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Later Mughals v1: Volume 1

Later Mughals v1

Language
English

Contents

Volume 1

Front matter

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This image appears to be the front cover of a book, which contains no text or markings to transcribe.

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in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation WILLIAM IRVINE, I.C.S. (ret.), Author of *Storia do Mogor*, *Army of the Indian Moghuls*, &c.

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EDITED BY JADUNATH SARKAR, I.E.S., Author of *History of Aurangzib*, *Shivaji and His Times*, *Studies in Mughal India*, &c.

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Vol. I 1707—1720

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CALCUTTA : M. C. SARKAR & SONS, LONDON : LUZAC & CO.

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PRINTER : S. C. MAZUMDAR SRI GOURANGA PRESS 71/1, Mirzapur Street, Calcutta.

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Copyright reserved by Mrs. Margaret L. Seymour, 195 Goldhurst Terrace, LONDON.

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PUBLISHED BY S. C. SARKAR M. C. Sarkar & Sons, 90/2A, Harrison Road, Calcutta.

Contents

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William Irvine . . . . . xiii—xxxii His life, xiii—works, xv—Manucci's Travels, xix—as a man, xxii—as a historian, xxiv—humour, xxvi—composition of Later Mughals, xxvi—editor's work, xxviii—list of Irvine's writings, xxx—author's foreword, xxxii.

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Chapter I. Bahadur Shah . . . . . 1—157 Aurangzib's children, 1—his will, 5—Azam's measures on Aurangzib's death, 7—Azam marches to Hindustan, 11—Azim-ush-shan reaches Agra, 15—Bidar Bakht advances to the Chambal, 17—Bahadur Shah marches to Agra, 18—his letter to Azam and reply, 21—march to Jajau, 22—battle, 27—slaughter in Azam's army, 30—Azam killed, 33—his character, 34—Bahadur Shah I.'s chief appointments, 36—Asad Khan's powers, 37—Rajput States, 41—Mewar, 42—Amber, 43—Jodhpur; early life of Ajit Singh, 44—Bahadur Shah marches to Rajputana, 46—enters Amber, 46—Ajit is defeated, submits, 48—Emperor returns, 49—Kam Bakhsh's doings in the Dakhin, 50—factions in his Court, 52—mad acts of Kam Bakhsh, 55—Bahadur Shah reaches the Dakhin, 57—defeat and death of Kam Bakhsh, 61—his family, 66—Second Rajput rising, 67—Sayyid Husain Khan slain, 69—Bahadur Shah marches to Rajputana, 71—Rajahs submit, 73—Sikhs: their early gurus, 73—doctrines of Sikhism, 79—Guru Govind's innovations, 80—their effect on Sikh character, 81—castes composing the Sikh population: Khatris 82, Jats, 83—career of Guru Govind, 84—joins Bahadur Shah, 89—is murdered, 90—Banda's rising, 94—slays Wazir Khan, 95—sacks Sarhind, 96—Sikh atrocities, 97—extensive Sikh raids, 98—Bahadur Shah marches against Banda, 105—Banda's fort of Lohgarh 109, stormed 112—escape of Banda, 115—desultory fighting with Sikhs, 118—sources of Sikh history, 121—Munim Khan, Wazir, career and character, 125—new Wazir, 127—Emperor at Lahor, 129—his Shia views, 130—anti-Shia riot, 131—Bahadur Shah's last illness, 133, death 133—character, 136—coins, 140—family, 141—Dutch embassy, 147.

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Chapter II. Interregnum . . . . . 158—185 Position and conduct of Bahadur Shah's four sons at his death, 158—Zulfiqar forms alliance of three Princes against Azim-ush-shan, 161—Azim-ush-shan stands on the defensive, delays, 165—his entrenchments assaulted, 168—captured by storm, 173—Azim-ush-shan's last struggle, 175—and death, 177—quarrel among the victors, 177—Jahan Shah killed, 181—defeat and death of Rafi-ush-shan, 183.

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Chapter III. Jahandar Shah . . . . . 186—243 Jahandar enthroned, 186—new appointments, 186—executions, 187—Abdus-samad Khan, 187—Prince Md. Karim killed, 190—Lal Kunwar and her influence, 192—shameless revelries, 195—quarrels among Court nobles, 197—Farrukh-siyar's early career, 198—crowns himself at Patna, 199—gains adherents, 200—Barha Sayyids, 201—Sayyid Husain Ali supports Farrukh-siyar, 205—Sayyid Abdullah quarrels with Jahandar and joins Farrukh-siyar, 207—Farrukh-siyar advances to Allahabad, 210—is joined by Chabela Ram, 214—defeats Jahandar's son at Khajwa, 217—Jahandar Shah at Agra, 220—marches to Samugarh, 223, wastes time in inaction, 225—Farrukh-siyar crosses the Jamuna, 227—battle of Agra, 229—rout of Jahandar, 235—his flight to Dihli, 236—Asad and Zulfiqar desert to Farrukh-siyar, 238 arrest Jahandar, 239—his coins, 240—character, 241—family, 242.

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Chapter IV. Farrukh-siyar ... ... ... 244—403

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His doings at Agra, 244—Abdullah Khan's measures at Dihli, 247—Zulfiqar arrested and killed, 251—Jahandar Shah killed, 254—Farrukh-siyar enters Dihli in state, 255—Zulfiqar's character criticized, 257—new official appointments, 258—provincial governors, 261—lives of Md. Amin Khan, 263—Samsam-ud-daulah, 264—Ahmad Beg, 267—Mir Jumla, 267—Nizam-ul-mulk, 268—parties at Court: different races, 272—severities inflicted by Farrukh-siyar at accession, 275—first quarrel with Sayyid brothers, 281—Ajit Singh's rebellion, 285—Husain Ali invades Marwar, 287—Ajit makes peace, 289—courtiers incite Farrukh-siyar against Sayyids, 291—their conspiracy fails, 297—Emperor conciliates Sayyids, 299—is married to Ajit Singh's daughter, 304—Surgeon Hamilton's treatment, 305—disorderly nobles, 306—siege of Banda's fort Sadhaura, 307—Sikh ravages, 311—Banda besieged in Gurdaspur, 312—captured, 315—tortured to death, 317—the Sikh martyrs, 317—the guru-ship continued by Govind's family after his death, 319—Jats: their early relations with Mughal Government, 321—Churaman Jat's rising, 322—his fort of Thun invested by Jai Singh, 324—Churaman submits through Abdullah, 326—Farrukh-siyar's new intrigues against Sayyids, 327—Mir Jumla's first unauthorized return to Dihli, 329—plots continue, 332—causes of Farrukh-siyar's dislike of the Sayyids, 335—jaziya, 338—Md. Murad Kashmiri's early history, 339—Emperor forms new plots to crush Sayyid brothers, 343—attempt to seize Abdullah fails, 347—Ajit Singh called to Court 348, also Nizam, 351—Mir Jumla's second return to Dihli, 352—encouraged by Emperor, 356—Husain Ali starts from Dakhin in force, for Dihli, 357—events at Dihli, Farrukh-siyar restores Sayyid Abdullah to power, 362—Md. Amin Khan comes to Dihli, 365—Husain Ali's approach, Abdul-ghafur sent to pacify him, 369—all nobles are alienated by Farrukh-siyar and join Sayyid party, 370—Husain Ali near Dihli, 372—abject terror and helplessness of Farrukh-siyar, 373—he submits to all the Sayyids' demands, 375—Husain Ali's first audience, 377—Dihli palace handed over to Sayyids' men, 379—Abdullah's interview, 380—final rupture, 381—Farrukh-siyar's last efforts, 382—Mahratta allies of Husain Ali massacred by Mughals and populace in Dihli, 383—rising of Farrukh-siyar's partisans, 385—Farrukh-siyar deposed, 388—Rafi-ud-darjat crowned, 389—Farrukh-siyar dragged out of harem, 390—blinded, imprisoned, 390—put to death, 392—buried, 393—conduct of Sayyids to Farrukh-siyar criticized, 394—character of Farrukh-siyar, 396—length of reign, titles etc., 398—coins, 399—family, 400—life of Jafar Zatali, 403.

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Chapter V. Rafi-ud-darjat and Rafi-ud-daulah ... ... 404—432

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Events at accession, 404—distribution of offices and jagirs, 405—treaty with Rajah Sahu, 406—quarrel between Sayyid brothers, 407—Nekusiyar crowned by Agra garrison, 408—Mitr Sen's conspiracy, 410—Sayyids besiege Agra fort, 413—failure of Nekusiyar's partisans, 414—he negotiates, 415—Sayyids' bad treatment of Rafi-ud-darjat, 416—Emperor dies, 418—his coins, 418—Accession of Rafi-ud-daulah, 420—siege of Agra, 422—surrender of fort and of Nekusiyar, 426—Farrukh-siyar's widow restored to Ajit Singh, 428—division of Agra booty, 428—death of Rafi-ud-daulah, 430—his coins etc., 432.

Abbreviations

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*Ahwal*—*Ahwal-ul-khawaqin* by Muhammad Qasim Aurangabadi. *Ain*—*Ain-i-Akbari* by Abul Fazl, Eng. tr. by Blochmann and Jarrett, 3 vols. *Ashob*—*Tarikh-i-Shahadat-i-Farrukh-siyar* by Md. Bakhsh Ashob. *Bahadur*—*Bahadur Shah-nama* by Danishmand Khan Ali. B. M.—British Museum. *Chamanistan*—by Anand Ram Mukhlis, (litho.) *Dil*—*Nuskha-i-Dilkasha* by Bhimsen Burhanpuri, (B. M. Or. 28.) *Ghulam Ali*—*Muqaddama-i-Shah Alam-nama*. *Ijad*—Md. Ahsan Ijad’s *Farrukh-siyar-nama*. [Same as “Anonymous Fragment.”] *Iradat*—Iradat Khan’s *Tazkira*, tr. into Eng. by Jonathan Scott in his *History of Dekhan*, vol. ii, pt. 4. *Jagjivan-das*—*India Office Library* MS. J. A. S. B.—*Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*. *Jang* or *Jangnama*—*Jangnama* by Danishmand Khan Ali. *Kamraj*—*Ibratnama*. (The same writer’s *Azam-ul-harb* is not cited.) *Kamwar*—Kamwar Khan’s *Tazkirat-us-salatin-i-Chaghtaiya*. *Khush-hal*—*Khush-hal* Chand’s *Nadir-uz-Zamani*. K. K.—Khafi Khan’s *Muntakhab-ul-Lubab*, Vol. II. (Bib. Ind. Series.) M. A.—*Masir-i-Alamgiri* (Bib. Ind. Series.) *Mac.*—Macauliffe’s *Sikh Religion*, 6 vols. *Mifta*—*Miftah-ut-tawarikh* by T. W. Beale. M. M. or M. Mhd.—Mirza Muhammad’s *Tazkira* or *Ibratnama*. M. U.—*Masir-ul-umara*, 3 vols. (Bib. Ind. Series.) *Nur.*—*Jahandar-nama* by Nuruddin Faruqi Multani Dihlavi. *Qasim*—Muhammad Qasim Lahori’s *Ibratnama*. *Rustam Ali*—Rustam Ali Shahabadi’s *Tarikh-i-Hindi*. *Scott*—Jonathan Scott’s *History of Dekhan*, vol. ii, pt. 4. *Shiu Das*—*Munavvir-ul-qalam*. *Siwanih*—*Siwanih-i-Khizri* by Md. Umar, son of Khizr Khan. *Siyar*—*Siyar-ul-mutakherin*, Pers. text printed at Calcutta, 2 vols., Eng. tr. by Mustafa, 4 vols. *T-i-M* or *T-i-Mdi.*—*Tarikh-i-Muhammadi* by Mirza Md. *Warid*—*Mirat-i-Waridat* by Md. Shafi Warid. *Yahya*—*Tazkirat-ul-muluk*.

William Irvine : A Biography

His Career

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William Irvine, the son of a Scotch advocate, was born in Aberdeen on 5th July, 1840. He came to London when quite a child, and after leaving school at the early age of fifteen he went into business, until he obtained an appointment in the Admiralty at nineteen. He stayed there for a year or two; but having acquired a very good knowledge of French and German, he eventually resigned, went to King's College, London, to complete his studies, and entering for the Indian Civil Service he passed very high in the examination of 1862.

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Arriving in India on 12th December, 1863, he was attached to the North-Western Provinces Civil Service in the following June, as Assistant Magistrate of Saharanpur. After spending nearly a year there, he was sent to Muzaffarnagar, for four years (April 1865—July 1869). A long furlough to Europe consumed more than two years, 1872 and 1873. He next served in Farrukhabad (June 1875—April 1879), where he rose to be Joint Magistrate. He had already begun to study Indo-Muhammadan history with scholarly seriousness, and the first fruits of his work in this line were an accurate and luminous account of the Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad published in the *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*, 1878—79, and partly incorporated in the *Gazetteer of the Farrukhabad District*, edited by Mr. Atkinson (Government Press, 1880). In it he utilized not only the formal Persian histories but also the large collection of unedited family papers and letters of the local Nawabs.

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But Ghazipur was the district with which he was connected longest, namely for seven years. Here he first served as Revenue Settlement Officer and then as Collector, and left a memorial of his work in a blue-book, *The Settlement Report of Ghazipur District*, printed in 1886. His keenness in revenue work and his application to detail are evidenced by his article on Canal Rates versus Land Revenue published in the *Calcutta Review*, 1869, and a volume entitled *The Rent Digest* or the Law of Procedure relating to Landlord and Tenant, Bengal Presidency, 1869.

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His literary attainments and painstaking exertions as a revenue officer, did not, however, bring him any of the prize posts in the Civil Service, for which an officer of his unusual parts might have reasonably hoped. So, he retired as soon as he qualified for pension, leaving the service on 27th March 1888, as Magistrate of Saharanpur,—curiously enough, the same district that he had joined at the beginning of his official career. Out of his twenty-five years of service, almost exactly one-fifth was spent on leave.

Literary Work in England

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At his retirement he was only 48, and looked forward to many years of health and leisure which could be devoted to literary work. Already while in India he had perfected his knowledge of Persian, and, what is much more difficult, he had become proficient in reading manuscripts written in that tongue. He had also begun to collect Persian historical MSS., in addition to printed and lithographed works in that language as well as Urdu and Hindi having even the remotest connection with the Mughal period. During his official career many Indian gentlemen, knowing his special taste, sought to please him by presenting Persian MSS., and he also purchased them in India and in England. Besides, he kept in his pay a Muhammadan scribe of Bhitari Sayyidpur (Ghazipur district), to search for and copy such Persian MSS. as could not be had for love or money. Transcripts were also made for him of those rare MSS. of the Royal Library, Berlin, which he required for his historical researches. Thus it happened that he made a collection of original MS. authorities on his special period which was unapproached by any of the public libraries of Europe.

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To take only one example, he had two MSS. of the Anecdotes of Aurangzib (Ahkam-i-Alamgiri) ascribed to Hamid-ud-din Khan Nimchah, which is not to be found in any public library of India or Europe, and of whose existence historians were unaware, though it is a work extremely characteristic of the Emperor and gives information of first-rate importance concerning his life and opinions. I was happy to have been able to discover another fragment of this work and to present a transcript of it to him. Again, I could find only one copy of the *Chahar Gulshan* in India, and had to base a portion of my *India of Aurangzib* on this single manuscript. But Mr. Irvine possessed three MSS. of it,—two of them having been presented to him by Indian friends. After I had made his acquaintance, whenever I came upon any find of rare Persian MSS. on Indian history, he was sure to secure a copy of them for himself. Thus I was the means of enriching his private library with transcripts of Mirza Rajah Jai Singh's letters (*Haft Anjuman*), the orders issued by Aurangzib in his old age and collected by his secretary Inayetullah Khan (*Ahkam-i-Alamgiri*), the letters of Shah Jahan and his sons as preserved in the *Faiyaz-ul-qawanin*, and the epistles of the Persian king Shah Abbas II. As Mr. Irvine wrote to me,—

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"What you tell me about your various finds of MSS. makes my mouth water, and I shall be very grateful if you can engage any one to copy for me Inayetullah Khan's *Ahkam* and the various fragments you have of Hamid-ud-din's collection. The *Haft Anjuman* seems to be a valuable and most unexpected discovery. I have scolded Abdul Aziz [his retained scribe]—whose special hunting ground is Benares,—for not having discovered it!!" (Letter, 13 Nov., 1908).

His Later Mughals

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With such a wealth of original Persian sources in his possession and his knowledge of continental tongues opening to him the East Indian records of the Dutch, French and Portuguese Governments, as well as those of the Christian missions to the East (especially the letters of the Society of Jesus), Mr. Irvine planned an original history of the decline of the Mughal Empire. It was entitled *The Later Mughals* and intended to cover the century from the death of Aurangzib in 1707 to the capture of Delhi by the English in 1803. As he wrote to me on 23rd February, 1902:—

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"I have first to finish the History from 1707 to 1803 which I began twelve years ago. At present I have not got beyond

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1738, in my draft, though I have materials collected up to 1759 or even later."

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But the work grew in his hands, and so conscientious a workman was he, so many sources of information did he consult, and so often did he verify his references, that his progress was slow and he lived to complete the narrative of only thirty-one years out of the century he intended to embrace in his work. Chapters of the *Later Mughals* appeared from time to time, once in the *Asiatic Quarterly Review*, but mainly in the *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*. Five years after writing the above to me, he thus speaks of the state of his undertaking in the *L'envoi* to its last published chapter (*J. A. S. B.*, November, 1908):

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"With the disappearance of the Sayyid brothers the story attains a sort of dramatic completeness, and I decide to suspend at this point my contributions on the history of the Later Mughals. There is reason to believe that a completion of my original intention is beyond my remaining strength. I planned on too large a scale, and it is hardly likely now that I shall be able to do much more...The first draft for the years 1721 to [April] 1738 is written. I hope soon to undertake the narrative of 1739, including the invasion of Nadir Shah. It remains to be seen whether I shall be able to continue the story for the years which follow Nadir Shah's departure. But I have read and translated and made notes for another twenty years ending about 1759 or 1760."

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These words were written in October 1907, and they show that the work had not grown at all during the preceding eight years. What lured Mr. Irvine away from the *Later Mughals* was his monumental edition of Niccolao Manucci's *Travels in the Mughal Empire*, the *Storia do Mogor*,—a work which entailed seven years of hard labour and about which I shall speak later. Another but lesser source of distraction was his monograph *The Army of the Indian Moghuls*, (1903)—a thoroughly sound and scholarly work, which will long endure as an indispensable dictionary of Persian, Turki and Hindi military technical terms. He hurriedly brought together in it the fruits of long years of study, lest he should be anticipated by Dr. Paul Horn, an eminent German orientalist, who had published a similar work on an earlier period of Muhammadan India. Chips from Mr. Irvine’s workshop were also published in the *Indian Antiquary*, the *Indian Magazine* (1903), the *Journal of the Moslem Institute* (Calcutta), and the *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*. Thorough in everything that he undertook, his careful editing and annotation cost him an immense amount of time even in the case of these bye-products of his historical factory.

The Later Mughals Left a Fragment

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But students of Indian history must lament that Mr. Irvine ever set his hand to the *Storia* and the *Army of the Indian Moghuls*; these books prevented the continuation of *The Later Mughals* to the date, 1765, after which the Persian records cease to be of first-rate value and we get full light from the documents in the European tongues. In these Persian records lay the special strength of Mr. Irvine. He had spent a life in collecting, mastering and arranging them; and his death robbed the world of all his garnered knowledge. His successor in the same field will have to begin at the very beginning and to spend years in going over the same materials, and can hope to arrive at Mr. Irvine’s position only after twenty years of preliminary study. If Mr. Irvine had rigorously shunned all such diversions of his attention and pushed on with his grand work, he could in his remaining years have placed on record his life’s accumulation of information and reflection on the decline and fall of the Mughal Empire, and completed its history at least up to its practical extinction about the middle of the 18th century. But he has not done it; and for years to come we have little chance of his unfinished task being carried to completion with anything approaching the high standard of fulness and accuracy he attained in the portion he lived to write. In this respect the world is distinctly the poorer for his having undertaken to edit Manucci.

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Shortly after he had begun work on Manucci, Mr. Irvine was attacked by the disease to which he ultimately succumbed in 1911. For the last eight years of his life he was haunted by a sad foreboding that his days on earth were numbered and that the chosen work of his life was destined to remain a fragment. In letter after letter he urged me to hurry on with my own historical work if I wished him to see it.

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"At my age I cannot afford to lose any time, as I fear not surviving to finish the long and heavy tasks I have on hand." (18th March, 1904).

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"I see every reason to believe that your edition of the Alamgir letters will be a thorough, good piece of work,—but I trust it will not be too long delayed,—for I am getting old and shall not last very much longer." (16th Jan. 1906).

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"I hope that your first volume of Aurangzib may appear before I leave the scene." (29th Jan. 1909).

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At last in October, 1907 he mournfully admitted that he had not enough strength left to complete his original plan, and that he was not likely to write much more of The Later Mughals than the portion already sent to the press. Things looked a little more hopefully for him in the warm weather of 1910. As he wrote on 8th July—

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"Thanks for your enquiries about my health. Decay has not come on so rapidly as I thought it would. The complaint I suffer from is under control and apparently no worse than it was five years ago,—and considering I was 70 three days ago, I have a fair amount of activity, bodily and mental, left to me. In fact I am contemplating this next winter writing out my Bahadur Shah chapter (1707—1712) and sending it to the Asiatic Society of Bengal."

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But unfortunately the hope was delusive. On the last day of the year he was taken very ill. For some time it was expected that he might recover a certain amount of health and strength. In the summer of 1911 he was a little better and appeared to be getting stronger. On 31st August he wrote to me,

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"I am coming downstairs once a day for 4 or 5 hours...... I am working on quietly and happily. My upper part—heart, lungs and liver, are declared by the specialist to be quite clear and likely to go on [doing their] work so long well that I may reasonably [hope for ] a continued life of five to ten years. So it is worth while going on, as I shall be able to finish one thing or [another.]"

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The improvement, however, was temporary. Since the autumn set in, he began to fail rapidly and it was realized that he could not last the winter. He bore his long and trying illness with admirable patience and fortitude, and passed away quietly at last on Friday, 3rd November, 1911.

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Since S. R. Gardiner died with the cry "My History! Oh, my History!" there has been no such sad case of a monumental work undertaken with the fulness of knowledge but cut short by the cruel hand of death. For Gardiner, however, there was the consolation that he had arrived almost within sight of his goal, the Restoration, and was leaving a not unworthy disciple and continuer in Prof. Firth. This consolation was denied to the closing years of William Irvine's life.

His Edition of Manucci's Travels

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Of all Mr. Irvine's works the *Travels of Manucci* (*Storia do Mogor*) is most appreciated by the European public, and with them, strangely enough, it is his chief title to fame as a scholar. This attitude is well reflected by the *Pioneer* (18th November, 1911), which thus notices his death:—

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"At Home Mr. Irvine's name outside a small circle of students must have been as nearly as possible unknown when the first two volumes of his Manucci appeared in 1907 and were at once recognized as the most valuable and important work of the kind that had seen the light since the publication of Col. Yule's Marco Polo......His reputation as a scholar had been already established, and it stands on an enduring basis... ...It is not likely that any other English edition of Manucci's work will ever be forthcoming to supersede that of Mr. Irvine."

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The editor's work is a marvel of industry and accurate scholarship. It seems incredible that one man could have done it all, and a reviewer has well remarked, "The notes appear to have been written by a syndicate of scholars instead of by one man only." Mr. Irvine's notes and appendices are often of more value than Manucci's text, as they contain the fullest and most accurate information available in any European tongue, about the details of the reigns of Shah Jahan, Aurangzib and Shah Alam, with exact dates and references to authorities.

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Every person who crossed the orbit of Manucci or Manucci's acquaintances even for a moment, has his life unfolded here with a wealth of accurate detail. Indeed, it may be rightly said of William Irvine that he left no part of Indian history from 1650 to 1750 untouched, and touched nothing that he did not illumine. Writers on Indian history who are ignorant of Persian would do well to study the notes in the Storia and the Later Mughals and carefully correct their own statements in the light of the information there collected.

History of Manucci's Mss.

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Before Mr. Irvine rediscovered Manucci's MSS. at Berlin and Venice, that Italian traveller had been known to the world only through the pirated and incorrect French version made by Catrou, and scholars had been sighing for the recovery of the original text as a thing hardly to be hoped for.

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The history of Manucci's book reads like a romance. Niccolao Manucci had left Venice in November, 1653 at the age of fourteen as a stowaway. Reaching India in January 1656, he took service under Prince Dara Shukoh and latterly under Shah Alam. At intervals he set up practice as a doctor without any medical training, travelled all over India, went through various adventures and changes of fortune, and passed his old age at Madras and Pondicherry, dying in 1717. Thus his life in India covered more than sixty years.

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At different times he wrote his history of the Mughals (Storia do Mogor) in Portuguese, French and Italian,—about one-third of the whole work having been drawn up originally in his mother tongue Italian, and nearly the whole being rewritten in Portuguese mixed with French. It consists of five parts, dealing with

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(i) the author's journey from Venice to Delhi and a short chronicle of the Mughal Emperors down to the accession of Aurangzib,

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(ii) the reign of Aurangzib, with the author's personal history,

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(iii) the Mughal Court, its system of government and revenue, much mixed up with digressions on European companies, the Hindu religion, Indian animals, the Catholics in India, &c.

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(iv) current events in the Mughal camp in the Deccan from 1701, with long accounts of the doings of the Jesuits and other Catholics,

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(v) events in 1705 and in 1706, with many stories of earlier years interspersed.

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The first three parts he sent to Paris in 1701 by the hand of M. Boureau Deslandes, an officer of the French East India Company, "evidently in the hope that the *Storia* would be published at the expense of Louis XIV." Deslandes lent the MS. to Father Francis Catrou, a Jesuit, who in 1705 published an incomplete, garbled and grossly incorrect French version of it, with interpolations from other sources. This work ends with 1658 and has been translated into English, two reprints of the English version having been issued in Calcutta since 1900. In 1715 Catrou published a continuation, which is almost entirely taken from Part II. of Manucci's MS. and wholly covers the reign of Aurangzib. It had not been translated into English before.

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This Manucci MS.,—*i.e.*, the version of the *Storia* which was first sent to Europe,—lay in the library of the Jesuits in Paris till 1763 when it was sold with other works of that collection and passed through successive hands into the Royal Library of Berlin (1887). It is described as the *Berlin Codex Phillipps* 1945, consisting of three volumes written in Portuguese with three gaps subsequently filled up in French, and this is the text translated by Mr. Irvine.

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When Manucci in India learnt of the audacious plagiarism of Catrou, he sent (1706) the original Italian draft of his *Storia*, Parts I. II. and III. (which he had always kept by himself), as well as the only extant MS. of Parts IV (French) and V (French and Portuguese), to the Senate of Venice, begging that august body "to order the publication of this little work which is likely to be of the greatest use to travellers, missionaries, and merchants, etc." This MS. is styled *Venice Codex XLIV* of Zanetti's catalogue. The original text of Part V is now in the San Marco Library, Venice. (Italian MS., class VI No. 135.)

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An Italian version of Part V in manuscript was made by Count Cardeira out of Portuguese in 1712, (Venice Codex XLV).

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For a long time it was believed that the MS. which Manucci had presented to the Venetian Senate was mislaid during Napoleon's invasion of the Republic. But what Napoleon I. took away in 1797 was only a volume of 56 contemporary portraits of the Princes and other celebrities of the Mughal Empire drawn at Manucci's instance by Mir Muhammad, an artist in the household of Shah Alam, before 1686, and presented by Manucci to the Senate. (It is now O. D. No. 45 of the National Library, Paris). These portraits are of surpassing value and have been reproduced in Mr. Irvine's edition. Another volume of 66 drawings of Hindu gods, religious ceremonies, etc., sent by Manucci to Venice at the same time, is still there.

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While scholars were for nearly a century mourning the disappearance of Manucci's original MSS., they had been quietly reposing in the Library of Saint Mark, Venice, their original destination! In 1899 Mr. Irvine rediscovered them there, and three years afterwards had them copied for his use. The Government of India lent him generous aid, and his translation was published in four sumptuous volumes in the "Indian Texts Series" in 1907 and 1908. Manucci in his original and undistorted form has at last been placed within the reach of readers, and the confusion, error, and obscurity which hung over his work for more than two centuries have at last been dispelled. This is Irvine's achievement.

Irvine as a Man

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The most charming feature of Mr. Irvine's character was the spirit in which he gave unfailing and eager help and appreciation to younger men engaged in researches connected with his own subject. In this respect he presents a notable contrast to most other orientalists whose mutual jealousies and acrimonious criticisms of each other darken their fame. I am only one out of the many students of Indian history who were indebted to him for help, guidance and light on obscure points. But for his assistance in securing for me loans or transcripts of rare Persian MSS. from England, France, and Germany, my *History of Aurangzib* could hardly have come into being. He also freely lent me MSS. from his own collection, and beat down the rates demanded by photographers in London and Paris for making rotary bromide prints of Persian MSS. for me. In every difficulty and doubt that I have appealed to him, he has given me prompt advice and assistance. A certain Indian Nawab has a rare collection of Persian historical letters. I secured his permission to take a copy of it at my expense and engaged a scribe. But for more than a year the Nawab's officers under various pretexts refused my man access to the MS. At last, in despair I wrote to Mr. Irvine about the case. He wrote to one of his friends high in the Civil Service of Allahabad, and this gentleman communicated with the Nawab. The owner of the MS. now had it copied at his own expense, bound the transcript in silk and morocco, and presented it to Mr. Irvine, who lent it to me as soon as he received it! Mr. Irvine also criticized and emended the first five chapters of my *History* as freely and carefully as if it were his own work.

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Indeed, he rendered literary assistance in such profusion and at so much expense of his own time, that I was at times ashamed of having sought his aid and thus interrupted his own work. In connection with the statistical accounts of the Mughal Empire, I had complained that ancient India, like ancient Egypt, can be better studied in the great European capitals than in the country itself, and Mr. Irvine's reply was to send me unsolicited his three MSS. of the *Chahar Gulshan*, a valuable work on Indian statistics and topography in the early 18th century, of which I had found only one and incorrect copy in India. Similar instances might be easily multiplied.

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And yet so scrupulously honest was he that the most trivial assistance rendered by others to him was fully acknowledged in his works, as can be seen from the notes and addenda of his *Storia do Mogor*. He overwhelmed me with assistance while he lived, and yet his last letter written only two months before his death closes with the words, "Thanks for all the help of many sorts I have received from you!"

As a Historian

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As a historian, Mr. Irvine's most striking characteristics were a thoroughness and an accuracy unsurpassed even by the Germans. His ideal was the highest imaginable: "A historian ought to know everything, and, though that is an impossibility, he should never despise any branch of learning to which he has access." (Letter to me, 2nd October, 1910).

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He brought light to bear on his subject from every possible angle; Persian, English, Dutch and Portuguese records, the correspondence of the Jesuit missionaries in India, books of travel, and parallel literatures, were all ransacked by him. The bibliography at the end of the *Storia* or the *Army of the Indian Moghuls* is itself a source of instruction. A conscientious workman, he gave exact reference for every statement, and only those who carry on research know how very laborious and time-absorbing this seemingly small matter is. For these reasons I wish that our Indian writers in particular should study and imitate *The Later Mughals* as a model of historical method and a means of intellectual discipline.

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Some are inclined to deny Mr. Irvine the title of the Gibbon of India, on the ground that he wrote a mere narrative of events, without giving those reflections and generalizations that raise the *Decline and Fall* to the rank of a philosophical treatise and a classic in literature. But they forget that Indian historical studies are at present at a much more primitive stage than Roman history was when Gibbon began to write. We have yet to collect and edit our materials, and to construct the necessary foundation,—the bed-rock of ascertained and unassailable facts,—on which alone the superstructure of a philosophy of history can be raised by our happier successors. Premature philosophizing, based on unsifted facts and untrustworthy chronicles, will only yield a crop of wild theories and fanciful reconstructions of the past like those which J. T. Wheeler garnered in his now forgotten *History of India*, as the futile result of years of toil.

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As Mr. Kennedy writes in the *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society*, 1912, (pp. 299-304):—"Irvine's conception of history was much like that which is at present in vogue at the Ecole des Chartes. History was to be mainly occupied with the search for, and investigation of, original authorities,* and to be an exact chronicle of the doings of the time. Although Irvine did not neglect such picturesque touches as he might find in his authorities, he did not profess to be an artist, nor would he consider historical narrative a fine art. Still less was he a philosophical historian : he was doubtful of generalities, and he seldom attempted generalizations. His strength lay in detail, and to be faultlessly accurate was his pride. Two things especially attracted him : he had a Scottish love of genealogies and an equal love of precise dates.

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"Copious extracts from the MSS. he studied formed the basis of Irvine's work ; round these he built up his remarks and explanations. Besides the purely historical details, Irvine devoted much attention to collateral subjects, such as the constitution of the Moghul nobility, the administrative system, the system of land revenue, and the organization of the army. Ballads, diaries, letters, charters, rules of official practice and imperial rescripts, coins and seals,—he made himself conversant with them all.

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"As a commentator Irvine excelled ; he searched Europe, Asia, and America to explain an obscure allusion or to settle a date...... Both nature and training made Irvine an excellent judge of evidence, and his style was clear, logical, and to the point, an instrument well fitted for his purpose. What he had to say was always worth the hearing. In knowledge of his particular period of history he was unrivalled."

His Humour

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As a writer, Mr. Irvine was a vigorous controversialist. His article on *Canal Rates vs. Land Revenue* makes a trenchant attack on Mr. A. O. Hume's proposal to exclude the profits due to canal irrigation when fixing the assessment of land revenue and to fix the former on purely commercial principles.

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∗ Mr. Irvine wrote to me on 23rd Feb. 1902 : "I can see that you are working on what I believe to be the correct lines for making any profitable advance in the knowledge of Indian History—that is, a recourse to original documents and their exact critical elucidation." [J. Sarkar.]

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He had also a happy vein of humour which appears now and then in his writings, but oftener in his letters. Thus to his remark in the above article that "such a haphazard application of his great doctrine (of the greatest happiness of the greatest number) might well make old Jeremy Bentham shudder in his grave," he adds the foot-note "That is, if he ever got there. We believe his body was embalmed and kept in a glass case!"

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In his *Army of the Indian Moghuls*, p. 110, after asserting that the strange word *janjal* is a corruption of the known word *jazail*, and tracing the supposed steps of this corruption, he adds 'Q. E. D.'!

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Again, he urged me to settle our difference as to the date of Shah Alam's confinement on the ground "If doctors disagree, what will laymen think of it?" In some other letters he wrote :—

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"I suppose man has still enough of the brute in him to have remained a fighting animal,—and the 'drum and trumpet school' [of historians] seem just as popular as ever. . . . The losing side [e.g., Dara Shukoh's] always get scant justice in histories." (13th Aug. 1905).

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"So far the Berlin Librarian has taken no notice of my communication [asking to be put in relations with a photographer there.] But I suppose one must have patience and wait the pleasure of these Great Men!" (10th Oct. 1905.)

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"I have seen no mention of Bhimsen, [the Hindu author of a most valuable Persian history of Aurangzib's reign], or his sons. Historians are rarely mentioned [in other histories]; — not much hope for us!"

The History of the Growth of the Later Mughals

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The actual writing of Mr. Irvine's History commenced in 1891, and we find him on 19th May 1892 drawing up a "Rough Outline of Headings and Order of Narrative" for the reign of Bahadur Shah, which closely corresponds to Chapter I. as it finally left his hand. In September 1893 he drafted a scheme entitled "Order of work to be done", which includes such items as "Read up for [regnal years] 1-20 of Muhammad Shah— continue narrative down to death of A. K. [Sayyid Abdullah Khan]—provincial history—grandees—geography : take out all names, arrange, identify—biography : do the same—read for completion—read for style—verify quotations—index."

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By the end of November 1893 the narrative had been carried down to the death of Sayyid Abdullah (ch. vi. 24), i.e., all that he lived to see through the press. Then, he tells us, "in 1894 I began the preparatory studies for an account of the later Moghul system of government and administration in all its branches, being impelled by the belief that some information of the kind was a necessary introduction to a History of that period, which I had previously commenced. Before I had done more than sketch out my first part, which deals with the Sovereign, the Court Ceremonial, and the elaborate system of Entitlature, I noticed the issue of a book on a part of my subject by Dr. Paul Horn. The perusal of this excellent work diverted my attention to a later section of my proposed Introduction, —the subject of the Army." (J.R.A.S., 1896, p. 509). This sketch of the Army Organization of the Indian Mughals was published in 1896 covering 61 pages of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and reissued as a book in an amplified form in 1903.

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The next two years were devoted to the revision annotation and preparation of some of these earlier chapters of the Later Mughals for printing in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and reading for the period ahead.

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Composition was resumed on 12th October 1898, with section 25 of the reign of Muhammad Shah, and the narrative was carried down to the events of April 1738, when the first rumours of the threatened invasion of Nadir Shah began to reach Delhi. Here his manuscript ends.

The Editor's Work

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From time to time Mr. Irvine revised his first draft. Chapters II to VI sec. 24 were printed in his life-time, and to these he gave his finishing touches. Chapter I (Bahadur Shah) and Chapter VII from the fall of the Sayyid Brothers in 1720 to the death of Rustam Ali Khan in February 1725, bear marks of his revision and correction, though not in a complete or final form, as even in them he left many gaps to be filled up and query-marks for verification or correction. It seems to me that he delayed publishing the Bahadur Shah chapter because he waited to consult Macauliffe's long-announced *Sikh Religion*, which came out in six volumes as late as 1909. We have a marginal note in the MS. of Chapter I "compare these chapters on the Sikh Gurus with the dates &c. in the biographies of Macauliffe's *Religion of the Sikhs*."

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His own corrections stop with page 188 of his manuscript of the second part of Muhammad Shah's reign, i.e., February 1725, and from this point to the last page that he wrote (viz., p. 363, dealing with April 1738), the draft is unrevised, incomplete, and with many things left doubtful for future verification, correction and completion and rearrangement of the narrative and sifting of evidence. This last portion requires considerable labour on the editor's part. The narrative, as sketched by Irvine has to be reconstructed, completed and checked by a close reference to the original Persian sources. Besides, an entirely new class of documents,—the Marathi letters and reports—which have seen the light since 1898 and which were unknown to Irvine, have to be woven into the text, because of the very important part played by the Marathas in the affairs of the Delhi Empire from 1723 onwards.

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The editor has considered it advisable to subject Mr. Irvine's copious foot-notes to a severe compression. These notes were written by him more for his own satisfaction,—i.e., as a means of verifying his statements and giving an outlet to his overflowing miscellaneous but extremely accurate information, the garnered harvest of a long and studious life,—than as a means of instructing the reader. His notes as he left them would have buried his narrative under their ponderous load. To have printed them in full would have had the effect of exhibiting the *Later Mughals* hidden by its scaffoldings. Besides, the higher cost of paper and printing (respectively fourfold and double the pre-war rates), has enforced a rigid economy of space on the publishers. The notes, therefore, have been given here in an abbreviated form, as a guide to sources for students, but many interesting sidelights and Persian verses and proverbs have been left out.

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Mr. Irvine planned his History on an encyclopædic scale. In addition to the political and Court history of the central Government of Delhi, he wished to write the local history of each of the provinces (even when it was not the scene of any activity of the supreme Government or important campaign) and to construct lists of the chief officers (central and provincial), saints, scholars &c. year by year with accurate biographical notes and dates. A rough and incomplete sketch of provincial history for the reign of Bahadur Shah is all that he has left, together with many pages of bare uncorrected lists of officials from the highest ministers of the Crown down to the faujdars and commandants of forts. All these have been excluded by the editor.

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Since Irvine stopped working at his History, the study of Mughal coins has been greatly advanced by the labours of Messrs. Nelson Wright (Calcutta Museum), Whitehead (Lahore Museum), C. J. Brown (Lucknow Museum) and contributors to the Numismatic Supplement to the J. A. S. B., (especially Mr. Hodivala for minor mints and obscure reigns). The editor has not incorporated the result of these later researches, as it would have meant a considerable modification of Mr. Irvine's paragraphs on the subject, which have a value of their own as marking an advance on the British Museum catalogue and therefore representing a definite stage in the study of Indian numismatics.

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In spelling oriental words the editor has followed one uniform system and deleted the author's copious final h's. No diacritical mark or special letter has been used.

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The hearty thanks of the editor and the reader alike are due to Babu Brajendra Nath Banerji, a Bengali historian of remarkable industry and love of accuracy, for the patient and minute care with which he has read the proofs. Some of the mistakes are due to the editor having unsuspiciously accepted the text of pages 150-256 from the printed copy of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

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JADUNATH SARKAR

List of W. Irvine's Published Writings

Books :

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The Rent Digest or the Law of Procedure relating to Landlord and Tenant, Bengal Presidency. (Government Press, Calcutta, 1869).

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Settlement Report of Ghazipur District, 1886.

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The Army of the Indian Moghuls: its organization and administration. (Luzac, 1903).

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Storia do Mogor or Mogul India by Niccolao Manucci, tr. with introduction and notes. (Indian Texts Series, John Murray, 4 vols. 1907 and 1908).

Papers :

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Calcutta Review.

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1869. Canal rates vs. Land Revenue.

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Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

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1878-79. Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad.

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1884. Baiswari Folk songs.

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1893. Notes on the Official reckonings of the reigns of the Later Mughal Emperors.

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1897. Nadir Shah and Md. Shah (p. 24).

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1900. Jangnama of Farrukh-siyar and Jahandar Shah.

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Later Mughals.—

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1894, corresponding to Ch. I. sec. 17-21.

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1896, ,, ,, Ch. II. and III.

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1898, ,, ,, Ch. IV sec. 1-11.

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1904, Extra No., corresponding to Ch. V. sec. 1-17 and Ch. VI. sec. 1-4.

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1908, corresponding to Ch. VI sec. 5-24.

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1907 & 1909. Mughal Mint Towns.

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A Supplementary Index of the place-names on pp. 89 to 414 of the Ain-i-Akbari Vol. II. trans. by Jarrett (by Irvine and L. M. Anstey, in book form, 1907).

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Notes for a second edition of Blochmann's Ain.

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Indian Magazine:

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1903. Translation of Anand-ram Mukhlis's Pilgrimage to Garh Mukteshwar.

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*Indian Antiquary*: 1894. *Beale's Or. Bio. Dic.* (p. 299). 1900. *Etymology of the word Pindhari*, (p. 140). *Notes on some Anglo-Indian words* (270, 361). 1901. *Date of Zinat-un-nissa's death*. 1904. *Jangnama of Sayyid Alim Ali Khan by Sudhist*. 1907. *Ahmad Shah Abdali and the Indian Wazir Imad-ul-mulk*. 1911. *Emperor Aurangzeb-Alamgir*. [An abridged form of this paper has been printed in the *Encyclopædia of Islam*, Vol. I ].

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*Asiatic Quarterly Review*: 1894. *Political History of the Sikhs by contemporary writers*, [being *Later Mughals*, Ch. IV. sec. 19]. 1897. *Opinions on "Indian Civilian's" proposals*.

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*Journal of the Moslem Institute*: *Memoirs of Abdul-qadir Sabit Jang*, (i. 258-266, 413-423 ; ii. 6-12, 108-133 ; iii. 11-27, 191-208 ; iv. 31-46, 131-153, 237-257 ; v. 7-27).

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*Imperial Gazetteer of India*, 3rd ed. (1908), vol. ii. ch. 10.

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*North Indian Notes and Queries*: 1893? *Topographical inquiries—Jalalabad—visit to Kumaon*.

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*Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society*: 1896. *Mughal Army* (pp. 509-570). 1898. *Two corrections in Dr. Rieu's Catalogue* (p. 373). 1899. *James Fraser* (p. 214). 1903. *Note on Bibi Juliana and the Christians* (p. 355). *Jahangir's Autograph* (p. 370). *Note on Niccolao Manucci and his 'Storia do Mogor'* (p. 723). *Note on J. R. Rivett-Carnac's article on Cup marks* (p. 827). 1905. *The Baillie collection of Arabic and Persian MSS.* 1910. *Austin of Bordeaux* (p. 1343). 1911. *The Khatur or Khattar Tribe* (p. 217). *Book reviews* : 1902 (p. 687), 1909 (p. 502), 1910 (pp. 183, 947).

Author's Foreword

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If this book cannot claim in the highest sense of the word the name of History, it is at least the result of some research and labour, things sadly required in Indian history as a preparatory clearing of the ground for more ambitious work. To me this heavy task has been its own exceeding great reward (the only one, I fear, ever likely to come to me) ; it has served to bridge over the period between active life and the first advances of old age, and through it I have failed to "feel the weight of too much liberty". At some future day the genius may arise who shall make these dead bones live ; and when in a foot-note this "Gibbon of the future" flings me a word of acknowledgment, I shall be satisfied. Meanwhile, the scenic artists, who deal in picturesque narrative and like to lay on the colours thick, may not disdain to appropriate something from my sober pages as a background for their adjectives ; while the official gazetteer-maker and the compiler of little books will be able to fill up many a meagre outline and correct much erroneous chronology. Some writer, if I remember rightly, complains that Indian historians are chary of dates ; if he will open my work, he will find out how wide this is of the truth. In fact he will, I fear, receive a surfeit of dates, many more, at any rate, than he will care to digest.

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WILLIAM IRVINE

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WILLIAM IRVINE.

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THE LATER MUGHALS

Chapter I. Bahadur Shah

Sec. 1.—Death of Alamgir : His Children.

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After an illness of a few days Alamgir died in his camp at Ahmadnagar on the 28th Zul Qada 1118 A.H., corresponding to the 3rd March, 1707, New Style, in the 91st (lunar) year of his age and the 51st of his reign. The actual place of his death is probably denoted by the "Barahdari Aurangzeb's tomb," marked on the map between pp. 688 and 689 in Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. xvii. The place lies 2 miles n. e. of Ahmadnagar town.

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Alamgir had five sons and five daughters.* The eldest son, Muhammad Sultan was born near Mathura on 4th Ramzan 1049 (30th Dec., 1639) and died on the 7th Shawwal 1087 (14th Dec., 1676), in the thirty-ninth year of his age and in the twentieth year of his father's reign. He left no issue. The fourth son it will only be necessary to mention. His name was Akbar, he was born on 11th Zul Hijja 1067 (21st Sept., 1657) and after rebelling and joining the Rajputs in 1681, he fled to the Mahratta Court of Sambhaji and thence to Persia. He died at Mashhad on the 31st March, 1706.† At the Emperor's death there thus remained only three claimants for the throne, his second, third and fifth sons.

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