by Mir Amman
Laāt an idol worshipped by the pagan Arabians
Manāt an idol worshipped by the pagan Arabians
Nizamuddin Auliya a great Muslim saint of India (d.1325)
Padmini a woman of the first and most excellent of the four classes into which the sex is divided
Qāf the world-embracing mountain range; the abode of the djinn and fairies;
Rustam a legendary warrior of Persia
Shab-e-Barat the night in mid-Sha’ban, the eighth month of the lunar calendar, during which sins are forgiven and destinies fixed; a vigil is observed with prayers, feasting, illuminations and fireworks
Shab-e-Qadr the mystic Night of Power (or Honour), in which Revelation comes down to a benighted world and transforms all conflicts into peace and harmony
Shivrat/Shivratri Shiva’s night, a Hindu festival in honour of Shiva
Suraj Mal Jat a warrior statesman who extended Bharatpur kingdom
Tansen a celebrated Indian musician of 16th century Urdū lit. a camp
Urdū-e-Mu’allā lit. an exalted camp
Yusuf Joseph, a prophet whose brothers flung him into a well out of jealousy
Zu’l-faqār name of ‘Ali’s sword
*Here the author lists thirty three dishes and seven kinds of bread.
*Here the author lists 48 items.
*The author lists eight kinds of vessels.
*Of Marquess Wellesley, the Governor General of Fort William in Bengal, for promotion of literature in Indian languages among the British personnel.
**lit. Language of the Exalted Camp.
†Firdausi, Abu’l Qasim (d. AD 1020), the poet of the Shahnama (Book of Kings) one of the world’s greatest epic poems, which stirred the annals of ancient Persia.
++Here the author claims that through this work he has introduced the elegance of the Urdu language in Bengal, the chief city of which, Calcutta, was the centre of the East India Company.
* Letters of the Urdu alphabet have been given numerical values which are mainly used to compose a chronogram. The practice is to form a brief sentence or phrase, the numerical values of all the letters in which add up to give the year, mostly according to the Hijri era, when the event took place. The Hijri era begins from AD 622—the year of the Prophet’s migration from Mecca. Thus, the numerical value of the letters used in Bāgh-o-Bahār add up to AH 1217, which corresponds to AD 1802-3 of the Christian era.
