The ms. is in a modern binding, with dark red boards and a black cloth spine. Doublures are red paper with floral and animal motifs. The flyleaf contains a pasted label which repeats the colophon (written by the poor slave Kamal al-Din Naqshbandi on 21 Dhu'l-Hijja 1064 (= 1694 AD) - sic).
The paper is thin, brownish, quite burnished and crackly. There is substantial marginal damage from worm holes, which have been partly repaired. The ms. has not yet been restored.
There is an outer margin: single blue line. The inner margins are blue - space - two thin black with gold - thick gold - thin black - gold - thin black. The columns are ruled with 2 x two thin black with gold. Rubrics also in red nasta'liq on a plain ground, the boxes ruled with two thin black and gold lines.
The manuscript has been paginated backwards, as though it were a European book, i.e. from left to right: f. 483 = f. 1; f. 1r is blank, the poem starts on f. 1v (f. 483r). For the moment, the paintings are entered with the European pagination, and therefore appear to be in reverse order according to the text of the Shahnama.
The European pagination, however, is also incorrect, f. 475 is followed by 456 instead of 476, so the total number of folios should be increased by 20. Clearly, the whole manuscript needs repaginating properly; the current list is therefore both confusing and entirely provisional. The number of paintings listed is 48, but the manuscript was examined in great haste and some may have been overlooked, especially towards the end.
The paintings are all in the characteristic Kashmiri style; if the date of the ms. is correct, and the paintings are contemporary with it (as seems to be the case), this is rather an early example of this style.
There is no Preface; the text of the poem comes under a typical paisley style unvan. The text is organised in four daftars, each under an unvan, and each daftar is dated (all pagination in reverse, European, order):
f. 360v - end of daftar one, last day of Jumada II, 1064
f. 359r - start of daftar two, story of Kamus
f. 231r - end of daftar two, 23 Sha'ban 1064
f. 230r - start of daftar three, story of Luhrasp
f. 96r - end of daftar three, 3 Dhu'l-Qa'da 1064
f. 95r - start of daftar four, reign of Anushirvan
(ChM).