Annual Reports

INTRODUCTION

rule of Shamsu’d Dunyā wa’d Dīn Ismā‘īl Khān, son of Nizām Khān, in A.H. 839 (1436 A.D.). It is difficult to say whether the above-mentioned chief was a governor or an independent ruler ; but the style in which the epigraph records his name (cf. the title Shamsu’d Dunyā wa’d Dīn) tends to suggest his independence though Persian chronicles do not mention any Ismā‘īl Khān who held sway over Jatara or that part of the country in the period in question. Ḥājī Dabīr (zafaru;l Wālih, p. 197) mentions one Majlis-i-Sāmī Ismā‘īl Khān, lord of Kalpi, who in A.H. 841 happened to arrive at Chanderi. He seems to be identical with the chief mentioned in this record. It was probably the style of this inscription that inspired the author of the Persian version of No. 160, a bilingual epigraph from the same place, to compose his record on the same pattern. It records the construction of a stepwell during the rule of Tātār Khān, son of Muḥammad Khān, by Shyām Kunwar Kalāwantī, a resident of Jatara. It is dated A.H. 906 (1501 A.D.). No. 107 from the Sardar Museum, Jodhpur, is another interesting bilingual record, insomuch as it shows how a Muslim saint was instrumental in the restoration of the posāl of Kīratchand through the good offices of Masnad-i-‘Ālī Yūsuf Daulat Khān Ḥusain Sūr. The epigraph (No. 27) from Maner, Patna District, Bihar, supplies us with some valuable information regarding one Ibrāhīm Khān who reonstructed a mosque in that town. According to this inscription, Ibrāhīm Khān was a descendant of Khān-i-Khānān, son of Kabīr and

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belonging to the Quraysh lineage, and was born at Hisār. No. 89 from the Orissa State Museum, Bhubaneswar, was recently published in the JAS, Letters, Vol. XVIII, 1952, No. 2. Pp. 83-84. It comprises a chronogram for the date of the death of a person whose name is not specifically mentioned. The date given in figures, read there as 1194, does not tally with the one afforded by the chronogram, the latter falling short by one year. To remove this difficulty, it was suggested that ‘by computation according to the adjad system, we arrive at the figure 1193 to which will have to be added I which is the value of alif suppressed in az in order to correspond to the date 1194 mentioned in figures in the last line of the record’. The suggestion is not only contrary to rulers but is also unwarranted, as the correct reading of the date in figures is not 1194 but 1193. The author does not notice that ‘Āqil, meaning ‘wise’ in line I, may have been the name (or a part of it) of the person whose death is recorded in the epigraph. Two unpublished inscriptions (Nos. 148-49) from the Provincial Museum, Lucknow, comprise a sort of a chart, showing the distance between important towns of India in krohs, preceded by a few lines explaining the scheme of reference. They neither contain the name of any ruler nor bear any date. But from the calligraphy they may be safely assigned to the late Mughal period. Lastly, a group of inscriptions (Nos. 153-55) from Bābur’s mosque at Sambhal, Muradabad District, bearing the dates A.H. 933 (1526 A.D.), 1053 (1625-26 A.D.) and 1067 (1656-57 A.D.) respectively, may be taken as first hand evidence for tracing the history of the foundation of and subsequent repairs carried out to that mosque.