Urdu speakers

[Samar Abbas]

On Sat, 9 Sep 2000, Dr. Yashwant Malaiya wrote:
> How about sharing with us examples of Urdu texts from
> 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th or early 15th century?

Prof. Sprenger made a catalogue of such early 10th-15th century Urdu
manuscripts, and records one by Masud, dating to 1131 AD which was
written in Ghazni and was at the time present in the Libraries of the
King of Oudh :

 "it is probably in these circles that we must look for the origin of Urdu
 or Hindustani. The first author who wrote in this language is one Masud, who
 died a little more than a century after the death of King Mahmud
 (A.H. 525 = A.D. 1131). Cf. Sprenger, Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and
 Hindustany Manuscripts of of the Libraries of the King of Oudh,"
 Calcutta 1854, pp.407, 485." [ al-Beruni's India ]

 Does anybody have Sprenger's list of manuscripts, or any of the Old Urdu
works of the King of Oudh ? Could librarians kindly check if Sprenger's or
Masud's works are present in their library ? What happened to the
libraries of the King of Oudh ?

Samar