Pata Khazana
Pata Khazana or the Hidden Treasure is a biography of Pashtoon poets from the earliest times to the time of Mohammad Hotak, the author. It was written in 1728-29 AD in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The earliest poet mentioned in Pata Khazana, Amir Krorr, died in 771 AD.
Pata Khazana has been cited extensively by Allesandro Bausani, the renowned Italian Orientalist, in his Le letterature del Pakistan et dell 'Afghanistan, in the section, la lingua e la letteratura pashto, 1968.
In his book, Bausani cites a letter written to him by George Morgenstierne, the famous Norwegian linguist and orientalist. He writes, "We can concur with the opinion of the eminent Norwegian linguist who writes that one can believe ‘in the authenticity of Pata Khazana as the work of Muhammad Hotak, during the national renaissance of Kandahar in the first half of the XVIII century, when it was important to lay claim to the antiquity of Pashto poetry in relation to Persian poetry. But even if he was a conscientious and zealous collector of ancient manuscripts and traditions, we cannot expect to find in him a critical philologist and historian. He may have accepted dates traditionally attributed to some poems found by him and it is also possible that he himself invented some of the dates, or increased the antiquity of others found by him for patriotic reasons; but there is no reason to doubt that he was able to save many precious fragments of ancient poems. How ancient, I think it is impossible to say, but I think that we possess in the Pata Khazana the most ancient Pashto texts in existence.’ Translation of a letter of Professor Morgenstierne, a copy of which he kindly gave to me."
This is a copy of the hand-written
manuscript of Pata Khazana, transcribed in 1883 from an older manuscript. Abdul
Hay
Habibi edited and published it in
Kabul in 1944.
If you are aware of the existence of any other
manuscript of Pata Khazana, and would like commnets on it added to this page, please send your comments to Patakhazana@comcast.net
You will need Adobe Reader to read the manuscript. You may download it from:
Please, click on Khazana.pdf below to view Pata Khazana
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Link to Pashto Poetry and Literature:
http://pashtopoetry.home.comcast.net/
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