Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/376

 CHAPTER XIV SOME INCIDENTS OF SHAH JAHAN'S EEIGN 1628-1659 A. D. nHHERE is extant a voluminous native history of J- Shah Jahan's reign, entitled Pddshah-ndmah, " Book of the King." It was written by Abd-al-Hamid of Lahore, who died in 1654 A. D., five years before the emperor's decease, leaving behind him a most detailed account of his royal patron. These annals cover twenty- one years of the emperor's reign, and, taken together, they make up two large volumes of nearly seventeen hundred pages, which rehearse the more important transactions of the kingdom during that period. The excerpts which are included in the present vol- ume are chosen because of their general interest, and they are representative of dozens of others in the East- ern chronicler's account. The passages selected refer to a visitation of the plague in Shah Jahan's reign, to the construction of the famous Peacock Throne, and to an attempted conquest of Tibet. 1 For an entire year during the rule of the Emperor 820