THE causes which led to the publication of this work require some explanation, both because por­tions of Ferishta have already appeared in English and because the circumstances which gave rise to the present translation did not originate in a desire to supersede the former versions. Several years ago Sir James Mackintosh, then President of the Literary Society of Bombay, with that zeal for the diffusion of knowledge which has ever marked his character, urged me to translate the portion of Ferishta's history which had not yet been touched upon by Europeans. I promised to do so if, on commencing the task, I found myself equal to it; and I trust when this work meets his eye he will think that I have fairly fulfilled my engagement.

My professional duties, for some time, prevented my attending to his suggestion, though it was not lost upon me; for in less than one year a consider­able part of one of the minor histories was trans­lated; and in two more the task assigned me was completed. During this interval I had com­pared several authors contemporary with Ferishta, both in the languages of Asia and of Europe, and I then first conceived the idea of writing a com­plete work on the Mahomedan Power in India, compiled from the various materials to which I might hereafter obtain access. Having resolved to take Ferishta as my basis, I found it requisite to study him very closely; but on examining Colonel Dow's translation of the History of the Kings of Dehly, I found it so difficult to follo the narrative, owing to the confusion in the proper names of persons and of places, that I had to consult the original throughout, and my notes and alterations alone made nearly a volume. In these observations, it is by no means my wish to detract from the merit justly due to Colonel Dow. It was impossible that he should correct the geographical errors which existed, perhaps, even in his original manuscript, when there were no maps of the coun­try; and it was difficult for him to attain sufficient proficiency in the language of the text to give full force to the narrative of the author at a period when no elementary works in Persian had yet been published. But to Colonel Dow the world is much indebted for bringing even a portion of Ferishta to light, and for exciting in the mind of every person who reads his translation a wish to become better acquainted with the author. Upon the whole, therefore, great praise is due to Colonel Dow, and his name will be handed down to posterity with respect, as one of the earliest and most indefa­tigable of our Oriental scholars. Instead of con­fining himself, however, to mere translation, he has filled his work with his own observations, which have been so embodied in the text, that Gibbon declares it impossible to distinguish the translator from the original author; and which in some cases so plainly indicated the hand of a modern European writer, that Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke were justified in doubting it to be the work of a Mahomedan of the sixteenth century, till Mr. Orme procured part of Ferishta's history to be translated in London, and compared it with Colonel Dow's. Having proceeded thus far in my labours, I resolved to examine the translation made by Dr. Jonathan Scott of the History of the Kings of Koolburga, Beejapoor, and Ahmudnuggur. This comparison soon convinced me how much that accomplished Orientalist had surpassed all former translators; and I found little to alter, with the exception of a few proper names, which a more thorough acquaintance with the geography and language of the Deccan enabled me to correct. Dr. Scott's copy of Ferishta appears, however, to have been occasionally defective; though had he translated the whole instead of a small portion of it, the present attempt might have been unnecessary. Before the end of the year 1815 I had thus completed the translation of the whole work, with copious notes. I had besides collated a great part of an original manuscript in my possession, with several other copies, carefully examining it with maps; and I also continued to pursue with ardour my labours for procuring materials for an original history. The ready access afforded by Mr. Russell the resident at Hydrabad, by Mr. El-phinstone the resident at Poona, and by Mr. Wm. Erskine of Bombay, to their European and Oriental libraries, as well as to those of all the learned natives with whom they had any acquaintance or influence, entitles them to my grateful thanks. My researches had enabled me to fill eleven folio volumes of manuscript, partly translation and partly notes, for my general history, which was in a state of forwardness, when an event occurred that led to the publication of this translation alone.

The war which broke out in India in 1817 rendered it necessary for me to accompany the army that marched to Malwa. I left my library and manuscripts at Poona, with the exception of the translation of Ferishta, which had been sent to Mr. William Erskine at Bombay. On the 5th of November, 1817, the Peshwa attacked the Poona residency, driving before his troops the members of the resident's establishment, among whom were several English ladies and their children; and after sacking the place, the troops set fire to the houses, and burned them with their contents. My own family had the good fortune to escape with their lives; but the whole of my property of every description, including my library, together with my manuscripts, the labour of so many years, was lost or destroyed. After an absence of fifteen months, I revisited Poona at the end of the war, for a few days only, and I then purchased two of my English manuscripts, which are all that I was ever able to obtain. I also procured one copy of Ferishta in Persian, which contained several valuable annotations and cor­rections. This copy has since been carefully collated with several others, and a new and correct edition was left by me at Bombay in 1827, in order to be printed. My intention of compiling the Mahomedan history is, therefore, now at an end; but as I was in possession of a correct translation of Ferishta from a very good copy of the original, I felt that it contained sufficiently interesting mat­ter to admit of a separate publication; and thus I offer it to the world, although it is, in truth, only a small part of a mass of historical matter that can never be recovered.

After a rapid and imperfect account of Hindoo history previously to the Mahomedan invasion, Ferishta gives a sketch of the conquests of the early Arabians in Persia, their progress into Cho-rasmia, and their settlements in the north-eastern parts of Iran. The detailed portion of his his­tory commences in the year 977, with the origin of the dynasty of Ghizny. It was then the Ma-homedans first came in contact with the Hindoos; but no permanent establishment east of the Indus took place for half a century, and shortly after the Indians, with the exception of those in the Pun-jab, shook off the Mahomedan yoke. In the year 1191 they again became subject to the attacks of the Moslems, who in 1206 founded the kingdom of Dehly. Nearly a century elapsed in rendering this power stable, when in 1294 the first Mahomedan soldier ventured to cross the Nurbudda, and a small army invaded the Deccan. At this period the Dehly kingdom had attained its zenith, under the rule of its first conquerors; and not only success­fully resisted all the efforts of Chungiz Khan to sub­due it, but even afforded an honourable retreat to thirteen kings of Eastern Asia, which had been ex­pelled from their thrones. But Dehly was doomed to witness a downfall more sudden than its elevation.

Seven dynasties had passed away in three cen­turies; and the last had sunk to a low ebb when Tamerlane invaded India in the year 1400. This warlike chief, however, found so little to induce him to retain the conquest, that after having sacked the country, and committed unheard-of cruelties and ravages, he abandoned it, without leaving one soldier behind to entitle him to consider it as part of his vast dominions. During the ensuing century three more dynasties reigned in Dehly; and the imbecility of the house of Lody enabled Babur at the head of twelve thousand men to subdue the empire in 1526, and to establish the house of the Great Mogul, a member of which family still oc­cupies the shadow of a throne, that once belonged to one of the most powerful monarchies in the aniverse.

Previously to the conquest by Babur, several Mahomedan governors of provinces had raised themselves into independent kingdoms, which they continued to rule till a few years before Ferishta wrote his work in 1612. Nearly about that period most of them had become gradually subjugated by Akbur to the parent empire; and his descendant Aurungzeeb could make it his boast, that in his reign only one Mahomedan sovereign issued his mandates throughout all India.

Besides the Dehly history, therefore, the author has had occasion to detail the events occurring throughout thirteen independent kingdoms, which existed for the greater portion of two centuries; in so doing he has given their origin, the rise and extent of their power, their internal administration and policy, and, lastly, the dissolution of all those whose end he lived to witness.

Such is the outline of Ferishta's labours. When we reflect on the extensive regions over which the historian passes; the numerous races of Arabs, Persians, Toorks, and Afghans, with their pecu­liarities of language, religion, and tribes; when to these are added the innumerable subdivisions of the Hindoo races, with their several tongues, habits, and customs, it will be acknowledged that it is no easy task to enter fully into the details, and to become familiar with the several new proper names which occur in every page. If to this be added the difficulty of tracing the movements of numerous armies of many different kingdoms, marching and countermarching over a region as extensive as Europe, we shall not be surprised to find errors in the various copies of Ferishta which at present exist.