1897.] W. Irvine —Nadir Shah and Muhammad Shah , a Hindi poem, 25 
Shah’s death in 1160 H. (May 1747), the poem cannot he earlier 
than that year, and judging from internal evidence, such as the number 
of real names and events given with tolerable correctness, I think it 
would be safe to give as the latest probable limit of composition a 
period of ten or fifteen years from 1747. The poem is not likely, 
in my opinion, to be later than 1757-1760 A.D. 
From the place at which the work is found we may assume that 
the author was a native of Rohilkhand. The language, of which 
the grammatical forms seem to be somewhat unstable, appears to me 
to show affinities both to the dialect of the upper part of the Ganges- 
Jamna, duaba and to that of the country between Farrukhabad and 
Qannauj, the latter called by Kellogg, I think, Kanauji. I am more 
or less familiar with both these dialects, and the language of the 
poem contains something of both. I suppose it should be classed as 
written in the Braj variety of the Hindi tongue. 
As for the matter of the poem, it must be confessed that it is of 
no historical value, although, if no other account of Nadir Shah’s 
invasion had come down to us, this might have been otherwise. We 
might then have been forced to construct out of such materials a 
history of what really happened. The result would, I think, have 
been that the outlines of the story would have come out fairly true to 
fact, but in details there would have been equal redundancy and defect. 
The story of the faqir’s second sight would have been at once rejected 
by any critic: while he would have mourned over the absence of 
reasons for the sudden collapse of the Mo gh ul defence, or for the 
apparently unprovoked slaughter of the unoffending inhabitants of 
Dihli. In short, this poem shows us how rapidly in the East, even in 
modern history, fact and fiction are blended. We see, as it were, myth 
in the making. 
I am no judge of the technical merits of the work as poetry, but 
it seems to me to present a brisk, lively and interesting narrative, far 
from devoid of local colour, and at times exceedingly graphic. The 
poet assumes as a matter of common knowledge that Nadir Shah was 
invited into India by Nizamu-l-mulk. The true solution of this 
question is one of the most difficult problems presented to us in the 
history of that period. The accusation was current at a very early 
date (see Fraser’s “History of Nadir Shah,” published in 1741, pp. 69 
and 129, and Rustam ‘All’s TariJch-i-Hindi, written in 1154 H. (1741-2) 
[B. Museum, Oriental MS. No. 1628, folio 281 b].) The author of 
Nisdlah-i-Muhammad Shah , however (B. M. Or. 180, foil. 106 b, 107 b), 
who wrote between 1161 H. and 1167 H. (1748-1754), puts all the 
blame upon Sa‘adat Khan, Burhanu-l-mulk, Nazim of Audh. But 
J. i. 4 
