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282
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
The person referred to is not named.
4. The following inscription is from the same place as No. 3; the engraved area on the pillar is 12 by 5 inches.
بر لبش این دیر هم از سعي ار تعمیر یافت
تعميرش نشان تا برد بر لوح سنک از سال بعد لفظ دیده اندر مصرع هشتم فزد دیده کم اندر جهان آدم چنین جای غریب
این تالاب خرش تحفير يافت از ضياء ملک خواستم تاریخ هجر (۲) عسري (.sic) سازم بیان
لفظ بود شادماني زروی هاتف ناگهان
عجب خاطر زد سروشي بس آنکهان در کوش
TRANSLATION. Metre,- Ramal :
By order of) Ziya-i-Mulk this fair tank has been dug, on the bank of it this place of worship has also been erected by his exertion. I wanted to render manifest the date of the Christian era, so that there may exist a sign of the year of its erection on the face of the stone. Suddenly an invisible speaker by way of pleasure increased the word * Búd' after the word 'Didah' in the eighth hemistich; then in the ear of the mind he uttered a mysterious sound, indeed, strange: "Man has scarcely seen in the world such a rare place."
The letters of the tarikh which runs therefore Didah búd kam' etc., give 1793 A.D.--the last hemistich=1781 + 12 (bud)-i.e.-1208-9H.
Ziya-i-Mulk must have been the title of some English officer whose European name I am not able to make out here.
On a hill to the west of Bhagalpur Station is a Muhammadan shrine, the tomb of Shahjangi (Shahbaz), to which belongs a tank. That tank which had gone out of use was cleaned and fitted with stone steps by order of Mr. Edward Latore, Magistrate, Zila' Bhagalpur, in 1843 A.D., corresponding with 1250 Fasli. As a memorial of that fact a Hindustani inscription has been engraved in a circle on the side wall of the ghat, and the names of the personages who furthered the work with money bave been inscribed in the margin. The total sum amounts to R2,677, if I have added rightly."
II.-Hazrat PAŅDUAH. The following inscriptions from Panduah belong to the Adina (i.e. Friday) Mosque of which large ruins still remain. These have been described at length by the late J. F. Ravenshaw in his Gaur, its Ruins and Inscriptions, pp. 60 ff., where also a ground plan of the masjid is given.
The mosque was built by Abu'l Mujahid Sikandar Shah, son of Shams-addin Abu'l Muzaffar Ilyas Shah, king of Bengal, who adorned his capital Panduah with that magnificent edifice. Except one, the inscriptions inside and outside the mosque are of no historical value, containing only verses from the Qorán. The rubbings transmitted to the Asiatic Society of Bengal by General Cunningham and Mr. W. L. Heeley are very fine and worthy of the beautiful penmanship which can hardly be surpassed in other Indian Muhammadan inscriptions.
There is another rubbing of a Hindustani inscription of the month of August of 1845 which has been engraved on a large basalt pillar near the public garden on the bank of a tank opposite Cleveland's house, but the inscription seems to be much defaced, so that it is not possible to decipher it from the rubbing. It relates also to a taldv and a sar di "yya.
