Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 3 of 3

Tod, James, 1782-1835Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
1.6M words
Chapters
157

Tags

English Originals Historical Geography Human GeographyHistorical SourcesGeography ScienceIndian HistoryAncient CivilizationExotic CultureRajasthanCultural ChangeFolk CustomsPrincely System

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 3 of 3 by James TodAuthor: Tod, James, 1782-1835,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Jul 7, 2018

Editor's review

This book is the final volume of James Tod's three-volume Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, a nineteenth-century historical ethnography of the Rajput states of western India by an officer of the British East India Company. Tod, long stationed locally, collected a great deal of royal genealogy, oral tradition, inscriptions, and topographical material; this volume continues the narrative framework of the first two and concentrates on the chronicles, institutions, customs, and antiquities of the various states. Its value lies not in critical history in the modern academic sense but in preserving a large body of oral tradition and local memory later dispersed; it is a foundational document for studying Rajput society, royal ritual, and early British-Indian colonial knowledge production. The English is archaic, personal and place names are spelled differently from today, and the narrative carries clear period stances and romanticizing tendencies, so readers should maintain a critical distance. It is suitable as primary material for research on South Asian history, colonial history, and the history of ethnography, and for advanced readers with a strong interest in Rajasthani culture to read selected chapters rather than as ordinary reading for a smooth narrative.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the first two volumes or an introductory study first to grasp Tod's narrative framework and terminology.
  2. Keep an Indian historical map and genealogical tables at hand, checking names and places as you read.
  3. Treat the book as selected historical material, excerpting passages on customs, institutions, and inscriptions by theme.
  4. Remain skeptical of Tod's judgments and read alongside modern works on South Asian history.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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  3. 3
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FAQ

Is this the complete three-volume work or only the third volume? This is the third volume of the three-volume work; it must be read with the first two to understand the overall structure and the sequence of events. It can be used alone, but some figures and events will lack prior explanation.
Can I read this book if my English is not good? The original is nineteenth-century English with long sentences, archaic spelling, and many Indian proper names; it demands relatively strong English reading ability. It is recommended for readers with some English foundation who are willing to look things up.
Is the content rigorous modern historical research? Tod's work preserves a large amount of local oral and documentary material and has value as a historical source, but its methods, stances, and romanticizing tendencies bear the mark of nineteenth-century colonial knowledge production and should be used critically as primary material.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Tod, James, 1782-1835 Author

James Tod (1782–1835) was a British colonial officer and orientalist who served in India and devoted sustained attention to the history and records of Rajasthan. Public information about his life is limited, and details of his biography are difficult to set out; his surviving works, however, give a clear picture of his scholarly interests. His representative work is the three-volume Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, which combines chronological narrative with geographical and antiquarian observation. It systematically compiles the genealogies of local rulers, tribal traditions, inscriptions, and oral materials, and reads at once as a collection of historical sources and a travel account. Written in the manner of nineteenth-century orientalist scholarship, the book values narrative and first-hand observation, and has long been regarded as an important early source for the study of Rajasthani history and Rajput traditions.