The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c24.s9.2

v4.c24.s9.2

No detailed history of Āsaf Jāh I on the lines of the court annals of the Delhi emperors was ever written. The sources of his career up to 1724 are given in W. Irvine's *Later Mughals* (see chap. xi), as a part of the general history of the Mughal empire. For his independent rule in the Deccan (1724–48) the contemporary recorders are Khāfī Khān, Ghulām ‘Alī Āzād, and Shāh Nawāz Khān—all in his service. They are extremely brief, giving merely a list of important events with a short character-sketch. The later histories in Persian worth mentioning are the *Maāsir-i-Āsafī* of Lachmī Nārāyan (a hereditary revenue official), compiled in 1792–3, and the *Hadīqat-ul-‘Ālam* of the famous minister Mīr ‘Ālam, completed in 1802. The former gives a short summary of events from well-known sources, with a very large number of anecdotes illustrating Āsaf Jāh's virtues. The *Hadīqat* remains the best and longest Persian authority for the period 1724–62. Its author professedly borrows from the three contemporary writers named above, but he gives much fresh information in detail, which, however, requires correction. The English and French factory records attain to primary value for Carnatic affairs—and only incidentally for Hyderābād affairs—from 1740 onwards. The printed documents in these two languages have been co-ordinated and corrected, and the mass of manuscript correspondence analysed with admirable skill and success in Dodwell's *Dupleix and Clive*, without the help of which guide these documents cannot be properly utilized, nor the prevalent heresies corrected. But by far the most valuable original material for the history of the earlier Nizāms has been recently published in the form of Marāthī news-letters from their court, despatches from Marāthā officers, and reports from the Peshwās' agents. These give, month after month and even oftener, the minutest information about the movements of the Nizāms, their policy, the discussions in their councils, their campaigns, and the doings of their opponents, exactly as recorded at the time. These enable us to correct many errors and fill up many gaps in the current histories of that period, such as Grant Duff's. When these original sources are used, later histories like those of Briggs and Gribble may be safely discarded.