

 1038, a second edition appeared, we shall first notice the Farhang i 

 Jahangiri. 



The title of the dictionary is a misnomer, and ought to be Farhang 

 i Akbari. The compiler is Nawwab 'Aszad uddaulah Mir Jamaluddin 

 Hnsain i Anju. He is .mentioned in the Ain i Akbari, p. 226, 

 as one of Akbar's courtiers, holding the office of a cs <**>&, or 

 commander of nine hundred, a position not necessarily military, 

 for which he received a monthly salary of Ks. 7100. He appears 

 to have been a favourite of the emperor, as in 1604 he was sent to 

 Bijapur to bring the daughter of 'Adil Shah to Agra, where she was 

 married to Prince Danial. 



From the preface of the dictionary it appears that the labours of the 

 compiler extended over thirty years. A. H. 1000, or thirteen years 

 after the commencement of the compilation, when Akbar was at 

 Srinagar, Mir Jamaluddin received the order to complete his dic- 

 tionary. Not only did Akbar grant sums for the purchase of manu- 

 scripts, but he even called learned men from Peria to assist Mir Jamalud- 

 din in the compilation. The historian Badaoni indeed tells us that many 

 a word was investigated in Akbar's niajlis i kkac, the emperor himself 

 evincing that taste for the study of words which Muhammadans so 

 eminently possess. Forty-four dictionaries of those specified above, nine 

 others of which neither the title nor the author's name were known, 

 commentaries, works on science, Zand and Pazand books, the whole 

 Persian literature, yielded the words for this work. The most ancient 

 dictionaries, of which nothing but the title seems now-a-days to exist, 

 were in Mir Jamaluddin's hands. Among them were — the dictionary of 

 Abu Hafc of Soghd, who according to some made the first Persian 

 verse ;* that of Asadi, Firdausi's teacher ; the vocabulary of Hakim 

 Qatran, the quaint poet; &c. Akbar unfortunately died A. H. 1014, 

 or A. D. 1605, before the dictionary was completed; and when at 



* Vide the author's edition of the Persian Metres by Saifi, p. >j. 



