1870.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. . 125 



trace their descent to the sister of the emperor Firiiz Shah, spread 

 over the whole of Bengal.' 



This is the legend. I have not met with pafiuddin's name in 

 any Indian History, or in the numerous biographies of Muham- 

 madan saints. The story, however, contains one historical per- 

 sonage, the saint Bii 'Ali Qalandar of Panipat-Karnal, to 

 whom, as related above, Oafi applied for blessing. This appa- 

 rently most unimportant item furnishes the clue to the whole 

 legend. His full name is Shaikh Sharafuddm Bu 'Ali Qalan- 

 dar. He was a follower of the first Indian saint, Mu'inuddin 

 i Chishti, . whose tomb is at Ajmir, and wrote several religious 

 works, from among which a small Masnawi, without title, has been 

 printed.* Bu 'All Qalandar lived at Panipat, and died there, at an 

 advanced age, on the 13th Eamazan, 724, or in the middle of Sep- 

 tember, 1324, A. D. His shrine still exists in Panipat. The date 

 of the death of the saint enables us to ascertain which of the three 

 emperors of Dihli that bore the name of Firuz Shah, corresponds to 

 the Firuz Shah of the Panduah legend. Firuz Shah I. died in 

 A. D. 1236 ; Firuz Shah II. in 1296 ; and Firuz Shah III. reigned 

 from 1351 to 1388 ; and thus we see that the Panduah legend means 

 Firuz Shah II., or, according to his full name, Jalaluddin i Khilji 

 Firuz Shah, whose contemporary Bu 'Ali Qalandar was. 



We may thus safely refer the foundation of the Muhammadan 

 settlement at Panduah to the very end of the 1 3th century, or not 

 quite 100 years after the conquest ofNaddia and the overthrow 

 of Lak'hmaniyah rulers of Bengal by Bakhtyar i Khilji, a date with 

 which not only the style of architecture of the Pat'han Mosque of 

 Paiiduah, but also the inscriptions on Zafar's tomb in Tribeni, 

 (A. H. 713, or A. D. 1313) fully agree. 



* Cawnpore, A. H. 1283. It is merely called Masnawi i Shah Abu 'AU 

 Qalandar ; 18 pp. small 8vo. Like all didactic Masnawis, it is written in short 

 Ramal. 



Beginning — 



il ^ U b jti fej J$ j\ ^"» £b lUj ls\ k*S° 



End — 



