Indian Antiquary Vol 18

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 63

FEBRUARY, 1889.]
MISCELLANEA.
51
اندر چهار). reading in the verae itself و شش
imprisoned him and had his eyes put out. Perhaps both agree in thinking that it has to do with at that time Solomon brought these guns among laying the fingers in the hand and counting by other things to Kutais. In Russia in the them and was a way of referring to the extreme eighteenth century, there were emigrants of the atinginess of Mahmud of Ghazni, as the satire family of the prince Eristavi.
is well known to have been written by Firdasi (4.) " We, the Tsar George and Tsaritsa Tamara, because Malumad had not paid him the promised have ordered this palitsa to be embroidered money for the Shah Nama. V. Zhukovski adds 30 that our souls may be remembered. Amen." two further interpretations heard in Persia--the This is embroidered in silk on a palitsa (part first from one who knew the whole work by heart. of the dress of the apper clergy) now at Tula. He did not think there was any allusion to count. There is also a verse of the 44th pealm in Greek. ing on the fingers. The line made sense if the In Georgia there were several couples having the numerals of the hemistich were changed into the names George and Tamara. Thus # George and corresponding letters in the abjad, or alphabet, Tamara ruled about 1187 to 1190. There was also arranged in numerical order thus :the Tsar George X. and his wife, according to 93 = (4 3) + (
9 9) 93-(4 + 2 +6) + (40 + some Mariama, according to others Tamara. A
10 + 1 + 30) letter of this Tsar has been preserved addressed to
The second computation may thus be arranged Boris Godunov. There was besides the Tear George XI. who ruled from 1675 to 1688, and
according to the abjad, (s+ y + 3) + ( + is again from 1691-1695, and was married to Tamara,
+ 1 + J) i.e. , U. He then translates, The latter Tsar did not have any close relations
• The hand of the Shah Mahmud of lofty lineage with Russia. The palitsa hardly belongs to the
is very avaricious and foul.' twelfth century, although, from lack of date, it is
The second interpretation belongs to a difficult to say when it was brought into that
scholar of Isfahan. It proposes a different country.
(h) Buddhist Prayers, translated by I. Minayev. A panegyric of Harshadêva. Nothing is known Suldigal di ), and explains that by the laying of the author. Taranátha mentions à king of of the fingers on the hand as expressed by the Kasmir named Harshadêva.
figures 9 x 9 and 3 x 4 the hand takes the form (1) A List of the Persian Turko-Tártar and of a closed fist. The reason why Firdusi expresses Arabic MSS. of the Library of the University of the avarice of Mahmud by a closed fist is to be St. Petersburg, by K. Saleman. The titles are found in the well-known story of a certain given first in Russian and afterwards in the ori- durvesh, who came to Mahmud of Ghazni. The ginal languages.
latter put his hand in his pocket, but drew out 6) Miscellaneous Notes.
a closed fist and placed it in the duruesh's hands, (1) Interpretation of a Saying in a Satire by pretending to give him something. M. Zho. Firdúst, by V. Zhukovski. The satire is against kovski adds that this explanation seems somewhat Mahmud Ghaznavi. This is the line, which may far-fetched. be literally translated as follows:
(2.) The 80-called Khan Cuci or Zuci, by V. "The hand (properly palm) of Shah Mahmad of Tiesenhausen.-In the well-known work of Heyd exalted origin is 9 x 9 and 3 X 4."
on the trade between Europe and the Levant in Mohl thinks that it is an allusion to a game and the Middle Ages, in the chapter on the mercantile translates : "La générosité du roi Mahmoud, de affairs of the Venetians and Genoese in Persia *i illustre origine, est rien et moins que rien." (11, 123), from the end of the thirteenth to the He afterwards corrected the last part as fol- end of the fourteenth century, mention is made lows :-"n'est rien ou plus de chose." This cor- of a privilege' which is only preserved in a rection was introduced by Mohl in consequence Latin translation. This was given in the year of of an explanation communicated to him by the serpent (according to the Tatar manner of Kasimirski at Tehran from a certain Mulla
computation), or the year 1305 of the Christian Muhammad 'Ali, who explained Firdûsi's 9 x 9 and era, by the then Tätâr Sultân' to the Venetians, 3 x 4 in connection with an ingenious trick of and begins with the words : Verbum Çuci (or counting on the fingers si Mohl was according to another reading Zuc) Soldani duci
Uowed by Stanislna Guyard (Chapitre de la pré- Venetiarum. Heyd is right in thinking that the face du Farhangi Djehangiri sur la dactylonomie.) privilege' was given by the Khan Uljaït, but is He differs in some points from Mohl, but they wrong in taking Zuci for a person's name; it is
[Here follows the translation and after it the original hymn.]