Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c4.s2.t2.3.4

c4.s2.t2.3.4

In trying to express himself with this attitude of mind, however, he finds sometimes that plain and easily intelligible language is not altogether discreet and may involve him in trouble. This shrewdness drives him to subterfuge. He now deliberately takes to grandiloquent style, to florid and bombastic language, and to puns and puzzles ; but he must speak out his mind, as it were, to relieve his agitated and indignant soul. Thus, he takes good care to conceal his meaning in a mass of words, but is still as clear as possible if one knows his feelings and his surroundings. This is my reading of the I'jaz-i-khusravi, professedly written to demonstrate his powers of rhetoric (Balaghat), and his skill in the use of words, and to add to the existing nine styles of epistolography a tenth of his own.¹ Superficially read, ‘the documents it contains are, as usual, written in the most grandiloquent style, a very small amount of information being wrapped up in a bewildering maze of words’. But if these documents are carefully examined they yield interesting and instructive information of a varied character, besides many graphic descriptions of various social phenomena and references to manners and morals. It might be said that it is hardly proper to read into apparently disjointed phrases and uncertain epigrams meanings of social import, in any case, it does not appear scientific to draw historical references from them.