English Sources of Nagpur History of 18th Century

About the Book The major problem of the history of Nagpur State is lack of sources in Marathi as well Pershian and English language. Therefore Dr. Prabhakar Gadre D.Litt. an authority of the Maratha history, visited India office London, as well as native archives of India and collected voluminous documents and under took to publish them for future generation in a series on the sources of the Nagpur state now running in more than a dozen volumes. 6 volumes are already published. This is next step of English sources of the Nagpur state throwing valuable light from the unpublished as well as little known published sources.

Dr. Prabhakar Gadre D.Litt. a well known authority of the Maratha history has published various studies of Many aspect of the Nagpur state has felicity with many languages and many scripts including Modi script, the script of the Maratha people of past greatly enabled him to bridge the gap between Maratha people of past and present. Therefore he undertook the herculean job of publishing original unpublished documents in 18 volumes and so for he has been successful in publishing 6 volumes of the series.

Introduction The English sources of the history of eighteenth century India are ample and varied in scope, yet Nagpur state lacks these sinews of History not in Marathi but also in English language to The present volume is an attempt to remedy the lacuna.

The first document is a memoir of Nagpur state since the foundation of the state from the settlement of Raghuji I of Bhonsle family. The author of the memoir is not known but from the internal evidence it may be reasoned that the person must be knowledgeable and related to Nagpur state as many facts by its very nature, were secret and impossible for a outside person to know it. As no Indian person of this period was English knowing, with an ability to write in English, He must have an English assistant at his command. The memoir is published is 1800 AD in Asiatic Researches, a high brow Journal, which indicate highly well placed connection of the English assistant. Yet it remain neglected for two centuries suggest either ignorance of twentieth century historian, or a conspiracy of silence. The editor is tilted to the second part the sentence as the memoir gave few untoward facts uncorroborated in twentieth century but the unpublished evidence in the collection of Vinayak Rao Aurangabadkar preserved in India Office Library (document No. 51) justifies the publication of the documents. The memoir abruptly came to an end in 1777 A.D. suggest great upheaval disturbing the life and career of the authors. These circumstantial evidence suggest that the author may be Beniram Dube, a Maratha vakeel to English East India company at Calcutta and his close friend, Warren Hastings, Governor General of India. Both persons closely fit the bill. Hence it may be suggested that they were co-author of the memoir. Persionised proper names suggest the same fact. Reference to "our country" close the matter.

This is quire document, mix of untruth, half truth and pure truth but its negligence will cost us already scarce evidence of the Nagpur state. Hence it may be accepted with pinch of salt of corroborative evidence and sharp logic. Hence the publication is justified.

**Contents and Sample Pages**