1848.] BaV amy's translation of the History ofTabary. 437 



BaP amy's translation of the History of Tabary, and Ghazzaly' s His- 

 tory of the Prophets. — By A. Sprenger, Esq. M. B. (Communicat- 

 ed by H. M. Elliot, Esq. Vice-President. 



Messrs. Silvestre de Lacy and Dubeux complain justly of the great 

 incorrectness of the copies of the Persian translation ofTabary, and 

 their discrepancy from each other, which is so great that little reliance 

 can be placed on the book ; that which is affirmed in one copy is not 

 seldom contradicted in another. I thought this circumstance might be 

 owing to a difference of original editions made by the author himself; 

 a comparison of several copies however does not bear out this hypothesis ; 

 the various readings cannot be reduced to a certain number of original 

 texts. 



If we consider the age when Tabary was translated (between A. H. 

 350 and 366) and the comparatively modern language of the copies 

 which we possess, another hypothesis suggests itself, viz. that these 

 corruptions and discrepancies are owing to attempts on the part of the 

 copyists to improve the obsolete expressions of the original. Though I 

 have never met with a very ancient MSS. of Bal' amy's Tabary, this 

 supposition has been confirmed by the discovery of a work of Imam 

 Ghazzaly (who died A. H. 505), which I believe has hitherto escaped 

 the attention of bibliographers. 



In the Moty Mahal library of the king of Oudh is a Persian MS. 

 in 4to. of 250 pages, with the following title page written in the same 

 hand in which the text is written : 



*ju« fUSJl <£*[& ^ JL.5II %^ &oiUJ| fJUJ! fUM «&* LuSJt ua ,M3 v lir 



Up^lSfc!) ctfka&l )j^° i-**U*N isj+j pWft^ *kX*}) i^liaJU si+&sf\ 



uf\y*J\ (sic) e>? *♦** ** la > j*l 



" History of the prophets, compiled by the learned Hojjat al-islam 

 Zayn al-dyn abii Hamid Mohammad, the son (sic) of Ghazzaly (sic)." 

 The MSS. is executed in a very beautiful naskhy character, and is the most 

 ancient, and one of the most correct Persian MSS. that I have seen. It 

 was probably written in the sixth century of the Hi) rah, and abounds 

 in peculiarities in spelling, as will appear from the extracts given below. 



3 m 2 



