26 H. G. Raverty— Who were the Path&n Sultans ofDihli? [No. 1, 



judged from the state of India at the period in which he wrote, when Xajib- 

 ud-daulah and other Patan chieftains kept bodies of their clansmen in pay. 

 I challenge any one to name any single Afghan chief of any tribe of" moun- 

 tain Afghans," who was one of the " Omrah" during the sway of the whole 

 Turkish Slave Dynasty. 



Dow takes his introduction partly from Firishtah's introduction, al- 

 though in the advertisement to the second of his translation he says, " Fe- 

 rishtah's account of the ancient Indians, and the invasions of the ^luhamma- 

 dans, before the commencement of the Ghiznian Empire, is omitted, and an 

 introduction substituted in its place, more satisfactory, succinct, and agree- 

 able," but a vast deal of the original is left out for obvious reasons ; and a 

 comparison of the two proves that the translation is full of mistakes, both 

 in meaning and in the names of persons and places. 



Under the reign of the Hindu king named Kid and Kidar Raj, whom 

 Dow styles " Keda-raja," he has — " The mountaineers of Cabul and Canda- 

 har, icho are called Afgans or Patans, advanced against Keda-raja, and re- 

 covered all the provinces of which he had possessed himself on the Indus. 

 We know no more of the transactions of Keda-raja." 



Here is what Firishtah states [page 22 of the lithographed text, which 

 I have chosen for facility of comparison by others]. " After some time the 

 Khokhars and Janjuhiahs [the lithographed text here, however, has &[£& 

 and &H?*-, which is evidently an error for ^j^ytfi and ^f^"], tribes once 

 very powerful, located in the hill tract of Makkialah [the Salt Range] in 

 the Sind-Sagar Doabah, who were amongst the [most] respectable zamin- 

 dars of the Panjab, combined with the dwellers in the plains [nomads] and 

 the mountains [hill tribes], between Kabul and Kandahar [the name 

 of this place is not mentioned by any author up to the time of, and 

 including, the author of the Tabakat-i-Nasiri, and the place appears not 

 to have been then known, at least by that name, until a considerable 

 time subsequently], and came against Kid-Raj, and he, becoming help- 

 less, left that tract of country in their possession. From that time, 

 that people dispersed [the confederacy was broken], and the chief in each 

 mountain tract appropriated it. Apparently (to Firishtah, but it is not 

 entirely correct) that people are the Afghans which now are [cj^I *^ e^Ui' 

 (5JJL~A], There is not a word more said about them. A proof of what the 

 historian quoted by Firishtah says of the Afghans and other tribes of peo- 

 ple in connection with them, which Dow and others make one race of, is 

 contained in this sentence in the original text, p. 29, but it is entirely 

 left out in Dow's version. Speaking of the Rajah of Labor sending forces 

 to coerce the Afghans, he says : " On this occasion, the Khalj, and men of 

 Ghur and Kabul assisted them (the Afghans)." Now, if these Khalj and 

 Ghuris were Afghans, as Dow would make out, why does Firishtah, like 



