annotated translation of the mirt al-quds 137

CHAPTER FIVE

A TRANSLATION OF THE MIRĀT ALQUDS BY W. M. THACKSTON, WITH NOTES BY P. MOURA CARVALHO

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

As Father Jerome Xavier says in his introduction, he az sar-i naw imārat kardanad (they rebuilt the temple had spent seven or eight years in India learning Persian anew by order of Cyrus, the king of Babylon [ASI.62]), when Emperor Akbar asked him to produce a life of and other times he uses it in its archaic sense of a dative Jesus in Persian. He labored long on the work, making marker, as in bē ānki īshān-rā tasallī shavad (without numerous revisions before submitting it to the emperor. there being consolation for them [L29b]), and shabē Father Jerome’s Persian style is certainly not highly lit- Yūsuf-rā dar khwāb firishta guft (one night the angel erary, and in fact it could be characterized as bad Indo- said to Joseph in a dream [ASI.61]). Often, as in the con- Persian, but it is perfectly understandable. tinuation of the quotation above from Psalm 110 (nishīn Mainly it is word order that marks the text as un- ba-dast-i rāst-i man tā dushmanān-i shumā zēr-i har du Persian. When Father Jerome is quoting scripture, pāy-i tu niham [sit at my right hand that I may place particularly the Old Testament, he opts for the word- your enemies beneath both your feet]), he does not use it for-word method of translation and strictly maintains where it would be expected, i.e., dushmanān-i shumā-rā. the word order of the Latin, in which he was doubt- In only one instance, and a minor one at that, have I lessly thinking. This would not have struck anyone in found evidence of influence from the Greek text of the his intended audience as strange, since giving literal, Bible, and that is on ASI.250, where the Persian for Isa- word-for-word, interlinear equivalents of the Arabic iah 53:1 has the initial anaphora khudāvand (O Lord) text of the Koran was the only method of translation that is found in the Greek text of the Septuagint (κύριε) with which they were familiar for scripture. The same but is missing in the Latin of the Vulgate. type of literal rendering was also used in Akbar’s time As might well be expected, Father Jerome had dif- for translations from Sanskrit and Hindi into Persian. ficulty in finding Persian vocabulary for specifically As an example of such slavish following of word order, Christian concepts. There is not now, nor has there ever on page ASI.238 he translates from Psalm 110:1 as fol- been, a native Persian-speaking Christian community. lows: guft khudāvand ba-khudāvand-i man nishīn ba- There are Christians in Iran and other places where Per- dast-i rāst-i man, a word-for-word rendering of the sian is used, but that is not their communal language. Latin, Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis. The outstanding example of this is “baptism” and every- In normal word order, this passage would be khudāvand thing to do with it. There is no such thing as baptism in ba-khudāvand-i man guft ba-dast-i rāst-i man nishīn. Islam, and therefore there is no Islamic word for it. Ara- In the use of -rā in Persian, Father Jerome is very lat- bic, of course, has the full range of Christian vocabulary, itudinarian: sometimes he uses it, in accordance with its and the Arabic word for baptism is tamīd, which was normal usage at the time, as a direct-object marker, e.g., borrowed from the Syriac verb ammed. Father Jerome az dard-i dilgazīdagī khwad-rā ba-kārd kusht (from the used imād, which is from the right root in Arabic but agony of despair he killed himself with a knife [ASI.61]), the wrong form, to which he added the Persian word for and ibādatkhāna-rā ba-ukm-i Sīrō pādishāh-i Bābil water (āb), and came up with a verb imādāb-kardan, 138 chapter five or, dropping the “b,” imādā-kardan, for “to baptize.” running titles, such a catchword would place the folio Needless to say, this would convey nothing to a Persian in the correct chapter, but it would not distinguish at speaker in India or anywhere else. For “John the Baptist” all what the next folio was. The majority of catchwords he has variously Yūannā mutamid (ASI.55)—again he in the manuscript have the running title as well as the had the right root in Arabic but the wrong form—and first words of the text of the next folio. An example of Yūannā imādākunanda (ASI.129). Since none of these this is ASI.16, which has the catchwords bāb-i avval; terms could have had any meaning for a Mughal audi- yanī Maryam, and indeed the first words of the next ence, who would not have known what baptism was in folio are yanī Maryam. Much more puzzling is the fact the first place, I believe this explains the very curious that some of the catchwords are correct for the order in depiction of what is supposed to be John baptizing Jesus which the folios are now, but that order is incorrect. It in the Jordan on folio 50b (2005.145.9b)—not to men- has always been assumed that catchwords were written tion the bird that sits on Jesus’s head, a configuration by the scribe of the manuscript as he finished each folio, that likely resulted from ambiguity in Persian between but if such were the case, the catchwords could not be “over” and “on” (cat. no. XII). wrong in the manner in which they are in the Cleve- There are only two specifically Indian references land manuscript. An example is ASI.14, which has the in the entire text of Father Jerome’s work: on L108b, catchword khujasta. ASI.14 is the b side of a folio that opchī (armed soldier), a Hindi word not used in Per- is numbered 21, and the folio numbered 22 (ASI.15–16) sian outside of India, and references to “laks of rupees” does indeed begin with the word khujasta. However, on L102b and “rupees” on ASI.204. folio ASI.13–14 is out of correct order. It belongs after ASI.12 but should be followed by 2005.145.6, which has Catchwords. Persian manuscripts never had page or an illustration on the a side and text on the b side. The folio numbers when they were produced. Over time the catchwords that should have been on ASI.14 are ānchi folios (and even pages) of some manuscripts have been numāyān shud, and the khujasta catchword should have numbered, but the numbers are not original. Instead of been on ASI.10, which has only “chapter one” as its page numbers, in order to maintain the proper order catchword. This can only mean that the catchword—in of folios, catchwords (the first two or three words of this case at least—was added after the folios were put the next folio) were written at the bottom left of the b in the wrong order and not when the manuscript was side of a folio. This enabled the binders to put or keep being written. (See Appendix II, “Order of Folios in the folios in the proper order, particularly when pages Cleveland Mirāt al-quds.”) were being repaired or rebound. The catchwords in the Cleveland manuscript are unusual in several respects. Running titles. The use of running titles is unheard-of Firstly, not all folios have catchwords (e.g., ASI.272), in Persian manuscripts of the period, but this one has, which in and of itself is very unusual. Secondly, many of exactly like modern books, a running title of Dāstān-i the catchwords are not the beginning of the text on the Masī (Deeds of the Messiah) on the right-hand side next folio but rather the running subtitle of the chap- of a spread and running chapter titles on the left-hand ter: e.g., ASI.108 has for catchwords bāb-i avval (chap- side of the spread. Although a few pages do not have the ter one), which is the beginning of the running title of running titles written in, they all have space for them at the next folio. Since most, but not all, folios have these the top marked off with a gold ruling.