The foliation is currently (2011) written as though in a European ms. (reading from right to left), but there are traces of an earlier pagination in Indian Arabic numerals on the recto pages, partly trimmed. At present, the foliation followed is the modern (Western) one, and the original one is given where identified as the "reconstructed folio no.". The images below therefore appear at present in the order they occur in the manuscript, but the reverse order of the Shahnama itself. According to the Indian numbering the ms. contains 435 folios.
The paper is thick, and burnished. The finish of the manuscript is of high quality; it is heavily illustrated in a very distinctive style (? Sikh: as suggested by M. Shreve Simpson); the paintings leave a heavy 'shadow' on the reverse side of the folio.
The detailed colophon identifies the scribe as Mir 'Ali Akbar son of Muhammad Muhsin Deccani al-Husaini (possibly al-Hasani), resident in the Citadel (Qal'a) of Zafarabad in Bidar, and mentions that the text has 60,000 verses.
The manuscript is left incomplete, in that the columns are not ruled after f. 393r (= f. 35v) and marginal rulings cease at f. 379v (= f. 57r). The text itself covers the first part of the Shahnama, ending at the end of 'The Great War' and the death of Kay Khusrau, and the passing of rule to Luhrasp.
The text includes a lengthy Samnama, still to be fully described, and also the Barzunama (ff. 303r-364r).
One image from this ms. has been printed in the Journal of the K R Cama Oriental Institute no. 70 (2010), p.110.
Manuscript investigated in preliminary way by F. Abdullaeva and Charles Melville, 10-11 January 2011. The list of paintings is still incomplete (the preliminary list is thought to be complete up to f. 231v (= f. 198r).
