1869.] Badaoni and his Works. 141 



Every deed has its reward, evert/ act Us recompense. 

 " These words [in italics] His Majesty thought referred to Islamitic 

 notions of judgment, the day of resurrection, &c, in which he did not be- 

 lieve ; for the transmigration of souls was his pet-idea. Hence he suspect- 

 ed me of having smuggled into the text something which he called fa- 

 qdhat, ' Lawyer's stuff.' But I impressed upon some of the Emperor's 

 friends that every Hindu believes in rewards and punishments ; in fact, 

 they say that when a man dies, the book in which his deeds have been 

 entered, is taken by the angel of death to the king of Justice, who 

 compares his good deeds with his wicked actions, and then says, 

 ' Let this man choose !' The man is then asked whether he wishes 

 first to be carried to paradise as a reward for his good actions, and 

 then to hell for his bad deeds, or reversely. When the period of 

 requital is over, he is sent back to the world and receives a body in 

 accordance with the excellence of his former deeds ; and so it goes on 

 till by and by, he is freed from transmigration. 



" In this way I managed to get out of this difficulty." 

 " On the clay of the Sharaf [nineteen days after the Nauritz], His 

 Majesty said spontaneously to padr Jahan, " Do you think, I can ap- 

 point Badaoni to the Mutaivalliship of the tomb of Mu'in i Chishti 

 at Ajmir?" The f adr expressed his approval of this arrangement ; and 

 for two or three months afterwards, I attended every darhdr in hopes 

 of getting the appointment, by which I thought I would get rid of the 

 miseries of Court life. I also wrote a few chapters and presented 

 them, but got no answer. Soon after I was obliged to apply for 

 leave * * ; and when towards the end of Bamazan, f adr Jahan asked 

 His Majesty for orders regarding my leave, the Emperor said, " He 

 has lots of work here, and I shall point it out to him from time to 

 time. You better get another man for the vacancy [in Ajmir.] A 

 few days later, His Majesty said to Abulfazl, tl He would do very well 

 in Ajmir, it is true ; but his translations give me satisfaction, and 

 I do not like to let him go. Abulfazl and others agreed with the 

 ! Emperor. On that very day I was told to complete the Bahrul 

 I Asmdr, a book containing Hindu stories which at the command of 

 Zainul 'Abidin,* a former king of Kashmir, had been partly trans- 



* No copies of this cm*ious work appear to be now extant. Zainul 'A'bidi'n 

 was a contemporary of Sultan Buhlol Lodi and Mirza Abu Sa'id. Abulfazl says 



