Note 78 — The Thirteenth New Year’s Feast

In the middle of the garden of K͟hurram (S͟hāh-Jahān’s) residence there is a bench and a reservoir. On one side78 of that bench there is a Mūlsarī-tree (Mimusops elengi) against which to lean the back. As in one side of its trunk there was a hollow to the extent of three-fourths of a yard, it had an ugly look. I ordered them to cut a tablet of marble and fix it firmly in that place, so that one could lean one’s back on it and sit there. At this time an impromptu couplet came to my tongue, and I ordered the stone-cutters to engrave it on that stone, that it might remain as a memento on the page of time. This is the couplet: