1875.] H. G. Raverty — Who were ilie Pathan Sultans of Dlhli ? 25 



turgid expressions ; and, as the late Sir H. Elliot says in his Biographi- 

 cal Index, " his own remarks are so interwoven as to convey an entirely 

 different meaning from that which Firishtah intended," and, " some of the 

 commonest sentences are misunderstood, and the florid diction was occasion- 

 ally used to gloss and emhellish an imperfect comprehension of the original." 

 This is, by no means, an overdrawn picture of the translation, but a very 

 mild one, as I shall now proceed to show, particularly respecting those 

 passages which have caused Turkish slaves, Khaljis, Jats, low caste Hindus, 

 and Sayyids, to be turned into Patans or Afghans. 



Dow commences his Preface with a blander. He says (p. ix) — " Fi- 

 rishtah with great propriety begins the history of the Patan empire in 

 Hindustan from the commencement of the kingdom of Ghizni." Firishtah 

 says not one word throughout his history of the " Patan empire," much 

 less the " Patan empire of Ghizni." Then again he says: "The Afgans 

 or Patans had been subjects to the imperial family of the Samania" ; and 

 he further asserts, that they, " Samania", had revolted from the Caliphat 

 [khilafat probably], which, likewise, is not correct. See the Tabakat-i- 

 Nasiri's account of the Samani dynasty, or the account given by any other 

 Asiatic writer, for the absolute contrary is the fact : they were most loyal 

 to the Khalifahs, and acknowledged their suzerainty upon all occasions, 

 and, indeed, received the investiture of their dominions from the Court of 

 the Khalifahs of Baghdad. Dow winds up his paragraph by saying that 

 " they [the ' Afgans '] rebelled under Abistagi." Such a statement is 

 neither to be found in Firishtah, nor in the work of any other historian. 

 Firishtah's translator appears to have been as ignorant of the names of the 

 personages therein mentioned as of the mode of spelling ' Afghan' ; for who 

 would imagine that Abistagi is meant for Alb-Tigin, or would be so read by 

 any one who could read the original for himself ? 



At page x of his Preface he says, " The kings of the Ghiznian Pa- 

 tans were obliged to relinquish their dominions in the north, and to trans- 

 fer the seat of their empire to Lahore," not because of the Ghuris, but 

 because of the " Charizmian [Khwarazmi] rulers, and afterwards to Dilhi." 

 Firishtah does not make any such assertion, nor will any other writer be 

 found who states that any Ghaznavvi ruler, much less a " Ghiznian Patan," 

 transferred his seat of empire to Dihli. 



Then he says [pp. x and xi] — " The uncommon strength of the 

 Patan empire in Hindustan at this period may be easily accounted for. It 

 was the policy of the adopted Turkish slaves [which he nevertheless turns 

 into "Afgans" or "Patans"] of the family ofGhor to keep standing armies 

 of Mountain Afghans, under their respective chiefs, who were invariably 

 created Omrahs of the empire." This the translator may have heard from 

 ignorant Hindustanis with whom he came in contact, or he must have 



