The Persian Akhbars in the Alienation omc e, Poona. (By Sardar Ganda Singh,
M.A.)
The .Alienation Oflice Poona pOSEesses tIle richest collection of vemaculs.r his· torical records in India, 2nd it goes to the credit of Dr. Six J adunath Sarkar, the President of the Indi<1n Historical Recores Commi>:sion, th~t with his persistent efforts the Government of Bomba, has done what no other Provincial or Stete Government in the countrv has be~n able to do in furtheriny the cause of reaserch in Indian history. It has published as m<1ny as forty-six volumes of original records in a series of Selections from the Pesh,m Daftar under the able guidance and editorship of Rao BaMdm Mr. G. S. Sardesai. This bas finished a good deal of work so far as the Publication of the Marathi records ill concerned. The publication of English records has also begun in a series called thePoona Residency COTTespcmdence, beginning with Mahadji Sindhia and North India Affairs, 1785-1794. edited by Sir Jadunath Sarkar. The fifth volume ill now iu the press. . What remains to he explored, and which deserves no less "ttention, is the Persian Section of the records. Six Jadunath has cmsoril.. looked t.hrough these .. papers and has spoken very highly of theix historical imp;,rtance. In 1933 Dr. Muhammad Nazim of the Archaeological Department selected and edited 95 papers, which form the first •. nd the only Persian brochure that has so far been published. Professor B. D. Varma of the Ferguson College Poona has also selected 74 news-letters on different topics and is working Oll them since 1933, but, perhaps, for want of leisure he has not been able to complete his work as yet. Evidently it is the dearth of Persian-knowing scholars of history in Poona and its neighbomhood that is responsible for the neglect of these Persian records_ I bad an opportunity to examine them from 21st to 28th AUGust last in connection with my search for records dealing with the history of the Sikhs during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To my snrprue, I found these records bundled up together in ten rumals or btMfas without any arrangement or classi· fication. The news-letters in fom of the r,,",nals had heen unfolded and straightened by Six Jadunath Sarka!. But they had yet to be arrang:ed and classified. AB none of the rumds could be successfully examined for any hilltorical research purposes withont examining each and every paper in all of them, I took in hand the claasification of these rumds. With the exception of one rumal, which contained some revenue papers, farmans and other miscellaneous records, the muin bulk of the rumals comprised Akhhars or' news-letters from different courts, military camps and important towns, summaries of news submitted from different places by the Dak Mutsaddis (Akhhtrr ba-mujah Nawishia-i-Mutsadian-i-Dak) and" Selected Kews of India" (Muntakhib A.khhar-i-Hindostan). With the exception of about two dozen letters and documente regarding Tipu Sultan, Mir Alim, Raghuj i Bhonsle, eto., and a few news-sheets from Lucknow, Faizabad, etc., all the News-letters relate to the early nineteenth centmy and appear to have bee" sent to the British Resident at Poona, most of them having been addre33ed to Colenel (afterward.> General) Smith, for whom I found covering letters encl03ed with m03t of the folded news-sheeta. ( 123 ) 0