A History of the Mahrattas v1.c3.5

v1.c3.5

In the preparation of this edition I have to acknowledge help from various sources. The late Dr. Vincent A. Smith, C.I.E., kindly read through the manuscript notes of two-thirds of the work, offered valuable comments and suggestions and supplied references to various authorities, and also lent me a copy of Mankar’s translation of the *Sabhāsad Bakhar*—a very rare book of which only one other copy besides his own has been traced in this country. Dr. William Crooke, C.I.E., performed the same office in respect of the remaining annotations and the Introduction, lent me books from his own library, and supplied me with many notes, references and facts which without his assistance I might have overlooked or been unable to obtain. To Mr. R. E. Enthoven, C.I.E., I am indebted for the valuable ethnographical note on the Marāthās which is included in full in the section of the Introduction dealing with the origin of these people. The Reverend J. N. Farquhar obliged me by reading the note on Marāthī literature, and by lending me the proof-pages of his own work on the religious literature of India, which contain his views on the Bhāgavat origin of the Bhakti movement in Western India. Professor R. P. Paranjpye, Principal of the Fergusson College, Poona, was good enough to send me copies of the College Magazine containing Professor W. P. Patvardhan’s Wilson Philological Lectures, upon which I have drawn freely for the résumé of Marāthī literature; Major J. G. Greig, C.I.E., Military Secretary to the Governor of Bombay, sent me details of the picture of the Pēshwā, Sindia and Nānā Farnavīs, which hangs in the hall of Ganeshkhind, Poona; Mr. R. P. Masani, Deputy Municipal Commissioner, Bombay, supplied me with extracts from a Bombay official record, which I could not procure here; while I have to thank Dr. J. Allan of the British Museum, the authorities in charge of the armouries at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, and General Sir Dighton Probyn, V.C., G.C.V.O., for assistance in an attempt to determine the present whereabouts of Sivājī's sword, Bhavānī.