142 H. HOSTEN ON 



attached to the Court from childhood and that he was a favourite on account of his 

 rare knowledge of Hindustani music and melody. 1 



A note in the translation of the Tuzuk-i-J ahanglvl (II. I94n.) states that M. 

 Waris's continuation of the Pddishah-ndma, p. 392, of Brit. Mus. MS., mentions that 

 Zu-1-Qarnain Farangi came from Bengal and presented poems which he had composed 

 on Shah Jahan's name, for which he got Rs. 4,000. 



Mr. H. Beveridge favours me with several interesting observations concerning 

 the Mirza' s return from Bharaich and his removal from office. 



" Father Joseph de Castro says that they arrived at Agra on November 16th, 

 1632. The native writers, Muhammad Salih and ( Abdu-l-Hamid, do not specify the 

 corresponding date of Zu-1-Qarnain's arrival. But the Badshahnama, on the same 

 page that it records his presenting five elephants, has the date 12th Jamada-1-awwal 

 1042, which corresponds to 15th November, 1632. The entry of Mirza Zu-1-Qarnain's 

 presentation precedes this by a few lines ; so we may suppose it occurred a little earlier 

 in November. This would not, I think, conflict with Father de Castro's statement that 

 they arrived eight days before the 24th November, for I fancy that the Father's 

 dates are according to the Gregorian Calendar, that is, they are New Style, whereas 

 Gladwin's Tables, which I use, are, I believe, Old Style. So, the corresponding Hijra 

 date would be ten days earlier according to the Gregorian Calendar and so would 

 correspond to 5th November or so. All Catholics, I believe, accepted the Gregorian 

 Calendar in the 16th century, whereas England adopted it two centuries later. 51 

 The difficulty about the date may be got over by the difference of Calendars, or, as 

 the Badshahnama does not give the date of Mirza Zu-1-Qarnain's arrival, it may be 

 that we must not press the question of the exact dates too closely. It may also be 

 that there is an error of a day or two in Father de Castro's statement. 



(t The entry of the 15th November in the Badshahnama is a curious one. It 

 gives an account of a discussion about Alexander the Great. Asaf Khan extolled the 

 character of Alexander the Great, and said no one had ever shown that he did or said 

 anything bad. Shah Jahan replied that, of course, if Alexander the Great was a Pro- 

 phet, nothing could be said against him. But, this was not proved, and so Shah 

 Jahan thought exception might be taken first to a saying of Alexander's and secondly 

 to an action of his. The saying was that when Darius' s ambassador asked Alexander 

 for tribute, Alexander replied that the hen was dead that had laid the golden eggs. 

 This, in Shah Jahan's opinion, was an unworthy remark, for Alexander meant his 

 father Philip, when he spoke of the hen. Now, it was very disrespectful to compare 

 one's father to such a paltry thing as a hen! The other exception he would take 

 was that he thought Alexander had done an imprudent and even wicked thing in 

 going to Nostraba, the Queen of Barda, disguised as his own ambassador. 



1 The substance of this paragraph and its reflections was kindly communicated to me by Mr. H. Beveridge. (May 5, 

 1913). The passage occurs in Vol. I, fol. 178V of the India Office copy of the 'Amal Salih, after an account of the 

 taking of Hugh and just before the betrothal of Dara Shikoh to Sultan Parviz's daughter. Mr. Beveridge also points 

 out that a shorter entry about Zu-1-Qarnain's return from his faujdarship of Bahraich and his presenting five elephants to 

 the King is found in the Padishah-nama , Bibl. Ind. edu., I. 446. [II, 184- 



2 The Gregorian Calendar came into vogue in India in Oct. 1583. Cf. de Souza's Oviente Conquistado, I,isbon edn., 



