A literary history of Persia

54 HISTORY OF PERSIAN PHILOLOGYits contents was derived from a curious but quite modernPersian book (to which, however,it was his incontestablemerit first to direct attention in Europe) entitled the Dabistdni-Madhahibor " School of Sects," a treatise composed in Indiaabout the middle of the seventeenth century of our era. 1this work Sir William Jones spoke in 17892 in the followingterms of exaggerated eulogy:Of"A fortunate discovery, for which I was first indebted to MirSir w Jones'sMuhammed Husain, one of the most intelligent Museltreduiityequals mans in India, has at once dissipated the cloud, andhis .scepticism, /-I-L.L L\. it_-i / T 'and is as cast a gleam of light on the primeval history of Iranmisplaced. ancj Qf j.ne human race, of which I had long despaired,and which could hardly have dawned from any other quarter."This rare and interesting tract on twelve different religions,entitled the Dabistdn, and composed by a Mohammedan traveller,a native of Cashmir, named Mohsan, but distinguished*ne assumed surname of Fani, or Perishable, beginsof the value of with a wonderf ully curious chanter on the religion ofthe Desatir and TT , ,. , , .. ,, , ,Dabistan. Hushang, which was long anterior to that of Zeratusht,but had continued to be secretly professed by manylearned Persians even to the author's time ;and several of the mosteminent of them, dissenting in many points from the Gabrs, andpersecuted by the ruling powers of their country, had retired toIndia ;where they compiled a number of books, now extremelyscarce, which Mohsan had perused, and with the writers of which, or67-79) for January-February, 1821. See also Nos. 6, 12, 13, 18, and 20 ofthe Heidclberger Jahrbucher det Littcratur for 1823 (vol. i), by H. E. G.Paulus ;and Erskine in vol. ii. of the Transactions of the Bombay LiterarySociety. The most probable theory of its origin is that suggested byStanislas Guyard on pp. 61-62 of the separate reprint of his admirablearticle Un Grand Maitrc des Assassins au temps de Saladin, published inthe Journal Asiatique for 1877, viz., that it was the work, and containsthe doctrines, of the Isma'ilis.1See pp. 141-142 of Rieu's Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in theBritish Museum. There are several Oriental editions of the text, and anEnglish translation by Shea and Troyer, printed at Paris in 1843 for theOriental Translation Fund., 2 In his Sixth Anniversary Discourse on the Persians, delivered at ameeting of the Asiatic Society, in Calcutta, on February 19, 1789 (Works,vol. i, pp. 73-94)-