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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
In the reserve collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum at Battersea is a grey granite slab bearing three and a half lines of inscription in Persian, with thirteen lines of Tamil characters cut rather irregularly on two vacant spaces at the bottom (pl. I). Excluding those parts of the stone which are obviously intended to be concealed within a wall surface, its dimensions are 38 cm. in height by 58 cm. in lenght; it is in excellent condition except for a small piece of spalling at the top right of the stone, which does not affect the inscription.
1 List No. 525/1872. The Museum's Accession List bears the note: Given by C. Schmidt, Esp,; there is no further indication of provenance.
A letter from Mr John Irwin, then Keeper, Indian Section, of the Victoria and Albert Museum, dated 24 July 1973, kindly gives me permission to publish this document.
2 I most gratefuilly acknowledge the expert assistance and advice of my colleagues Mr. A. H. Morton, Lecturer in Persian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, who has Preserved me from some of the grosser errors; and Dr.J. R. Marr, Lecturer in tamil and South Indian Studies, to whom I owe the transription and translation of the Tamil parts. Their special contributions in the footnotes are distinguished by their respective initials.
3 The Tamil inscription reads: Left side: kaltacca Tā/tācāri Mutt/ācāri ŏ/tta Timman/ pěriyan Tā/cari pěr[i]yaṉ/ Right side: kāmāṭṭi car/utivāṉ Ṉāka/ppa cŏṉda/kāraṉ Taṉ/marāya cṓ/ṉdakāraā/ kaṭṭiṉatu⃛ (cŏṉdakāraṉ, should more correctly be cŏntakkāran: Taṉmarāya (Tamil Tarumarāyaṉyaṉ)=Dharmarāya).
‘This was fashioned by the mason Tātācāri-together with the great Timmaṉ [and?] the great Dāsa (or“devotec”). The labourers (=assistants ?) were provided by the owners Nākappaṉ and Tarumarāyaṉ. ’ (J.R.M.)
4 Restoring vocalization, and adding caital letters and punctuation.
5 Line ib: the syntax would be much easier if kaz is taken as an error for az (A. H. M.).
6 There is an irregularity in the metre of the inscription here: the epithets perhaps refer rather to Zayn al-'Āb din than to Haydar or to the fort (A.H.M.) A wāw could perhaps have been droppe dthorugh haplography.
7 cf. very similar forms in the inscription in the Čashma-i NŨrat Ajměr (Tirmizi, A. A., ‘Persian inscriptions at Ajmer’, Ep. Ind. Arabic and Persian Suppt., 1957–1958 56Google Scholar and Pate xiv; idem, EIAPS, 1959–60, no the mosque of Sayyid Muhammad in the Dargāh Bazār, 43 and Plate ixc.
Looped variants occur in inscription on slab in a stepwell at Kallur, near KurnŨl, in Z. A. Desai, ‘Some unpublished inscriptions from Kurnool’, in EIAPS, 1951–2, 45 and Plate XVIIIa, and inscription of 1151/1738–9 in the Lāl masjid, ibid., 47 and Plate XIxa.
These forms are mostly but not exclusively line-initials. Other instances could be cited.
8 Trial calculations demonstrate clearly that only the normal abiad calculation produces anything close to the desired result; teh Bayyanāt or Jamal-i Wasit, the use of which is in any case rare, and the Jamal-i Kabīr, known to the theoreticians but not to my knowledge yet recorded in any inscription, obviously cannot apply here.
9 The discrepancies are even greater if the resulthant year to be considered equivaent to the Hijrī date taken as Vikram Samvat, or Śaka era, both of which must ne rejected. The Mawlūdī era was introduced some years lator by Tīpū Sultān, and is equally obviously not in question here.
10 Hemistich 3a, reading ‘helmets’ rather than ‘himself’. ‘Helmets’, however, should be excluded by the metre (A. H. m.). Since we have had one metrica irregularity already, and in view of the Pěsh written over the word as already noticed, this interpretation should at least be considered. The imagery of the ‘crests of a marching army’ I owe to Mr. Simon Digby.
11 But incorrect chronograms are not ncommon. For eample, the historian ‘Abd al-Qādir Badāșōnī, in his Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, Who delights in chronograms, gives many with discre pancies (often pointing out the error himself) among other most ingenious and felicitous ones. Thus, for Humāvūn's reconquest of India in 961: nuh sad wa shast wa yaki =961 in both abjad and in translation; for the foundation of Akbar's mosque at Fathpur Sikri in 976 he given three chronograms, but their values are 976, 978, and 979; three mnemosyna for the death of Salīm Čishtī (Shaykh-i-Hindi, Shaykh-i hukamā, Shaykh-i hukkām), all 979; for the taking of Patnā,Fath-i bilād-i Patnah = 982; for Mīrzā ‘Azīz Kōka's pilgrimage in 1001, Mīrzā Kōkah bi-Hajj raft = 1002, although Badā’īnī acknowledges the discrepancy. Where he has no love for the subject of the chronogram he is less fussy: for the death of Ibrāhīm Čishtī, ẕamīm al-awsāf, ‘blameworthy in attributes’, correctly 999, but also shaykh la‘īm, ‘vile shaykh’, 1000, without comment; for a pet abomination, the ‘ dog-lover’ Fayzī, qā‘idah-i ilhād shikast, ‘the pedestal of heresy is broken’ correctly 1004; but also sagī az jahān raftah bi-hā-i qabāh, ‘ a dog is gone from the world in a detestable state’, 1003, khālid fī'-nār, ‘perpetually in fire’, 1007, and even bi-Čār maẕhab-i nā, ‘ in the four religions of fire’, 1204 years too much; his translator Haig wryly comments on this: ‘Badaoni perhaps thought that stick was good enouth to beat a dog with ’ Copious further examples could be found of inaccuracies
12 Orme Mss., No. 33.
13 miles, Col. W. (trans.), The history of Hydur Naik⃛written by Meer Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani, London 1842. (The ms. Persian original is in A.S.B. Calcutta, No.20).Google Scholar
14 Miles, Col. W. (trans.), History of tipu Sultan, being a continuation of [the above], London 1864; Calcutta reprint, 1958, 10ff.Google Scholar
15 ibid., 21.