Note on Translation and Transliteration

The author is responsible for all translations in this study except for those otherwise credited in the notes. The system of transliteration for Persian words when italicized, or when forming a book or manuscript title, is that of F. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1970), with the following exceptions: the fourth letter of the Persian alphabet, thā, is rendered “th”; the eleventh letter, żāl, is rendered “ż”; the nineteenth letter, ṭā, is rendered “ṭ”; and the twentieth letter, z̄ā, is rendered “z̄”. Bengali and Sanskrit names or terms, when italicized, are given in the conventional system of transcribing the Devanagari to the Roman script.