The Chevening Fellowship hosted by the British Library’s Asian and African Collections Department from September 2022 to September 2023 has been completed successfully. The aim of this project was to research and catalogue manuscript textiles found in the Library’s Southeast Asian collections.


Display of manuscript textiles from the Southeast Asian collections, 6 September 2023

Over the past twelve months Chevening Fellow Noon Methaporn Singhanan assessed, described and photographed 120 manuscript textiles. The outcome is detailed catalogue descriptions, with photo documentation, and an extensive bibliography for further study. The metadata of the textiles will be added to existing manuscript records in the online catalogue in the coming weeks. As a final highlight of this project we organised a display of selected textiles for colleagues and external guests on 6 September 2023. During this event, Noon answered questions about the displayed items and her research. She also demonstrated how manuscript mats with bamboo sticks were made in northern Thailand, a tradition she has helped to revive in the past through her volunteer project at UNESCO prize-winning temple Wat Pongsanuk in Lampang.


Chevening Fellow Noon Methaporn Singhanan demonstrating how to make a manuscript mat with bamboo sticks

To summarise the findings from this project, Noon said that there were three important aspects that will help with her PhD research: 1) the diversity of materials originating from different places across the globe, 2) the different types of manuscript textiles she discovered, and 3) the importance of object comparison as a research method.

Diversity of materials
Quite unexpectedly, Noon found a large number of textiles and materials which did not originate from Southeast Asia, but from China, Japan, India, and the UK. Raw cotton used to produce fabrics in Britain was most likely sourced from American plantations and from India. For example, most of some 29 British-made wooden boxes (IO Pali 1-29) with kapok and velvet cushioning contain stunning Chinese silk tapestries in the style of Dragon Robes and silk ribbons that were repurposed to wrap around Burmese Buddhist manuscripts. These were given to Arthur Phayre, Commissioner of Burma 1862-7, by the King of Burma.


Wooden box with red velvet and kapok cushioning, containing a Burmese Buddhist palm leaf manuscript with two wrapping cloths cut to size from Chinese silk brocade, c. 1862-7 or earlier. British Library, IO Pali 29

A Burmese Kammavāca manuscript (Add MS 23939) from the late 18th or early 19th century was found to be wrapped with a stunning piece of Japanese silk brocade with a pattern of Chrysanthemums, plum blossoms and butterflies woven into yellow silk with gilded washi paper threads.

Another surprising find was a scrolled paper manuscript with a Buddhist text in Shan language from the first half of the 20th century (Or 15368), acquired in 1995 from Søren Egerod’s collection. Sewn on to the binding is a factory-made cotton cover printed with a leaf pattern, which may have been imported or made locally post-1920 in one of the emerging cotton mills in Burma. Attached at the rim is a synthetically dyed green felt ribbon, made from wool, a material that is unusual in the Shan manuscript tradition. Further testing will be necessary to establish the country of origin of the wool.

Noon also discovered a wrapper made up of several parts, including a stunning piece of batik cotton fabric with rose pattern on the outside, and checkered silk sewn together with a piece of cotton on the lining. This was custom-made for a Burmese Buddhist palm leaf manuscript dated 1869 (Or 11810).

The great variety of materials and techniques to make manuscript textiles is evidence of trade and exchange relations from the late 18th to the early 20th century. In some cases, a creation date is contained in the manuscript, and usually a date is included in the acquisition record of a manuscript, so that it is possible to estimate the approximate age of the textiles.

Types of manuscript textiles
The most common type of manuscript textile found in the Southeast Asian collections is the cloth wrapper, either custom-made to fit the size of the manuscript or sometimes made from re-purposed pieces, like for example shoulder cloths and tube-skirts in the Lao manuscript tradition (Or 16886). Noon found out that many Burmese manuscripts are wrapped with printed cotton fabrics which originated in the UK, but occasionally imported velvet is found, too. One Burmese shell book dated 1907 (Or 16052) contains pages made from fine silk and it is wrapped in a piece of cloth woven on the backstrap loom in Karen style. Some manuscripts from Thailand have wrappers made from imported fabrics like silk brocades from India or European printed cotton (Or 1044). A red silk brocade wrapper with a gold thread pattern (Or 5107) was made in India for a 19th-century royal Thai edition of the Tipitaka on palm leaves. A stamp on the red coloured cotton lining is in a Brahmic script (probably originating from north-west India).


Cloth wrapper and mat consisting of 84 coconut leaf stalks, yarn and cotton fabric made for a Burmese Buddhist manuscript dated 1856. British Library, Or 12645

Another frequently found type of manuscript wrapper is the wrapping mat produced from yarn or fabric that is reinforced with bamboo slats or stalks from coconut tree leaves. Occasionally, the cloth wrapper and mat could be combined, and such items were found in the Burmese collection. The example above (Or 12645) is a wrapper made from an imported printed cotton handkerchief, of UK origin made for the South Asian market, together with a locally custom-made mat consisting of 84 coconut leaf stalks intertwined with red and yellow cotton fabric. These two items were used to cover a Burmese Buddhist palm leaf manuscript dated 1856.

Generally, there are three techniques of making wrapping mats. One method often seen in the Lao and northern Thai manuscript traditions is to weave the mat on the loom, using cotton yarn for the warp and alternately cotton yarn and bamboo slats for the weft (Or 12401).


Hand-woven mat with 19 bamboo slats and factory-made hem made for ten northern Thai palm leaf bundles with Buddhist texts. Manuscripts dated 1827-74. British Library, Or 12401

Another technique to make wrapping mats is to connect the bamboo slats by wrapping cotton yarn, or occasionally wool yarn, around them; and by using yarns of different colours one can create beautiful symmetric diamond or zig-zag patterns (Or 16545). This method was widely used in Burma and northern Thailand.

A third method is to manually weave the mat using yarn, bamboo slats or coconut leaf stalks, and rectangular pieces of fabric to insert between the yarn and bamboo slats (Or 12645).

Mat made from knitting wool with 95 bamboo slats in a diamond-shaped symmetric pattern, for a Burmese Buddhist manuscript dated 1852. British Library, Or 16545

In the Shan manuscript tradition, the most common type of textile is the cloth cover. Scrolled paper books with text in Shan script are usually equipped with a cloth cover, either made from imported printed cotton or locally made cotton fabric that is sewn on to the stab-stitch binding. Occasionally, a ribbon is attached at the rim of the cloth cover to secure the scrolled manuscript. Noon found one exceptionally beautiful Shan scrolled manuscript from the 19th century adorned with a locally made plain white cotton cover that was painted by hand with a floral design in red, orange, yellow and blue tones (Or 16137).


Shan scrolled manuscript containing a Buddhist text (right), with a hand-painted cotton cover (left) sewn-on to the binding, 19th century. British Library, Or 16137

In the Thai, Burmese and Malay manuscript collections Noon found textile manuscript bags and envelopes, all of them made from imported fabrics. One such example is a manuscript bag for a Thai palm leaf manuscript, custom-made from imported printed cotton fabric (Or 15885). The factory-made outer layer has red, brown and white floral ornaments, whereas the lining was made from locally-made cream coloured cotton fabric. A rope to tie up the open side of the bag is decorated with small cotton tassels at its ends, and such tassels are attached to all four corners of the bag, too.


Manuscript bag for a palm leaf manuscript from Thailand, made from imported printed cotton, c. 1840-60. British Library, Or 15885

An envelope made from European damask silk originally came with a letter from Pangiran Adipati of Palembang, addressed to Stamford Raffles in Bengkulu in 1824 (MSS Eur D 742/1/61). The envelope is combined with a paper wrapper made from Dutch paper, with intricately cut ends at the back, made in the Malay tradition.


Yellow silk and paper wrapper addressed to Raffles from a letter from Pangiran Adipati of Palembang, made from European damask silk and Dutch paper, 1824. British Library, MSS Eur D 742/1/61

In the Burmese collection Noon found a large number of manuscript ribbons (sazigyo) which fulfil two purposes: 1) to wrap around palm leaf or Kammavaca manuscripts - the latter often consisting of loose leaves - in order to keep the leaves in order when the manuscript is stored, and 2) to add a dedicatory message from the donor which is woven into the ribbon. Sazigyo were usually made in the tablet-weaving technique from cotton, silk or hemp. These ribbons can be of extraordinary lengths of several metres, and in addition to the inscription decorations in form of sacred symbols, geometric forms, plants and animals can be found (Or 3665).


Burmese manuscript ribbon (sazigyo) made from hand-spun cotton yarn, with text and ornaments on a solid red background, 19th century. British Library, Or 3665

Object comparison
When researching the manuscript textiles, Noon realised that many questions remained unanswered, especially regarding the country of origin and creation dates. Therefore, she visited several other organisations in the UK, including the British Museum, the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the Wellcome Collection, the John Rylands University Library in Manchester, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, the National Archives at Kew and the Victoria and Albert Museum to see if there were similar items in these collections, possibly with recorded dates or detailed provenance records.

The method of object comparison proved useful to establish connections between some textile items and places of origin. During a visit to the John Rylands University Library in Manchester, Noon had the opportunity to see seven silk wrappers of exactly the same make as the British Library’s Or 5107. It is almost certain that they belonged to the same set of the Tipitaka thought to have been commissioned by King Rama III (r. 1824-51). The Mancunian acquisition record tells us that the Thai palm leaf manuscripts were donated by Pali scholar Thomas Rhys Davids in 1917.


Cotton wrapper with a butterfly and vine print on red background, lined with plain white cotton. Manchester 1874. British Library, Or 16673

During a visit to the National Archives in Kew Noon consulted numerous large volumes containing samples of textile designs registered by British companies in the 1870s-80s. With great excitement she found an exact match for a cloth wrapper made from a piece of imported printed cotton fabric with plain white hand-woven cotton lining in the British Library’s collection (Or 16673). It was made for a Burmese palm leaf manuscript with text on the Life of the Buddha, dated 1883. The fabric design was registered in 1874 by The Strines Printing Company in Manchester.


The moment of discovering a registered fabric design matching British Library Or 16673 at the National Archives in Kew.

Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian Collections
Noon Methaporn Singhanan, Chevening Fellow at the British Library 2022-23

This guest blog post is by Agung Kriswanto and Aditia Gunawan, librarians at the National Library of Indonesia. In June 2023, Agung spent a week at the British Library through the Bollinger Javanese Manuscripts Digitisation Project and recently contributed a blog post on Javanese palm leaf manuscripts written in Buda script. This post looks specifically at one Old Javanese text, Sang Hyang Hayu, the subject of Aditia's recent Ph.D. at École Pratique des Hautes Études - PSL, Paris.

MSS Jav 53 is a collection of 35 palm leaf manuscripts, numbered MSS Jav 53 a to MSS Jav 53 ii, which has been digitised by the British Library in collaboration with the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO). The collection was obtained in Java by Colonel Colin Mackenzie during his time on the island between 1811 to 1813. The manuscripts, which are all written on the palmyra palm leaf known in Indonesia as lontar (Borassus flabellifer), contain texts written in Javanese, Old Javanese and Balinese languages, and in a variety of scripts.

The oldest known Javanese palm leaf manuscript in Buda script, dated 1493. British Library, MSS Jav 53 t

Six manuscripts in the British Library collection MSS Jav 53 are written in the archaic Buda or Gunung ('Mountain') script, and probably the most significant is found in MSS Jav 53 t, a lontar manuscript containing the text Sang Hyang Hayu, 'The Holy Good', a religious treatise in Old Javanese probably composed in the 14th century. Although Sang Hyang Hayu was written in Old Javanese, it does not appear to have been a popular text in Old Javanese literary circles, whether in Central or East Java, or in Bali. In fact, this text circulated more widely in the Sundanese cultural region of West Java, as can be seen from the fact that almost all known manuscripts of Sang Hyang Hayu originate from West Java, and nearly all are written on gebang palm leaf (Corypha gebanga), not the more usual lontar.

The importance of this text for Sundanese communities can be judged from its reception in this region: the most important portions of the text were translated into Old Sundanese by the author of Sang Hyang Sasana Mahaguru, 'Sacred Instructions of the Master', in around the 15th century. Certain authors of Old Sundanese texts have referred to Sang Hyang Hayu as vataṅ agəṅ,'The Great Book', reflecting its authoritative status (Aditia Gunawan 2023).

The importance of the British Library manuscript MSS Jav 53 t lies in the fact that this is the only copy known of Sang Hyang Hayu written in Buda script, for this text is not found in the large Merapi-Merbabu collection in National Library in Jakarta, or in any other collection of Buda-script manuscripts worldwide. Furthermore, this manuscript is complete, compared to the other Buda-script manuscripts in MSS Jav 53 which contain only fragmentary texts; equally crucially, the Sang Hyang Hayu text in MSS Jav 53 t contains a colophon. The scribe of MSS Jav 53 t also described this work as apus agəṅ, 'The Great Book', echoing the approbation of the Sundanese writers. The colophon states that the manuscript was written within the hermitage (batur) of Kasinoman, Ketralingga (read: Kertalingga?), in the Javanese Śaka year 1415, equivalent to 1493 AD. Although the precise location of Kasinoman and Ketralingga cannot be identified, the dating of 1493 AD is extremely significant not only within the group of Buda-script Javanese manuscripts, but also in the broader context of other Indonesian manuscripts, for a number of reasons. 

Firstly, MSS Jav 53 t is older than the Ramayana manuscript dated 1521 AD in the Merapi-Merbabu collection held in the National Library of Indonesia in Jakarta, which has long been regarded as the oldest known Buda-script manuscript (Kuntara Wiryamartana & van der Molen, 2001: 55). Secondly, this is the second oldest known manuscript of Sang Hyang Hayu, after manuscript L 638 in the National Library of Indonesia, which is dated Śaka 1357, equivalent to 1435 AD. Thirdly, with its date of 1493, MSS Jav 53 t is by far the oldest Indonesian manuscript in the British Library. 

Colophon of Sang Hyang Hayu in Buda script: ti titi pva yeka vula(n) saptami, kr̥ṣṇāpakṣa ø I śaka, 1415 ø Om̐ saṁ hyaṁ [...], giving a date equivalent to 1493 AD. British Library, MSS Jav 53 t, f. 43r 

In the MSS Jav 53 collection, apart from MSS Jav 53 t which is in Buda script, there is another lontar manuscript of Sang Hyang Hayu written in a different script: MSS Jav 53 gg, which is in a form of coastal (pasisir) Javanese script. This manuscript is also extremely important as the only known copy of Sang Hyang Hayu written in Javanese script. Unfortunately, and unlike MSS Jav 53 t, MSS Jav 53 gg does not have a colophon giving details of its production, and so it is not known where or when the manuscript was written. Thus the Mackenzie collection MSS Jav 53 contains two copies of Sang Hyang Hayu, both originating from the Javanese tradition, written using two different scripts, namely Buda script and (coastal) Javanese script.

Sang Hyang Hayu, written in (coastal) Javanese script. British Library, MSS Jav 53 gg 

In the British Library, in addition to the two Sang Hyang Hayu manuscripts in the MSS Jav 53 collection, there is a third Sang Hyang Hayu manuscript, MSS Jav 105, which is written in Old West Javanese quadratic script (see Acri, 2017: 48). This manuscript comes from the West Javanese tradition as it is written on gebang leaf, like the other Sang Hyang Hayu manuscripts known from West Java.

The opening lines of the text of Sang Hyang Hayu in the manuscripts MSS Jav 53 t and MSS Jav 53 gg, written on lontar, are essentially identical to that found in MSS Jav 105, which is written on gebang leaf, and all other known texts of Sang Hyang Hayu also start in the same way. It can therefore be concluded that the two copies of the Sang Hyang Hayu text found in MSS Jav 53, and written in Buda script and Javanese script on lontar (and therefore both originating from the Javanese cultural milieu of Central and East Java ), are the only two known copies of this text from a manuscript tradition outside West Java.

Beginning of Sang Hyang Hayu in Buda script, incised on lontar (palmyra leaf): Om̐ Avighnam astu nāma siḍəm· ø ndaḥ saṁ hyaṁ hayu hikaṁ hajarakna mami riṅ vaṁ kadi kita, kunaṁ deyanta humiḍəpā... British Library, MSS Jav 53 t, f. 1v 

Beginning of Sang Hyang Hayu in (coastal) Javanese script, incised on lontar (palmyra leaf): Om̐ Avighnam astu nama. ṅdaḥ saṁ hyaṁ hayu hajarakna mami (- -) kadi kita, kunaṁ deyanta humiḍəp·... British Library, MSS Jav 53 gg, f. 2v   

Beginning of Sang Hyang Hayu in Old West Javanese quadratic script, written in ink on gebang leaf: //ø// Om̐ Avignam astu //ø// nḍaḥ saṁ hyaṁ yu Ikaṁ Ajarakna mami riṅ vaṁ kaḍi kita, kunəṁ deyanta humiḍəpā...  British Library, MSS Jav 105, f. 1v   

Munawar Holil and Aditia Gunawan (2010: 140-141) have identified five Sang Hyang Hayu manuscripts in the National Library in Jakarta. Two more are held in the Kabuyutan (hermitage) of Ciburuy, at Garut in West Java, which have been digitised through the Endangered Archives Project EAP280 (EAP280/1/2/5 and EAP280/1/2/3). The text of Sang Hyang Hayu was edited by Undang A. Darsa in his master's thesis in 1998, based on three manuscripts in the National Library of Indonesia. The most recent research by Aditia Gunawan (2023) listed 12 copies of Sang Hyang Hayu held in collections worldwide. The two lontar manuscripts described above, MSS Jav 53 t and MSS Jav gg, now bring the total number of copies of this text to 14, while also showing that the 'Great Book' Sang Hyang Hayu circulated not only in the western part of Java, but also further east in the island.

Agung Kriswanto and Aditia Gunawan, Librarians, National Library of Indonesia

[This blog post was translated by Annabel Gallop from the Indonesian original, which can be read  here]

The two authors of this blog - (left) Aditia Gunawan and (right) Agung Kriswanto - with manuscripts of Sang Hyang Hayu in the Reading Room of the National Library of Indonesia, Jakarta.

References
Acri, A. (2017). Dharma Pātañjala: A Śaiva Scripture from Ancient Java : Studied in the Light of Related Old Javanese and Sanskrit Texts. Second Edition. Śata-Piṭaka Series 654. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan.
Aditia Gunawan (2023). Sundanese Religion in the 15th century: Philological Study based on the Śikṣā Guru, Sasana Mahaguru, and the Siksa Kandaṅ Karəsian. Ph.D Thesis, EPHE-PSL, Paris.
Kartika Setyawati, Kuntara Wiryamartana & Willem van der Molen. (2002). Katalog Naskah Merapi-Merbabu Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia. Yogyakarta: Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Kuntara Wiryamartana & Molen, Willem van der (2001). The Merapi-Merbabu manuscripts A Neglected Collection. Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land-En Volkenkunde, 157(1), 51–64.
Munawar Holil dan Aditia Gunawan (2010). ‘Membuka Peti Sunda Kuna di Perpustakaan Nasional RI: Upaya Rekatalogisasi’. In: Sundalana 9. Bandung: Pusat Studi Sunda.
Ricklefs, M.C., P. Voorhoeve and Annabel Teh Gallop (2014). Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain: a catalogue of manuscripts in Indonesian languages in British public collections. New Edition with Addenda et Corrigenda. Jakarta: Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia, Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia. [Includes a facsimile edition of Ricklefs & Voorhoeve 1977.]
Undang Ahmad Darsa (1998). ‘Sang Hyang Hayu: Kajian filologi naskah bahasa Jawa Kuno di Sunda pada abad XVI’. Master's thesis, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung.

 

The British Library exceptionally holds four significant 15th-century manuscripts in the hand of the prominent Persian calligrapher, Jaʻfar Tabrizi (Baysunghuri), copied between 1420 and 1435.

Originally from Tabriz, Jaʻfar was trained by the canoniser of nastaʻliq script, Mir ʻAli b. Hasan Tabrizi or his son, to became one of the most influential figures in the development of the script. He was already a skillful scribe when around 1420 he was appointed as head of the celebrated atelier of the bibliophile Prince Baysunghur (1397–1433) in Herat.

The British Library manuscripts penned by Jaʻfar are the complete Khamsa of Nizami (Or. 12087), dated 1420; Tarikh of Hamza Isfahani (Or. 2773), dated 1431; Makhzan al-Asrar of Nizami (Or. 11919), dated 1435; and an undated Divan of Kamal Khujandi (Or. 15395). None of these four manuscripts have received the attention they deserve in the West nor in Iran, except for a few succinct mentions in scholarly publications[1].  This is a brief introduction to the little-studied Divan of Kamal Khujandi.

Fig. 1. Opening illumination of the Divan of Kamal Khujandi, copied by Ja‘far Baysunghuri, undated (British Library, Or. 15395, f. 3r). Public domain

Kamal al-Din Masʻud Khujandi

Born in Khujand in Greater Iran (today’s Tajikistan) around 1320, Kamal al-Din Masʻud Khujandi was a renowned Persian poet, whose poems are remarkable for his delicate imagination, subtle similes, and his style in lyrical poems. He was contemporary with several significant Persian poets, who were famous for their innovative verses in the ghazal genre (lyric poetry) in the 14th century; namely, Khvaju Kirmani (1290–1349), ʻImad al-Din Faqih Kirmani (d. 1371), Salman Savaji (1309–1376) and above all Hafiz Shirazi (1315–1390). Prince Baysunghur commissioned poems of all those poets to be edited and copied for his library[2].

In his Tazkira al-Shu‘ara’ (Biographies of the Poets), Daulatshah Samarqandi describes Kamal’s poetry as mystical and passionate. He was indeed a mystical figure and unlike other poets of his time such as Khvaju Kirmani, who in pursuit of patrons praised every courtly and Sufi authority in his poems, Kamal exceptionally composed almost no panegyrical verses in his life[3]. Although the Jalayirid Sultan Husayn (r. 1374–82) patronised him by ordering a khanqah (Sufi lodge) be erected for him, the poet never joined the Sultan’s court and resided in his lodge in Tabriz until the end of his life.

The earliest copy of his poetry is dated 1398, which is preserved in the Astan Qods Library (MS. 4739)[4].  The British Library copy (Or. 15395) is unfortunately undated, but was certainly produced in the first half of the 15th century. Despite being an early copy, it has never been used in any of the numerous editions of Kamal’s Divan published since 1958. The reason for this manuscript remaining neglected is probably because it had been misidentified as the Divan of Kamal al-Din Isma‘il (1173–1237), who was also a distinguished poet, but lived over a century prior to Kamal Khujandi.

The British Library Manuscript

Prince Baysunghur’s copy of the Divan of Kamal Khujandi is bound in an early 19th-century binding of dark brown leather. It is decorated with a cusped oval centrepiece and two small pendants, stamped on leather of lighter colour, with the doublures of plain red leather. Its handmade, burnished paper is of light chickpea colour, medium thickness, flexible and soft. The text is arranged in two columns and 17 lines to a page, with rulings in gold and lapis blue, as found in majority of Baysunghuri manuscripts. The initial 13 folios have been repaired and remounted on thick handmade sheets, which is slightly darker and thicker than the original paper. The book title, written in a later hand on f. 1v and dated 1806, incorrectly states Divan-i Kamal Isma‘il al-shahir bih Khallaq al-Ma‘ani (The Divan of Kamal Isma‘il known as The Creator of Meaning). The second folio bears memoranda on birth dates of a 19th-century family.

The opening (f. 3r, fig. 1) presents an oval shamsa with pointed ends, beautifully illuminated with palmette and arabesque motifs in gold, dark red and black on a ground that was once lapis blue, but is washed out now. The central ground is black with washed out red arabesque vines, on which there is a cartouche and two large pendants in gold. The inscriptions on them are almost illegible, except for the traces on the upper pendant, which reads Divan-i Kamal.

Fig. 2: Opening illumination of the Shahnama and Khamsa, copied by Muhammad b. Mutahhar, 833/1430 (Malek Library, MS 6031).  By permission of the Malek National Library and Museum

We know of more than 30 manuscripts produced for Baysunghur in Herat, among which only one other manuscript bears a pointed oval ex libris: a dual-text manuscript at the Malek Library (MS no. 6031), containing the Shahnama of Firdausi and the Khamsa of Nizami, dated 1430 (fig. 2)[5].  The illuminated heading (fig. 3) of our Divan is similarly damaged with damp, where the blue is washed out and only the black and gold have survived. The colophon is signed by Jaʿfar Tabrizi (f. 182v, fig. 4) with his sobriquet Baysunghuri: علی ید العبد الضعیف جعفر البایسنغری (In the hand of the slave, the weak, Jaʻfar al-Baysunghuri)

Fig. 3. The illuminated heading of the Divan of Kamal Khujandi, copied by Ja‘far Baysunghuri, undated (British Library, Or. 15395, f. 3v). Public domain

Fig. 4. Ja‘far Baysunghuri's signature in the colophon of the Divan of Kamal Khujandi, undated (British Library, Or. 15395, f. 182v). Public domain

There is not much known about the peregrination of this manuscript, but the two seal impressions on the opening (3r) and colophon page (182v) reveal that the manuscript belonged to Mahdi al-Musavi al-Safavi [Kashmiri] around 1884 (مهدی الموسوی الصفوی ۱۳۰۲). He was the author of several books of religious studies in Persian and Arabic and died in April 1892. After him, the manuscript was in the possession of Nasir al-Mulk in 1911 (هوالله ناصرالملک نایب‌ السلطنه ۱۳۲۹). Abu’l-Qasim Nasir al-Mulk Shirazi (1856–1927) was a member of Nasir al-Din Shah’s consultative council and the regent of Ahmad Shah Qajar. Nasir al-Mulk was the first Iranian to study at Oxford University (1879, Balliol College), where he perfected his Latin and Greek. He translated The Merchant of Venice and Othello into Persian for the first time. Still in Iran around 1911, the manuscript was purchased at Bonhams sale by the British Library in 1997. 

Fig. 5. Seals of Mahdi al-Musavi al-Safavi and Nasir al-Mulk (British Library, Or. 15395, f. 182v). Public domain

Dating the Manuscript

There is no information on the place and date of completion, but a comparison of the shamsa might help dating the BL copy. The aforementioned Malek Library manuscript (MS no. 6031) with the pointed oval ex libris was initiated soon after the Preface to the Baysunghur’s Shahnama was composed by the Timurid court historiographer Hafiz Abru in 1426. The preface starts with two couplets from the Divan of Kamal Khujandi.

On the other hand, the illuminated heading of the Divan of Kamal (f. 1v. fig. 3) closely resembles an illuminated heading in Baysunghur’s Divan of Khvaju Kirmani, copied in 1426 (Malek Library, MS. 5963), with the same colour palette: red, black, gold and (washed out) lapis blue, which was not a common colour palette in other codices in Prince’s corpus. Furthermore, the decoration of the central cartouche and two pendants within the pointed oval medallion of the Divan of Kamal suggests that it was done no later than 1426, as it was not a favoured design after that date when the atelier created a different emblematic ex libris for its use. Examples of similar central pieces in Baysunghuri manuscripts are found as early as 1420 in the Khamsa of Nizami (Or. 12087, fig.6) and as late as 1425 in a dual-text codex containing the Zafarnama of Shami and Zayl-i Zafarnama of Hafiz Abru (Suleymaniye Library, Nuruosmaniye 3267)[6].  It is almost certain that the British Library manuscript was produced sometime between 1420 and 1426. Following the scribe’s active years helps narrow this spectrum further down.

Fig. 6. Opening shamsa of the Khamsa of Nizami, 823/1420 (British Library, Or. 12087, f. 1r). Public domain

Jaʿfar was occupied with the Khamsa of Nizami in 1420, the Khusrau u Shirin of Nizami in 1421 (St Petersburg Institute of Oriental Studies, B-132), the Divan of Hasan Dihlavi in 1422 (Majles Library, MS no. 4017), the undated Divan of Hafiz around 1425 (TIEM, MS no. 1923), the Sirr al-asrar in 1426 (Chester Beatty, Ar. 4183), the Gulistan of Saʿdi in 1427 (Chester Beatty, Per. 119). He then began the three-year great project of copying the famous Baysunghur’s Shahnama (Golestan Palace, MS. 716) in 1427, while also working on the Nuzhat al-Arvah (current location unknown). Given his responsibilities as the head of the library-atelier and the supervisor of artistic and architectural projects at the court, Jaʿfar might have copied it around 1423 and 1424, the years from which we have no manuscript penned by him. At any case, the British Library Divan of Kamal Khujandi is a valuable source not only for its artistic traits of calligraphy and illumination, but also as an early witness to the text.

Dr Shiva Mihan, Washington University in St. Louis

 

Bibliographical Notes

[1] I have discussed the Khamsa, Tarikh-i Isfahani and Divan of Kamal Khujandi in my PhD dissertation (Cambridge University, 2018), along with some mentions of the posthumously-completed Makhzan al-Asrar. The Tarikh-i Iṣfahani, Or. 2773, has been discussed briefly by Tom Lentz, Painting at Herat under Baysunghur ibn Shah Rukh (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1985): 128. Alison Ohta has discussed its binding in her PhD thesis: Covering the Book: Bindings of the Mamluk period, 1250–1516 CE (S.O.A.S., University of London, 2012). It has also been mentioned briefly in Roxburgh, D.J. The Persian Album, 1400–1600: from dispersal to collection (New Haven, 2005): 336, n. 68; Thackston, W.M. Album Prefaces and Other Documents on the History of Calligraphers and Painters (Leiden, Boston, Cologne, 2001): 45, n. 22; and Lentz & Lowry Lentz, T.W. & G.D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian art and culture in the fifteenth century (Los Angeles, 1989): 369.

[2] Baysunghur’s copies of the mentioned poets are: Kulliyyat of Khvaju Kirmani (Malek Library, MS no. 5963), Kulliyyat of ‘Imad al-Din Faqih Kirmani (Bodleian Library, Elliott 210), selected poems of Salman Savaji (Astan Qods, MS no. 10399) and Divan of Ḥafiẓ (TIEM, MS no. 1923).

[3] For Khujandi’s relationship with Ḥafiẓ, see Losensky, P.E. “Kamal Ḵojandi” (2010), Iranicaonline. Also see Daulatshah Samarqandi, Taẕkirat al-shuʻarāʾ, ed. E.G. Browne (Tehran, 1382/2004): 325–31. For more details of Khujandi’s life, see Lewisohn, L. “The life and times of Kamal Khujandi”, ed. M.E. Subtelny, Journal of Turkish Studies, 18 (1994): 163–77. On his accusation of stealing Hasan Dihlavi’s style and poems, ssee Ṣafā, Ẕ. Tārīkh-i adabīyyāt dar Īrān, 4 vols (Tehran, 1369/1990): 1134.

[4] Other early copies include MS. 339/1, Majles Library and MS. 266, Sepahsalar Library both dated 1418; MS. 9475, the Majles Library, dated 1421, and a copy in Tashkent Institute of Oriental Studies, dated 1422, Shiraz; Supplément Persan 742, BNF, dated 1424; and MS. 362, Golestan Palace Library, dated 1432. The British Library holds yet another early copy of the same work (Or. 8193), which is dated 1436.

[5] A study of the Malek manuscript is found in Mihan, S. “The Baysunghuri manuscript in the Malek Library”, Shahnama Studies III: The reception of the Shahnama, ed. C.P. Melville & G. Van den Berg (Leiden, Boston, 2018): 373–419.

[6] For the Khamsa of Niẓami (Or. 12087), see Brend, Barbara, Perspectives on Persian Painting: Illustrations to Amir Khusrau's Khamsah: 56–57, and De Blois, Francois, Persian Literature - A Bio-Bibliographical Survey: Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period, (2004): 484–85.

 

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