Note 91 — SECTION I. FARGHĀNA.
Annette Susannah Beveridge translation
postīn pesh b:r:h. This obscure Persian phrase has been taken in the following ways:—
(a) W.-i-B. I.O. 215 and 217 (i.e. both versions) reproduce the phrase. (b) W.-i-B. MS., quoted by Erskine, p. 6 note, (postīn-i mīsh burra). (c) Leyden’s MS. Trs., a sheepskin mantle of five lambskins. (d) Mems., Erskine, p. 6, a mantle of five lambskins. (e) The Persian annotator of the Elph. MS., underlining pesh, writes, panj, five. (f) Klaproth (Archives, p. 109), pustini pisch breh, d.h. gieb den vorderen Pelz. (g) Kehr, p. 12 (Ilminsky p. 6) postin bīsh b:r:h. (h) De. C, i, 9, fourrure d’agneau de la première qualité.
The “lambskins” of L. and E. carry on a notion of comfort started by their having read sayāh, shelter, for Turkī sā’ī, torrent-bed; de C. also lays stress on fur and warmth, but would not the flowery border of a mountain stream prompt rather a phrase bespeaking ornament and beauty than one expressing warmth and textile softness? If the phrase might be read as postīn pesh perā, what adorns the front of a coat, or as postīn pesh bar rah, the fine front of the coat, the phrase would recall the gay embroidered front of some leathern postins.