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100

HISTORIANS OF SIND.




I.


MUJMALU-T TAWÁRÍKH.


[A PORTION of this most interesting unique work was published by M. Reinaud, in his Fragments Arabes et Persans inedits relatif à l Inde, from the MS. numbered 62 in the Bibliothèque du Roi at Paris. The MS. has been described in the Journal Asiatique at different times, by M. Quatremere and M. Mohl, and it had been previously drawn upon by Anquetil Duperron and Silvestre de Sacy.]
[The chapter published by M. Reinaud, with which we are here concerned, was not written by the author of the Mujmal himself, but was borrowed by him from an older work, of which he thus speaks,—“I have seen an ancient book of the Hindus which Abú Sálih bin Shu’aib bin Jámi’ translated into Arabic from the Hindwáni language (Sanskrit). This work was translated into Persian in 417 A.H. (1026 A.D.) by Abu-l Hasan Ali bin Muhammad al Jílí,[1] keeper of the library at Jurján for a chief of the Dílamites. The book I saw was in the handwriting of the author, and bore the date above given. It is the

  1. [Reinaud's printed text had “al Jabalti,” but Quatremere, corrected it to “al Jílí,” (Jour. des Sav., Jan. 1851), that is native of Jilán or Gílan, S.W., of the Caspian. Júrján is to the east of the same sea.]