Edward William West and the Pahlavi codex MK

Abstract This article discusses some manuscripts copied and described by E. W. West in his Notebooks held at the Royal Asiatic Society, with special reference to the texts contained in the Pahlavi codex MK.

During his third visit to India in - West spent a good amount of his time studying Zoroastrian ancient texts and manuscripts. It was in that period that he copied a considerable number of Pahlavi manuscripts. Among them was the Pahlavi codex MK of the collection of Dastur Jamaspji JamaspĀsana, who greatly treasured this particular manuscript. West made his copy in , and it is preserved on pp. - of his Notebook (NB)  at the RAS. In his notebooks, West used the siglum DJ (for Dastur Jamaspji) for this manuscript, 5 while JamaspĀsana  refers to it as MK after the initials of the scribe Mehraban publications, and Edward Weech, Nancy Charley and Alison Ohta of the RAS for making West's notebooks and papers available, for facilitating our work at the RAS, and for the permission to reproduce some of the images here. 3 The long-awaited facsimile edition of the manuscript MK, prepared by its late owner Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa and myself, is scheduled to appear in the series Iranica in . 4 For a description of West's life, see the article by A.V.W. Jackson, revised by J. B. Katz , in the Oxford National Biography. Rich, and to date almost entirely unexplored, primary source material on the activities of E.W. West and his brothers in India is available both at the RAS and in the British Library. 5 In his publications, West uses the siglum "J", e.g. in his detailed survey of the contents of MK in West -, pp. -.
Kayhusraw, who copied it in  CE. The manuscript contains  texts which belong to different literary genres, including Wisdom (Handarz) and Court literature.
The significance of MK lies not only in the fact that it is the oldest extant Pahlavi manuscript, and thus the oldest extant witness for any of the texts it contains, but also that seven of them are only known from this manuscript and its transcripts. 6 These are Ayadgar ı̄Zarēran 'Memorial of Zarēr' (MK Text ), Šahrestanı̄hāıĒran 'The cities of Eran' (MK Text ), Abdı̄h ud sahı̄gı̄h ı̄Sēstan 'The marvel and worthiness of Sıstan' (Text ), Husraw ı̄Kawadan ud rēdak-ē'Husraw, son of Kawad, and a page' (MK Text ), Handarz ı̄danaḡan ōmazdēsnan 'Advice of the Wise to the Mazdayasnians' (MK Text ), Handarz ı̄Husraw ı̄Kawadan 'Advice of Husraw, son of Kawad' (MK Text ) and Wazagı̄hāı̄Baxtafrı̄d ud Adurbad ıZ arduštan 'Sayings of Baxtafrıd and of Ādurbad, son of Zardušt' (MK Text ).
On a loose sheet enclosed in Notebook  after p. , West describes the manuscript MK and provides insights into its state of preservation in his time, as follows: Pahlavi Shahnamah Ms. (D.J.) in the library of Dastur Jamaspji Minochiharji Jamaspasana,  folios of old brownish Indian paper, " × ½" written  lines to the page, on the first  folios and  to  lines on the rest, 7 clear and distinct where not eaten away by the white ants; has been bound but the folios are now loose and easily displaced, the sewing being eaten away. The folios have no catch words and are only numbered with a lighter ink (and probably at a later date) at the bottom right hand corner on the b page in Gujarati figures; these figures indicate the loss of some folios, the missing  folios being N. , , , -, and ; the last fol. being N. .
West's number  of the missing folios diverges from the number  given by Anklesaria , p.  only because West omits from his count folio  at the beginning of the manuscript and fols. - at the end. The number of folios missing then was actually the same as it is today. What West refers to as fol.  is wrongly marked and is in fact fol. , as noted by Anklesaria. On the same loose sheet, West goes on to explain his method of marking lacunae or restorations in his transcription of MK: In the copy, all letters more or less eaten away are underlined with pencil; when they are absolutely certain they are written in ink, if more or less uncertain in pencil (but these include all letters certain but of which no traces remain, or which are not absolutely indispensable). When the letters are very uncertain the space above the pencil line is left blank. -Every page is collated, after writing, with the original. Glosses in different ink, and therefore presumably by a later hand, are written here in pencil. Words struck out (by overpoints, or otherwise) in the original MS. are omitted in this copy, but blunders unaltered in the original MS. are copied as they stand, and often indicated by sic to show that they are in the original. 8 The rigorous precision with which West executed the copying of MK and of other manuscripts is characteristic of his work preserved in the Notebooks. His diligence is particularly valuable, well suited to documenting the lacunose state of preservation of MK. In fact, the poor physical condition of MK even in West's time led Anklesaria ,  to comment that the copies of MK and of any other witnesses of the texts MK contains, are essential to fill the many gaps in MK. 6 Haug , pp. -.

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It is in fact from MK's fol. v that the lines per page are more than . 8 West's note enclosed in Notebook  after p..
. The manuscript JJ () and its copy T (ca. ?) The most important copy of MK, the manuscript JJ, was transcribed by Dastur Jamšed JamaspĀsana, whose initials provide the siglum of this ms. Anklesaria ,  notes that at the time JJ was copied the  folios -, which included an entire quire, and the two folios - of MK were still present, because the texts they contain are transcribed in JJ. However, MK's four fols. , ,  and  (wrongly marked ) were already missing. In JJ the gaps of text due to the absence of these four folios are not indicated, the preceding and following folios being copied continuously. 9 In various places both in his Notebooks and in print, West states that JJ was copied in the year  of the Christian era. 10 This date is based on the assumption that JJ was completed in  of the Yazdegird era (AY). The year  is written above the line in West's description of Dasturj Jamaspi's copy (T) of JJ in Notebook , p. , where the colophon in Persian of JJ is copied. West also gives this date in the draft of a note, which would have accompanied the copy he made for Dastur Jamaspi of some of the texts in Notebook  (Fig. ): The following Pahl. texts are copied from my transcription of a very old MS. (DJ) in the library of Dastur Jamaspj Minochiharji Jamaspasana in Bombay. They occur on fols. - 11 of DJ which is dated AY , but seems to be in the handwriting of the copyist of K, who must have lived somewhat later, though fully  years ago. The letters in red ink have been eaten away in DJ, but are supplied from a transcript of a copy (T) made in Nawsâri in A.Y.  and now in Teherân. DJ contains  distinct texts, varying from  to  words in length and after the  th text occurs a colophon copied by the writer in A.Y.  stating that 'these memoranda' were written in A.Y.  by Dên-panâh Aêtarpâî Dên-panâh in Brôgac (Bhrôc).
At the time West wrote this note, the original ms. JJ was in Tehran. JJ had been taken there by its then owner Manekji Limji Hataria, who was a keen collector of Zoroastrian manuscripts. According to West's ,  and fn.  account of the history of JJ, Manekji Limji Hataria acquired the manuscript JJ in Mumbai "il y a à peu près  ans". This would have been around . In , Manekji was sent to Iran as the first emissary of the Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of Zoroastrians in Persia, and it was presumably at that time that that he took JJ to Tehran. After Manekji's death on  February , his library was bequeathed to the Parsi Community, and with it JJ came back to India. In a note on the bottom margin of p.  of Notebook , West records the presence of JJ in Bombay in July  (Fig. 

):
Red collation here is from a copy of this passage from the Tehran copy now (July ) in Bombay and said to be dated A.Y.  (see Jivanji Jamshedji Modi's letter of th June ).
The note indicates that West now dates the ms. JJ to AY  on the basis of a letter of  June  by J.J. Modi. This correction was presumably possible because the original manuscript had by then returned to Mumbai and was again available for consultation. While working on his Introduction to JamaspĀsana's Pahlavi Texts, Anklesaria , - must have been able to consult the original manuscript JJ as he reproduces its colophons, which state that JJ was completed on day Hormazd, month Shahrewar AY  ( =  th March  CE).
The manuscript JJ then came into the possession of the Trustees of the "New Atash Behram" in Bombay. 12 The "New Atash Behram" was established under the leadership of Dastur Jamaspji on  October  and named Anjuman Ateš Bahram. 13 Around  the Hataria collection was transferred from there to the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Bombay, as recorded in the Annual Report for the year  of the Cama Oriental Institute: 14 Manekji Limji Hateria Library. -As stated in the report for the year , 15 arrangements were made, by securing the order of the High Court, to transfer the above Library from the Anjuman Atash-behram to this Institute. The ms. JJ could well have been among the mss. transferred to the COI, but unfortunately to date it has not been possible to locate it either there or anywhere else.
By the time JJ was returned to Bombay in , West was living in England, and he never saw the original manuscript. What he used for his collations was a copy of JJ made by Dastur Jamaspji, who must have copied JJ before it was taken to Tehran. In his Notebooks, West refers to this copy as T (for Tehran). West ,  mentions that Dastur Jamaspji lent him his copy of JJ (i.e. T) in  in order to fill the gaps in his own transcription of MK of . 16 Since West returned to Europe in , Dastur Jamaspji must have sent his copy of JJ to West by mail or in some other way. It seems that upon completion of his work West sent the ms. T back to Bombay because Darab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana , pp. xxx-xxxii seems to describe this manuscript, referring to it as "J", although he did not collate it in his edition of the Karnamag. That Sanjana's "J" is not MK itself but a copy of it emerges clearly from the fact that Sanjana describes MK's second colophon, which is of Mihraban Kayhusraw, as that "of the original codex from which J. is derived". Moreover, he provides the text of the Sanskrit colophon, which is lost in MK but present in JJ. Since JJ was available again in Bombay from , Sanjana's "J" could be that ms. However, Anklesaria ,  informs us that JJ is written - lines per page and has  folios while Sanjana's description differs slightly from JJ in that his "J" has  pages (=  folios) written  lines to a page. These details perfectly agree with those provided by West, Notebook , p.  for Dastur Jamaspi's copy of JJ, for which West uses the siglum T: "T is a manuscript of  pages, ¾" high × " wide, written  lines to a page." The present location of Dastur Jamaspji's copy (T) being unknown, all we currently have are the readings of T given by West in his Notebooks, alongside those of JJ provided by JamaspĀsana . For when Dastur Jamaspji began his work on the edition of his Pahlavi texts in  (Anklesaria , p. ), he would have had access to the original ms. JJ.

. West's copy (W) of texts copied in Notebook  ()
In , while living in Munich, Germany, West copied his own  copy of MK, preserved in Notebook , for Dastur Jamaspji in order to aid the latter in his editorial work. The draft of a cover note by West has survived on a loose sheet following p.  of his Notebook . It is dated Munich, March  and was meant to accompany the copy West made for Dastur Jamaspji. The note states (Fig. ) (Heading of a copy made for Dastûr Jâmâspji) The following Pahlavi text is transcribed from a copy of Dastur Jâmâspji's old MS (called Vishtâsp-shâh-nâmak) made in . The letters written in blue ink are eaten away in the old MS., and were supplied by guess in the copy of , but have since been confirmed by comparison with a copy of a transcript made by Jamshêd JâmâspÂsâ in , and belonging to Mânekji Limji of Teherân. The letters interlined in red ink are given from the copy of the transcript of , where they could not be guessed in , on where that copy differs from the guess 16 West , pp. - writes: "Il y a onze ans Dastûr Jâmâspji a bien voulu me permettre de copier son ancien manuscript de , et deux ans plus tard il me prêta une copie qu'il avait faite sur celle de Téhéran pour remplir les lacunes qui existent dans son ancient codex." then made. All variations of the copy of the transcript of  from the legible portion of the old MS. are neglected, as being manifestly errors, or emendations, of the copyists. München, March . EWW Although West explicitly made the transcript of his copy for Dastur Jamaspji, Anklesaria , p. , informs us that West sent the copy to his father, Ervad Tehmuras Dinshaji Anklesaria "for facilitating Dastûr Jamaspji's work." In his edition of the Pahlavi texts, JamaspĀsana  uses the siglum W to refer to West's copy of . The latter is now kept in the library of the Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai under the signature Khata . According to Sheffield's description, the volume has  pages and includes "various texts" of MK, starting with Text , the Ayadgar ı̄Zarēran. 17 Anklesaria , p. , reports that West did not send copies of MK's Text  Čı̄dag handarz ı̄poryotkēšan (= Pand namag ı̄Zardušt, PT pp. -), Text  Handarz ı̄danaḡan om azdēsnan (PT pp. -), Text  Handarz ı̄Husraw ı̄Kawadan (PT pp. -), Text  Ayadgar ı̄Wuzurgmihr (PT pp. -), Text  Wizarišn ı̄cǎtrang ud nihišn ı̄nēw-ardaxšı̄r (PT pp. -), because editions of these five texts had been published by Peshotan Behram Sanjana in . Nor did West provide a transcription of the Karnamag, a text which is also absent from West's copy of MK of . Notebook , p.  only provides a note stating that the Karnamag covers fol. r to fol. r of the codex MK. Accordingly, JamaspĀsana  provides no readings reported by West for any of these six texts. The fact that the first five of them are present in West's notebooks further confirms that JamaspĀsana was working with West's copy of , which West copied from his own transcription of MK of , preserved in his Notebook . JamaspAsa's edition of  omits the Karnamag on the grounds that Ervad Edalji Kersaspji Antia used MK for his edition of the text, published in . Moreover, at the time Dastur Peshotan's son Darab Peshotan Sanjana was also working on an edition the Karnamag, published it in . 18 However, Sanjana collated neither MK nor its copies JJ or T, although he describes the latter, referring to it as "J" (see above section ).
. The ms. DP (ca. -?) Like Dastur Jamaspji, Dastur Peshotanji Behramji Sanjana (-), too, owned a remarkable collection of manuscripts, which he passed on to his son Darab Peshotan Sanjana (-). After the death of the latter, the manuscripts together with the printed books of the Sanjana collection were presented to the Cama Oriental Institute in . 19 Among the manuscripts of the Sanjana collection was the codex DP containing texts also found in MK, but in the absence of a catalogue it is difficult to verify whether the codex DP was among the six manuscripts recorded to have been donated to the Cama Oriental Institute in .
Referring to DP with the siglum Pt, West -, pp. -, surveys the contents, and in Notebook , p.  he provides the following physical description of the manuscript, which was bound in an unusual way: MS. D.P. belonging to the library of Dastur Peshotanji Behramji Sanjana. Pahlavi Jamasp namak, etc.,  folios remaining out of  numbered, of old brownish Indian paper, ½" × ½", written  to  lines to a page; folios generally uninjured, excepting some of the earlier ones. It has been written not to bind up as a book, but for each folio to be reversed separately whilst reading, so that the writing on one page is upside down to that on the other, and the folios appear to have been connected at the top in pairs, at least fols.  +  are so connected, so that after reading a you turn it up from the bottom and then have b and a before you ready for reading one below the other, and then turning up a from the bottom you have b similarly before you. -The folios are numbered in the centre of the top margin on the b side in Gujarati figures; this numbering extends up to , but the following  folios are missing:  to ,  to ,  to ,  to , and ; it seems likely also that some folios were missing before these numbers were written, as between fols.  + .
West ,  describes DP as "un manuscrit vraiment ancien" and as one with no date. 20 According to Sanjana , English preface p. iv, DP was copied by Ervad Kamdın Shehryar Neryosangh Samand from a manuscript which was completed by "a chief Peshwa of our religion" at Bharuch on day Goš, month Ardibehešt in the Samvat year  (=  CE.) for the use of a pupil named Šahzad, son of Šad. West ,  notes that Kamdın's son Ram copied a manuscript dated  CE, and Peshotan, the son of Ram and grandson of Kamdın, copied a further manuscript in  CE. The latter is the miscellaneous codex M (Cod.Zend ) obtained by Martin Haug in Surat in  and now kept in the State Library 18 Anklesaria , .

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The Annual Report for  (Journal of the Cama Oriental Institute , , ) records a donation of six mss. and  books from the library of Dastur Darab S. Sanjana by his daughter, Mrs Ratanbai C. Badshah. 20 Haug , p. , too, refers to DP as a "very old manuscript in Dastur Peshotanji's library in Bombay". of München. 21 On the basis of this data, West estimates that DP was copied between  and  CE. 22 The details of the place and beneficiary given by Sanjana for Kamdın's original agree with those in col.  of MK fol. r-. 23 The latter colophon belongs to the th-century manuscript of Den Panah, the source manuscript from which the Texts - (and probably also Text , the Ayadgar ıZarēran) of MK were transcribed. However, the date AY  ( CE) of MK's colophon  is different from the year Samvat  ( CE), which Sanjana gives for the completion of Kamdın's original. Regardless of this discrepancy, it appears that DP derives not from MK, as almost all other copies do, but is an independent transcript of the source manuscript from which Texts - of MK ultimately also descend. François de Blois , p.  already noted this when commenting that neither MK nor DP is copied from the other but they both descend from a common source.
During his third stay in India, in , West fully transcribed those parts of DP which are either not included in MK (Ayadgar ı̄Jamaspı̄g) or which were lost in MK at his time (MK Text  Mah ı̄Frawardı̄n Roz ı̄Hordad, and MK Text  Madayan ı̄sı̄h rozag). West's transcription of these three texts of DP are preserved in Notebook , pp. -, 24 where West also surveys the other texts of DP which he did not transcribe but only collate with his transcriptions of other manuscripts, including MK.
The ms. DP has been noted as being a very rare witness of the Pahlavi version of the Ayadgar ı̄Jamaspı̄g (or: Jamasp Namag). 25 The typeset text of DP's folios - (AJ .-.) and fols. - (AJ .-) of the Ayadgar ı̄Jamaspı̄g is reproduced in West  and then again in Agostini , pp. -. West's edition provides the text in the Pahlavi script "so far as it was extant in  in a very old Manuscript belonging to the late Shams-ul-Ulama Dastur Dr. Peshotanji Behramji Sanjana" (West , p. ). That the typeset Pahlavi text he reproduced in the publication of  is based on the transcription he made in , and which is preserved in Notebook , pp. -, is confirmed by the fact that the typeset text of DP published in  includes words restored by West in his Notebook from the Pazand version to fill gaps in the manuscript DP (Fig. ).
West also collated the remaining texts of DP with those which are preserved in MK, providing the readings of the former in his transcription of the latter. That JamaspĀsana  worked with West's copy of the manuscript DP rather than with the original emerges from Anklesaria , , who informs us that the variants of DP and of five other manuscripts "were all kindly supplied by Dr West, but for which the texts would have been very imperfect". A case in point are § §- of the Handarz ı̄anošag-ruwan Adurbad ıM araspandan (Hand.Ādur.Mar., MK Text ), which are lost in MK due to the loss of its folio . In his edition of the Pahlavi Texts, JamaspĀsana, who on this occasion refers to DP as W, states that he has taken the text of these paragraphs "solely from W", 26 that is 21 West -, p. . The contents of M are surveyed by Haug and West , iii-v, and described in detail by Bartholomae , pp. -. 22 West , p. ; -, p.  and , p.  fn.. 23 JamaspĀsana , p. .

25
On the manuscripts of the Pahlavi version of this text, see Agostini , pp. -. 26 JamaspĀsana , p.  fn.. from West's transcript of , discussed above in section , of his copy of MK of . While JamaspĀsana , p.  edits the text of § §- of this Handarz, West, Notebook , p.  (see Fig. ) omits § §- and only provides the text of § §- from DP. It is unknown where JamaspĀsana took the text of § §- from.
Much of the text of MK's lost folio  has thus been retrieved from DP through West's copy of this manuscript. In his transcription of MK, the text of MK's folio -, covering Hand.Ādur.Mar. § §-, is collated with DP, whose readings are provided in red above the words of MK written in blue ink (West, Notebook , pp. -). The Handarz ıā nošag-ruwan Adurbad ı̄Maraspandan ends at the bottom of MK's folio , but folio , on which a new text should have started, is lost. In his transcription in Notebook , West leaves the remainder of page  and the first six lines of p.  blank. He might have been hoping to be able to supply the text lost with MK's folio  from another manuscript, but unfortunately these lines in his Notebook  have remained blank. JamaspAsana ,