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Pursuing an Elusive Seeker of Universal Truth – the Identity and Environment of the Author of the Dabistān–i Mazāhib

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

M. Athar Ali
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Abstract

Professor Athar Ali (born 18 January 1925) studied at Aligarh Muslim University 1948–53. His PhD studies were supervised by Professor Satish Chandra. In 1953 he was appointed research assistant at the university and became a Professor in 1978. He was Wilson Fellow at the Smithsonian Institute in 1986, Smuts Fellow, Cambridge, 1974–5 a nd President of the Indian History Congress in 1989. His major publications are The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (Aligarh, 1966) and The Apparatus of Empire (Delhi, 1985). Sadly he died not long after this article was accepted for publication and was therefore unable to see it in print.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , November 1999 , pp. 365 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1999

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References

1 Dabistān-i Mazāhib, pub. Muḥammad, Ibrāhīm ibn Nür (Bombay, 1292/1875, hereafter cited as DM), p.327.Google Scholar

2 DM, p. 105.

3 See Marshall, D. N., Mughals in India (Bombay, 1967), i, p. 299,Google Scholar for an incomplete list of the catalogued MSS.

3a ‘Ali Asghar Mustafawi's ed. (Teheran, 1361 Solar/1982) is a mere ofiset reprint of this edition, with a rather light-weight introduction added.

4 Marshall, op cit., reports earlier editions, Teheran, 1260/ 844, and Bombay, 1266/1849–50 and 1277/1860–1.

5 Data about translations derived from Rieu, C. Catalogue of the Persian MSS in the British Museum (London, 1879), p. 142a.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 141b.

6a See Modi, Jivanji Jamshedji, “A Parsee High Priest (Dastur Azar Kaiwan, 1529–1614 A.C.) with his Zoroastrian Disciples in Patna in the 16th and 17th Century A.C.), Journal of the K.R. Cama Oriental Institute (hereafter JKRCOI), XX (1932), p. 7 & n.Google Scholar

7 Under the title Nānak Panthīs, originally appearing in Journal of Indian History, XIX(2)Google Scholar. Characteristically, the translator commends the author of the Dabistān-i Mazāhib for giving “an impartial account of what he saw and heard of the Sikhs and their Gurus during his contact with them” (p. 3).

7a While rejecting the identification of the author of Dabistān with Muḥsin Fāni, Modi, J. J. (JKRCOI, pp. 8–11Google Scholar) still falls into the error of accepting the date of the death of Muhsin Fani as that of our author.

8 As stated for example as in the tide given to the Dabistān in Br. Mus. MS. Add. 7613 (Rieu, i, 143a).

9 DM, p. 33.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., pp. 33, 35.

11 Br. Mus. MSS. Add. 16,670 (A.D. 1792) and Add. 16,671 (A.D. 1797); Rieu, , i, p. 142b.Google Scholar

12 Ghiyās u'l Lughāt, s.v. mobad. Muḥammad Ghiyāṣuddin, the author of this very comprehensive dictionary, completed it in A.H. 1242/1826–7.

13 Rieu, , i, pp. 142qa–143a.Google Scholar

14 Ma'āsir u'l Kirām (Hyderabad (Dn), 1910), i, p. 22.Google Scholar

15 Dabistan or School of Manners, tr. Shea, D. and Troyer, A. (London, 1843), i, PP. xii–xv.Google Scholar

16 Rieu, , i, pp. 141a–142a.Google Scholar

17 DM, p. 144Google Scholar. There is no sanction in the Dabistān for Modi's statement that the author was born in Persia and then brought to India (JRKCOI, XX, p. 9).Google Scholar

18 DM, p. 147Google Scholar. For Jahāngir's meetings with Jadrūp, see Tūzuk-i Jahāngiri, ed. Ahmad, Saiyid (Ghazipur & Aligarh, 1863–1864), PP. 175–6, 250–3, 279–81. His description of Jadrūp matches that of Chatrūpa in the Dabistān, pp. 146–7; the Dabistān also speaks of the high regard that jahāngir had for him.Google Scholar

19 DM, pp. 32–3.Google Scholar Cf.Modi, JKRCOI, XX, pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

20 DM, p. 33.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., pp. 36–7.

22 Ibid., p. 36.

23 Ibid., p. 34.

24 Ibid., p. 35.

25 Ibid., p. 41.

26 Ibid., p. 62.

27 Ibid., p. 63. This Shaidāb, probably for convenience, also bore the name Shamsuddin.

28 Ibid., p. 148.

29 Ibid., p. 323.

30 Ibid., pp. 42–3.

31 Ibid., p. 36.

32 Ibid., p. 63.

32a Ibid., pp. 62–3.

33 Ibid., p. 40.

34 Ibid., p. 211.

35 Ibid., p. 321.

36 Ibid., p. 135.

37 Ibid., p. 144.

38 Ibid., p. 154.

39 Ibid., p. 33.

40 Ibid., p. 162.

41 Ibid., p. 162.

42 Ibid., p. 161.

43 Ibid., pp. 218, 254.

44 Ibid., pp. 147, 190.

45 Ibid., p. 299.

46 Ibid., p. 241.

47 Ibid., p. 231.

48 Ibid., p. 152.

49 Ibid., p. 144.

50 Ibid., p. 167.

51 Ibid., p. 167.

52 Ibid., p. 202. There seems to be no sanction in the Dabistān for Modi's suggestion (JKRCOI, XX, pp. 9–10Google Scholar) that he visited Navsari, the famous Parsi settlement near Surat, and obtained information about from Dastur Birzo Kamdin there.

53 DM, p. 194.Google Scholar

54 Paikar and jahān Nūr (ibid., p. 62).

55 Ibid., p. 125.

56 Ibid., p. 15.

57 Ibid., p. 105.

58 Ibid., p. 119.

59 Rieu, , i, p. 142a.Google Scholar

60 DM, p. 105.Google Scholar

61 Rieu, , i, p. 142a.Google Scholar He is right in contesting the reference to “the Shores of Persia” in the Shea-Troyer translation, ii, p. 2.Google Scholar

62 DM, p. 27Google Scholar. For a reconstruction of Āzar Kaiwān's life, mostly based on the Dabislan see Modi, , JKRCOI, XX, pp. 25–34.Google Scholar

63 DM, pp. 26–44.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., pp. 32–3.

65 Ibid., pp. 26–31.

65a Cf. Modi, , JKRCOI, XX, pp. 34–51Google Scholar, for information on 13 Zoroastrian and 10 non-Zoroastrian followers of Āzar Kaiwān.

66 I take it that nez here is a mistranscription for bad.

67 DM, p. 42.Google Scholar Modi, , JKRCOI, XX, pp. 56–75Google Scholar, draws up a list of the beliefs of Āzar Kaiwān and his disciples and traces their antecedents; on pp. 75–85 he compares them with those of earlier Zoroastrian tradition. A very perceptive and sympathetic treatment will be found in Corbin, H., “Āzar Kayvān”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, i, pp. 183–7Google Scholar, where the Ishrāqī antecedents of the school are strongly brought out.

68 DM, p. 190.Google Scholar There is no justification in the text for Ganda Singh's rendering: “Guru Hargobind in his letters to the Chronicler remembered [himself] by the title of Nānak who is the spiritual head of this sect”. (Nānakpantkis, tr., p. 20).Google Scholar

69 DM, p. 192.Google Scholar

70 Rieu, , i, p. 141b.Google Scholar The editor of the Teheran reprint of DM, in his preface, p. xvii, justifiably points out that it would have been very difficult for a Muslim to attribute the original foundations of Mecca and Medina to Parsi shrines of the Moon (mah) as the author does (pp. 15–16).

71 Hadi, Nabi, Dictionary of Indo-Persian Literature (New Delhi, 1995), pp. 360–1.Google Scholar

72 DM, p. 32.Google Scholar

73 Ibid., p. 60.

74 Ibid., p. 63.

75 Ibid., p. 23.

76 Ibid., p. 35. This work is extant (pub. Fattāh, Sayyid ‘Abdul ‘urfMir Ashraf‘Ali, Bombay, 1848)Google Scholar, but the author gives his own name as Khudā Jūi (God-seeker); this may well be his pen-name (cf. Modi, , JKRCOI, XX, pp. 20–1).Google Scholar

77 DM, p. 37Google Scholar. He was also the author of Azhrang-i Mānī (DM, p. 36Google Scholar), which may be the Shahristān, litho. pub. Bombay, 1851Google Scholar, and described by Modi, , JKRCOI, XX, pp. 21–3.Google Scholar

78 DM, p. 36.Google Scholar

79 Khurram ān roz kazīn manzil-i wīrān bi-rawam, etc. (“Happy the day I leave this desolate stage of journey”), DM, p. 38Google Scholar. The author himself quotes from an elegy he composed for Shaidosh upon his death in 1040/1630–1 (P. 39).