OMAR KHAYYAM

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18653, 23 August 1930, Page 14

OMAR KHAYYAM

OLD RUBAIYAT MANUSCRIPT. Much interest has been aroused in India, by the discovery of an early manuscript of the Rubaiyat 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 Mahfaz ul 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, but three in existence. Professor Mahfaz ul Huq, said that in caligraphy, illumination, ornamentation, and miniatures, it was the best copy that had yet been discovered. “This superb manuscript,” he said, “comprising 206 quatrians by the poet, was copied in A.D. 1505, only 46 years after the Bodleian manuscript, which is the oldest known copy of Omar’s Rubaiyat. The manuscript was transcribed by the famous caligraphist, Sultan Ali, of Mashhad, and illustrated by a colleague of the incomparable Bihzad —the Raphael of the East. It is very finely illuminated and tastefully decorated, and is, undoubtedly, one of the finest specimens of the art of manuscript-production in Persia, in the sixteenth century.” The story of the discovery, is that a dealer in old books bought the manuscript at an auction sale in Calcutta and for many months it lay unnoticed in his shop. Eventually he showed the shabby, loose, and damaged manuscript to Mr Najib Ashraf, a Persian scholar of Bihar, who at once realised its unique importance and bought it for 60 rupees, or about £4 10. 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 folios there appears in Roman letters, the signature of Devi Dass, who was an inhabitant of Pasrur, a town in the Sialkot district of the Punjab. Other notes and endorsements confirm that Devi Dass, of Pasrur possessed the manuscript toward the end of last century and that it was repaired by Shamin Ahmad in 1891. Further examination of the manuscript, suggests that on the death of Devi Dass it passed on to his heirs, who, however, did not realise its value, with the result that the first 20 folios, became damaged and discoloured through lack of care. From this point, trace has been lost of the manuscript until it came into the hands of the firm of Calcutta auctioneers, who disposed of it to the bookseller. The latter sold it to Mr Najib Ashraf, who presented it to his village library.