XII.

This is the same work as is called Biná-Gety by Mr. James Fraser, in his “Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts;” and Bina-i-Gety by General Briggs, in his translation of the Preface of Firishta, which would seem to imply that the title was considered by them to bear the meaning of “History of the Foundation of the World.” It certainly is so understood by native transcribers, for I have seen no copy of Firishta, not even the lithograph edition, in which it is not so written, and it has been so trans­lated by some Continental scholars. Its correct name at full length is “Rauzat úluu-l Albáb fí Tawáríkhu-l Akábir wa-ul Ansáb,” “the garden of the learned in the histories of great men and genealogies.” It is chiefly an abridgment, as the author himself states, of the Jámí'u-t Tawáríkh of Rashídu-d dín, and was compiled only seven years after that work, in A.H. 717 (A.D. 1317), by Abú-Sulaimán Dáúd, bin Abú-l Fazl, bin Muhammad Fakhr* Binákití. He is commonly called Fakhru-d dín Binákití from his having been born at Binákit, or Finákit, a town in Transoxiana, afterwards called Sháhrukhía. He copies Rashídu-d dín closely, without, however, adopting his arrange­ment, and dedicates his work to Sultán Abú Sa'id, the ninth Mongol king of Persia.

The author was a poet as well as an historian, and was appointed by Sultán Gházán, poet laureate of his Court. Till the discovery of the lost portions of the Jami'u-t Tawáríkh, Binákití's work ranked very high both in Europe and Asia, but it must now take its place as a mere abridgment, and can be con­sidered of no value as an original composition. Several good copies of the work exist in European libraries, as in the Rich collection, Nos. 7626, 7627, of the British Museum; in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society; in the Leyden library; and in Hammer-Purgstall's private collection. The work is not common in India. The best copy I know is in the possession of a native gentleman at Lucknow.

The 8th Book of this work is already known to the European public, though ascribed to a different author. In the year 1677, Andreas Müller published at Berlin a small work in Persian, with a Latin translation, under the title of Abdallæ Beidavæi Historia Sinensis, ascribing the original to the Nizámu-t Tawá-ríkh of Baizáwí. It was reprinted by his son in 1689, and Brunet* tells us that Stephen Weston published fifty copies of an English translation in 1820. M. Quatremère had the ingenuity to guess, for several reasons which he states in detail, that this was in reality an extract from the History of Binákití, and not from Baizáwí; and by comparing the passage he has given from Müller's printed work with Binákití, of which a copy was not available to M. Quatremère, it proves to be verbatim the 2nd Chapter of the 8th Book of Binákití; and as the same result has been obtained by comparing it with the copy in the British Museum, there can no longer be any doubt on this point, and the Historia Sinensis must henceforth be attributed to Binákití.