THIS “Key of History” is a work highly creditable to the industry and ingenuity of the compiler, Mr. Thomas William Beale, a clerk in the office of the Board of Revenue at Ágra.
He has collected in this volume the many chronogrammatic dates relating to important events in Asia, and especially in India, since the introduction of the Hijra era. In these are included the exact year and date of the births and deaths of Muhammadan kings, philosophers, and other eminent men. He has extracted them from the most celebrated histories in which they are carefully recorded, and he has copied the memorial inscriptions on tombs, mosques, gardens, tanks, forts and palaces. He has himself, as have also his friends, composed several new ones, which are inserted in the work. The Christian, Hindí, Faslí, Illáhí and Jalálí eras are also occasionally given.
Although, to a superficial observer, this mode of recording events may appear a veritable mataiotechnia, yet it is not without great use in any disputed point of chronology, for it does not admit of any errors, as in the case of numerals, since not only meaning, but in most instances rhyme and scansion, are required for a perfect comprehension of the dates. To them might we with justice transfer Joseph Scaliger's address to the venerable Olympiads: “Hail, ye guardians of time, ye vindicators of the truth of history, ye bridlers of the fanatical licence of chronologists!”
This kind of memoria technica was never in much use in Europe, although the Roman system of notation admits of it. In ancient literature it seems to have been altogether unknown, and even in modern times, when, in the middle of the sixteenth century, the taste for anagrammatic trifling was so strong, it was seldom applied to this more useful purpose.
The following instances will show to the European reader the use and application of a chronogram, by combining the numerical values attached to the capital letters according to the Roman system:—
gloria lausque Deo sæCLorVM in sæcVla sunto,
but this is a very lame instance, as some letters, which have a value assigned to them, are omitted from the computation.
A better example is to be found in the distich composed by Godart, on the birth of Louis XIV., in the year 1638, on a day wherein there happened to be a conjunction of the Eagle with the Lion's Heart:
eXorIens DeLphIn aqVILæ CorDIsqVe LeonIs CongressV gaLLos spe LætItIaqVe refeCIt.
In the Persian system, which is called Jummal (Addition), the letters of the alphabet have a numerical value assigned to them, according to a particular scale styled Abjad, because the first four units are represented by that word; a being equal to 1, b to 2, j to 3, d to 4. The sentence which contains the date should always be significant: the consequence is, that awkward methods are sometimes resorted to in order to combine both sense and chronology.
There are four principal modes of using the scale.
1st. Mutlak, in which all the letters are requisite to the formation of the date. There is an inferior kind of Mutlak, in which only some of the letters of the text are used.
2nd. Ta'míya-dákhilí, in which the numerical value of the letters used is less than the date required; in which case we are told that some other word or letter will complete the date.
3rd. Ta'míya-khárijí, the contrary of the preceding, in which the numerical value is excessive, and we are therefore told that we must deduct some word or letter.
4th. Taushík, an acrostic, in which the initial or final letter of each verse composes the date.
All these kinds are illustrated in various parts of this work, and we may suppose that, under the licence granted in the second and third instances, some of them are very ill-constructed. Many however, exhibit, to say the least, great inventive faculty.
Take, for instance, the example at p. 309, where in thirty-one distichs the first line throughout represents the date of Akbar's accession, and the second line throughout represents the date of Jahángír's birth. Or take the following from p. 219:
<arabic>
This quatrain represents the death of Bábar in eight different ways; each hemistich by itself represents the date: they therefore give the date four times. The fifth is obtained by combining the unpointed letters of the first hemistich with the pointed letters of the second hemistich. The sixth, by taking the unpointed letters of the second hemistich. The seventh, by taking the pointed letters of the second line, and the eighth, by combining the unpointed letters of the second line.
I have a chronogrammatical treatise in my possession which evinces even more labour than this. In it the events of Bengal in 1170 A.H. are related in prose, and each separate sentence gives the date of 1170, and the number of sentences amounts also to 1170. The narrative runs in so easy a flow that it would be difficult, without knowing it, to surmise that there was anything artificial about its construction.
There are other works of a similar nature to this which have been written in India, such as the Táríkh-náma, and a few others with like names, but none so copious or so well arranged as this.
The Miftáhu-t Tawáríkh was lithographed at Ágra in 1849. The outer margin very conveniently contains a column, in which is inserted each date in numerals, and in regular chronological succession. It possesses other advantages, besides giving the mere dates. It gives short notices of each Asiatic dynasty, and a brief account of each reign, as well as several biographical notices of distinguished individuals who have shone in the politics and literature of the Muhammadan world.
The Miftáhu-t Tawáríkh is divided into thirteen Sections, each representing a Century of the Hijra.