Asian and African studies blog

The British Library’s Ottoman Turkish manuscript holdings include nearly 2000 volumes. Many of these are notable for the contents of the texts that they contain, such as the Divan-i Kadi Burhaneddin, or the lavish artistic efforts they attest, such as the Nusretname. Others hold the reader’s attention less, at least on first sight. These, of course, can be just as interesting as the more famous, more luxurious volumes with whom they share the Library’s stacks. Some even hold little treats waiting to be recovered. Or 7745, the Divan-i Bîçâre, is one such volume.

A page of poetry from the Divan-i Bîçâre. (Divan-i Bîçâre, Istanbul?, 18th-early 19th century. Or 7745, f 41r)

An 18^th- or early 19^th-century volume, the Divan is a collection of the poetry of a 17^th century Ottoman poet named Abdullah ibn-i Şaban who went by the mahlas Abdî before settling on Bîçâre (Helpless, Without Remedy). From a quick look through the book, it is a collection of largely religious or Sufi poetry copied in a talik hand.

The acquisition slip, including brief description of the Divan-i Bîçâre. (Acquisition slip for Divan-i Bîçâre, London, 1960s?). 

The acquisition slip attached to the volume notes that Bursalı Mehmet Tahir’s Osmanlı Müellifleri describes Bîçâre as being the “halife of Dizdarzade Ahmet Efendi of Balıkesir, the successor of the well-known Celveti saint Hüdayi Mehmet Efendi [Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi] of Üsküdar ... and was murşid to Atpazarı Osman Efendi and to Selami Ali Efendi.” The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü of Ahmet Yesevî Üniversitesi quoted above (the hyperlink for his biography) provides more information on Bîçâre, relying largely on the famed late Ottoman biographer and chronicler Mehmet Süreyya’s research. It explains that his father, Şaban Dede, was the Zakirbaşı (the Sufi order member leading the congregation in zikir or dhikr, ذكر) to Hüdayi’s Celvetî Order and a great scholar of Ottoman music. He set Hüdayi’s ilahiler to music (“bestelenmiş”) while also writing poetry of his own under the mahlas Zakiri. Bîçâre also had a sister, but we have no information about her name or the path her life took.

Şaban Dede took great care with his son Abdullah’s education, instructing him in or ensuring his tuition of Arabic, Persian, and the Islamic sciences. Bîçâre made a name for himself as a Sufi poet of great skill in rhetoric, oratory and preaching. He first worked in Manisa before returning to Istanbul as the Şeyh of the Ali Paşa Dergahı. He remained in the Celveti order and composed poetry throughout his life, but the only work he is known to have left is his Divan. Bîçâre passed away in Üsküdar in 1068 AH (1657 CE) and his grave can be found in the Karacaahmet Cemetery in this district of the city.

Or 7745 might seem like one of the hundreds of divavin and other collections of poetry that the Library holds, one penned by a poet with an interesting history. But the Sözlüğü immediately points us to why it is important, noting that only two copies of Bîçâre’s Divan are known: one in Bursa’s İnebey Yazma Eserleri Kütüphanesi, and the other in Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi’s Yazma Bağışlar Bölmü. This, then, is a third, long-lost cousin to the two documented volumes, an important addition to the corpus of extent work from which we can learn more about Bîçâre’s oeuvre.

The opening of the Divan along with an additional introductory note. (Divan-i Bîçâre, Istanbul?, 18th-early 19th century. Or 7745, f 1v)

The text of Or 7745 makes it clear that this was far from a luxury copy. It is bereft of the sort of illuminated, colourful unvan that we would expect from a more expensive copy. The 45 folios have no small number of additional du-beyitler, likely the copyist themselves correcting the work. The lack of a colophon means that we don’t know who that might have been, when they worked, or where. A small note at the start of the text, likely also by the copyist, provides some biographical information about Bîçâre that largely accords with what we see in the Sözlüğü, but adds that “Sultan Mehmet vaiziyken vefat etmiştir rahmet Allah aleyhi” (“He died while the preacher of Sultan Mehmet, may God have mercy on him”). This indicates that the copy is from after 1657 CE, year of Bîçâre’s death. There is no indication from the sources at hand that this final attributed profession of his is true. Indeed, the notice is slightly tortuous in describing Bîçâre’s appointments and those of his father, which might indicate that the author of this information might have got things a bit mixed up.

Acquisition note recording the date of purchase of the manuscript from Ibrahim Elias Géjou on 11 May 1912. (Divan-i Bîçâre, Istanbul?, 18th-early 19th century. Or 7745, fly-leaf)

A more pressing question, however, comes to my mind: where has this volume been hiding? Well, since 11 May 1912 it is has been in the collection of the British Museum, and then British Library. It was purchased on this date from I. Elias Géjou, a well-known Paris-based supplier of manuscripts to the British Museum. Géjou, according to the British Museum’s website, was an Iraqi-Armenian dealer with French citizenship who dealt largely in Mesopotamian antiquities pre-1914. The Museum claims he only dealt in Mesopotamian materials before this date, but Or 7745 makes it clear that his gaze went beyond Iraq earlier than that when it came to manuscripts.

How did Géjou get hold of this volume? Most of the work conducted on Géjou’s life and work focus on his trade in ancient Mesopotamian works, especially those featuring Cuneiform. Dr. Nadia Ait Said-Ghanem of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study has explored this aspect of Géjou’s legacy in much detail (see both her blog and a recently published paper). We, however, will need to turn to the manuscript itself for clues.

Two inscriptions at the start of the Divan including the ownership statement of Abdülhak. (Divan-i Bîçâre, Istanbul?, 18th-early 19th century. Or 7745, f 1r)

Or 7745 contains a number of inscriptions, two which start our search on f 1r. They are in hands that differ from one another and that of the main text. One that goes parallel to the spine of the work, in rık’a, appears to be a short poem addressed to “Beyrut Valisi Nasuhî Bey.” I had originally read it as "Mutassarıfı," but Prof. Jun Akiba kindly corrected me with a more appropriate interpretation. It is undated, but we know that Abdülhalik Nasuhî Bey was the Vali of Beirut between August 1894 and March 1897, which makes it likely that the poem was written in the 1890s. It seems probably that Nasuhî Bey, himself a poet, would have seen this, but did it mean that the book itself was in his possession?

A second inscription on the bottom left corner of the page, in unpointed Divani script, is indeed dated. I find much of the inscription quite difficult to read, but thanks to the very generous support of Dr. Mykhaylo Yakubovych, Dr. Şeyma Benli and Prof. Jun Akiba, who responded quickly to my Facebook post, we know what it says. The text reads “Min e’azzu mümtelekâti’l-fakîr Abdülhakk el-kadî bi-askeri Anadolu bâ-pâye-i Rumeli 55,” an inscription indicating that this book is the property of Abdulhak, Kazasker of Anatolia and Rumelia in (12)55 AH, or 1839-40 CE. This likely refers to Abdülhak Molla, who held a dizzying array of titles relating to both hekimbaşlık (the post of Chief Physician) and kazaskerlik (Chief Judge) for various cities and administrative units up to and including Anatolia and Rumelia throughout the 1830s to 50s, until his death in 1854 CE.

The two birth notices for es-Seyyit Mehmet Arif and Fatime. (Divan-i Bîçâre, Istanbul?, 18th-early 19th century. Or 7745, f 45v)

The last page of the work gives us a final clue about the manuscript’s ownership and production. Under the heading “Tarih-i Mehmet Arif İbnü’s-Seyitü’l-Hacc Mehmet Sait” (“the History of Mehmet Arif İbnü’s-Seyitü’l-Hacc Mehmet Sait”) there are two birth notices. The first, dated 7 pm on Friday, the “gurre” of Şa’ban (1^st of the month of Şa’ban) 1238 AH, or 12 April 1823 CE, announces the birth of “my son, es-Seyyit Mehmet Arif” (“oğlum es-Seyyit Mehmet Arif dünyaya teşrif eyledi”). From the title of the page, it’s clear that it’s es-Seyitü’l-Hac Mehmet Sait who is writing this notice, or having it written on his behalf. Just below it is another one, this time announcing the birth of his daughter Fatime in the morning of Saturday 9 Ramazan 1239 AH, or 7 May 1824 CE, about 13 months after her brother. In this notice, Fatime’s mother Şerife Emine Hanım is identified as es-Seyitü’l-Hacc Mehmet Sait’s wife (“karım”).

From these two inscriptions, we know that the work would have been in the possession of es-Seyitü’l-Hacc Mehmet Sait at least until the mid-1820s. It’s hard to tell exactly where he might have lived, but the fact that the inscription is in Ottoman Turkish, not Arabic, and the later ownership of the work by Abdülhak Molla, makes me think that this might have been a household in Istanbul.

What can we say from all of this? We know that Bîçâre died in 1657 CE and that Mehmet Arif was born in 1823 CE, so the volume must have been produced at some point between these two dates. Moreover, it might have been in Abdülhalik Nasuhî's possession as late as 1897 CE, possibly in Beirut, where a fan of the Vali inscribed it with a brief poem. But at some point over those 15 years between Abdülhalik’s tenure and the manuscript’s purchase by the British Museum, it made its way into the possession of M. Géjou. More research on his pre-World War One dealings with texts is needed before we can fill in those gaps, and the travels of this unassuming volume. Until then, however, we can still raise a glass of sherbet to the recovery of a third copy of Bîçâre’s Divan, and a belated cheer to the births of Mehmet Arif and Fatime, whatever might have become of them.

Dr. Michael Erdman, Head, Middle East and Central Asia

For over three centuries scholars have been intrigued with the life and poetry of the Mughal princess, Zebunnisa (1639-1702), the eldest daughter of Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707). True to her name which means ‘Ornament of Women’, she was learned, and an active patron of poets and scholars. She collected books and corresponded with prominent Sufis of the time.[1]  That she would have composed verses in Persian would have been natural since many elite women in Persianate societies did so, but the attribution to her of a substantial body of poetry in the form of a dīvān, comprising about five hundred ghazals and some other poems, actually dates to a few decades after her death and later. In keeping with the spirit of the spurious and suggestive portrait below that was meant to represent Zebunnisa, along with poems attributed to her, over time her biography was spiced up with the inclusion of scurrilous stories of romantic escapades.[2]

A Bejeweled Maiden with a Parakeet (Metropolitan Museum of Art 2011.585)
Public domain

The corpus of poems known to be composed by Zebunnisa is known as the Dīvān-i Makhfī (makhfī means 'the hidden one'). This was thought to be an appropriate penname (takhallus), a common convention in premodern Persian and Persianate poetry, for a Mughal princess. It is true that female poets particularly used pennames such as makhfī, nihānī, and ‘ismat, and often there were multiple poets who wrote under the same name. Among Mughal women, Salima Begum (granddaughter of Humayun by his daughter Gulrukh Begum), Salima Sultan Begum (Akbar’s wife), Nur Jahan (Jahangir’s wife), and Zebunnisa are all said to have chosen the penname Makhfī, but there are only a few lines attributed to the first two. To complicate matters, there were also at least two male poets who also wrote as Makhfī: one was Makhfi Rashti, who flourished in Safavid Iran in the sixteenth century, and the other was Makhfi Khurasani, an Iranian émigré in Mughal India in the seventeenth century.[3]  A close examination of the poems would suggest that some or many of them were by the second of these two male Makhfis and not by Zebunnisa. This, however, is a complicated philological problem that cannot be solved here.

Writing a few decades after she lived, Mughal men of letters of the mid-eighteenth century such as Azad Bilgrami in his biographical dictionary, Yad-i bayz̤ā (IOL Islamic 3966, ff. 112-263), and Lachhmi Narayan Shafiq in his Gul-i ra‘nā (IO Islamic 3692 and 3693 and Or. 2044), only mentioned a few verses by Zebunnisa Begum.


Entry on Zebunnisa, Lachhmi Narayan Shafiq, Gul-i ra‘nā (British Library Or. 2044, ff. 79v-80r)
Public domain

Interestingly, it is in early nineteenth century Iran that a Qajar prince, Mahmud Mirza, who in his Nuql-i majlis, first mentions seeing a copy of Zebunnisa's dīvān that someone had brought to Iran from India. By the nineteenth century, anecdotes about her witty exchanges and dalliances with male poets appeared in works such as Muhammad Riza Abu’l-Qasim Tabataba’s miscellany, Naghmah-yi ‘andalīb (British Library Or. 1811), as well as in published anthologies of Persian and Urdu poetry composed by women. By the end of the century, several short biographies of her became popular which provided romanticized narratives of her as a learned but lonely princess who ended her life as a prisoner due to her father’s cruelty. As far as her poetry was concerned, serious scholars such as Shibli Numani and Abdul Muqtadir did not accept the attribution of the Dīvān-i Makhfī to Zebunnisa.

The British Library Or. 311, an eighteenth-century Mughal copy, is the oldest manuscript of the Dīvān-i Makhfī. The text of this manuscript forms the basis of the most recent edition of the poems.[4]

Dīvān-i Makhfī, 18th century (British Library Or. 311, ff. 19v–20)
Public domain

This manuscript includes these autobiographical verses from a ghazal:

garche man Layla-asasam dil chu Majnun dar nava-st
sar ba-sahra mizadam likan haya zanjir-i pa-st …
dukhtar-i shahim likan ru ba-faqr avarda’im
zeb o zinat sukhtim o nam-i ma Zebunnisa-st

Although I am Layla-like, my heart is plaintive Majnun-like,
I traverse the desert, but my feet are in chains of modesty.
I am a king’s daughter, but I am beset with poverty,
I discarded all ornaments—my name is Ornament of Women!

These verses do seem to be in Zebunnisa’s authentic voice.

The first printed edition of the Dīvān-i Makhfī appeared as a lithograph in 1268/1852 in Kanpur:


Dīvān-i Makhfī. Kanpur, 1268/1852 (British Library VT138(g))
Public domain

The book was popular and was reprinted frequently in Kanpur, Lucknow and Lahore, most famously by the Naval Kishor Press in 1293/1876, in whose edition the author of the book is described as Makhfi Rashti, the Iranian émigré poet, an attribution that disappeared in subsequent editions.

Two small volumes of English translations of Zebunnisa’s poems appeared, astonishingly, in the same year, 1913. One of them was in the series, “Wisdom of the East”, translated by Magan Lal and Jessie Duncan Westbrook.


The Diwan of  Zeb-un-Nissa, translated by Magan Lal and Jessie Duncan Westbrook. New York, 1913
Photograph from the author’s library

In the introduction, Westbrook provides some enigmatic information about the Dīvān-i Makhfī’s transmission history that is not corroborated by  other sources: “In 1724, thirty-five years after her death, what could be found of her scattered writings were collected … [The book] contained four hundred and twenty-one ghazals and several rubais. In 1730 other ghazals were added.” A contemporary reviewer wrote in appreciation of the translations: “The book is particularly valuable at the moment when a great movement is drawing the women of the nations into closer touch and fuller understanding.”[5]  Another reviewer emphasized the mystical quality of the poems: “Miss Westbrook supplies an interesting biographical sketch and some useful remarks on the poetry. She is mistaken, however, in saying that the poems have a special Indian flavor of their own, derived from ‘the Akbar tradition of the unification of religions.’  The doctrine that, notwithstanding the difference of rites and objects of worship, all religions are essentially one occurs repeatedly in Sūfī literature of a much earlier period.”[6]  Given the ambiguity with regard to the object of devotion inherent in the premodern Persian ghazal, it is not surprising that the poems were read in a predetermined mystical way.

The second book, The Tears of Zebunnisa, was published in the same year and had translations by Paul Whalley, a retired Indian civil servant who also translated some quatrains of Omar Khayyam.


The Tears of Zebunnisa, translated by Paul Whalley. London, 1913 (British Library 757.aa.9)
Public domain

In a poetic invocation, Whalley addresses the Mughal princess, who “belonged to the mystical school of which the most eminent exponents were Fariduddin Attar and Jalaluddin Rumi”:

INVOCATION
Rise from the far dim East and the mouldered pomp of the Moguls,
Daughter of Aurangzeb, priestess and martyr of Love!
Dawn as a lone bright star in the infinite gloom of the heavens,
Throbbing with love and shedding around thee the music of night.
Sweet as the voice of the bulbul that whispers its woes to the twilight
Come to us out of the ages the echoes of songs thou hast sung.

Like other translators of his time Whalley also preferred a romantic pseudo-mystical reading of Persian poetry. In addition to forty-nine translated poems, he also included five “imitations” and seven “examples of Persian metres”, showing his deep engagement with Persian poetry. His translation of the entire Dīvān-i Makhfī, whose unpublished manuscript is a typescript held by the British Library (IO Islamic 4587), was an immense project that included his fascination with the metres of Persian poetry. Below is his rendering of Zebunnisa’s autobiographical poem discussed above:

Typescript copy of Paul Whalley's translation (British Library IO Islamic 4587, f. 94)
Public domain

Whalley’s translations were literal and furnished with extensive notes. He also prepared a detailed concordance of metaphors and allusions to people and places in the Dīvān-i Makhfī. He considered Zebunnisa to be an important poet of the Persian tradition because of  “her sex and rank and social environment” as well as “the intrinsic beauty” of her poems.

Even if Zebunnisa did not compose all the poems in the Dīvān-i Makhfī, her persona as a poet has been crucial to bolstering the existence of a female textual tradition that is ephemeral at best until the twentieth century. In an interesting parallel with her poetry, the site of her final resting place has also been a matter of uncertainty. Although in the mid-nineteenth century Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan recorded in his Ās̱ār al-sanādīd that a railway line was built over her grave near the Kabuli Gate in Old Delhi, there is also a small memorial tomb in Lahore, tucked away in a bustling commercial part of the city near Chauburji, that has been connected to her name. It seems as if Zebunnisa is fated to remain a mystery in more ways than one.

Zebunnisa's supposed tomb in Lahore.
Photograph by the author

Sunil Sharma, Professor of Persianate and Comparative Literature, Boston University

Notes

[1] Muzaffar Alam, The Mughals and the Sufis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021), 301-3.
[2] See my article, “Forbidden Love, Persianate Style: Re-reading Tales of Iranian Poets and Mughal Patrons,” Iranian Studies 42 (2009): 765-79.
[3] Ahmad Gulchin-Ma‘ani, Kārvān-i Hind (Mashhad: Astan-i Quds-i Razavi, 1369/1990), 1263-64.
[4] Divan-i Zebunnisa, ed. Mahindokht Seddiqiyan and Sayyed Abu Taleb Mir ‘Abedini (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1381/2002).
[5] The Indian Magazine and Review (January 1915), 62.
[6] The Athenaeum (August 9, 1913), 131.

Following the recent cyber-attack on the British Library, the Library has now implemented an interim service which will enable existing Registered Readers to access some of our printed books and serials and a significant portion of our manuscripts. This service will be expanded further in the coming weeks. 

We understand how frustrating this recent period has been for everyone wishing to access our Asian and African Collections and we would like to thank you for your patience. We are continuing to work to restore our services, and you can read more about these activities in our Chief Executive's post to the Knowledge Matters blog. 

The Using the Library page on our temporary website provides general information on current Library services, and advice for those without an existing Reader Pass. Please read on for information about the availability of specific Asian and African collections. 

Printed books and serials 

You can now search for printed items using a searchable online version of our main catalogue of books and other printed material. Online and advance ordering is unavailable, so Registered Readers will need to collect a paper order form from staff in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room and fill in the required details. Please write the shelfmark exactly as it appears in the online catalogue. 

Only a small portion of the printed books and serials in the Asian and African Collection will be available for consultation in the Reading Room. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee availability of any printed items. Materials stored in Boston Spa are current unavailable, and items stored in our St. Pancras location might be in use by another Reader or restricted for other reasons. If you wish to gain greater assurance on the availability of a particular item before you visit us, please contact our Reference Services Team by emailing [email protected].

Manuscripts and archival documents 

Although the Library’s online catalogue of archives and manuscripts is not currently available, the Reference Services Team can assist with queries about these collections, checking paper catalogues and other sources. Please speak to the team in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room or email [email protected].  Some of our older printed catalogues have been digitised and made available online without charge. For quick access to the digitised catalogues of manuscript and archival material, or to online repositories of images, please make use of the links below:

Africa 

• Catalogue of the Ethiopic manuscripts in the British museum acquired since the year 1847 

East Asia 

Chinese 

• Union catalogue of Chinese rare books, including basic records for the pre-1912 printed holdings 
• UK Union catalogue of Chinese books, including the British Library holdings for Chinese material collected between approximately 1993 and 2014. The old interface can be found at a website maintained by Oxford University.  
• Catalogue of Chinese printed books, manuscripts and drawings in the library of the British Museum, with a print version containing shelfmarks found in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room 
• Supplementary catalogue of Chinese books and manuscripts in the British Museum 
• The British Library has also digitised some of its card catalogues of Chinese-language printed books. These can be downloaded as a Zip file comprised of PDF scans of the cards using the Wade-Giles Romanization scheme (pre-1966 acquisitions) or using the Pinyin Romanization scheme (acquisitions from 1966 until 1993). 

Japanese 

• CiNii Books - National Institute of Informatics (NII), a bibliographic database service for material in Japanese academic libraries including 43,000+ British Library books and periodicals. Please use FA012954 in the Library ID field 

Korean 

• Korean Old and Rare Collection Information System, including information on and images of 92 of the Library’s Korean titles. 

Middle East and Central Asia 

• FIHRIST (Largely Persian, but also includes some Kurdish, Pashto, and Turkic materials) 

 Arabic 

• Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Orientalium Qui In Museo Britannico Asservantur (1838) Pars Secunda (Arabic) 
• Catalogue of Arabic books in the British Museum: Volume 1 Volume 2 Indexes  
• A descriptive list of the Arabic manuscripts acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum since 1894 
• Supplement to the catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts in the British Museum 
• A catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts in the Library of the India Office (Loth) 
• Catalogue of two collections of Persian and Arabic manuscripts preserved in the India office library 
• The Arabic Papyrology Database (search under Inventory Number “Lond.”) 
• Catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts in the Library of the India Office. (Vol. II). Fasc 2: Sufism and ethics; Fasc 3: Fiqh 

Armenian 

• A catalogue of the Armenian manuscripts in the British Museum 

Coptic 

• Catalogue of the Coptic manuscripts in the British Museum 
• PATHs, an ERC-funded project that includes information on British Library Coptic literary manuscripts, interspersed with information about manuscripts in other collections 

Hebrew  

• Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan manuscripts in the British museum Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3 

Persian 

• Rieu’s Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3 
• Catalogue of two collections of Persian and Arabic manuscripts preserved in the India office library 
• Catalogue of Persian manuscripts in the India Office Library (1903) 
• Storey’s Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts Volume III (Qur’anic Manuscripts) along with Guidance on usage   
• Catalogue of the library of the India Office. Vol. 2, Pt. 6, Persian books 
• Ursula Sims-Williams' Handlist of Islamic manuscripts acquired by the India Office Library 1938-1985 

Syriac  

• Catalogue of Syriac manuscripts in the British museum acquired since the year 1838 Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3   
• Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Orientalium Qui In Museo Britannico Asservantur (1838) Pars Prima (Syriac and Garshuni) 
• Handlist of Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum Acquired since 1899 

Turkish and Turkic  

• Catalogue of the Turkish manuscripts in the British Museum 

South Asia 

Early printed books:

• Full list of catalogues on South Asian printed books in the Library of the British Museum hosted by the Digital South Asia Library 
• Catalogue of 19th century publications in the Oriental and India Office Library 
• South Asia Union catalogue 
• Catalogue of the Library of the India Office, vol. 2, part 1: Sanskrit books Section 1 (A-G) Section 2 (H-K) Section 3 (K-R) Section 4 (S-Z) 
• Publications proscribed by the Government of India: a catalogue of the collections in the India Office Library and Records and the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books, British Library Reference Division. Shaw, Graham and Lloyd, Mary, 1985.
• Catalogue of the Pali printed books in the India Office Library, Raper, T. C. H., 1983. 

South Asian language manuscript catalogues:

Bengali and Assamese 

• Catalogue of the Bengali and Assamese manuscripts in the Library of the India Office 

Hindi, Panjabi and Hindustani

• Catalogue of the Hindi, Panjabi and Hindustani manuscripts in the library of the British Museum 

Marathi, Gujrati, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Pushtu and Sindhi 

• Catalogue of the Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Pushtu and Sindhi manuscripts in the library of the British Museum 

Oriya 

• Catalogue of the Oriya manuscripts in the Library of the India Office 

Pali 

• Pali manuscripts in the India Office Library 

Sanskrit and Prakrit 

• Catalogue of the Sanskrit manuscripts in the British Museum (1902) 
• Catalogue of the Sanskrit and Prakrit manuscripts in the Library of the India Office Parts 1-4 (1-2636) Parts 5-8 (2637-4203) 
• Catalogue of two collections of Sanskrit manuscripts preserved in the India Office Library (1903) 

Sinhalese 

• Catalogue of the Sinhalese manuscripts in the British Museum 

 Tibetan 

• Catalogue of the Tibetan manuscripts from Tun-huang in the India Office Library 

South-East Asia 

• Southeast Asia Library Group Newsletter, archive 2008-2023 

Burmese 

• A catalogue of the Burmese books in the British Museum, L. D. Barrett, 1913 
• Catalogue of Burmese printed books in the India Office Library, Kenneth Whitbread, 1969
• A hand-list of the manuscripts in Burmese collection in the British Library San San May, 2011
• India Office Library Burmese manuscripts in the British Library, San San May, 2019 
• Catalogue of the Burney Parabaiks in the India Office Library, Thaung Blackmore, 1985
• Catalogue of the Mandalay manuscripts in the India Office Library, Fausboll, 1897  
• Pali manuscripts in the India Office Library, 1882 
• Catalogue of the Pali printed books in the India Office Library, Raper, T. C. H., 1983. 

Thai 

• ‘Henry D. Ginsburg and the Thai Manuscripts Collection at the British Library and Beyond' 
• A guardian of Thai treasures: Henry Ginsburg (1940-2007) on the Asian and African Studies Blog 

Access to some archival and manuscript material is still restricted, but the majority of special collections held at St Pancras are now once again available. Our specialist archive and manuscripts catalogue is not online at the moment so you will need to come on-site to our Reading Rooms, where Reading Room staff will be able to help you search for what you need, and advise on its availability.

To place a request to see a manuscript or archival document, Registered Readers need to collect a paper order form from staff in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room and fill in the required details, including the shelfmark (manuscript number). The Library has created an instructional video on finding shelfmarks.  

Visual Arts 

The Print Room, located in the Asian and African Reading Room, is open by appointment only on Monday and Friday between 10.00 am-12.30 pm. Prints, drawings, photographs and related visual material in the Visual Arts collection can be consulted by appointment. Please contact the Visual Arts team via email (apac[email protected]) to check the availability of required items and to book an appointment. Please note that advanced booking is required. Restricted items including the Kodak Historical Collection, Fay Godwin Collection, William Henry Fox Talbot Collection are not currently available to Readers. 

• Mildred Archer’s Company Drawings in the India Office Library 
• Mildred Archer’s British Drawings in the India Office Library, Vol. 2: Official and Professional Artists 
• Mildred Archer’s Indian Popular Paintings in the India Office Library 

• Catalogue of Photographs is digitally available via the National Archives, including the Archaeological Survey of India, Stein Photographs, and architectural and topographical photographs relating to South Asia. This also includes the Kodak Historical Collection. 

Microfilms 

The Reference Services Team in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room has a list of microfilms of printed and manuscript materials. 

Digital resources 

A number of our early printed books are available on Google Books. 

We regret that our digitised manuscripts and electronic research resources are currently unavailable. Nevertheless, some of our digitised manuscripts are available on external platforms: 

East Asia 

• Academica Sinica’s Digital Atlas, including 120 antiquarian Chinese maps from the British Library
• EFEO’s collection of Chinese rubbings, including some of the British Library’s holdings 
• The Union Catalogue Database of Japanese Texts, including 56 digitised items from the British Library 
• Or.59.aa.1, Images of the Amakusa edition of the Heike Monogatari, Isoho Monogatari and Kinkushū
• The Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR), which includes 235 Japanese and Chinese prints of the Sino-Japanese War from the British Library 

Middle East 

• Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, including leaves of British Library Coptic papyri interwoven with images from other institutions  
• Ktiv (Manuscript Database of the National Library of Israel), including all digitised Hebrew manuscripts from the British Library
• Qatar Digital Library, including digitised Arabic manuscripts from the British Library

South Asia 

• Jainpedia, including digitised Jain manuscripts from the British Library

South-East Asia 

• South East Asia Digital Library, including a collection of digitised rare books from South East Asia held at the British Library 
• National Library Board, Singapore, digitised Malay manuscripts and Qur'ans, papers of Sir Stamford Raffles, and the accounts by Colin Mackenzie on Java held at the British Library
• Or 14844, Truyện Kiều (The tale of Kiều) by Nguyễn Du (1765-1820), the most significant poem in Vietnamese literature 
• Or 15227, an illuminated Qurʼan,19th century, from the east coast of the Malay Peninsula
• Or 16126, Letter from Engku Temenggung Seri Maharaja (Daing Ibrahim), Ruler of Johor, to Napoleon III, Emperor of France, dated 1857
• Mss Jav 89, Serat Damar Wulan with illustrations depicting Javanese society in the late 18th century
• Or 14734, Sejarah Melayu (Malay annals), dated 1873
• Or 13681, Burmese manuscript showing seven scenes of King Mindon's donations at various places during the first four years of his reign (1853-57) 
• Or 14178, Burmese parabaik (folding book) from around 1870 with 16 painted scenes of the Ramayana story with captions in Burmese 
• Or 13922, Thai massage treatise with illustrations, 19th century 
• Or 16101, Buddhist Texts, including the Legend of Phra Malai, with Illustrations of The Ten Birth Tales, dated 1894 
• Or 16797, Cat treatise from Thailand, with illustrations, 19th century 
• Or 4736, Khmer alphabet, handwritten by Henri Mouhot, c.1860-1 

• Images from Thai manuscripts on BL Images Online  
• Images from Burmese manuscripts and photographs on BL Images Online  

Visual Arts 

• ArtUK, which includes a subset for the British Library's collections including India Office oil paintings and sculptures
• Photographs including Archaeological Survey of India on BL Images Online
• Indian miniatures including the Johnson Collection on BL Images Online
• Natural History Drawings from South and South East Asia on BL Images Online
• Fay Godwin photographs on BL Images Online
• William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné, which includes digitised early photographs from the British Library and other institutions 

We thank you, once again, for your patience as we continue to work to restore our services. Please do check this blog and the temporary British Library website for further updates. 

A unique set of five folding books containing the story of Sang Sinchai in Thai language has recently been reunited after a separation of about 200 years. The manuscripts, dating to before 1796, contain a retelling of an older text that was lost or destroyed during the devastation of the former Thai capital Ayutthaya in 1767 in the war with Burma. The existence of this copy of the verse novel remained widely unknown until 1958 when Thai historian Khachon Sukkhaphanit (1913-78) examined manuscripts at the British Museum and identified three volumes of Sang Sinchai. In 1973, these three volumes were transferred from the British Museum, along with other books and manuscripts, to the newly-formed British Library.


Thai text written in yellow gamboge ink on black mulberry paper; third volume of Sang Sinchai. British Library, MSS Siamese 17/A, f. 7

The folding books discovered in 1958 are volumes one (Add MS 12261), two (Add MS 12262/A) and four (Add MS 12264). Volumes three and five were thought to be missing until recently when a photocopy of an undated, handwritten list by King Chulalongkorn’s private advisor Henry Alabaster  (1836-1884) came to light during an initiative to catalogue Thai backlog material. The list describes seventeen Thai manuscripts found in the former India Office Library, among which were the two “missing” volumes of Sang Sinchai.

The reunited set consists of five folding books made from black mulberry paper in differing sizes. The Thai text was written in yellow gamboge ink, without illustrations. The title on the first folio of volume one reads Sang Sinchai samut nu’ng (สังสินชัย สหมุดนึ่ง original spelling). The spelling in all five volumes is generally consistent with 18th-century Thai orthography. The entire text is written in klon verse, in the same hand in all volumes, with extensive descriptions of places, characters and their emotions. Only volume 3 has red lacquered covers with small flower decorations.

Complete set of five volumes containing the story of Sang Sinchai. British Library, Add MS 12261, Add MS 12262/A, Add MS 12264 and MSS Siamese 17/A-B

The provenance of the manuscript is partially known. Three volumes were acquired for the British Museum in January 1842 from Thomas Rodd, a London bookseller, as part of the collection of Scotsman Sir John MacGregor Murray (1745-1822, biographic details in this article).

Murray served in the British establishment in Bengal from 1770 to 1797 and was auditor general of Bengal. He never travelled to Burma, but his connection with Burma was through Dr Francis Buchanan who participated in an embassy to Amarapura in 1795 and published his observations  afterwards. On Murray’s request, Buchanan collected Burmese  and Thai manuscripts, with the assistance of a missionary resident in Ava, Father Vincentius Sangermano. Murray, a passionate collector and commissioner of mainly Persian and Arakanese manuscripts, brought his collection back to the UK when he returned from Bengal in 1797. After his death, Murray’s collection was split up: some manuscripts were purchased by the British Museum, others ended up in the India Office Library and the major part is now kept at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin in Germany.


Henry Alabaster’s description of volumes 3 and 5 in a photocopy of a “Catalogue of Siamese manuscripts in the Library of Her Majesty’s India Office” [no place, no date].

A colophon in volume 1 (Add MS 12261) mentions that the text was compiled after the siege of the “Great City” (เมื่องไหย่) to preserve the original text that had been lost or destroyed. The phrase “siege of the Great City” is thought to refer to the destruction of Ayutthaya in 1767, and the scribe as well as the patrons may have been war captives taken from Ayutthaya to Ava. The anonymous scribe states that “this ancient Mon story” (นิยายมอนแตกอนมา original spelling) was written down from memory. Another colophon on f. 42 of the second volume mentions two grandparents, Ta Khong and Yai Mun (ตาคง ยายมูน), who commissioned this manuscript. And a colophon on the last folio of volume 3 records that this volume was completed on “Saturday, ninth month, [uposatha day before] the 3rd quarter moon, year of the rat” corresponding to 20 August 1791.


Colophon in the first volume mentioning the loss of the original text during the “siege of the Great City” (second line). British Library, Add MS 12261, f.2

The text tells the story of King Senakut and his younger sister Keson Sumontha, who was abducted by the giant Yak Kumphan. The pair later had a daughter, Sri Suphan, whom Yak Kumphan lost in a gamble to the king of serpents. Senakut, distraught by the kidnapping of his sister, set up a hermitage in the forest where he met seven beautiful maidens who became his consorts. Six of them gave birth to sons, but the seventh consort, Pathuma, and her attendant Kraison gave birth to two very special sons. Pathuma’s child, Sang Sinchai, was born in a conch shell and with an ivory bow, and Kraison’s son Sing had the shape of a mythical lion.

The six other jealous consorts plotted to convince the king that the two strange sons were a bad omen, so he banished them and their mothers from the city. Growing up in the forest, the boys acquired super-human skills in addition to powers they were born with. One day, the king ordered his other six sons to search for Keson Sumontha who he could not forget. Being cowards, they looked for Sang Sinchai and Sing and tricked them into joining the search for their aunt. Sang Sinchai located Keson Sumontha, but she told him about her daughter Sri Suphan who lived with the serpent king. Sang Sinchai and Sing rescued both women and brought them back to the other six brothers who pushed Sang Sinchai down a water hole before taking the women to King Senakut. However, Keson Sumontha left her scarf at the spot and vowed that should she ever get it back, it meant Sang Sinchai was still alive.

After some time, a merchant brought Keson Sumontha’s scarf to the city. She implored the king to find Sang Sinchai in the forest. Senakut followed her wish and finally welcomed Sang Sinchai, Sing and their mothers back into the city. Sang Sinchai married Sri Suphan and became king while Senakut ordered the six other sons and their mothers to become the new king’s servants. Senakut, Keson Sumontha and Pathuma became ascetics.


Illustration of King Senakut’s city in a dramatised version of Sang Sinchai by Rama II, published in Bangkok, 1922. British Library, Siam.160, p. 471.

It is often assumed that Sang Sinchai is simply the Thai pronunciation of Sang Sinsai, a well-known work attributed to the 17th-century Lao scribe Pangkham. The Lao text is considered a masterpiece of Lao literature and is very popular across Laos thanks to the extensive research and publications of Maha Sila Viravong. He transcribed the story from palm leaf manuscripts for publication by the Kasuang Thammakan (1949) which formed the basis for numerous subsequent editions and translations into other languages. Lao Isan (Northeast Thai) and Thai versions of the story have been retold, researched and published by several Thai authors since the 1920s.

Mural depicting a scene from Sang Sinsai at Wat Sanuan Wari Phatthanaram in Khon Kaen Province, Thailand. Photo courtesy of Peter Whittlesey. Source: Sinxay.com 

However, the Thai text of Sang Sinchai in this manuscript differs significantly from the Lao and Lao Isan versions, as it features some different characters, with different names and a storyline inspired by an ancient legend of the Mon ethnic group with the title Sangada. The motif of a boy born with a conch shell also appears in a Buddhist tale entitled Suvannasankha Jātaka (Golden Conch Birth Story) belonging to the corpus of Paññāsa Jātaka.

The verse novel Sang Sinchai is little known today, despite the fact that it once inspired Thai kings and princes - King Rama II, King Rama III and Prince Naritsaranuwattiwong - to write dramatised adaptations of the story in the 19th and early 20th century.

Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian Collections
This article is an updated summary of “A Thai text of Sang Sinchai from the late Ayutthaya era” in Manuscript Cultures and Epigraphy of the Tai World, ed. Volker Grabowsky. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2022, pp. 225-254.

Further reading
Baker, Chris and Pasuk Phongpaichit. 53 Suvaṇṇasaṅkha: The golden conch. 
Brereton, Bonnie Pacala and Somroay Yencheuy. Buddhist murals of Northeast Thailand. Reflections of the Isan heartland. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2010.
Jenny, Mathias. The story of Prince Sangada. A Mon legend in Southeast Asia context. The Mon over two millennia. Monuments, manuscripts, movements. Ed. Patrick McCormick, Mathias Jenny and Chris Baker. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, 2011, pp. 147-167. 
Nangklao, King of Siam. Botlakhō̜n rư̄ang Sangsinchai. [Bangkok]: Rōngphim Sōphonphiphatthanākō̜n, 1929-30.
Naritsarānuwattiwong, Prince. Prachum bot lakhō̜n du’kdamban chabap lūang. [Bangkok]: Rōngphim Thai, 1924.
Phutthalœtlā Naphālai, Phra, King of Siam. Phrarātchaniphon bot lakhǭn rū’ang Sang Sinchai. Bangkok: Sophon, 1917.
Phutthalœtlā Naphālai, Phra, King of Siam. Bot lakhǭn nǭk rūam hok rư̄ang. Bangkok, 1922.
Sang Sinsai phap thī 1. [Transcript and foreword by Maha Sila Viravong]. Vientiane: Kasūang thammakān, 1949.
Songwit Phimphakō̜n et al. Sinsai sō̜ng fang Khōng. Khō̜n Kǣn: Sūn Khō̜mūn Lāo Mahāwitthayālai Khō̜nkǣn, 2014.
Whittlesey, Peter and Baythong S. Whittlesey, Sinxay. Renaissance of a Lao-Thai epic hero. [n.p.], Sinxay Press, 2015.

The British Library has a rich collection of Persian manuscripts, including finely illustrated and decorated manuscripts of the Iranian national epic, the Shahnamah of Ferdowsi, but also including a copy of the Razmnamah, the Persian version of the Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata.

In this blog, I would like to highlight the similarities between two major heroic characters in the Shahnamah and the Mahabharata: Rustam and Arjuna. Common features and episodes involving these characters can be seen as an example of cultural exchanges between Iran and India which date back to ancient times, even though there is still no consensus among scholars about the extent of the influences of thought and culture of the two nations on each other. Due to the different cultural and geographical environments in which the epics were formed, like any other stories with common roots, the stories of Rustam and Arjuna also have differences. But these differences cannot prevent us from seeing the similarities between the two characters, indicating that the stories must have originated from a common source.

The Mahabharata, which is attributed to the sage Vyasa, was written over centuries and focuses on the war between two families of cousins, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, who compete for the throne of Hastinapur. The Pandava brothers were Yudhisthira, Arjuna, Bhima, Nakula and Sahadeva.

Like the Mahabharata, Iranian epic stories were also narrated orally over centuries by storytellers, although the Shahnamah was written by the poet, Ferdowsi. As a Muslim poet, Ferdowsi homogenized the stories and emphasized the belief in one god in the spirit of the stories. Nevertheless, the presence of a few powerful ancient gods – such as Zurvan, Mithra, and Anahita – in the deep layers of the stories is still discernible. Many scholars have compared characters of the Shahnamah with gods and goddesses, and Zal, the father of Rustam is one of them. There are obvious vestiges of the worshiping of other gods in the Shahnamah; for example Fereydun and Zal are Sun worshipers.

In the discussion below, I have compiled some of the most striking examples of similarities and parallels in the stories about Rustam and Arjuna, with illustrations from two Mughal Persian manuscripts in the British Library’s collection: a late 15th-century copy of the Shahnamah with early 17th-century paintings (Add 5600) and a copy of the Razmnamah of 1598 (Or 12076).

Like Arjuna in the Mahabharata, Rustam is one of the most important heroes in the Shahnamah and the central character of many stories. Arjuna was born to the god Indra, and Rustam is the son of Zal and Rudabah.

Zal and Rudabah. Shahnamah, Mughal, early 17th century. Artist:  Qasim.  British Library, Add 5600, f. 42v

Zal was born with white hair, which scared his father Sam enough to abandon his child, thinking he was a devil. In the Mahabharata Pandu, Arjuna’s father was also born extremely pale.

In an interesting article, Mihrdad Bahar has highlighted the similarities between Rustam and Indra, the god with whom Kunti, Arjuna's mother, conceived her child. Bahar notes that Indra and Rustam are both born by caesarean section, they are both large, both eat a lot and drink too much wine, and both have a club. In the Mahabharata, these traits are also given to Bhima and Arjuna, but as mentioned above, Arjuna was born of Indra.

Rustam and Arjuna both marry a woman outside their city or land. In the Shahnamah, Rustam marries Tahminah, the daughter of king of Samangan, and returns to Sistan after spending a short time with her. Tahminah gives birth to a baby boy and calls him Suhrab. Suhrab later tries to invade Iran and unknowingly fights with his own father, and is eventually killed by Rustam.

Rustam kills Suhrab in battle. Shahnamah, Mughal, early 17th century. Artist: Qasim. British Library, Add 5600, f. 99r

In the Mahabharata, Arjuna marries Chitrangda, Raja Manpour's daughter. Raja Manpour agrees to the marriage on the condition that if his daughter becomes pregnant, the child will stay with him, which Arjuna accepts. Like Tahminah, Chitrangada gives birth to a baby boy, called Babruvahana. In time, Babruvahana too fights with his own father, Arjuna, although unlike Rustam, Arjuna does indeed recognize his son.

In both stories, the surviving hero goes in search of a magic medicine to revive the wounded or killed hero. In the Shahnamah, this medicine is called Nushdaru and in the Mahabharata, Samjioni. Nushdaru is held by Kay Kavus, the king of Iran. Kay Kavus is afraid that Suhrab will join forces with Rustam after his recovery, and overthrow him from power. Therefore Kay Kavus refuses to give the medicine to Rustam, and Suhrab consequently dies. In the Mahabharata, however, when Babruvahana goes in search of Samjioni he manages to find it, and thus saves Arjuna from death.

Battle between Babhruvahana, son of Arjuna, and the snakes, for Samjioni. Razmnamah, Mughal, 1598. Artist: Sangha. British Library, Or 12076, f. 71r

Despite the differences, both stories have a similar plot, involving the murder of a family member. In both epics, the fathers cause the war with their sons. Suhrab and Babruvahana both plea with their fathers to stop the war, but in both cases the fathers refuse.

Babruvahana kneels at Arjuna’s feet in Manipur, but Arjuna treats his son with contempt.  Razmnamah, Mughal, 1598. Artist: Khem. British Library, Or 12076, f. 44r

Another parallel in stories about Rustam and Arjuna is that both heroes kill their stepbrothers, with Arjuna killing Karna and Rustam killing Shaghad.

Rustam, impaled in the pit of spears, shoots Shaghad through the tree trunk. Shahnamah, Mughal, early 17th century. Artist: Bhagvati.  British Library, Add 5600, f. 338v

In the Shahnamah, Shaghad is born from another mother from Rustam. Meanwhile, in the Mahabharata, Karna has a different father from Arjuna, for before Kunti marries Pandu, she conceives Karna with Surya. In both epics, both stepbrothers join the enemies of their brothers. In the Mahabharata, Karna joins Kaurava’s army, and in the Shahnamah, Shaghad allies with the king of Kabul.

In both stories, Rustam and Arjuna also go on adventurous and dangerous journeys to help the king. In the Shahnamah, these journeys of Rustam are called Haft Khan ('Seven trials'). Rustam, who was a teenager at the time, was commissioned by Zal to go to Mazandaran to rescue Kay Kavus, the king of Iran. Kay Kavus had been deceived by the devil and had gone to Mazandaran, where he had been captured by a white demon. Rustam was forced to take a shorter route to rescue him immediately, but thereby had to confront seven dangers lurking on his way.

Rustam kills the white demon (Div). Shahnamah, Mughal, early 17th century. Artist: Qasim.  British Library, Add 5600, f. 75v

In Arjuna’s story, the hero's journey takes a year. To help his brother, Yudhisthira, Arjuna has to undertake a quest called Ashwamedha Yagya. As part of this formal undertaking, he must take a sacrificial horse into the country for a year to fight the opposition, and at the end return the horse to his brother's capital for sacrifice. It was during this trip that Arjuna got into a fight with his son Babruvahana and was killed by him, before being revived with the remedy Samjioni.

The Persian manuscripts reproduced in this blog, together with several other illustrated copies of the Shahnamah, have been fully digitised and can be accessed on the Library’s Digitised Manuscripts portal, and the Digital access to Persian manuscripts page.

Further reading
Bahār, Mihrdād, Pizhūhishī dar asāṭīr-i Īrān, Tihrān: Āgāh, 1375 (1996).
Darmesteter, M.J. ‘Points de contact entre le Mahabharataa et le Shahnamah’, Journal asiatique, (1887) 15, pp.38-75.
Mukhtārī, Muḥammad, Usṭūrah-i Zāl, Tehrān, Nashr-e Qaṭrah, 1997.
Sims-Williams, Ursula, Razmnamah: the Persian Mahabharata, 2016.

Alireza Sedighi, British Library

I am grateful to my colleagues Pasquale Manzo, Pardad Chamsaz and Arani IIankuberan for their comments.

The current British Library exhibition, Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women's Rights (until 1 August 2021), documenting feminist activism in the UK in historical context, is accompanied by a wide-ranging programme of talks and articles exploring the complex history of women’s rights across the world. A recent blog post focussed on Inspiring women writers of Laos; this blog highlights another inspiring female writer from Southeast Asia, S. Rukiah (1927-1996).

The proclamation of Indonesian independence in 1945 towards the end of World War Two heralded another five years of armed conflict within the country: between Indonesian nationalists and the returning Dutch colonial power, but also between left- and right-leaning factions of Indonesia’s nascent military force. The period also ushered in a host of new literary voices. One Indonesian writer who came of age during this time, and whose writings were shaped by the pressures and anguishes of the Revolution, was S. Rukiah, whose 1950 novel Kejatuhan dan Hati (‘The Fall and the Heart’), is probably the most important early Indonesian novel by a female writer.

S. Rukiah, in ca. 1954, from H.B.Jassin, Seri esei dan kritik kesusasteraan Indonesian moderen (Jakarta: Gunung Agung, 1962, vol. 1, p. 208). Wikimedia Commons.

Rukiah’s early work is set in the foothills of West Java against a backdrop of guerilla activity during the Indonesian Revolution, but her writing transcends place and time by focussing on the dilemmas of an intelligent modern Indonesian woman and the societal conventions which bind her. Explored in Rukiah’s poems and short stories, and developed most fully in her novel, the constraints of the female predicament are contrasted with the freedom enjoyed by male characters, who have the luxury of pursuing their own destiny, often choosing to wed themselves to a cause. But this all-or-nothing revolutionary fervour does not appeal to Rukiah’s female characters – such as Susi in Kejatuhan dan Hati – who yearn for the seemingly impossible: to love passionately and work fulfillingly, but also to enjoy a happy and peaceful family life.

S. Rukiah’s 1950 novel Kejatuhan dan Hati was first translated into English by John H. McGlynn as ‘An Affair of the Heart’ and published in Reflections on rebellion: stories from the Indonesian upheavals of 1948 and 1965 (Ohio University Press, 1983; British Library, YA.1986.b.248). Shown above is McGlynn’s translation republished as The Fall and the Heart (Jakarta: Lontar, 2010). British Library, YD.2011.a.7962.

S. (Siti) Rukiah was born on 27 April 1927 in Purwakarta, a small town northwest of Bandung in West Java. During the Japanese occupation she trained as a teacher, and while teaching at a local girls’ school in 1946 she published her first poems. She also began writing for the magazine Godam Jelata, ‘The Proletariat Hammer’, one of the founders of which was her future husband Sidik Kertapati. Around May 1948, Rukiah became Purwakarta correspondent of the influential literary journal Pujangga Baru (‘The New Poet’), and over the next few years she published 22 poems, six short stories and her novel Kejatuhan dan Hati, which first appeared as a special issue of Pujangga Baru (Nov.-Dec. 1950) before being re-issued by Pustaka Rakyat.

S. Rukiah, Kedjatuhan dan Hati (Djakarta: Pustaka Rakjat, 1950). British Library, 14650.f.148.

Rukiah’s first collection of poems and short stories, Tandus (‘Barren’) – mostly work which had previously appeared in journals in 1948 and 1949 – was published in 1952 by the government publisher Balai Pustaka, and the following year it won the inaugural National Cultural Council award for poetry. The esteem accorded to Rukiah’s work can be judged by her fellow awardees: Pramoedya Ananta Toer for short stories, Mochtar Lubis in the novel section and Utuy Tatang Sontani for drama, later regarded as three of the top Indonesian writers of all time.

 
S. Rukiah, Tandus, 'Barren', a collection of poems and short stories, published in Jakarta by Balai Pustaka.  Left: the rare 1st edition of 1952, British Library, 14650.f.46; Right: the 2nd edition of 1958. British Library (shelfmark pending).

In 1952 Rukiah married Sidik Kertapati, and they had six children. By 1951 Rukiah had begun editing the children’s magazine Cendrawasih (‘Bird of Paradise’), and over the next decade, under her married name of S. Rukiah Kertapati, she published actively in the fields of children’s literature and retellings of Indonesian folk stories. In 1959, at the first National Congress of Lekra, a cultural association sympathetic to the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI), Rukiah was elected as a member of its Central Committee, and she represented Lekra at a writers’ Congress in East Germany in 1961.

S. Rukiah Kertapati, Djaka Tingkir, a retelling of a Javanese folk tale. Djakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1962. British Library, 14650.f.75.

The febrile political atmosphere in Indonesia by the early 1960s came to a head on 30 September 1965, with the murder of top military leaders in an apparent coup attempt. The aftermath saw a ferocious purge of Communist Party members and suspected PKI sympathizers, leaving up to a million dead and hundreds of thousands imprisoned. At the time Sidik Kertapati – then a PKI member of parliament – was visiting China; like many leftists then abroad, he was unable to return to Indonesia and spent the next four decades in exile. Rukiah herself was imprisoned, with no provisions made for the care of her six young children. Her books were banned and her writings were expunged from future editions of the authoritative anthology of Indonesian literature, Gema Tanah Air ‘Echoes of the Homeland’. She was eventually released in 1969 on condition that she did not write or publish again, and returned to her hometown of Purwakarta, where she lived quietly, aware that she was under constant suveillance as she struggled to support her family.

In 1985, at the suggestion of my supervisor Dr Ulrich Kratz, I made the work of S. Rukiah the subject of my MA dissertation in Indonesian and Malay studies at SOAS, and my first visit to the British Library was to look at the rare editions of Rukiah’s works pictured here. With the help of a close friend, S. Budiardjo – an Indonesian exile living in London – I was able to write to Rukiah in Purwakarta, and was overjoyed to receive a letter back from her. Addressing me as Ananda (‘Child’; I addressed her reverently as Bunda, ‘Mother’), she wrote, ‘I was so glad and touched to receive your letter, and to hear that you know and are studying my works that were published decades ago, for even I myself had forgotten them, it was so long ago.’

In another letter written in December 1985, Rukiah gave a harrowing account of her fate after 1965: “While in prison, I was not allowed to see my beloved children. And so all the time I was detained, I had no idea of the fate of my children: were they living destitute under bridges, or had they even starved to death? (For in those terrible times, nobody was allowed to take in or look after my children. If anyone had dared to do so, they themselves would have faced prison.) So you can just imagine how I agonized and suffered in prison. In the end, my desperate longing for my children and my fears for them forced me to write to the Government begging for release, under any conditions.

And so a suffocating deal was struck: “On 24 April 1969, I was freed fom prison and reunited with my children, on condition that I could never write again. I was clearly regarded as far too outspoken and critical. In the event that I might try to get something published, all publishers were informed that it was forbidden to publish my writings. The Government knew, of course, that this was the harshest possible punishment for any writer. But I agreed to everything, because of my love for my children, who were still so young, and who couldn’t possibly fend for themselves without a mother or a father.”

Extract from a letter from S. Rukiah to Annabel Gallop, December 1985.

In October 1986, I came to Jakarta and Rukiah’s son, Windu Pratama, met me and took me to visit his mother in Purwakarta. I was overwhelmed to finally meet this courageous woman whose gentle smile and serene demeanour belied the horrors she had faced in years past.

S. Rukiah in Purwakarta, 1986. Photograph by A.T. Gallop.

In her writings Rukiah had plumbed the depths of the dilemmas of heart and mind. In her life too, Rukiah, had been forced to choose between the very essence of her being – her writing – and her beloved family. Her surviving works are all the more precious for the enforced silencing of her original and inspiring voice.

Further reading:
Annabel Teh Gallop, The work of S. Rukiah. [M.A. thesis]. London: SOAS, 1985.
Yerry Wirawan, Independent woman in postcolonial Indonesia: rereading the work of Rukiah. Southeast Asian Studies, 2018, 7(1): 86-101.

Annabel Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

With very many thanks to John H. McGlynn of the Lontar Foundation for his advice and help.

Among the literary treasures of Thailand is the famous work Chindamani, "Jewels of Thought". The oldest version of this work is attributed to the seventeenth-century monk and court astrologer Horathibodi of Ayutthaya. It is thought that he compiled it around 1670 in Lopburi for King Narai, but he may have drawn inspiration and knowledge from older texts. Although the original work has not been preserved physically, copies of it are held in numerous archives and libraries in Thailand and abroad. Chindamani is a treatise about "writing", covering vocabulary, orthography, grammar, loan words from Pali, Sanskrit and Khmer, literary styles and poetry conventions.

Thai poetry is shaped by a combination of foreign influences and the 'poetic' character and tonality of the Thai language. Thai poets were inspired by foreign languages like Pali, Sanskrit and Khmer, but the nature of the Thai language governs, selects and adapts these imported influences. Poets in the past explored the possibilities of the language and indirectly established new conventions for the following generations. This can be seen in the techniques of word-play and punning as well as the many variations of Thai verse forms known as Konlabot.

The poem Suriyakanta nai chak (Lord Sun in the wheel) illustrated in a folding book containing Konlabot poetry, Thailand, 19th century. British Library, Or 16102, f.11

A small treasure in the Library's Thai, Lao and Cambodian collection is a nineteenth-century folding book (samut khoi) made from mulberry paper with examples of illustrated Konlabot poetry. The poems are written in black ink, in a very accurate hand, on eighteen folios. Twelve folios contain coloured illustrations, most of which have Konlabot verses written in a geometric pattern. The size of the book is 340 mm x 107 mm, rather small compared to the larger Thai folding books containing Buddhist texts. However, this is the usual folding-book size for literary, historical and other secular topics. The first part of the book contains nine poems without illustrations and two poems accompanied by illustrations, including one about the popular folktale Kraithong, a story of a brave man who rescued a young lady after she was abducted by a crocodile and held captive in a cave. The second part contains poems which are embedded in paintings of fine quality, like for example two striking symbolic illustrations of the sun (above) and moon (below) which contain verses in praise of Suriya, lord of the sun, and Chandra, lord of the moon. The moon with the white rabbit is shown together with the demi-god Rahu who is trying to swallow the moon – a traditional explanation of a lunar eclipse.

The poem Phra Chandra (Lord Moon) illustrated in a folding book containing Konlabot poetry, Thailand, 19th century. British Library, Or 16102, f. 12

Historically, Thai poets have cherished and explored the possibilities of language through the invention of various stylistic methods of Konlabot. In many major literary works in Thai language - like Lilit Phra Lo, Yuan Phai, Samuttakhot Khamchan, and Anirut Khamchan - there is an abundance of Konlabot poetry to break up the main text, or to poetically "illustrate" the main text. This serves the purpose of highlighting the mastery of an author and their ability to intensify the emotions in their work. Much dedication and effort are given to the novelty of imagery that can appeal to the feelings and the aesthetic senses of audiences. Therefore, the refinement of diction and embellishment through poetry is highly valued.

The poem Dragon flicking his tail illustrated in a folding book containing Konlabot poetry, Thailand, 19th century. British Library, Or 16102, f. 13

Although over time many different types of Konlabot have emerged, Chindamani is the only theoretical work to cover Konlabot poetry as a subject, giving examples of different types of Konlabot with their proper names. Ten of the most popular and best-known types of Konlabot are the following:

- Alternating letters
- Kinnara picking lotus
- Cows circling a stake
- Elephants joining tusks
- A serpent's composition
- The mountain covered
- Stems joining on to flowers
- Lions swishing tails
- Charioteers driving
- Flowers in designs

These ten types of Konlabot are also mentioned in an inscription from the treatise of Khlong Konlabot found at Wat Phra Chetuphon (Wat Pho) in Bangkok, the temple considered as the first university in Thailand founded by King Rama III.

The poem Thousand lotuses illustrated in a folding book containing Konlabot poetry, Thailand, 19th century. British Library, Or 16102, f. 14

From the different types of Konlabot mentioned above it is obvious that the name of each type of Konlabot implies certain characteristics corresponding to the name. For example, words or verses can be arranged in a certain geometric pattern, which is then embedded in an illustration. The reader needs to know the "code" to decipher the poem that is represented in the geometric shape. This geometric structure subsequently affects the sound pattern and the rhythm of the poem. Usually the poet includes certain key-words together with a suggestive title which enable the reader to decode a poem. Thus, Konlabot poetry can also be used to cover taboo topics, or to send secret messages to lovers, like for example the erotic poem about the Bird in the cave below. The title is a symbolic expression for love-making, and the poem elaborates on the poet’s desire for his lover, a gorgeous lady with a playful, chatty voice and a face bright and sparkling like a diamond.

The poem Bird in the cave illustrated in a folding book containing Konlabot poetry, Thailand, 19th century. British Library, Or 16102, f. 17

The idea of poetry as a critical exploration of language is highlighted in the famous eighteenth-century work Klon Konlabot Siriwibunkiti, which contains eighty-four variations of versification. While this text is seen as evidence of the established importance and recognition of Thai written poetry since the Ayutthaya era (1350-1767), it also shows that the Konlabot genre is proof of the Khmer influence in Thai poetry. Like the Kaap, another popular form of versification in Thailand, Konlabot has exact counterparts in Khmer language. Generally, Thai classical literature embraces Khmer and Sanskrit loanwords, especially older compositions from before the nineteenth century.

Further reading:
Braginsky, Vladimir: The comparative study of traditional Asian literatures: from reflective traditionalism to neo-traditionalism. London, 2015
Cholthira Satyavadhana: วิจารณ์รื้อวิจารณ์ ตำนานวรรณคดีวิจารณ์แนวรื้อสร้างและสืบสาน = Wichan ru wichan tamnan wannakhadi wichan naeo ru sang lae suepsan. Mahasarakham, 2550 (i.e. 2007)
Herbert, Patricia and Anthony Milner (ed.): South-East Asia: languages and literatures: a select guide. Whiting Bay, 1990
Peera Panarut: Cindamani. The Odd Content Version. A Critical Edition. Segnitz, 2018
Peera Panarut: On a quest for the jewel: a review of the Fine Arts Department’s edition of Phra Horathibodi’s Chindamani. Manusya Journal of Humanities, vol. 18/1 (2015), pp. 23-57
Suchitra Chongstitvatana: The nature of modern Thai poetry considered with reference to the works of Angkhan Kalayanaphong, Naowarat Phongphaibun and Suchit Wongthet. PhD thesis, SOAS, London, 1984

Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian Collections

I would like to thank Prof. emeritus Cholthira Satyawadhana, former Dean of School of Liberal Arts, Walailak University, for her advice and help in decoding poems in the Konlabot manuscript that is subject of this article.

In June 2019, I shared with you the British Library’s beautifully illustrated copy of the Hamse-yi Atayi, which included copious illustrations of same-sex desire. In that post, I had the opportunity to tease out how we see and interpret homosexual love and sex in pre-modern Ottoman literature, and what that says about our worldview today. Of course, Atayi’s Hamse is far from the only work of Ottoman literature that speaks to this topic. I would be remiss if I did not make use of LGBT+ History Month to highlight another item that helps queer our collections.

A view of Palace activities in the late 18th century taken from an illustrated copy of Enderunlu Fazıl Bey's Zenanname. (Enderunlu Fazıl Bey, Zenanname, 1190 AH [1776-77 CE], Turkey. Or 7094, f 7r) 

Frequent readers and fans of our blog might remember Dr. Sunil Sharma’s particularly popular post from November 2016 on the Zenanname, an Ottoman Turkish book on the women of the world penned by Enderunlu Fazıl Bey. The Zenanname is far from a work of women’s lib or a celebration of female feats and triumphs. Rather, it encapsulates an essentialist take on the characteristics of various women, their weaknesses and strengths, and constructs rigid typologies around class and country. Exceptionally misogynist at times, this literary piece was clearly destined for male readers. As Dr. Sharma points out, the Zenanname is actually a companion piece to the Hubanname, an earlier work by Enderunlu Fazıl Bey, which discusses the qualities of the beautiful young men of the world. This latter poem falls into a category of literature known as the şehrengiz, works on the beauties of various cities.

Who was Enderunlu Fazıl Bey? Although no definitive date can be found for his birth, he is believed to have been born in the 1750s or 60s in the city of Akka, Liwa of Safad, Ottoman Palestine (today Acre, Israel) to a family both well-placed in the Ottoman bureaucracy, and with a rebellious streak against central authority. His given name was Hüseyin, but he took the mahlas or poetic pseudonym Fazıl, as well as the qualifier Enderunlu or Enderunî because of his education in the Enderun. This was the interior court of the Ottoman imperial bureaucracy, destined to service the imperial family, and was located inside Topkapı Palace. He was ejected from the Palace in 1783-84 for his behaviour and spent more than a decade in destitution in Istanbul before seeking out Selim III’s beneficence. He wrote poetry to curry the Sultan’s favour, and also took positions in Aleppo, Erzurum and Rhodes. It was in this last location that Fazıl Bey lost his sight, which eventually resulted in his return to Istanbul, where he died in 1810. His grave can today be found in the municipality of Eyüp.

The opening of a combined version of the Hubanname and the Çenginame, a work on the male dancers of Istanbul. ([Collected Works of Fazıl Bey Enderuni], 19th century, Turkey. Or 7093, f 1v)

What was the behaviour that resulted in Fazıl Bey’s expulsion from the Palace? Sabahattin’s article in the Türk Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi claims it was “addiction” or "fixations" (“düşkünlük”) and "love affairs" ("aşk maceraları"). Love and eroticism, indeed, are key themes in his poetry, and large motivators for his fame today as a poet. This history of same-sex desire is part of the reason for the poet’s appropriation today by some LGBTQI activists in Turkey, as well as the interest of various Ottoman literary scholars in Turkey and abroad. The Hubanname is perhaps the best example of this orientation in Fazıl Bey’s work.

The opening text of Fazıl Bey's Hubanname. ([Collected Works of Fazıl Bey Enderuni], 19th century, Turkey. Or 7095, ff 47v-48r)

The British Library holds three copies of the Hubanname text. It can be found in Or 7093 and Or 7095, both of which are collections of Fazıl Bey’s works, as well as Or 7083, a mecmua also containing the works of Atıf Mustafa Efendi and Hazık Mehmet Erzurumi. Sadly, none of the British Library’s holdings are illustrated, which provides a disappointing contrast to both the exquisite illustrations of the Zenanname (Or 7094), and to the paintings in copies of the Hubanname in other collections. For those readers who understand Turkish, there is a wonderful video from December 2019 of Dr. Selim S. Kuru describing and analyzing a number of images from the copy held at the Library of İstanbul Üniversitesi. The text-heavy works present in the British Library collections were all bequeathed by E. J. W. Gibb, whose six-volume A History of Ottoman Poetry has long been a foundational text for Anglophone studies of Ottoman literature. As Sharma has pointed out, Gibb was not a fan of Fazıl Bey’s skill as a poet, but he did give him credit for the originality of his work, and for the use and adaptation of popular poetry within his own oeuvre.

Gibb’s lack of appreciation is far from surprising, especially when we consider his disdain for Atayi’s bawdy tales. This disapproval, nonetheless, is hard to square with our own sensibilities or, perhaps, those of Fazıl Bey’s contemporaries. As Dr. İrvin Cemil Schick explains, homoerotic themes were far from rare in Ottoman literature, including descriptions of sexual acts, which are absent from the current work. The author’s decision to depart from the usual şehrengiz template and to describe the young men of the world by ethnicity and characteristics, on the other hand, is both his claim to fame, and the area in which Fazıl Bey might have found himself in hot water today. For several years, intense discussion within the gay community, as well as other groups under the LGBTQI umbrella, have focused on the prevalence and impact of implicit and explicit racism. Some of the descriptions included in the Hubanname would be sure to raise eyebrows, even if the ridiculousness of the broad brush strokes employed might also elicit a few chuckles.

The end of the description of Jewish men, and the one on Roma youths, from the Hubanname. (Enderunlu Fazıl Bey, Hubanname, 1210 AH [1795 CE], Turkey. Or 7083, ff 54v-55r)

In his presentation, Kuru focuses on the Hubanname’s exposition of the young men of Istanbul, where Greeks, Armenians and Jews are the first up for examination. Fazıl Bey is much taken with Greek men, claiming that they are the most beautiful of their peers. Nonetheless, these “roses” have peculiar accents, and their pronounced sibilants and confusion between sīn and shīn leave much to be desired. Armenians come next, charming Casanovas of the capital, followed up by Jewish men, who feel the poet’s particular wrath. While some light-skinned Jews take his fancy, our wily and fickle ways, and, apparently, horniness, make us “enemies to all nations”. Afterwards come the Roma, whose young men, with their dark features, are pretty, lithe, musically-inclined, commercially-oriented, and totally untrustworthy; which is why, Fazıl Bey tells us, they are unsuited to love. The list of Istanbul’s communities continues: Rumelians, Tatars, Bosniaks, Albanians, Georgians, and Circassians. These are surrounded, both before and after, by descriptions of men from other communities outside of Istanbul: Persians, Baghdadis, Damascenes (faces white as wax), Hejazis, Moroccans, Algerians (iron-hard, whether young or old), Ethiopians (lusty, strong, and charming), Black men (diamonds, coral, eyes of love), Frenchmen, Englishmen, Russians, Germans, Spaniards (each one exceptional in his beauty), and even the Indigenous peoples of the Americas (big-mouthed and wide-faced).

Description of Black men and Ethiopian ones, from the Hubanname. (Enderunlu Fazıl Bey, Hubanname, 1210 AH [1795 CE], Turkey. Or 7083, ff 43v-44r)

Fazıl Bey’s sharp-tongued review of the gifts and flaws of the world’s most beautiful young men feels like a late 18^th-century Ottoman drag act, complete with the zingers you’d expect from a vicious queen taking hold of the stage for an evening’s roast. They could be dismissed as mere fun, or even as personal preference. But the truth is that some of his phrasing and stereotyping cuts close to home for those of us who have been both victims and guilty of the typecasting and casual racism of the gay dating scene. As much as Fazıl Bey’s Hubanname is a testament to the forms of same-sex desire in different times and places, it’s also a showcase of how sex, stereotype, and prejudice can easily blend into one hot sticky mess.

This LGBT+ History Month, revisiting the Hubanname lets us delve into the history of same-sex desire in the Ottoman Empire. It can also help us reflect on the power dynamics encoded in our own gaze. Enderunlu Fazıl Bey might have been maligned for his sexuality, but he was also still part of the Ottoman elite. His work, and others like it, is an opportunity for us all to problematize the boundary between predilection and prejudice, preference and persuasion. At the end of the day, love is love, and sex is sex, and they should be available to all, without detriment to one’s dignity or human worth.

Dr. Michael Erdman, Turkish and Turkic Curator

Further Reading and Listening:

Çil, Okan, “Osmanlı'nın eşcinsel şairi: Enderunlu Fâzıl”, Duvar Gazete, 21 October 2019. Last accessed: 10 January 2020. <https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/kitap/2019/11/21/osmanlinin-escinsel-sairi-enderunlu-fazil>

Kücük, Sabahattin, “Enderunlu Fâzıl: Mahallîleşme eğilimini ileri bir safhaya götüren divan şairi”, Türk Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Last accessed: 6 January 2021. <https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/enderunlu-fazil>

Schick, İrvin Cemil, “Representation of Gender and Sexuality in Ottoman and Turkish Erotic Literature,” The Turkish Studies Association Journal, 28:1/2 (2004), pp. 81-103. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/43383697>

For the Ottoman History Podcast based on Schick’s study of eroticism in Ottoman literature, see here.

Yılmaz, Ozan, “Enderunlu Fazıl Divanı’nda Yahudilikle İlgili Unsurlar ve Andnâme-i Yehûdî-Beçe”, Türkbilig, 22 (2011), pp. 1-30. <https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/990142>

The Hubanname was most recently published in translation into modern Turkish by SEL Yayncılık. The work was translated by Reşit İmrahor, an alias that has been employed by a number of authors and translators for more than 30 years.