Abstract

Resale Kanz al-tuhaf dar musiqi (hereafter ”Kanz al-tuhaf”) is a Persian treatise on music written probably in 1355. The most valuable feature of this treatise, however, is its third lecture which is a detail account of the Persian musical instruments including their making. In addition, it includes how to make silk and gut strings. The nine musical instruments described are the 'ud (a lute), gesak (a spike fiddle), robab (a skin-belly lute), mizmar (a double-reed pipe), pise (an end-blown flute), cang (an angular harp), nuzha (a rectangular psaltery), qanun (a trapezoidal psaltery), and the mugni (a combination of the robab ,the qanun and the nuzha). The earliest copy is the manuscript Ethe 2763 (IOC), which was completed in 1383. The most recent copy is the manuscript Or.2361 (formerly held at the British Museum), which is dated as 1665 (BMC). It is this mid-17th copy that H. G. Farmer cited often, and from which he made partial translations (Farmer 1931; 1964; 1966). Therefore, up to now the Kanz al-tuhaf has been known mainly according to Farmer's work based on this particular copy. However, by comparing and collating all the extant copies of the Kanz al-tuhaf, the present author has found that BMC is considerably different from other version, particularly with regard to its illustrations of musical instruments such as the qanun. The qanun illustrated in IOC, is quite different from BMC, because the oblique side and the pegs are on the left. In other words, the shape does agree with the modern qanun. It is just contrary to what has been so far believed by many. Therefore the present author attempted to translate its third lecture in its entirety into Japanese and English based on IOC, the earliest manuscript. The author hopes that this translation would rectify somehow a distorted picture, as might be held, of the Kanz al-tuhaf, which has been so far made by Farmer's introduction and partial translations based on BMC. Further, this paper will compare the description of the robāb with the Uyghur rawap, that of the mizmar with the Uyghur baliman, and that of the qanun with the Uyghur qalun, and it will explore close relationship between them in terms of their nomenclature, structure and making. In short, the Uyghur musical instruments have preserved rather well the features of the 14th- century Persian instruments described in the Kanz al-tuhaf.

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