Page:HMElliotHistVol1.djvu/171

Rh described them as being, had he lived after the extinction of that religion in India. We read of Samanís, monks, and a royal white elephant, which are no longer heard of at the later invasion of Mahmúd of Ghazní. Again, some portions of the history are derived from oral testimony received at second, third, or fourth hand, from those who were participators in the transactions recorded, just in the same way as Tabarí, who wrote in the third century of the Hijrí, probably later than our author, traces all his traditions to eye or ear-witnesses. Elphinstone’s estimate of the work is that, “though loaded with tedious speeches, and letters ascribed to the principal actors, it contains a minute and consistent account of the transactions during Muhammad Kásims invasion, and some of the preceding Hindú reigns. It is full of names of places, and would throw much light on the geography of that period, if examined by any person capable of ascertaining the ancient Sanskrit names, so as to remove the corruptions of the original Arab writer and the translator, besides the innumerable errors of the copyist.” He states that he did not see this work until his narrative of Kásim’s military transactions had been completed. The Chach-náma is the original from which Nizámu-d dín Ahmad, Núru-l Hakk, Firishta, Mir Ma’súm, and others, have drawn their account of the conquest of Sind. They have, however, left much interesting matter unnoticed, and even the later professed translations by Lieutenant Postans, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (No. LXXIV ., 1838, and No. CXI ., 1841) give merely an abridged account of the transactions, which is moreover unfortunately disfigured by many misprints. The headings of the sections throughout the work have been translated, in order to show the connection of the whole; those only being omitted which are inappropriate or evidently misplaced: and nearly every passage has been translated which can be useful for the illustration of the geography, religion, and manners of the time. The Chach-náma is common in India. There is a copy in the E. I. Library, and the Bibliothèque Impériale has two.