The paper briefly examines underlying ideology and extraliterary functions of the texts, which constitute the largest part of the Pashtun historiographical work Tarikh-i murassa' (finished in 1724) and may be classified by genre as tribal chronicle. Under discussion are two related extraliterary functions, both pertaining to the general idea of continuity. It is argued that the principal ideological message of the chronicle, on the one hand, aims at maintaining the continuity of the accepted tribal knowledge of the past and, on the other, strives for the necessity of abiding the laws of power succession within ruling clans ac cording to the principle of primogeniture.

The Khataks’ Chronicle compiled by the Pashtun tribal rulers Khūshḥāl Khān (d. 1689) and Afżal Khān (d. circa 1740/41) abounds in figures, which relate to calculation of people and things, as well as measurement of time and distances. Within dominant human statistics the most numerous and diverse in numbers are calculations of military strength, often divided into main arms (foot, horse, guns), and war losses. Demographical data proper include numbers of descendants in lineages and occasional statistics of tribal populace. Among frequently calculated things are money (in Mogul rupees) and cattle. Time intervals in tribal stories are usually short and measured generally in nights and days, while distances between key geographical objects—in kurūhs (≈ 2-2,2 km). Although most figures are likely to be approximate (usually round after 20), The Crhonicle’s authors aimed at being very careful with all numerical data, which, on the whole, are to be considered historically adequate. Almost all basic lexemes of Pashto numbers are found in The Chronicle. The largest numbers are sums of money in rupees related to the Moguls’ military budgets (1,700,000; 900,000; etc.). Of particular note are archaic forms of hundreds (dwaṣū, terṣū, etc.) and reflexes of vigesimal calculation. Numerical data in The Khataks’ Chronicle well describe the place, which elementary arithmetic occupied in the education of Pashtun tribal rulers in the mediaeval and pre-modern times and may serve as a primary resource for studying the inventory of numbers in early written Pashto.

The corpus of "The Khattaks' Chronicle" (finished in 1724), the first original historiographical work in Pashto, contains over seventy poetical quotations in Pashto and Persian which perform literary functions as rhetorical tools. The article offers systematical analysis of the contents, contextual meaning, artistic tasks and ideological implications of these quotations classified according to their formal and thematic characteristics as ad hoc verses referring to historical realities, emphatic ornamentations of prose, wise sayings and advices, aphorisms and proverbs. The study proves that "The Khattaks' Chronicle, " having its roots in the national Afghan folklore as well as in the Persian literary traditions, combines features of both learned and entertaining writings which pertain to documented historiography and chronicles, on the one hand, and to the genres of memoirs and diaries, on the other. Refs 14.

The article argues that the first specimens of Pashto original narratives in free prose are to be found in the historiographical compilation Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ (1724) among the texts of the chronicles, diaries, and memoirs written by the Khaṯak tribal rulers Khūshḥāl Khān (d. 1689) and Afżal Khān (d. circa 1740/41). Over thirty fragments from these texts may be qualified as short stories for, being focused on particular events and episodes, they are distinguished by strikingly realistic manner of narration and well developed elements of detailing, descriptiveness and emotiveness. Richly illustrated with translations of selected excerpts from original Pashto texts the article summarises the stories’ subject-matters by grouping them into three main categories (wars, incidents, everyday life events) and discusses various aspects of the authors’ narration techniques, such as compression of time and space in kea moments of action, accentuated portrayal of characters, extensive use of direct speech with a range of stylistic timbres. The article proves that the stories of the Khaṯak chiefs may be viewed also as unique documents on the realities of the Pashtun tribal life in pre-modern times.

The article overviews the earliest Pashto texts, mostly poetic, in which the incipient forms of literary criticism can be traced as authorial self-reflections related in Persian classics to the self-praise genre (fakhriyya) and explanations of reasons for composing works (sabab-i taʾlīf). Under close examination are the seventeenth century verses of the poets affiliated with the Roshānī religious community and the writings of Khushḥāl Khān Khaṫak (d. 1689). Analyzed texts prove that through the rudimentary discourse on a variety of literary criticism topics, Pashtun authors of early modern times declared and justified the presence of emerging literature in Pashto within the Persophone cultural space of Mughal India, articulating simultaneously their commitment to the proliferation of literacy and Islamic book culture among their countrymen.