Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s4.67

v1.c20.s4.67

² At these royal fairs were also sold the productions of princely artisans, male and female, and which, out of compliment to majesty, made a bounteous return for their industry. It is a fact but little known, that most Asiatic princes profess a trade : the great Aurangzeb was a cap-maker, and sold them to such advantage on these ‘ ninth day ’ fairs, that his funeral expenses were by his own express command defrayed from the privy purse, the accumulation of his personal labour. A delightful anecdote is recorded of the Khilji king Mahmud, whose profession was literary, and who obtained good prices from his Omrahs for his specimens of calligraphy. While engaged in transcribing one of the Persian poets, a professed scholar, who with others attended the conversazione, suggested an emendation, which was instantly attended to, and the supposed error remedied. When the Mullah was gone, the monarch erased the emendation and re-inserted the passage. An Omrah had observed and questioned the action, to which the king replied : “ It was better to make a blot in the manuscript than wound the vanity of a humble scholar.” [Ferishta tells the story of Nāsiru-d-dīn Mahmūd, i. 246.]