A Hitherto Unknown Turkish Manuscript in “Uighur” Characters

Abstract

British Museum MS. Or. 8193 was presented to the Museum on the 18th July, 1918, by one of our members, Mr. R. S. Greenshields (I.C.S., retd.). It had been purchased by him at a sale held on behalf of the British Red Cross Society in London on 22nd April, 1918. I understand that the MS. was presented to the British Red Cross Society by Sir Douglas Seton Steuart, in whose family it had been for many years. It was no doubt brought from India by one of the donors' ancestors, whose name, “The Honble. A. Seton, Esq.,” is written on the fly-leaf in a hand which recalls the late eighteenth century. A note in the same hand on the first folio of the MS. states that it is in the “ancient pehlawee character” (a statement apparently founded on a similar note in Persian on the margin of the recto of the second folio) and that “according to another information … a certain religious person, Mohummud Moostukeem of Nornawl, intimated that this book had been presented to him by one of his pupils in the reign of Mohummud Shah (i.e. between a.d. 1719 and 1748), but no one can read it. Also in the time of the Nawab Feiz Gullub Khan it had been presented to the inspection of a learned Molawee of Delhie, who could not read it, but judged the writing to be in the ancient Cuffic character.” The only other evidence of the history of the MS. which appears to survive is a note in Persian written in the field of the miniature on folio 87v, as follows:—