1892.] 
W. Hoey —Set MaJiet, 
17 
The only points to be noted in this passage with reference to 
exploration at Set Maliet are that there-was at the time of this composi¬ 
tion a pleasure-garden outside the city, and that the harem of the local 
governor went out, after the fashion of Hindu women in the present 
day, to bathe on festivals. Whatever the position of the palace may have 
been in Maliet, the river seems to me to have run at one time close up 
to the east wall, and in the ruins of that wall I can trace chambers not 
yet explored, and probably this wall was laid out as a bathing ghat along 
the river bank. This would be the place where the ladies went to bathe 
and from which Pramati took his dive to the other bank of the Rapti. 
With these remarks I dismiss the story for the present. A less detailed 
abstract of the Dasakumara Charitam will be found in Yol. Ill of 
Wilson’s Essays. 
There is a blank of about four hundred years from Hwen Thsang’s 
visit until we reach the period where reliable history begins in India, 
the early Muhammadan invasions, and we must discuss the fatal 
advance of Salar Mas’ud into the country north of the Ghagra. The 
generally current account of this event is that given in an Urdu book 
called 1 Mira’t-i- Mas’udi,’ but this is only a debased translation or 
rather amplified paraphrase in Urdu of the Persian work Saulat-i-Mas £ udi, 
and is very inaccurate. I possess a copy of the Persian work, written 
in an age when careful transcription was the means of preserving his¬ 
torical records, and I have translated a large portion of the book, and 
intend to complete and annotate it for publication, when I shall have 
sufficient leisure. There is also a popular ballad-record of all events 
of the invasion of Salar Mas’ud which I have only heard from the lips 
of daffalis who sing this £ Jangnama’, as they call it. I have been unable 
to complete the ballad by bringing together all the cantos, but I have 
obtained by dictation the version given of the events connected with 
the fatal trans-Ghagra episode. The whole may yet be recovered. It 
seems to have been composed by a Lalla named Natlimal of Delhi; 
and there was a complete copy in manuscript until recently with a 
daffali near Set Mahet, but it was unfortunatly burned, 
The ‘ Saulat-i-Mas’udi, states that Salar Mas’ud was at Misrikh 
with liis father Salar Sahu when Saif-uddin, who had an advanced post 
at Bahraich, sent in word that the Hindu chiefs were rising, and he 
asked for reinforcements. Salar Mas’ud was at his own request permit¬ 
ted by his father to proceed to Bahraich (17 Shaban 423 A. H.). Two 
months later Salar Saha died at Misrikh, and for two or three months 
more Salar Mas’ud remained in mourning and inactive. He then called 
a council of war in the opening of the new year, Muharram 424 A. H. 
and about the same time he saw in a dream his father and his mother,. 
3 
