Note 1 — Preface.

A translation of what Dr. Rieu calls the garbled Memoirs of Jahāngīr was made by Major David Price and published by the Oriental Translation Committee of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1829. The author of this work is unknown, and its history is an unsolved problem. It is occasionally fuller than the genuine Memoirs, and it contains some picturesque touches, such as the account of Akbar’s deathbed. But it is certain that it is, in part at least, a fabrication, and that it contains statements which Jahāngīr could never have made. Compare, for instance, the account of the death of Sohrāb, the son of Mīrzā Rustam, near the end of Price’s translation, pp. 138–9, with that given in the genuine Memoirs in the narrative of the fifteenth year of the reign, p. 293, and also in the Iqbāl-nāma, p. 139. Besides being inaccurate, the garbled or spurious Memoirs are much shorter than the genuine work, and do not go beyond the fifteenth year. Price’s translation, too, was made from a single and badly written MS.1 which is now in the R.A.S. library. Dr. Rieu remarks that it is to be regretted that so poor a fabrication as the garbled Memoirs should have been given to the world as a genuine production of Jahāngīr. This being so, it is appropriate that the present translation of the genuine Memoirs should be published by the Royal Asiatic Society.