Abstract
The translator of this work was the talented orientalist and linguist, Jonathan Scott.1 Arriving in India in 1772, Scott’s linguistic talents, primarily in Persian—the language required by aspirants in the diplomatic service in India—lead him to the post of Persian secretary to Warren Hastings, the governor-general of India.
Irādat Khān, A Translation of the Memoirs of Eradut Khan, a Nobleman of Hindūstān, Containing Interesting Anecdotes of the Emperor Aulumgeer Aurungzebe, and of his successors, Shaw Aulum and Jehaundar Shaw, in which are Displayed the Causes of the Very Precipitate Decline of the Mogul Empire in India, trans. Jonathan Scott (London: for John Stockdale, 1786), pp. 58–64.
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Notes
The use of artillery was introduced by Gurū Gobind Singh as shown by a hukamnāmā (the written orders of the Gurūs) to the Sikh community of Lucknow dated February 19, 1694, which requests them to send him one cannon and ammunition. Loehlin, The Granth of Gurū Gobind Singh, 66. A visitor to the Punjab almost a century after this account was published notes what may have been the cannon of Gurū Gobind Singh: “In the corridor which divides the two apartments there is an ancient Sikh gun, supposed to be of the time of Govind Singh, the last of their Gurūs, or teachers, who died A.D. 1708. In the centre of this gun are two lions, each bestridden by a warrior with a drawn sword in his hand.” Mrs J.C. Murray, Our Visit to Hindostan, Kashmir, and Ladakh (London: Aynsley, 1879), 61.
The battle is described by Khāfi Khān: “Coming out of the fort with all alacrity, enthusiasm and inclination, they raised the cry of ‘Fat’h Darshan,, [and] ‘Sachchaa Badshah,’ at the time of battle, and like insects threw themselves madly and bravely upon the fire of artillery and the edge of the sword and the tips of arrows and spears. They launched rank-shaking assaults on the imperial entrenchments, and everyday many were killed. Some Muslims also earned the eternal merit of martyrdom.” Majida Bano trans., “Bandā Bahādur and his Followers: From Khāfī Khān, Muntakhabu’l Lubāb” in ed. J.S. Grewal and I. Habib, Sikh History from Persian Sources (New Delhi: Tulika, 2001), 156–7.
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© 2004 Amandeep Singh Madra and Parmjit Singh
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Singh Madra, A., Singh, P. (2004). Memoirs of a Mughal Nobleman, 1786. In: Madra, A.S., Singh, P. (eds) “Sicques, Tigers, or Thieves”: Eyewitness Accounts of the Sikhs (1606–1809). Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11998-8_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11998-8_31
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