Tag Archives: Oriental Collections

Preserving Hafiz, Poet of Shiraz.

 

or better or for worse, Special Collections Librarians have adopted the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) scheme to classify the subject matter of the Islamicate Manuscripts described in the Union Catalogue ‘Fihrist‘. By and large this works well for this material which was created in the medieval period. There are, however, some anomalies such as modern country names (e.g. Yemen (Republic) — History) having to be used rather than their more ancient equivalents, or Medicine, Arab, which does not do justice to an Avicenna or a Rhazes who, although they wrote predominately in Arabic, were Persians by birth. Fihrist lists more than 2000 subjects in current use in the catalogue which also includes personal names as subject matter of works.

When it comes to Persian Poetry, the LCSH provides 2 main headings: Persian Poetry — 747-1500, and Persian Poetry 1500-1796. The dates of 1500-1796 may be explained by the fact that the Safavid Dynasty ruled Iran with their brand of state-sponsored Shiism and Sufism beginning around 1500, after which from about 1722, the Afsharid Dynasty briefly rose to power until the Qajars established their rule fully over Iran in 1796, ushering in a period of modernization including that of literary forms. The beginning date of 747 is slightly more puzzling, coming as it does less than a century after the fall of the Sassanid Empire to the Arab Muslims and the death of the last King Yazdigird III in 651.

This Arabo-Islamic conquest by many accounts left Iran reeling, and in the (perhaps now outdated) words of Iranian cultural historian Abdol Hossein Zarrinkoub (d. 1999) caused Two Centuries of Silence during which no Persian literary production of note took place. Others, such as E. G. Browne (author of A Literary History of Persia), point out that on the contrary, ‘take from what is commonly called Arabian Science – from exegesis, tradition, theology, philosophy, medicine, lexicography, history, biography, even Arabic grammar- the work contributed by Persians, and the best part is gone.’ [Browne, Literary History, i:204].

Browne is referring to monumental works written by Persians in Arabic such as Tabari’s two famous books on Universal History, and Qur’anic Exegesis which take up to 30 volumes each in some printings; or volumes of Prophetic Traditions by Bukhari (of Bukhara, Transoxiana); or Sibawayh’s book on Arabic Grammar, and many more besides.

When it comes to poetry in the ‘New Persian’, it seems to be the 9th and 10th Centuries in the great central-Asian metropolis of Bukhara at the courts of the Samanids where the art flourished once more in the Persian tongue with minstrels such as Rudaki (860-940) singing and playing the lute. Dowlatshah of Samarqand, who wrote his Memorandum of the Poets in 1487, includes over 140 biographical entries beginning with Rudaki, before whom he says no other Persian poet’s work was recorded or written down, perhaps because of a ban on books written in Persian. With the advent of the Samanids and Saffarids, poetry in Persian re-emerged and became popular.

As for the date 747, that was the year of the beginning of the Abbasid revolt in Eastern Iran against the Umayyads who ruled the empire from Damascus. By 750 the Umayyads had been overthrown, and plans were made for a new capital at Baghdad, with a noble, learned, and influential Persian family – the Barmakids – acting as viziers. Think Barmecide feast! Many Persian administrative practices were introduced to the state bureaucracy by the Barmakids, but again, the State Registers were apparently still being written in Arabic until the time of the Samanids, or possibly even the Ghaznavids.

If we take our ‘Millennium’ of Persian Poetry to be 747-1796, the major poet who was flourishing in the middle of this period would  be Amir Khusraw of Dehli (1253-1325). If we take the date to be from 880, when Rudaki was in his flush of youth, then a much more well-known figure would be flourishing – none other than Hafiz of Shiraz (1315-1390) – which is why this cataloguer felt he had passed a milestone in his lockdown cataloguing work when he completed entries for the copies of the works of Hafez held by the Bodleian Libraries’ Oriental Special Collections.

The poet Hafiz (back right) with companions. [Bodleian MS. Elliott 163, fol. 55b]

The Libraries hold a total of 47 manuscript copies of the works of Hafiz plus a number of commentaries, making him the third most-represented poet in the Persian collections after Jami with 98, which is not surprising as he died 100 years after Hafiz, and many copies of his works were made in Safavid times, and Sa’di (who died 100 years before Hafiz) with 83, and whose Bustan and Gulistan have been ever-popular.

Two copies of the Divan (collected poetical works) of Hafiz are available to browse on Digital.Bodleian; MS. Ouseley Add. 175 – an exquisite copy made in 1571 by the acclaimed calligrapher Mir Ali the Scribe to the Sultan. This includes an introduction in the hand of Sir Gore Ouseley; and MS. Ouseley Add. 26, a less lavish version copied in 1538.

Catalogue records of the Bodleian’s holdings of the works of Hafiz may be browsed here.

The Divan or collected poetical works of Hafiz finds widespread use in Persianate lands for Bibliomancy or fortune-telling by books. Most families would have a copy of the Divan which, opened at random after an intention to seek omens, the reader would interpret the poem that appears to them in a way that lends meaning to their life. This is because Hafiz is seen to be an interpreter of the unseen realms and was known as lisān al-ghayb or speaker of the unknown.

In Iran, one can have one’s fortune told by Hafiz in street-stalls, but there are also many online faʾl-i Hafiz such as this one at the link below conveniently using an English translation!

Hafiz fortune-teller

[The Bodleian Libraries are not responsible for the content of external sites]

 

Sir Oliver Wardrop’s desk diaries donated to the library

Audience members who attended the launch of Nikoloz Aleksidze’s book Georgia: a Cultural Journey through the Wardrop Collection  at the Weston Library on June 1st also had the novel experience of witnessing the arrival of a further addition to the Bodleian’s Wardrop  holdings. A family descendant of Sir Oliver, who was attending the launch, brought his desk diaries to donate to the collection. The Wardrop collection forms the nucleus of the Bodleian’s rich holdings of Georgian books and the donation of the desk diaries enriches this significant collection still further.

Dating from 1882-1948, the diaries provide details of Sir Oliver’s daily meetings and activities. They  will offer scholars an important glimpse into his day-to-day life, particularly during the critical period leading up to and immediately after the formation of the Democratic Republic of Georgia when he served as the British High Commissioner for Transcaucasia.

 

The Shāhnāmah of Ibrāhīm Sulṭān – Available Online from Digital.Bodleian

VIEW IBRĀHĪM SULṬĀN’S SHĀHNĀMAH ONLINE
The Shāhnāmah – Book of Kings (or King of Books) – is an epic poem written in Persian by Abū l-Qāsim Firdawsī of Ṭūs. Completed in about 1010 CE, the book is composed of some 60,000 verses which narrate the history of Greater Persia from mythical beginnings until the Arab conquests of the 7th century.

Said to be the longest poem ever to have been written by a single person, the significance of Firdawsī’s Shāhnāmah to the Persian-speaking world can be compared to that of the works of Homer to Greece.

No manuscript copies of the Shāhnāmah survive from the 11th or 12th centuries, and only two from the 13th century are still extant, but many copies from the Timurid and Safavid periods are preserved in Library collections today.

Three of the grandsons of Tīmūr (Tamerlane) are known to have had lavish copies of Firdawsī’s Shāhnāmah or Persian Book of Kings made for them. The Shāhnāmahs of Bāysunghur, Muḥammad Jūkī, and Ibrāhīm Sulṭān are preserved in the Golestan Palace, Tehran, the Royal Asiatic Society, London, and the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, respectively.

Left: Shamsah showing inscription dedicated to Ibrāhīm Sulṭān. (MS. Ouseley Add. 176, fol. 12a). Right: Ibrāhīm Sulṭān holding court outdoors. (MS. Ouseley Add. 176, fol. 1b).

Thought to have been made in Shiraz sometime between 1430 and Ibrāhīm Sulṭān’s death in 1435, this copy of the Shāhnāmah is known for its exceptional miniature paintings and exquisite illuminated panels.

The manuscript was acquired by Sir Gore Ouseley, a Diplomat and Linguist, during travels in the East in the early 19th century, and came into the Bodleian in the 1850s along with many other of Sir Gore’s collections. It is now preserved as MS. Ouseley Add. 176.

Ibrāhīm Sulṭān’s Shāhnāmah is now digitally available online via Digital.Bodleian. Recently, its sibling Muḥammad Jūkī’s Shāhnāmah was published online by the Royal Asiatic Society; both in good time for Nawruz or Persian New Year on 20th March!

REFERENCES

Abdullaeva, F., & Melville, C., The Persian book of kings : Ibrahim Sultan’s Shahnama (Treasures from the Bodleian Library). Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2008.

Beeston, A. F. L., Hermann Ethé, and Eduard Sachau. Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî, and Pushtû Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library . Oxford: At the Clarendon, 1889.

Robinson, B. W.,  A Descriptive Catalogue of the Persian Paintings in the Bodleian Library. Oxford: Clarendon, 1958.

The Bodleian Libraries would like to thank the Bahari Fund for helping to make this digitization project possible.

Donation of Monier-Williams archive

The Bodleian owes much of its rich collection of Indic manuscripts and books to the personal collection of Oxford University’s Boden Professor of Sanskrit, Sir Monier Monier-Williams and that of the Indian Institute Library, which he founded in 1883. Scholars have long assumed that the library also holds Sir Monier’s papers: these, however, remained with his family.

Sir Monier-Williams’ great great grandson has now most generously donated these papers to the library.  This archival collection includes diaries, material on the controversial election of Sir Monier to the Boden Professorship, his lecture notes and scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, all of which provide new insights into his career and the history of Indian Studies at Oxford.

 

British Ambassador to Georgia visits Wardrop collection

On Monday 25th October the Justin McKenzie Smith, the British Ambassador to Georgia, visited Oxford University’s  Georgian Studies Programme and the Bodleian’s Wardrop Collection. During his time at the library he was shown some of the new materials added to the collection in May and learned more about plans for 2018, which include Nikoloz Aleksidze’s forthcoming book with Bodleian Library Publishing, Georgia: a cultural journey through the Wardrop Collection.

Study day of Ge’ez manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea

Recent months have brought an unprecedented interest in Ge’ez manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea – a development that we welcome at the Bodleian. Study of this material has reached a new level, with further palaeographical and codicological knowledge, as well as a growing appreciation of art history. Studying, displaying, and digitising a variety of our little-known codices and scrolls with modern means help us better understand and disseminate our findings to new audiences.
With this in mind, on Saturday, the 17th of June we welcomed a small group of Ethiopians and Eritreans at the Bodleian to view a selection of Ge’ez manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The material, which was studied and discussed with great excitement, included a magic scroll with miniatures of angels and demons, an illuminated seventeenth-century prayer book, fragments of a medieval gospel with evangelists’ portraits, a hagiographic work with copious illustrations to the text, an important textual variant of the Book of Enoch and the epic work Kebra Nagast (Glory of the Kings).
The experience of the day was that of beautiful exchange of ideas, as well as building bridges within and between communities. We look forward to future developments!

Engaged in discussion from left to right: Dereje Debella, Judith McKenzie, Girma Getahun, Yemane Asfedai, Gillian Evison, Madeline Slaven and Rahel Fronda. Photo credit: Mai Musié.

Studying a magic scroll, from left to right: Yemane Asfedai, Girma Getahun, Dereje Debella, Madeline Slaven and Rahel Fronda. Photo credit: Gillian Evison.

Studying a textual variant of the Ethiopian Book of Enoch, from left to right: Rahel Fronda, Dereje Debella, Girma Getahun, Yemane Asfedai, Gillian Evison and Madeline Slaven. Photo credit: Miranda Williams.

Additions to the Wardrop Collection

On May 17th descendants of the British diplomat Sir Oliver Wardrop visited the Bodleian to donate further items to the Wardrop collection on Georgia. The newly donated material contains correspondence by Sir Oliver written during his period as British High Commissioner for Transcaucasia, 1919-20, and letters written by his sister Marjory on her first visit to Georgia in 1894.

During their visit, family members were shown manuscripts already in the Library’s  Wardrop collection by Dr. Nikoloz Aleksidze, who is currently writing a book about the collection.

Descendants of Sir Oliver Wardrop with Dr. Nikoloz Aleksidze showing their additions to the Wardrop collection

Bodleian Treasures: Early Ethiopian Bible Illumination

On Saturday, the 8th of April a group of bibliophiles from the Anglo-Ethiopian Society visited the Weston Library. Their trip from London to Oxford was intended as a study day, attending lectures and a photo exhibition on the illuminated Gospels from the Abba Garima Monastery. During the academic programme, Dr Judith McKenzie spoke about the themes of Garima illumination, while Professor Francis Watson gave a lecture on canon tables. The first part of the day took place at the Ioannou centre and was organised by Judith McKenzie, Miranda Williams, and Foteini Spingou, with photographs by Michael Gervers.
In the afternoon, a small display of Bodleian Ethiopian treasures was ready for the group in the Blackwell Hall. The two fifteenth century biblical codices on display were given to the library by Dr Bent Juel-Jensen in 2006. These exceptional codices come with a wealth of painted miniatures, representing biblical figures from the patriarchs to evangelists. MS. Aeth. c. 14, comprising the Four Gospels in Ge’ez script is thought to come from the Gojjam province in north-western part of Ethiopia. There are four colour miniatures of the Evangelists, one before each Gospel. These were made by Nicolo Brancaleone, a Venetian artist active in Ethiopia.

The other mid-fifteenth century illuminated manuscript, MS. Aeth. d. 19 includes Psalms, hymns of the Old Testament, Song of Songs and Praises of Mary.


The display at the Bodleian was received with great interest and there definitely was a sense of enthusiasm for promoting the collection also in the future. Many thanks to the colleagues in the Oriental collections, as well as Exhibitions department for their support. It was a great pleasure to meet the many members of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society and we look forward to welcoming all back in the future!

The Simon Digby Oriental Collection – curation and care

 In April of 2015, the Trustees of the Simon Digby Memorial Trust deposited a large collection of Oriental Manuscripts belonging to the Late Simon Digby (1932-2010) with the Special Collections Department of the Bodleian Libraries. Almost a year later, the collection was officially donated to the Library.

Mr. Simon Digby, a descendent of Sir Kenelm Digby (d. 1665), whose Western and Oriental manuscript collection the Bodleian Library also holds, was a Fellow of Wolfson College, and a scholar, linguist, translator, and collector. He was Assistant Keeper of Eastern Art at the Ashmolean Museum from 1972. Above all a lover of India, Mr. Digby spent a great deal of time in that country (indeed, he was born and died there). However, the bulk of his collection was amassed in Britain at the auctions of manuscripts from the collections of Thomas Phillipps of Middle Hall (d. 1872); Sir Richard Burn, KCIE, ICS (d. 1947); A. H. Harley (d. 1951); and others.

MS. S. Digby Or. 210 – A 15th-century illuminated manuscript of poetry from Herat in Afghanistan.

The Simon Digby Oriental Collection consists of over 260 manuscripts the majority of which are in Persian, with a handful in languages such as Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, and some in Indian languages including Sanskrit and Gujarati. The collection contains important and rare works in the fields of Indian history, biographies of Sufi Saints, and biographies and poetry of the Persian Poets of the Sabk-i Hindī or Indian Style.

Upon arrival in the Library in April 2015, the entire collection was sent to a specialist conservation laboratory for thorough drying and cleaning. When the books returned, some months later, staff in the Oriental Department began work assigning new shelfmarks, making observations on the general condition of each book and measuring each volume for a custom made archival box. Certain items were also flagged up for extra care from the conservation department of the Library.

Each manuscript is housed in its own custom-made archival box.

At the same time, work began on cataloguing the collection for which Mr. Digby’s extensive notes and handlist proved very useful. These notes together with information obtained through examination of the volumes were converted into online catalogue records in the Fihrist database – a UK based union catalogue of manuscripts from the Islamic world. Browse the S. Digby Oriental Collection on the Fihrist Database [work-in-progress]. To date, 168 entries appear on Fihrist, and work is currently underway to catalogue from scratch the remaining works for which no notes exist.

Detail from MS. S. Digby Or. 129 – A history of the coinage of India.

Speaking about the Library’s acquisition of the S. Digby Collection, Bahari Curator of Persian Collections at the Bodleian Libraries, Alasdair Watson, said, “Mr. Digby was, perhaps, one of the last of the true ‘gentleman collectors’, and his collection is substantial both in terms of numbers of items as well as richness of content. Acquiring a collection such as this is a really once-in-a-lifetime experience for any library curator and it is a great privilege to be involved in its long-term preservation and care as well as in helping to make it available for scholarly study.”

 

 

 

 

Index of Chandra Shum Shere manuscript collection now digitized

Chandra Shum Shere1On 20th December, the Bodleian’s Clay Sanskrit Librarian, Dr. Camillo Formigatti, was pleased to be able to announce the launch of a complete digital version of the Index Catalogue of MSS. Chandra Shum Shere by T. Gambier Parry, revised and completed by E. Johnston. This small project was made possible by a generous grant from the Max Müller Memorial Fund.

The PDF files are available on the Finding Aids – Oriental Manuscripts & Rare Books: South and Inner Asia webpage of the Oxford LibGuides website. They are listed under the section Sanskrit. Dr. Formigatti has prepared a set of three different files:

• Index Catalogue of MSS. Chandra Shum Shere vol. 1 (A-Tarpaṇa)
• Index Catalogue of MSS. Chandra Shum Shere vol. 2 (Tarpaṇa-Muktāvalī)
• Index Catalogue of MSS. Chandra Shum Shere vol. 3 (Muktāvalī-Haumikaprāyaścitta-Modern Indian Languages)

Each file is available in two different resolutions: the first for fast internet connections and fit for printing, the second for slower internet connections and to be displayed on-screen. All files are provided with bookmarks for easy navigation.

We hope this basic navigation tool will help all manuscript lovers to find their way through the thousands of manuscripts in this valuable collection.