Mandelslo's Travels in Western India (1638-1639)

John Albert de Mandelslo (1616-44) was a German adventurer. He began his career as an attaché in the court of the Duke of Holstein in Germany. In 1635 the Duke sent ambassadors to the courts of Russia and Persia. Mandelslo travelled with this mission for nearly three years and then in 1638 left them and sailed from Ispahan to India landing at Surat in April of that year. Here he journeyed through the cities of Gujarat, and thence to the Mughal court at Agra and Lahore. From there he returned to Surat and sailed for England in January 1639. This is a rare recording his experiences in India in the reign of Shah Jahan and a valuable source of information on the political and social conditions of the country at that time. Some accounts of places he gives are second hand but he always makes a mention of this fact.

M.S. Commissariat, was in Indian Educational Service; Professor of History and Political Economy, Gujarat College, Ahmadabad; Fellow of the University of Bombay.

THE author owes a few words of explanation in presenting this little book to the public in the form in which it appears. The first English translation of Mandelslo's Travels, by J. Davies, was published in London, nearly three hundred years ago, in 1662, and the work is at present but little known and very rare. As the most valuable part of Mandelslo's Travels refers to his tour through Gujarat, I decided at first to give a critical summary of the same, with extracts, in my History of Gujarat which is in preparation. But when completed it was found that this account, in spite of my attempts at compression, extended over several chapters, and took up a rather disproportionate space in the larger historical work. It has, therefore, been decided to publish it as a separate book with the addition of chapters on Mandelslo's interesting visit to Goa, his account of the Portuguese in Western India and his return voyage to Europe.

JOHN ALBERT DE MANDELSLO was a young man of gentle birth attached as a page to the court of the Duke of Holstein, a small principality in the north of Germany. In 1635 the duke sent two ambassadors to the courts of Muscovy (Russia) and Persia on a commercial mission, and Mandelslo, then only twenty years old, was at his own request permitted to join them as an attaché. After sharing their adventures for three years, he parted company with them at Ispahan, in Persia, in 1638, being desirous of visiting India. Taking ship at the Per-sian Gulf, he arrived at Surat at the end of April 1638 and passed the whole of the rainy season there. In October he journeyed through the cities of Gujarat to the Mogul headquarters at Agra and Lahore. After a very brief stay at both these capital cities, he returned to the port of Surat, whence he sailed for England on 5 January 1639.