[Preliminary Entry] A history of Gwalior from its origin to 1055/1645-6. The author Šayḫ Jalāl Hiṣārī acted as munšī for Sayyid Muẓaffar Ḫān Bārha (Ḫān Jahān) who served as qal‘adār of Gwalior under Šāh Jahān. The author claims that he has taken his account of Gwalior directly from the Hindi work of a Brahman named Syām. However, the inclusion in the preface of brief notices concerning Gwalior’s most remarkable buildings and holy men gives one to think that Ḥiṣārī actually borrowed the bulk of his Gwāliyār-nāma from Fażl ‘Alī’s Kulliyāt-i Gwāliyārī [q.v.] which provided an earlier Persian rendition of Syām (or Ghanshyām)’s Hindi account and where the above-mentioned two features are also prominent. The only original part of the Ḥiṣārī’s Gwāliyār-nāma is therefore the relation of events in Gwalior from 1573 onwards and the final section in which the author records the death of Ḫān Jahān in 1055/1645-6, the appointment of his successors, and the assassination of Ṣalābat Ḫān by Amar Singh, a Rāthor Rājpūt, in 1054/1644-5.
C. L.
Rieu, C., 1881, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, II, London, p. 838.
| Main Persian Title: | Gwāliyār-nāma |
| Author: | Šayḫ Jalāl Ḥiṣārī |
| Approximate period of composition: | 1645-1646 |
| Place: | Gwalior |
| Commissioner: | Sayyid Muẓaffar Ḫān Bārha (Ḫān Jahān)? |
| Quoted sources on India (Unknown or not existent): |
Hindi history of Gwalior by a Brahman named Syām (Ghanshyām Pandit?)
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