PREFACE.
The chapters of this book are chiefly historical and descriptive accounts of places famous in the history of the Deccan. The list of places so described is by no means exhaustive, for I have not attempted to describe any locality which I have not visited. This limitation must be accepted as my excuse for not having devoted chapters to such places as Bijapur and Ahmadnagar.
It is unfortunate that no good history of the Deccan under its Muhammadan rulers exists in the English language. That history is not, as one writer*[1] remarks, "useless and inexpressibly tedious," but is full of interest, romance, and practical utility to the student of Indian history. From its romantic side it has been treated, merely as romance by the most widely-read of Anglo-Indian novelists. Briggs and others have attempted to treat it more seriously, but their writings are chiefly uncritical translations of a single author whose work contains many inaccuracies and unexplained discrepancies. The latest rechauffe†[2] of these translations is even more misleading than the work upon which it is based. Great advances have now been made in epigraphy and numismatics and various manuscript histories of the dynasties of the Deccan are accessible to the student, and these furnish ample materials for a detailed and critical history of the Deccan.
One of the most repellent features of works on oriental history consists in the confusing and apparently uncouth names and titles of historical personages. To remove confusion I have added as an appendix to this book a table containing lists of the dynasties in any way connected with the Deccan. For the dynastic lists of Vijayanagar I am indebted to Mr. Sewell's most valuable work "A Forgotten Empire" and for one or two other lists to "The Chronology of India" by C. Mabel Duff, but most of the lists are from original sources.
