The Mughal rule and its contribution is one of the fascinating chapters of Medieval Indian history. The Doyen among the Medieval Indian History, late Professor S. Nurul Hassan while writing foreword for the first volume in the year 1977 observed "that the other volumes will also appear in quick succession". Keeping his wish in good spirits, the Department strove hard with its limited resources to achieve a small, if not a great, measure of success in shaping the Mughal Archives Publication, during these years.
This is the second decennary year (1976-1996) of the publication of Mughal Archives Cataloguing Scheme which was heralded by this Department in the year 1976 and I feel it is needless to emphasise here the richness of Mughal records already well known to the scholars in India and Abroad.
Therefore, I feel it a great privilege in placing the current volume, as an addition and fifth (containing 2157 documents) in the series for interest-rousing and full use to Research Scholars and others alike. I may perhaps add that much more documentary heritage still awaits to go into publication for scholars' utility in due course.
I appreciate the highly dedicated work of this nature by our Departmental colleagues Sarvasri Dr. Dawood Ashraf, retired Research Officer and Compiler-Editor with able assistance of Smt. G. Suseela Raju, Deputy Director and Joint Editor of this volume. The others who deserve mention and appreciation are Sarvasri M. Muniratnam, Assistant Director, S. Azamul Hussaini, Assistant Director, Smt. Zareena Parveen, Senior Research Assistant (Persian), Smt. Atiya Shaheen, Junior Research Assistant (Persian), Sri Ahmeduddin, Junior Assistant and Smt. Saleemunnisa, Typist, for their efforts in shaping this publication.
I am sure and confident that this new addition under the Mughal Series would be widely welcomed by the scholastic world.
The Andhra Pradesh State Archives and Research Institute, has in its possession extremely valuable records in the enormous volume ranging from mediaeval period to present time. Among the various categories of records preserved in this Archives, the category of the Mughal Records is the oldest one. These records pertain to the reigns of Shah Jahan (1628-1658 A.D.) and Aurangzeb (1658-1707 A.D.). The number of documents pertaining to the reign of Shah jahan is about 5,000 and quantum of documents pertaining to the reign of Aurangzeb is approximately 1,50,000. So far as the number of documents of this Mughal Collection is concerned it is the largest in India or elsewhere. The Mughal Records are the original source for the retrospective research of the Mughal suba of the Deccan. The government of Andhra Pradesh keeping the importance of these valuable documents in view and to cater to the needs of the research scholars working on mediaeval Deccan, sanctioned two schemes of compiling catalogues of documents, pertaining to reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzebs in 1968 and 1975 A.D., respectively. Under these schemes the catalogue of these records are being compiled and published by this Archives. A Descriptive Catalogue of Durbar Papers of Shah Jahan has been brought out in 1977 A.D., and the catalogues of documents pertaining to the reign of Aurangzeb are coming out with regular intervals.
This catalogue (Vol. IV. Part - 1) consists of 2157 documents pertaining to the first four months of 8th regnal year of Aurangzeb (1665 A.D.). As the number of documents in the 8th regnal year is 6,797, it was decided to bring out the catalogues of the documents of that year in more than one part to make them wieldy. The catalogues brought out earlier (Vol. I. Part I and II. Vols. II and III) contain about 15,000 documents of first seven regnal years of Aurangzeb.
This catalogue has a format of five columns which supply detailed information about the documents. The first four columns are "Document Number", "Date of Document". "Particulars of the Document", and "Special Features". The fifth and last column "Summary of the Documents", contains the brief abstract or short version of the text of the document in English. All relevant and necessary material such as the List of the Categories of the Documents included in this catalogue with their abbreviation and English translation. Glossary of the Mughal administrative terminology, Calendars and Index of the persons and places have been appended to make this part of the volume fully independent.
I am very much grateful to Sri N. Madanamohan Reddy, I.A.S., Commissioner, Andhra Pradesh State Archives and Research Institute, who evinced keen interest in completion and publication of this work, without which it would not have seen the light of the day.
Dr. Syed Dawood Ashraf, retired Research Officer of this department deserves special thanks for having compiled and edited this catalogue. He completed this task with meticulous care and great diligence.
Indeed I am also grateful to Smt. G. Suseela Raju, Deputy Director, who associated with the Editor (Dr. Syed Dawood Ashraf) as Joint Editor for this volume and I also thank to Sri M. Muniratnam, Assistant Director for his cooperation throughout.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
Hindu (887)
Agriculture (93)
Ancient (1022)
Archaeology (615)
Architecture (535)
Art & Culture (864)
Biography (598)
Buddhist (545)
Cookery (158)
Emperor & Queen (497)
Islam (235)
Jainism (274)
Literary (876)
Mahatma Gandhi (360)
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