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MUHAMMADAN INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE SUBA OF DIHLI
429
Both youths probably served in the Gujarat war that ended with Bahadur Shah's victory, A.H. 942. Then, or. perhaps in Muhammad Zaman Mirza's attempt to overpower the country, their death may have occurred, and they afterwards found a tomb at home, Gujarat being lost to Humayun.
7. Over the mihráb of an 'fdgáh at Dana Sher, one mile south of Hişår on the old Hånst road, is an inscription of four lines in stucco, measuring 1' 9' by 44". It is in very bad condition, being exposed to wind and weather. I try to read it thus
w? [us]ly ........ wy! W oy...... [] Uso well
سروانی ............. مسند عالی دولتفاده در عهد شیرشاه
ادریس
...
•••••. đá
* [?] silyo ile
cao, [sic] đi thu ................
“This mosque of ... Bêg, son of Palad Sarvani .... son of Idris Sarvani . .. the high Masnad of the Daulatkhana, was finished in the reign of Sher Shah, the king, in the year 947 (began the 8th May, 1540) . .. The cost was 12,000 . . ."
With Messrs. Ghulam Husain and the late E. Rehatsek (who made rough versions of many of these epigraphs) I have supposed that we have here & barbarous construction, contrary to the Arabic usage, the date beginning with the hundreds instead of the units. would then be for @lo 'hundred', scarcely for 2; 80 I read the monarch's name as Sher Shah, which is possible. And surely, if u were only a blunder, perhaps of the stone-cutter, & reiterated lis', only with a shortening of the long stroke of the sin, and the date in this case were 749, one could not read the king's name as Muhammad, as would then be necessary, or the word after sab' as mi'at. Besides, there are some words, especially 'in masjid', that I cannot warrant as certain,
HÂNSE. Mr. H. B. W. Garrick (ut sup., pp. 15, 16) gives a list of the principal inscriptions found at Hansi. Some of them have already been published by Blochmann, that of the Dini mosque, also ante, p. 159. There are several others perhaps also deserving notice that are not mentioned in Mr. Garrick's list, but I miss also some inscriptions of his in Mr. Rodgers's collection."
Because Hânsi was an important place in the times of the early Pathân Sultâns, it is not surprising that numerous old inscriptions of that dynasty are found there. If we do
20 In the Ma'askir ul-Umard, vol. I, p. 583, it is mentioned by the way that the ddrághagi of the daulatkhana was bestowed only upon trustworthy men. The author of the Tarikh-i Shershdhi, 'Abbâs Khan, son of Shaikh
All was also a Sarwani, an Afghan tribe tracing its lineage to the mythic Batan (nee Mini Albari, I, 591), likewise 'Azam Humayun (who lived in Sultan Ibrahim Lodi's time, cf. Babar's Memoirs, pp. 347, 302; Akbarndma, vol. I, p. 109) and therefore also his son Fath Khân Khánjahan (Babar'. Memoirs, pp. 390, 392, Akbarndma, vol. I, pp. 103, 104), and grandson Mahmud Khan (Babar's Memoire, p. 393, Akbarnama, vol. I, p. 104), or Bahadur Khan, whose tomb Babar visited at Sagandpur (Momoirs, p. 491), and others. For another Sher Shâh inscription of the same year (at Sakit) see Proceedings of At. Soc. Beng. for May 1874, p. 105.
o.g. Nos. 1, 3, 4. I leave it to the reader to correct Mr. Garrick's little mistakes concerning the single inscriptions and their readings.
