Masir-i-'lamgiri, a History of the Emperor Aurangzib-'lamgir, of Sqi Must'ad Khan by Jadu-Nath Sarkar Review by: Holden Furber Journal

of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1949), p. 100 Published by: American Oriental Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/595252 . Accessed: 22/11/2011 08:09
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Oriental Society.

http://www.jstor.org

100

Reviews of Books (Hifner has bn-fq-hy), and probably the negation 1' (Hal. 3494). These minor observations are not intended to detract from the value of this very useful and well arranged grammar. The Semitist will be grateful to Maria Hlofner for her work and eagerly awaits the Chrestomathy announced in the introduction of the book. WOLF LESLAu.
ASIA INSTITUTE, NBW YORK CITY.

folgt, naher bestimmt werden' (Ex. wkl mgbb wmhfdt dn mhj'n 'und alle Walle und Tiirme dieses Tempels,' p. 129). This opinion is only partially true. Although this construction is not usual in the other Semitic languages it is encountered in some of them; see Brockelmann, Grundriss 2. 230-1, and for Tigre, see my Grammatical sketches in Tigre, JAOS 1945, p. 184. To the particles could be added fq 'above'

Madsir-i-JAlamgiri, a history of the Emperor Aurangzib-'Alamgir, of Saqi Must4ad Khan. Translated into English and annotated by SIR JADU-NATH SARKAR. Pp. viii + 350. Calcutta: ROYAL ASIATICSOCIETY BENGAL, OF 1947. (Bibliotheca Indica, work no. 269, issue no. 1556.) In this work,the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal has made available in English another volume of Mughal official historiography. This edition supplements the well-known works of Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar on Aurangzib's reign and on Mughal institutions. For the specialist, this work will be useful for checking dates and for comparison with other contemporary sources. For the non-specialist, the translation will chiefly be of interest as an example of Mughal official annals, verbose, packed with inconsequential detail, and often vitiated by inordinately excessive flattery of the Emperor, but illumined here and there by the felicities of Persian court style and an occasional anecdote having reference to something other than military prowess or palace intrigue. Few European annals of an analogous type are enlivened by such phrases as these: ' The breeze of victory blew on Aurangzib's banners' (3); 'As it was necessary for various reasons to remove the

dust of his life from the plain of the world of the living . . . the lamp of his life was quenched' (15, re Aurangzib's murder of his brother, Dara Shukoh, Shah Jehan's eldest son); 'You have tasted the cup of meaning' (44, re Saqi Must'ad Khan's literary ability); 'The Muslim heroes charged and reddened their pitiless swords in the blood of the rebels' (72); 'In the midst of this heavy and incessant rain . . . the camels refused to set foot on this path; the elephants began to carry the loads of the camp in a dazed condition, but through the inclemency of the weather sank into the mud like donkeys' (275). The most delightful anecdote is that of the Emperor and the old man of the watermill in the palace garden at Hasan Abdal (82-4). Modern readers, following the course of the Emperor's campaigns and his attempts to suppress the infidel, would gladly sacrifice much of the chronicle for a few more such anecdotes. They are perhaps fortunate that this is not an example of a full official namah (annals, which frequently ran to an average of one hundred pages per Mughal regnal year), but a much shorter narrative put together by Saqi Must'ad Khan during the three years subsequent to Aurangzib's death.
HOLDEN
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

FURBER

La vieille route de l'Inde de Bactres a Taxila. By de la Delegation archeologique frangaise en A. FoucHER with the collaboration of MME. Afghanistan, tome I.) E. BAZIN-FOUCHER. Vol. I. Pp. viii + 1The road from Balkh to Taxila is not the only 174, plates I-XXXII. Vol. II. Pp. 175-426, over-land route connecting India with the outside Paris: LES EDITIONS world, but it is the most important one. It has plates XXXITT-XL. D'ARTET D'HISTOIRE, 1942, 1947. (Memoires a long history: the Aryans marched along it to