Later Mughals v1.c4.s8: The Editor's Work
Later Mughals v1.c4.s8
- Language
- English
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