OMAR KHAYYAM

Hokitika Guardian, 7 June 1930, Page 3

OMAR KHAYYAM

OLD MS. OF RUBAIYAT FOUND « j

LONDON, Muv 2

Much interest has been aroused in India (writes the Calcutta correspondent of ‘'The Timer’) by the discovery of an early manuscript of the ILtbaivat of Omar Khayyam, described as perhaps the most, beautiful of the known illuminated texts of the collection of verses. The story of the manuscript was told 'by Professor Alabfaz ui Huq, of the , Presidency College, Calcutta, at the April meeting of the Asiatic Society" of Bengal. The Rubaiyat is now in a village library in the Patna district. It is claimed to be the oldest copy hul three in existence. Professor Malifaz ul Huq said that in calligraphy, illumination, -ornamentation- and miniatures it was the best copy that had vet been discovered.

“This superb manuscript,’’ h<% said, ‘‘comprising 206 quatrains by the poet was copied in A.IX lbos, only 4(5 years after the Bodleian man user ipr. which is the oldest known copy „e) Omar’s Rubaiyat. The manuseri">twas transcribed by the famous calligraphist, Sultan Ali, of Alasli'bad, and illustrated by a colleague of the incomparable Bibzad—the Raphael of the East. It is very finely illuminated anff tastefully -decorated., and is, undoubtedly, one of the finest spe-i----niens of the’ art of manuscript-pro-dnotion in Persia in the sixteenth century ” A . v . STO R V OF DbSCi )YER Y . " The story of the discovery is that a dealer iff old hooks’bought the niianuseript- at an auction sale in Calcutta, and for many months it lay unnoticed in his simp. Eventually lie showed the sliabbv, loose, and damaged manuscriot to Air Najib Ashraf, a Persian scholar of Bihar, wlio at once realised it® unique importance, and bought it for’ Rs. 60 (£4 IOs.D Unfortunately, the original fly-leaf of the manuscript/which should have contained its story during the last four centuries, is missing.

■On one of the 'f,olios there appears in Roman letters tlieU-signature of Devi Dass, who was an inhabitant of Pas-rur, a town in tlie Sialkot district •of Punjab. Other 'notes. ments confirm that Devi Dass of Pa®r - r |y\s®e c scd the •manuscript 1 towards the eiid of last- eenturv, and that it ips repaired by STuunin Alnnad in 1801. Further e-xa.mi nation of the ins>nns f, rint sn.rgests that on the death of Devi U"ss lit'pns®M on to his heirs, who. however, did not realise its value, wi+li the result that the fir~'t twenty folios i'-eeaine demaged and diseolbured tbroiiglr ■ lack of care. From this miint trace b ;l s been lost of the mannserin't 'until it mime into the lui'i'D of "the' firm of Calcutta ■'uc+i'iheers who disposed -cf it to the bookseller. The latter sold it to Mr ■V"bb ■ A u hr:'>.f," who presented it to- his village library.''