Pir Pandiyat-i Jawanmardi

Gujarati and Khojki Manuscript

Pir Pandiyat-i Jawanmardi

The Pandiyat-i Jawanmardi, or ‘Counsels of Chivalry,’ is a compilation of the guidance of the fifteenth century Ismaili imam, Mustansir bi’llah. Containing exhortations to the faithful on the necessity of recognising and obeying the current imam and on how to live a truly ethical life, copies of this work are remarkably widespread. They have been preserved in the Nizari manuscript collections of Badakhshan, Hunza, Kashghar, Chinese Turkistan, Sindh and Gujarat. A passage that precedes the work in many manuscripts explains that the death of Pir Taj al-Din occasioned the dispatch of this book to India by the imam. This Khojki manuscript contains what is perhaps the earliest extant copy of this important work.

Copied between 1793 Samvat/1736 and 1879 Samvat/1822, principal scribe unknown

Institute of Ismaili Studies