1865.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 205 



The Council reported in favour of a recommendation made by the 

 Philological Committee to publish the Badshahnameh and Alumgeer- 

 nameh in the Bibliotheca Indica. 



" The Badshahnameh of Abdul Hamid-i-Lahouri gives the history 

 of Shah Jehan for the first 24 years of his reign, and its continuation 

 by Mahamad Waris closes with that Emperor's death. 



" Sir Henry Elliot, in his Mahomedan Historians, gives the names of 

 9 works as authorities for this period ; but one is apparently only an 

 introduction to the Badshahnameh, another an abstract of it ; and with 

 the exception of the 'Amal-i-Qahih, by Mahomed (JJalih Kanbee, none 

 are works of celebrity. 



" Regarding the propriety of publishing this work in the Persian 

 Historical Series, there can, I think, be no question ; for though the 

 Badshahnameh, being written by order of the Emperor, may be con- 

 sidered a Court chronicle, the author was certainly one of the most 

 competent persons, as well as one the most elegant writers of his day ; 

 his history was written in the times during which the events it records 

 occurred ; and it is undoubtedly the best history of the period that we 

 possess. 



" The materials for a good text of this work are not as yet in the 

 Committee's hands. The Council will, after obtaining this meeting's 

 sanction to the publication of the work, endeavour to obtain other 

 MSS. for collation with the single copy in the Society's Library. 

 Meanwhile they propose to publish the Aulumgeer-nameh of Mahomed 

 Kayim, which gives the history of the next reign, Aurungzeeb's ; of 

 this MS. the Society has several copies. The history relates the 

 events of the first ten years of Aulumgeer's reign. 



'' When the author had completed this portion of his work, the Em- 

 peror issued strict injunctions that it should not be continued, and 

 that no other author should write the chronicles of his reign. 



" These injunctions seem to have been implicitly obeyed, as very little 

 history indeed remains for the remainder of this reign that strictly 

 speaking can be called a contemporaneous chronicle. Khafi Khan's 

 account of the times is that which has furnished Elphinstone with his 

 materials, and he has preferred his account to that of Bernier, except 

 where the latter was actually an eye-witness ; and it is perhaps the best 

 history we have for the latter portion of th's reign, because for a very 



