This useful volume sheds light on a relatively unknown collection of Persian manuscripts, namely those preserved in the Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. The volume is the fifth in a series of published catalogues providing detailed description for the Eastern manuscripts held by the library, Oriental Manuscripts in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Earlier volumes in this series covered Mongol and Manchu manuscripts and block prints (2000), Turkish manuscripts (2007), Tibetan manuscripts and block prints (2008‒9), and Arabic manuscripts (2016).
The Persian manuscripts of the library (155 volumes carrying 170 titles) comprise the most significant such collection in Hungary, and in this volume they are treated comprehensively in a publicly accessible printed catalogue for the first time. The volume’s catalogue entries are based on descriptions prepared for the library’s online catalogue during a project undertaken in cooperation with the Specialized Library of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran (LPIS) and supported by the Islamic Manuscript Association (TIMA). This valuable database of searchable bibliographic and codicological data for the Persian manuscripts has been freely accessible via the library’s website since 2017.Footnote 1
In the volume, catalogue entries for each manuscript (supplemented by occasional illustrations) are presented along with extremely valuable introductory essays and closing indexes, as well as a list of illustrations, guide to transliteration, and bibliography.
The introduction provides a concise but extremely rich collection overview addressing subject coverage and counts, dated works, illustrated volumes, specimens of book artistry, rare works, manuscripts copied during the author’s lifetime, places of production, donors, and previous owners. The introduction continues with a history of cataloguing and research and concludes with a brief presentation of the catalogue arrangement and details included in the entries.
Literary works (narrative, lyric, and mystical poetry as well as anthologies, prose, and manuals of scribal practice) comprise more than half of the texts in the collection, followed by religious treatises and historical works. Manuscript production spans the early fourteenth to the late nineteenth centuries with the greatest number of manuscripts copied in the nineteenth century. Production and circulation in Iran, India, Central Asia, and Ottoman areas are well-represented and a few of the manuscripts include Ottoman texts together with the Persian. Notable manuscripts include multiple witnesses for the most renowned works of the Persian literary canon (those of Niẓāmī Ganjavī, Saʿdī, Hāfeẓ, and Jāmī), a copy of an as yet unidentified erotic masnavī of which no other copies are known (reminiscent of a poem entitled Alfīyah va Shalfīyah attributed to Azraqī Haravī in Rypka), a copy of a brief work on crafting and deciphering chronograms likely composed in nineteenth-century Central Asia, and a small number of medical and philosophical treatises including an unidentified work of philosophy by Muḥammad ibn Masʿūd Masʿūdī (d. after 550/1155) of which only one other copy is known.
Catalogue entries are structured around the main work appearing in each manuscript volume and include name and brief biographical details for the author, title of the work, description of the work (more concise for well-known texts), detailed description of the contents with information on the circumstances of production (date and place of transcription and name of copyist where known), physical description of the manuscript (covering number of folios, dimensions, binding, condition, paper, script, and ink), data on provenance and previous owners, references to relevant scholarly literature on the text, and excerpts from the opening and closing of the manuscript (i.e. incipit and explicit as well as colophon, where present). References to witnesses in other catalogues are not included, apparently owing to the sheer volume of catalogues now available and the potential for omission of significant manuscripts (p. 20). Characterization of script and paper is quite minimal, with presence of watermarks and embossed marks (“drystamps” or dry seals) indicated but without identification. A number of quite revealing illustrations are provided, though unfortunately the figure numbers are not referenced in the entries but only in the opening list of illustrations.
The catalogue is organized thematically according to the following categories and sub-categories: Religion (subdivided into Islam, Sufism, Islamic Law, Hinduism, Christianity), History, Biography, Philosophy, Medicine, Astrology (curiously when “Astronomy” would seem more appropriate), Arts and Crafts, Linguistics, and Literature (subdivided into Poetry, Anthologies, Prose, Inshāʾ). Within each category the entries are presented chronologically according to the dates of the author of the main work and in the case of multiple copies for a given work by date of transcription.
The volume concludes with a bibliography and a selection of incredibly useful indexes covering titles, authors, copyists, owners, dated manuscripts (in order by date), place names, call numbers (shelf-marks), and a list of titles in collected volumes (majmūʻahʹhā). The list of dated manuscripts is especially valuable for textual, paleographical and codicological studies and the list of shelf-marks is essential for navigating across indexes and entries in the catalogue. Also beneficial is the index for the binders of various manuscripts who are identified in epigraphic stamps ornamenting their work. This list appears immediately following the index of copyists but is not mentioned in the table of contents. Interestingly, the cover of manuscript Perzsa O. 047 appears to carry epigraphic stamps with the binder’s signature, but has been omitted from the index of binders.
Overall, in its rich introduction, extensive indexes, and careful descriptive entries, the volume provides an accessible overview of another intriguing collection of Persian manuscripts. It is certainly recommended for perusal by anyone working on the transmission, circulation, and reception of classical Persian texts and the various manuscript cultures and craft practices in which they are embodied.
