History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c11.222.3

c11.222.3

But he adds that on one occasion when he was in the service of Murtaza Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar, he saw in the royal library a pamphlet entitled ‘An enquiry into the origin and descent of Sultan ‘Ala-al-Din Hasan Kāngū Bahmani’; which contained a genealogy of Hasan closely resembling that given by the author of the *Burhān-i-Ma'sir*. Firishta is not satisfied with these explanations of Hasan's origin and sticks to his original view that Hasan styled himself Bahmani because of his connection with the Brahman astrologer of Dihli, whose name he coupled with his own out of sheer gratefulness. Firishta's version is reproduced by Khwafi Khan in his *Muntakhab-al-lubāb* with the only difference that he alters the date of foundation to the 4th Rabi-'al-Sani 747 A.H. (25th July, 1346) and he is uncritically accepted by all later writers. The historians of the last generation followed Firishta without taking pains to examine the truth of his statements with the result that the Hindu origin of the dynasty has become one of the current coins of Indian History. Even in our own times in many a text-book on Indian history the old story of Hasan's Brahmanical connection is repeated with amazing simplicity illustrating the truth of Sir Henry Maine's dictum that error is the hardest to combat when it has spread over a wider area.