Awṣāfʻnāmah-i ʻĀlamgīrī (1618–1707)   اوصافنامه  عالمگيری 
(The virtues of Alamgir)
India, 1670
MS Add.215, fo. 1v

A panegyric, or formal eulogy, written in prose and verse, delivered in praise of the sixth Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir, who, during his 49 year reign, ruled over most of the Indian subcontinent. Aurangzeb was himself a patron of the arts of the book, including calligraphy. The text, written on pink paper, is typical of a fashion for using coloured papers which reached its zenith in the fifteenth century. The manuscript also contains the Emperor’s own book-plate glued onto the final leaf, suggesting that it might have originally belonged to his personal library. The seal in dark ink at the top of the page is that of George Lewis.