THIS little work was written to show the author's ingenuity in composing, in six different styles, the account of the capture of Kángrá —an instance of <greek>* which has not often been exceeded. The authorship is doubtful; some attribute it to Ni'amat Khán 'Alí, others to Jalálá Tibátibá. The style, which is very difficult, certainly resembles that of the former, and the vicious redundance of ornament which serves to make him one of the most popular of the modern authors of India, as well as the frequent use of medical phrases, appear at first to convey internal evidence of the fact. It was certainly written after the time of Jahángír, because he is styled Jinnat-makání, his honorific title after death; and so far, it might have been written by either author to whom it is ascribed: but I entertain no doubt that it was written by Muhammad Jalálá Tibátibá; not only because the general voice concurs most in this opinion, but because in a common-place book in my possession, which must be at least a hundred years old, amongst other compositions of Jalálá, there are the first and last Fat'hs expressly ascribed to him.
He was fully capable of this versatility of style, and was, moreover, a múnshí of Sháh Jahán, which would account for his ascribing a conquest to him, individually, in which he had so little real concern. Ni'amat Khán 'Alí, who lived later, would not have had the same reason for flattering a bygone monarch at so much expense of truth.
Jalálá Tibátibá is the author of a history of Sháh Jahán, which will be noticed hereafter. He is also the author of the Persian translation of the Taukyáti-Kisravíya, or the Institutes of Khusrú Anúshírwán, translated originally from the Pehlaví into Arabic, and by Jalálá from the Arabic into Persian.* This is a very celebrated work in India, and was printed at Calcutta in 1824, and subsequently lithographed at Lucknow.