Lot 84
AN ILLUSTRATED COPY OF MUHIT-I MA'RIFAT ('OCEAN OF KNOWLEDGE' OR YOGA)
INDIA, MAHARASHTRA AND RAJASTHAN, DATED 1832
Auction: 10 December 2025 from 14:00 GMT
Description
[colophon:] by Ray Satidas, son of Ram Bhai, of the Khatri people [qawm] … copied in Mumbai by Muhammad Baqir … Jumada al-Awwal 1237 AH [i.e. January/February 1832]. Persian manuscript in black ink on wove paper, 43 leaves, (25.7 x 20.6cm), 17 lines to the page, nasta'liq script, rubricated headings and emphasis markings, illustrated with some 40 Indian School miniatures in gouache including depictions of yoga stances and Hindu deities (on pasted-in slips). Bound with a continuation of 2 separate texts both copied by Muhammad Baqir on the same date as the main text and in the same style, these comprising 105 leaves (the volume in total therefore containing 148 leaves), the first additional text containing one miniature. Contemporary leather binding, covers detached, occasional damp-staining, near-contemporary inscription in Persian to initial blank
Dimensions
Folio: 25.8cm x 20.8cm
Footnote
Another manuscript copy of this work is listed by E. Denison Ross and Edward G. Browne in their Catalogue of Two Collections of Persian and Arabic Manuscripts preserved in the India Office Library (1902, p. 89), where it is described as ‘a treatise on metaphysics, yoga and divination, principally based on the Hindi work Svarodaya of Charana Dasa, the pupil of Sukhadevaji’. They name the author as Satidas son of Ram Bha'i, of the Khatri caste, known poetically is ‘Arif, resident in the parganah of Kaythal, the ancient Kapistala', presumably transcribing the colophon in the copy described, and note the date of composition as 1167 AH. The work contains dedicated chapters on Sankhya, Raja and Hatha yoga, and chapters with titles including ‘On the knowledge of the colours of the elements’ and 'On the knowledge of death and life’.