195 
1895.] Sayyad Ildhl Bakhsh cil Husaini AngrBzdbddl. 
me as a sort of legacy by tlie author, who died in 1892 not long after he 
sent it to me. 
The extract forms a quarto volume of 498 pages. It contains not 
only a description of Maldah and its antiquities, but also a history of 
Bengal from the earliest times down to 1863. It also contains the 
preface to the whole work, and a chapter giving some account of the 
author. From this T take the following particulars : — 
Memoir. 
Sayyad Ilahi Bakhsh was born in 1240 A.H., or 1824 A.D-, at English 
Bazar, in the district of Maldah. 1 The family came originally from the 
Upper Provinces, and members of it had held high office under the kings of 
Bengal. Eventually, on account of old age, or for some other reason, they 
retired to the town of Maldah, where they settled in a quarter known as the 
Berozgar Tola, or quarter of the unemployed—apparently because it was 
chiefly occupied by persons out of employ. This quarter was in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Mu gh al Tola, and the well-known mosque of Ma‘sum Saudagar. 
Then the family moved into another old quarter of Maldah called Sanak 
Mahan, 2 and eventually they came to English Bazar. The author’s grand¬ 
father, Mihru-llah, is buried at Old Maldah; but he appears to have lived at 
English Bazar, and in the service of the English Government, for the 
author’s father, ‘All Bakhsh was born there, as was also the author. His 
birth-place, he tell us, was in the quarter known as Cak Sayyad Anbia. 
He spent all his life in English Bazar, and died there on 2nd March, 1892. 
In his latter days he was Persian teacher in the District School. 
Ilahi Bakhsh was a man of great simplicity of mind, and an enthusiastic 
student of history : perhaps, he acquired this taste from his friend and 
teacher Munshi ‘Abdu-l-karim, who in his turn was the pupil of Ghulam 
Husain Salim, the author of the Biyazu-s-salatln. Perhaps, too, he became 
interested in Gaur from the fact that he inherited from his paternal aunt, 
some rent-free land in Hazratnagar, otherwise Qazlgao, which is near the 
shrine of Makhdum Akin Siraju-d-din. He also speaks at page 144, of 
visiting the tomb of an ancestor of his, named Mir Karhan, who died at 
Maldah in 1199 A.H. (1784 A.D.). 
I now proceed to give an account of his book. 
Analysis. 
Ilahi Ba kh sh entitled his book the Kh urshid Jahan Numa, or the World- 
displaying Sun. The title is a chronogram, and yields the date 1270 A.H., 
or 1853 A.D., this being the time when the book was begun. He was occu- 
1 It is the head-quarters of the district and is often called Maldah, or New 
Maldah. Maldah, properly so called, is about five miles north of English Bazar, and 
is on the other, or eastern, side of the Mahananda, opposite to its junction with the 
KalindrI. 
2 Perhaps Shank Mohan. 
