É. Apor (ed.): Jubilee Volume of the Oriental Collection, 1951–1976. Papers Presented on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

É. Apor: Sándor Kégl' s Bequest and the Persian Manuscripts in the Oriental Collection

40 catalogue of all of the material in the manuscript collection, but unfortunately this has yet to be realized. [ 15] A short hand-written catalogue of the other manuscripts have been prepared on the model of Kégl's card-catalogue and although it does contain a number of mistakes, at least for the time being it does serve its purpose. If we classify the Persian manuscripts in the Oriental Collection according to subject-matter, we see that the largest single genre — roughly half of the manuscripts — are works of poetry. We have 3 copies of 'éâhnâme' (F. 3, 12, 17), one 'divan' of NÄSER-E XOSROU (0.23), 4 of HÄFEZ (0. 2,52,68, 102), 2 copies of ANVARI (Ó. 63, 86), one of the ' divän' of SÂ'

ЕВ (O. 21),the 'Xam

se

' of AMIR XOSROU DEHLAVI (O. 79) and the ' Haát beheät' by itself in 3 copies, 2 copies of NEZÀMI's ' Xosrou va èirin' (О. 58, 73), and 2 of С SA DI'

s 'Kolliyät' (Q. 21, F. 6), and a number of separate copies of the 'Bustân' and 'Golestän'. In the field of belles-lettres we possess a manuscript of the 'Kalila va Dimna' (O. 57) and 3 copies of the 'Tutinäme' (O. 32, 60, 64). To mention one lesser known work, the Collection also possesses 3 copies of the 17th century 'Bahâr-e dànes' (О. 78, 92, Q. 23), a major work in ' sabk-e hendi' where "knowledge" (dänes) is interpreted first and foremost as the art of love. The finest copy (Q. 23), dated 1730, is from the Kégl collection. The 'tazkere', a genre peculiar to Persian literature being a blend of literary history and anthology is represented in the Collection by several very fine manuscripts. The earliest, dating from 1567-68 is the 'Tohfe-ye Sámi' (О. 8), written by SÄM MIRZÄ, the son of the first Safavid ruler, Esma

Cil ááh. Dating from the same period, we also possess CATTÀR ' s 'Tazkiratalauliyà' (О. 17), and DOULATSÄH's classical work, the 'Tazkirat aá-Su arä" (О. 50) (1571), bequeathed to the Academy by Vámbéry. The 'Meyxâne', a 'tazkere' manuscript from North India dated 1717 (0.

1). Examples of Qâjâr 'tazkeres' include the 'Anjoman-e xäqän' (F. 9) (1838), the 'ÄtaSkade' (0.

43), (from the beginning of the 19th century) and the particularly valuable 'Sailnat al-Mahmud' (F. 14:1) (1829), written by a Qâjâr prince, MAHMUD MIRZÄ, fifteenth son of Fath cAli sah and bequethed to the Library by Vámbéry. The 'Majma-ye Mahmud' which contains the 'tazkere' is now recognized as the most complete collection of MAHMUD MIRZÄ'

s writings. Vámbéry received the manuscript, in his own words, from "a fellow-countryman, general Károly Wagner, a professional soldier serving with the Persian army". But how did an artillery-officer from Nagyszeben (now Sibiu, Rumania) find himself in the Persian army? The reason apparently is as follows: on his second visit to Europe in 1878 Näser ed-din sah was received by Emperor Franz-Joseph in Vienna. He was so impressed by the martial splendour of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers who formed his reception troop that the Emperor agreed to his request to dispatch a number of officers to Persia to reorganize and modernize the army. One of these officers was Wagner. He seems to have had excellent connections with the court, otherwise it is very hard to see how he could have come into the possession of the finest manuscipt written at the command of Fath cAli sah.