Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c2.2

v1.c2.2

In the Introduction which follows I have endeavoured to estimate the merits and defects of Colonel Tod’s work. Here it is necessary only to state that though the book has been several times reprinted in India and once in this country, the obvious difficulties of such an undertaking have hitherto prevented any writer better qualified than myself from attempting to prepare an annotated edition. Irrespectively of the fact that this work was published a century ago, when the study of the history, antiquities, sociology, and geography of India had only recently started, the Author’s method led him to formulate theories on a wide range of subjects not directly connected with the Rājputs. In the light of our present knowledge some of these speculations have become obsolete, and it might have been possible, without impairing the value of the work as a Chronicle of the Rājputs, to have discarded from the text and notes much which no longer possesses value. But the work is a classic, and it deserves to be treated as such, and it was decided that any mutilation of the original text and notes would be inconsistent with the object of this series of reprints of classical works on Indian subjects.