224 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Sept. 



Badaoni, is an example of the licentiousness among the nobles, which 

 caused Akbar so much annoyance. 



The last poet known to me, that adopted the poetical name of 

 Sultan, is Sultan Muhammad Siplaki. He lived at the time of Huma- 

 yiin and Akbar, and was called Siplaki, as he came from Siplak,* a 

 place near Qandahar. To his annoyance people changed the name of 

 Siplaki into Sipkali, the Hind, word for a lizard. He composed a 

 poem in praise of Khan Zaman, who gave him a present of a thousand 

 rupees, requesting him at the same time to discontinue the poetical 

 name of Sultan, as it was the same as his own. Siplaki naturally re- 

 fused, and told the Khan that he had got that name from his father, 

 and was known as a poet in India under the name of Sultan. 

 Khan Zaman got enraged at the refusal, and, as if the life of a man 

 was nothing, called for an elephant, and gave the order to trample the 

 poet to death. Maulana 'Alauddin i Lari, the teacher of Khan 

 Zaman, who was present, interposed, and asked his pupil to pardon 

 Siplaki, if he could make on the spot a poem of the same metref and 

 rhyme as a certain poem of the poet Jami ; but to kill him, if he were 

 unable to do so. This was done ; the poem satisfied Khan Zaman, 

 who hasty as he was, doubled his former present, and said much in 

 praise of the poet. Siplaki thought it, however, best to withdraw from 

 the neighbourhood of the unprincipled chief, and went ultimately to 

 the Dek'han, where he took part in the siege of Bijanagar. Badaoni 

 blames him for having given a refusal to a nobleman like Khan 

 Zaman. He gives a few of Siplaki's verses. I do not know whether 

 there exists a collection of his poems. 



Maulvi Abdullatif Khan Bahadur said that Prince A'zamuddin, 

 whose Diwan was before the Meeting, was one of the best Persian 

 writers of the present age. He excelled both in prose and poetical 

 compositions. His brother, Shahzadah Bashiruddin was likewise 

 known in Calcutta for his elegant writings ; and he (the Maulvi) trusted 

 that the Shahzadah would yield to the repeated request of his numerous 

 friends, and lay his writings before the public in a more permanent 

 form. 



* There may be a slight error in this name, as the MSS. used for the text 

 of Badaoni give different spellings. 



f Two poems of the same metre and rhyme are said to be of the same 

 xamin, or ground, and the later of the two is the jawdb of the older poem. 



