1. The first was made by order of Baysinghur Khan, the grandson of Timnr, a.u. 829 (A.D. 1426). The editor states in his preface that Baysinghur took great delight in reading the Shah Nameh, but found so many mistakes in the copies he used, that he ordered a fresh colla tion to be made in order to obtain an accurate copy for his own private use. The editor does not mention the manuscripts he used ; and this collation did not produce much benefit, as the copy was deposited in the king's library, to which no one was allowed access. All trace of it has disappeared ; tho preface alone is extant.
2. The second collation was made under the superintendence of Dr. Lumeden, professor of Arabic and Persian in the College of Fort William. Twenty-seven valuable manuscripts were procured for this pnrpo.a ; and the first volume, containing an eighth part of the work, was published at Calcutta in 1811.
3. The third collation was made by Mr. Turner Macan from seven teen complete manuscripts and four fragments containing the greater part of the work; all of which were written in Persian. The whole of the 'Shah Nameh' was published by him at Calcutta,1829, in 4 vols.
8vo ; this edition was printed at the expense of Nuseer-oodeen-Hyder, one of the native princes of Hindustan.
Au epitome of the 'Shah Nameh' iu Persian, made in 1657, by Shuns shir Khan, is widely circulated in the East. There is also an abridg ment of it in English, in prose and versa, by Mr. James Atkinson, London, 8vo, 1833; the same author had previously published at Calcutta in 1814, the episode of Sohrab in English verse, accompanied with the Persian text. The entire poem was translated into Arabic prose, A.H. 675 (a.n. 1277), by Caouftin-addyn-Abul-Feteh-Isa, a native of Ispahan. A small portion of it was published by Wahl in the original Persian, with a German translation and many valuable notes in the fifth volume of the Fundgruben des Orients,' Wien., 1816 (pp. 109-131, 233-264, 351-389) ; which was reprinted by Pullers in a useful work for beginners, entitled Chrestomathia Schalinamiana,' Bonnet, 1833. The first eight books were translated by Champion in 1 vol. 4to, 1784 ; and a few extracts were also translated into English versa by Stephen Weston, B.D., Loud., 1815. Further particulars of the life of Firdusi will be found in Silvestre de Sacy's translation of his life by Daulet Shah; published in the fourth volume of Notices et Extr. des Manuscrits' (pp. 203-233), and in the prefaces to the various works quoted above.