Indian Antiquary Vol 49

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 70

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(APRIL, 1920
THE HISTORY OF THE NIZAM SHAHI KINGS OF AĦMADNAGAR.
BY LT.-COLONEL T. W. HAIG, C.S.I., C.M.G. The following account of the Nizâm Shâhi dynasty of Ahmadnagar is a translation of the second part of the Burhan-s-Ma'asir by 'Ali ibn 'Aziz Allah Tabatabai of Samnân, of which only three copies are known to exist. The first part of this work, containing an account of the Bahmanî kings of the Dakan, is merely introductory and has already been translated by Major J. S. King, who published his translation in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XXVIII, from which it was reprinted in book form in 1900 by Messrs. Luzac & Co., under the title of The History of the Bahmani Dynasty, founded on the Burhan-i-Ma'asir.
Meeting Major King in the library of the India Office, in 1909 or 1910, I asked him whether he purposed continuing his translation, and on ascertaining that he had no such intention, I made, for my own use, a translation of the rest of the Burhan-i-Ma'dsir, which I was then reading. I now offer this translation to readers of The Indian Antiquaru.
The author's style is bombastic and prolix in the extreme, and in my translation I have freely curtailed the pompous phraseology of the original. Some passages, such as the description of the festivities on the occasion of a royal wedding, I have omitted altogether, as being void of historical interest.
The value of the work as a historical document is much impaired by its partiality, the author being a panegyrist of the dynasty whose history he professes to tell. The most flagrant instances of his unscrupulous partiality are his impudent attempt to claim for the founder of the dynasty, in the face of the clearest historical evidence, descent in the male line from the Bahmanî kings, his fictitious account of a defeat inflicted on Mahmud Shảh Begâra of Gujarat by Ahmad Nizam Shah, fighting in defence of a mythical Mahmud Shâh of Khandesh, and his praise of the maniac, Murtaza Nizam Shah I.
Nevertheless the chronicle is not without value. It is a record of events in the State in which the author lived, and is probably fairly trustworthy so far as it relates to domestic affairs; and the detailed record of the siege of Ahmadnagar by Akbar's troops is interesting, and is, so far as I know, the only original account of the siege from the point of view of the beleaguered garrison. It contains mueh information not to be found elsewhere.
Such a work as I have described requires to be carefully compared with other histories and this must be my apology for the number and length of the notes.
Abbreviations. F.--Firishta's History, Bombay text of 1832.
AN.-Albarnama, Bibliotheca Indica edition, text, published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
zw.-An Arabic History of Gujarat (Zafar-ul-Walihi bi Muzaffar wa Alik), edited by E. Denison Ross, Ph.D. John Murray & Co., 1910. Indian Texts Series (Text).
Danvers.--The Portuguese in India, by F. C. Danvers. W. H. Allen & Co., Limited 1894. BS.-Basåtin-us-Sallin., Haidarabad, lithographed edition. HA.-Hadiqat-ul-Alam. Haidarabad, lithographed edition of A... 1309. TMS.-Tátish-s-Muhammad Qutb Shahe. MS. in author's possession.
T. W. G.