ORIGINAL PREFACE.
nihil aliud, nisi annalium confectio. ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ Hanc similitudinem scribendi multi secuti sunt, qui, sine ullis ornamentis, monimenta solum temporum, hominum, locorum, gestarumque rerum reliquerunt. ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ Non exornatores rerum, sed tantummodo narratores fuerunt.”[1] They comprise, for the most part nothing but a mere dry narration of events, conducted with reference to chronological sequence, never grouped philosophically according to their relations. Without speculation on causes or effects; without a reflection or suggestion which is not of the most puerile and contemptible kind; and without any observations calculated to interrupt the monotony of successive conspiracies, revolts, intrigues, murders, and fratricides, so common in Asiatic monarchies, and to which India unhappily forms no exception. If we are somewhat relieved from the contemplation of such scenes when we come to the accounts of the earlier Moghal Emperors, we have what is little more inviting in the records of the stately magnificence and ceremonious observances of the Court, and the titles, jewels, swords, drums, standards, elephants, and horses bestowed upon the dignitaries of the Empire.
If the artificial definition of Dionysius be correct, that “History is Philosophy teaching by examples,” then there is no Native Indian Historian; and few have even approached to so high a standard. Of examples, and very bad ones, we have ample store, though even in them the radical truth is obscured by the hereditary, official, and sectarian prepossessions of the narrator; but of philosophy, which deduces conclusions calculated to benefit us by the lessons and experience of the past, which adverts on the springs and consequences of political transactions, and offers sage counsel for the future, we search in vain for any sign or symptom. Of domestic history also we have in our Indian Annalists absolutely nothing, and the same may be remarked of nearly all Muhammadan historians, except Ibn Khaldún. By them society is never contemplated, either in its conventional usages or recognized privileges; its constituent elements or mutual relations; in its established classes or popular institutions; in its private recesses or habitual intercourses. In notices of commerce, agriculture, internal police, and local judicature, they are equally deficient. A fact, an anecdote, a speech, a remark, which
- ↑ De Orat. II. 12.
