Beautiful page from a Khojki manuscript dated 1820.

Written 200 years ago!

This is a particular version of the Naade Ali recitation:

The Nade Ali ending with :

"bi nabuwatika ya Muhammad wa bi wilayatika ya Ali, ya Ali, ya Ali. La fata ila Ali la saif illah zulfikar."

Ginan attributed to Syed Baqir Shah, re-attributed to Syed Imam Shah by Mukhi Lalji Devraj in his 100 Ginans Khojki books.

The book contains about 15 granths and 50 ginans, many with variance or not published in any later publication, first few pages and cover pages are missing, the book starts with Anant Akhado granth. See below the image of the ginan from that books which seems to have been printed around CE 1900

Wikipedia says this [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satpanth] "He (Syed Imamshah) wrote many ginans which are recited by the Ismailis. He had four sons, viz. Sayed Alam Shah, Sayed Ali Shah, Sayed Bakar Shah and Sayed Nur Muhammad Shah, and a daughter called Shams Khatoon."

I found the same ginan in Mukhi Lalji Devraj 's version under author Imamshah. Surprising because that version below has twice the name Baqar Shah. I first thought it may be an Imamshahi publication but to my knowledge they did not print in Khojki. We can see "Baqir Shah" replaced by "Nur Shah" in verse 2 of this accepted canonic version. Also in the last verse, "Bhane Pir Baqir Shah" appears in Lalji Devraj as "Bhane Syed Imamshah". The number of verses are 5 in both and there is no major difference between both publication beside the authorship.

Syed Baqir Shah tomb is in Pirana on the opposite side of the road where Syed Imamshah's tomb is situated. The people controlling the place are called "Athias" and have initially been converted (8 of them, hence the name "Athias") by Syed Badardin, the brother of Pir Sadardin. I went to visit a couple of years back. They have drifted quite far from the teachings in their ginans and many of them do puja of a colorful and large cow idol which is in the compound. They said they gave all their manuscripts to the "moti" Pirana Dargah and these manuscripts were subsequently all put in the river.

Here is a transcript of the ginan from the Lalji Devraj version:

http://ismaili.net/ginans/transcription/part6/bgh6-012.html

This is a different example of Satpanth manuscript.

My impression was that Imamshahis have started using Gujarati very early.

One of the translation sponsored by Syed Ehmad Ali of the Imamshahis was a transcription from Khojki to Gujarati of an Ismaili manuscript.

Here is a manuscript dated 1854 that is in Khojki script but looks like an Imamshahi manuscript.

It typically ends with the Kalmo and has a History of Satpanth from before creation up to Imam Nizar.

In the name of the 14 Vakils (see table of content) is given the name of Pir Dadhu in number 7.

This discussion stems from the Manuscript Page linked here.

I want to share another exciting discovery.

Our Manuscript hs0375 found in Ahmedabad area and completed in Samvat 1823 (AD 1767) has a work described as MOTO Das Avatar of Pir Shams in 582 verses (Gujrati script)

We have two Das Avatar of Pir Shams

Previously we discovered one Dasmu Avatar of Pir Hasan Kabirdin (524 verses in Khojki script) in manuscript hs0022

There is also one more in the Harvard collection of Indic manuscripts.

All this material demands more study and I hope the next generation will be able to study all of them and compare with earlier comments by Dr Gulshan Khakee and by Missionnary Bandali Haji.

Here is an article that discuss the concept behind the Das Avatar work and quote this manuscripts

https://library.ismaili.net/documents/notes-some-newly-discovered-manusc...