Tarikh-I-Ser Sahi (An Old and Rare Book)

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The Government of Bihar established the K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute at Patna in 1950 with the object, inter alia, to promote historical research, archeologically excavations and investigations and publications of works of permanent value to scholars. This Institute along with five others was planned by this Government as a token of their homage to the tradition of learning and scholarship for which ancient Bihar is noted. Apart from the K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, five others have been established to give incentive to research and advancement of knowledge- the Nalanda Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Re- search in Buddhist Learning and Pali at Nalanda, the Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit Learning at Darbhanga, the Bihar Rashtra Bhasha Parishad for Research and Advanced Studies in Hindi at Patna, the Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Jainism and Prakrit Learning at Vaishali and the Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Arabic and Persian learning at patna.

A study of the Afghan history in India forms essentially a land-mark by itself, as it constitutes a connecting link between the earlier rule of the Turks and the Sayyads and the subsequent period of the Mughal authority, so far as the evaluation of the political, administrative and economic structure in a graduated but one continuous whole is concerned. The Afghans, when pushed to power in India, inherited a legacy from their predecessors-the Turks and the Sayyads-in afore- said fields, to begin with. But the changed hour of the situation necessitated them to foist superstructure on their legacies from the past, so as to square with the new problems to reckon with and at the same time to eliminate what had proved irksome and uncomfortable to earlier Muslim Sovereigns here. As immediate predecessors to the Great Mughals, the Afghans provided the essential foundations in the said fields to their successors so as to enable the latter to erect a colossal edifice on them and which ultimately came to form the base of the pyramid of the present society. Hence this translation of Tarikh-i-Šer Sahi, also known as Tuhfa-i-Akbar Šahi, written by Abbas Sarwani at the instance of emperor Akbar in A.H. 994 ?? A.D. 1886. The translation com- prises only the extant third part of this important work, relating to the life and career of Ser Sah.

me as its author to visit a number of collections in India, viz. collections of the National Library and the Asiatic Society of Bengal at Calcutta, the collections of Salar Jang Museum, Osmania University and the State Archives of Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad, the private and extremely valuable collections of Maharaja Kumar Dr. Raghubir Sinha at Sitamau (Malwa), the collections of Raza Library at Rampur, and the precious records in the collections of the Allahabad University, Benares Hindu University and Muslim University at Aligarh, Patna University Library, and the renowned Khudabakbs Oriental Public Library at Patna.

I register my sense of indebtedness to Dr. Parme- shwari Lal Gupta, the Curator of Patna Museum, and an eminet numismatic as well as a historian of repute, who has been kind enough to go through the manuscript of this work and has obliged me with his valuable suggestions.

It was towards the beginning of A.D. 1962 that I was asked by Dr. K. K. Dutta, the then Director of K. P. Jayasawal Research Institute, just prior to his elevation to the exalted office of the Vice-Chancellor of the Magadh University, to make an English translation of a Persian chronicle that may prove to be most judicious for a detached, dispassionate and objective study of the history of the Afghans in India. I was put in a fix. I felt as if haunted by the ghost of Hamlet, the prince of Denmark. 'To be or not to be that is the question. How to find a norm to sort out the most 'judicious' among a number of Afghan chronicles. I ultimately resolved to take stock of all such chronicles in quest of the 'judicious', and adopted the principle of eliminating such others which failed to conserve to my two-fold norms, viz. the first was to be the earliest or nearest in point of time for such a study, and the second was to possess an attitude of objectivity in presentation of facts.

Keeping the said norms in view, the process began with the study of Waqiat-i-Mustaqi, the earliest history of the Afshans. Its author Rizqullah Mustaqit was the son of Saikh Sadullah, who was born in A.D. 1492 and died in A.D. 1581. The work was, therefore, completed sometime by or before A.D. 1581.