Patna: Pakistan High Commissioner in India Salman Bashir on Thursday paid a visit to the Khuda Baksh Oriental Library and went through several rare Arabic and Persian manuscripts stored there.
Accompanied by his Deputy Babbar Amin, Bashir, who is on his first visit to Bihar, stayed for about 40 minutes in the Library and perused a large number of manuscripts and rare books.
"Bashir sifted through rare manuscripts like Tarikh-e-khandan-Timuriya, Diwan-e-Hafiz and Diwan-e-Kamran," Library`s Director Imtiaz Ahmad said.
"Tarikh-e-Khandan-Timuriya belongs to the Akbar era and carries the autograph of Shah Jahan," he said. The manuscript was inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2011, the only Persian manuscript from SAARC countries to make it to the UNESCO, he added.
"Diwan-e-Hafiz contains the autographs of Mughal emperors while Diwan-e-Kamran has the autographs of Shah Jahan, Jehangir besides British emperor Edward the VIII," he said.
The Pakistani High Commissioner also went through different copies of the Quran and `Historia Sarcenica`, the bilingual Arabic and Latin text on the history of Arab, the Director said.
He said the Pakistani dignitaries were presented an album of medieval scientific instruments and also some recent publications of the Library.
The Khuda Baksh Oriental Library is one of the oldest libraries in the country. It has a unique collection of about 21,000 oriental manuscripts and 2.5 lakh printed books. This library was opened to public 1891 by the Bihar Maulavi Khuda Baksh Khan.
The Library was declared an Institute of National Importance 1969.
PTI
