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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
XXII.-MUHAMMADAN INSCRIPTIONS FROM BENGAL.
BY PAUL HORN, PH. D., STRASSBURG.
As in my previous paper on Muhammadan inscriptions from the Suba of Dihli, I have reproduced the texts of the inscriptions as they are found on the stone, adding no wanting dots, tashdids, etc., except in the first six inscriptions.
1.-BHAGALPUR.
The history of Bhagalpur during the first four centuries of Muhammadan rule offers nothing very remarkable. The first inscription below of the time of Mahmûd Shah ibn Ibrahim Shah of Jaunpur, is of value, because it shows that Bhagalpår in the ninth Hijrat century belonged to the Sharqt kingdom, as did also Bihar (vide below). In A. H. 982 it came into the possession of Akbar (Akbarnáma, III, 108). Further i. mation regarding the place has been collected by C, J. O'Donnell in W. W. Hunter's Statistical Account of Bengal, vol. XIV, p. 82.
The inscriptions Nos. 2, 3 and 4 are of little historical value; they bear the dates of the years 1032 (reign of Jahangir), 1130 (reign of Farrukh Siyar) and 1798 A.D. The last falls in the period of English rule.
The first inscription' is engraved on a black basalt slab, fixed on a tomb in a garden belonging to Râni Bibi in Mânda Roga Maḥalla, Bhagalpûr; it is no longer in situ; the stone measures 36 inches by 18 inches; the size of the inscribed part is 30 by 13 inches.
مسجدا في الدنيا بني الله له قصرا في الجنة في زمن ملك العادل محمود قال النبي عليه السلام من بني مسجدا في الدنيا بني !
شاه السلطان بنا کرده این مسجد خانمعظم خرشید خان سر نوبت غير محليان في العاشر من "جماد الأول سنه خمسين وثمانماية
TRANSLATION.
"The Prophet-may God's blessing be upon him!- says 'He who builds a mosque in this world, God will build for him a castle in Paradise'. During the time of the just king Maḥmad Shah the honoured Khân Khurshed Khân, head of the guardians outside the palace, has built this mosque on the tenth of Jumadi'l awwal, year 850 H. (3rd August 1446).'
The arrangement of the words on the stone is not quite regular, and the deciphering is therefore more difficult than it seems at first sight. I have found no information relative to Khurshed Khân, whose title sar- naubat-i ghair-mahallián I have translated according to Blochmann (Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. XLI, p. 106, vol. XLII., p. 273, note).
2. The second inscription has already been published by Blochmann in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, December 1873, p. 200. It is on a Dargah called the Maskan-i Barâri or Makhdûm Shah's Dargah in Champanågar near Bhagal
See facsimile No. 1.
The same form occurs, e.g., in the inscriptions, Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. XLI, p. 109, Proceedings for March 1874, p. 72.
