اودھ اخبار‘ اور تفتہؔ کی وفات کی تاریخیں’

Abstract

Chronogram or tareekh goi is the art of denoting the year of an event with the help of verses. Every letter of alphabet is assigned a numerical value and, by adding up the numbers, one can find out the year through verses. Such chronograms were very common in 18th and 19th century and remained in vogue in the 20th century, too, though their popularity began to decline. Awadh Akhbar was an Urdu newspaper launched in 1859 from Lucknow by Munshi Naval Kishore. Munshi Hargopal Tafta was a disciple of Ghalib and a poet. When Tafta died in 1879, numerous chronograms recording his death appeared in some issues of Awadh Akhbar. This article traces, records and evaluates these chronograms.</p