الحاقی متون اور منسوبات کی تحقیق :داخلی اور خارجی شواہد

Researching pseudoepigrapha and misattribution: intrinsic and extrinsic evidence

Abstract

Pseudepigrapha, also known as pseudographia in literary research,   are the texts whose apparent or generally known authors are not the actual authors. Such works are not always forged texts and sometmies works are unintentionally misattribted to some one other than the actual writer, albeit there have been cases of intentionally misattributed texts either to gain some worldly benefits or to influence the religious views of some specific sect. 

In Urdu and Persian literatures,  examples of both forged and intentionally or unintentionally misattributed works are not common but they are not rare either. This research paper mentions certain wrongly attributed as well as forged literary texts and expalins the ways and means of recognising such works. There are two basic ways of telling a forged or wrongly attributed literary text from the original one: intrinsic evidence and extrinsic evidence. Intrinsic evidence is whatever written in a specific text and extrinsic evidence consists of all other texts, books, historical works and writings by others. This paper discusses the nature of both kinds of  evidence and explains what evidence was used in recognising dubious texts, giving examples from some well-known Urdu and Persian literary texts with reference to some renowned researchers of Urdu. It also analyses the nature of evidence found in some of the research works that  have unearthed some of the misttribued texts, pseudoepigraphic works, forged texts and plagiarised tetxs.