Whatever it be, Mulla Firuz possessed the only manuscript of the work then known in Bombay. It was purchased at Isfahan by his father Kaus, about the year 1778, from a bookseller, who sold it under the title of a Gueber book. Brought to Bombay, it attracted the particular attention of Mr. Duncan, then governor of Bombay, to such a degree, that he began an English translation of the work, which was interrupted by his return to England. The final completion of the version was owing to the great encouragement which sir John Malcolm gave Mulla Firuz in consequence of the high opinion which sir William Jones had publicly expressed of the Dabistán, the author of which drew his account of the ancient Persian dynasties and religions chiefly from the Desátir. There is an interval of one hundred and thirty-three years[31] between the composition of the Dabistán and the fortuitous purchase of the manuscript copy of the Desátir, by Kaus in Isfahan; as it would be assuming to much to suppose that the latter is the same from which Mohsan Fani drew his information, we can but admit that the agreement of both, in the most material points, affords a confirmation of each respective text. The great Orientalist Silvestre de Sacy, on reviewing the Desátir,[32] says: “We are in a manner frightened by the multitude and gravity of the questions which we shall have to solve, or at least to discuss; for every thing is here a problem: What is the age of the book? Who is its author? Is it the work of several persons; or the divers parts of which it is composed, are they written by one and the same author, although attributed to different individuals, who succeeded each other at long intervals? The language in which it was written, was it, at any epoch, that of the inhabitants of Persia, or of any of the countries comprised in the empire of Iran? Or is it nothing but a factitious language, invented to support an imposture? At what epoch were made the Persian translation accompanying the original text, and the commentary joined to this translation? Who is the author of the one and the other? Are not this translation and this commentary themselves pseudonymous and apocryphal books; or may not the whole be the work of an impostor of the latter centuries? All these questions present themselves in a crowd to my mind; and if some of them appear to be easily answered, others offer more than common difficulties.”