[THERE are several works which profess to be the Auto­biographical Memoirs of the Emperor Jahángír, and there is such confusion in their titles that a preliminary notice seems necessary for a proper apprehension of what Sir H. Elliot has written on the subject. There is also some additional information respecting them, which was not published when Sir H. Elliot wrote, but which requires to be noticed. This further knowledge might possibly have led Sir H. M. Elliot to have modified his opinions, so, instead of introducing it into his articles, it is here given with the conclusions which it suggests. The original articles are thus left as they were written, with the addition only of a few lines not affecting the general question. By this arrangement Sir H. M. Elliot's arguments will have their full force, and the reader must draw his own conclusions as to the effect of what is here written.

It is certain that there are two distinct editions of the Memoirs which differ entirely from each other. Major Price translated the one, Anderson wrote upon the other in 1786; so to obviate any prejudice as to their respective priority or authority which might arise from numbering them, one will be called Price's, the other Anderson's. It will be seen also that there are varieties of each edition.

The Autobiography translated by Major Price comes first in this work (No. LIV.). Price's Manuscript bore no title, but Sir H. Elliot calls it “Táríkh-i Salím-Sháhí.” According to Mr. Morley, the best copy of it, belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society, is called “Táríkh-i Jahángír-náma Salímí.” Another copy is called simply “Jahángír-náma.” A MS. in the Library of the India Office (No. 546), is called in different places “Túzak-i Jahángírí” and “Jahángír-náma,” and another in the British Museum is entitled “Túzak-i Jahángírí.”

Sir H. Elliot notices three different issues of this edition. One, to which he gives no name, is brief and written with great simplicity (page 257). The Táríkh-i Salím-Sháhí translated by Price extends to the fifteenth year of the reign, 1029 A.H., and there is another version called “Túzak-i Jahángírí,” which does not come down so late (page 260).

Of the other, or Anderson's edition, there are two distinct issues. One extends only to the twelfth year of the reign, when, as the work itself records, it was copied and distributed by the Emperor's orders; this bears the title Dwázda Sála Jahángírí. The other carries on the work to the nineteenth year, when it is said that Jahángír, in consequence of failing health, gave up writing. Sir H. M. Elliot prefers calling this work “Wáki'át-i Jahángírí,” but all the MSS. I have seen are labelled “Túzak-i Jahángírí,” and, as will be seen in Sir H. Elliot's remarks, it has no distinctly recognized title. Jahángír himself at one time called it Jahángír-náma (page 331); afterwards he seems to have been inclined to Ikbál-náma (page 281). The Royal Asiatic Society has a good copy of this work, there is a copy in the British Museum, another in the Library of the India Office, and Sir H. Elliot's Library contains three copies.

This edition was first noticed by Anderson in 1786. Gladwin subsequently made Extracts from it, and Major Price, in the Preface of his work, observed upon the differences between his own and Anderson's version. Upon the publication of Price's translation, De Sacy compared it with Anderson's, and proved that they were independent works. The following is a summary of his argument: “He observed that the difference could not be explained by the supposition that the text, as published by Ander­son, was only an abridgment or extract from the original memoirs of Jahángír, since the version of Anderson, though the more concise of the two, contains the statement of many circumstances omitted in Price's translation; he likewise, by quoting parallel passages, showed that it was impossible that Anderson's extracts and Price's version could have been derived from the same text. De Sacy also mentions the exaggerated account of property and expenditure, as to the number of elephants, horses, etc., and the cost of buildings, and such like, in the memoirs translated by Price, compared with the more moderate statements given in Anderson's extracts. He concludes, without questioning the authenticity of the MS. employed by Price, by stating that he considers the extracts published by Anderson and Gladwin have a greater right to be considered the work of the Emperor than the MS. from which Price has translated, and that the latter is probably a portion of a more recent work written on the basis of the original memoirs of Jahángír, and perhaps of other docu­ments, by some writer who has wrongfully adopted the first person, as though addressing his children, and without regard to the order of events, has inserted much extraneous matter, just as he happened to remember it, leaving out many things that ought to have formed part of the narrative.”*

Sir H. M. Elliot calls these “the authentic Memoirs,” and his view of the question is given in the following articles LLV., LV. A very similar conclusion had been arrived at independently and almost contemporaneously by Mr. Morley in England. That gentleman, in cataloguing the MSS. of the Royal Asiatic Society, found among them and in the Library of the India Government two distinct versions. The version translated by Price he called “the first edition,” for the very sufficient reason that one copy of this MS. was dated in the year 1040 H. (A.D. 1630), only three years later than the death of Jahángír. But his critical sagacity was not at fault, and he discovered the superior value of what he called “the second edition.” A comparison of the MSS., he says, “at once set the question at rest as to there being two texts of the Memoirs, but some doubt still remained as to their respective authenticity. That the edition which I have called the first is authentic, is, I think, sufficiently proved by the age of the present MS., since a work transcribed so soon after the author's death could scarcely have been foisted on the public if a forgery; but the authenticity of the larger and more com­plete edition remained still doubtful. The details given by Muhammad Hádí, the editor, are, I think, decisive as to the genuineness of the larger work. He distinctly states that Jahán­gír himself wrote the history of eighteen years of his reign, and that he, Muhammad Hádí, continued it from various trustworthy sources to the time of the Emperor's death. I have called it the second edition, since it was edited after the author's death, but it possibly, nay was probably, prepared as it at present exists, by the Emperor himself. That the shorter work was only a kind of sketch for the preparation of the more complete edition, may be hazarded as a conjecture; but from the great difference existing between them, I am disposed to think that Jahángír, like Tímúr and Bábar, wrote his autobiography in the Chaghatáí Turkí language, and that the copies we now possess are merely more or less perfect translations from the original.” This “first edition” of Morley comes down to the year 1029, and is the same as that called by Sir Henry “Táríkh-i Salím-Sháhí.”

Sir H. M. Elliot, unaware of the early MS. above noticed, rejects Price's version as spurious, as having “been written by a jeweller rather than an Emperor,” but the edition which he describes as “authentic” gives ample proof of Jahángír's love of jewels, and of his habit of appraising their value. Taken as a whole, Anderson's edition is the more valuable; but while it records the Emperor's venial sins, his love of wine, and his drinking parties, it has less to say of his dark deeds. Morley's idea of the two editions being only different translations of one Chaghatáí original is unsatisfactory, for it would not account for the great divergences of the two works. Another solution of the difficulty may be suggested.

The fact is established that both editions were in existence before or soon after the death of Jahángír. It is proved, as regards Price's version, by the early dated MS. above noticed; and the fact that there are MSS. extant of Anderson's version which extend no further than the twelfth year of the reign, substantiates the statement of Jahángír having had the work copied out and distributed at that period. The first part of the Ikbál-náma, written soon after his death, is merely an abstract of these Memoirs. It has been perhaps too hastily assumed that Jahángír wrote the Memoirs with his own hand, for he was hardly the man to have taken upon himself such manual labour. He certainly states, in the passage quoted in page 280, that he himself was the scribe up to a certain time; but in the very same passage he says that he appointed Mu'tamad Khán to continue the work, because this man had been “before employed to write the occurrences of my reign.” This shows that one professional annalist had been retained; and it seems very probable that the Emperor kept two or more memoir-writers, to whom he gave directions as to the events they were to record, and a general expression of his opinion on the various subjects to be noticed. It may be that in some instances he wrote down or dictated the words he wished to be recorded, but it is more likely that in most cases his (auto) biographers followed their own bent in composing their respective records. Such a difference as exists between the two versions, a difference of details rather than of general conception, would be the natural result of such an arrangement.

Anderson's version, up to the end of the twelfth year, had the advantage of Jahángír's express approval, and has therefore the right to be called an “authentic version.” Price's has no such mark of approbation, but cannot fairly be rejected as spurious. It is not a caricature, nor is it written in an inimical spirit; but the writer had a very exaggerated notion of numbers, and his figures must always be rejected. It contains much which the other version shows to have been characteristic of Jahángír, and in some respects it is superior; for it speaks more fully and clearly of deeds which he would probably have liked to conceal or gloss over. This may account for its not having received the royal approval.]