DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

404 NOTES TO CHAPTER X
2. The quotations are mainly from the third book (especially chapters 17 and 27)
of The book of Ser Marco Polo (Trails. H. Yule, supplemented by that of Marsden
for book IV) ; ed. G. B. Parks, New York 1927. Only for the passage at the end of
section 10.1 have I translated directly from the rugged prose of Polo’s original //
Milione, using the critical edition of Luigi Foscolo Benedetto, Firenze 1928. The
English version is ultimately based, through G. B. Ramusio’s Navigazioni et Viaggi
upon the Latin of Fra Francesco Pipino of Bologna, who began his work when Polo
was still living at Venice. The sense is not fundamentally changed, so the available
version has been quoted for convenience of those who would like to read more for
themselves. Moreover, the essential differences also go back to a Polian source
(Benedetto, intr. p. clxix).
3. What follows in this section is an abstract of my Origins of feudalism in
Kasmir (JBBRAS. 150th anniversary volume, Bombay 1956).
4. The Pjthvt-raja Raso in Rajasth&ni was published as no, 4 of the Nagari
Pracartni Sabha’s granthamala (Banaras, 1904). The Sanskrit Prthvi-raja-vijaya,
probably by the Kasmirian poet Jayanaka (‘ between 1178 and 1200’, H. B. Sartfa,
JRAS, 1913, 261) was edited with the commentary of Jonaraja by G. H. Ojha and C.
Sharma Guleri (Ajmer 1941). The Sanskrit seems to be nearer the inscriptions and
known data than the current inflated vernacular lay, which outdoes the Sanskrit in
stupidity and diffuseness. The original, if recovered, will appear in the Rajasthan
series published by the Rajasthan Puratattva Mandir, Jaipur.
5. Published by G. H. Ojha in JASB. 23, 1927 (Num. Supplement XL, 14-18) ;
reading Sri Boppa in 8th century characters; perhaps Kala Bhoja of Nagda A.D. 734-
753. But see . 30. p. 4, pp. 8-9.
6. Tod’s Annals of Rajasthan (1st ed. London 1829; popular ed., 2 vol. London
1914) gives a very sympathetic treatment of Rajput tradition, mostly from the rasos
and representatives then living. The error is in thinking that the military hierarchy etc.
sufficed to constitute feudalism.
7. The details will be found in BJ, MEI, DR, Grierson’s careful NDG, and the
many * District settlement reports’ that deserve a long series of studies by themselves.
For the Miras tenure of Mahara§tra, see W. Chaplin : Report (of the commissioner in
the Deccan ; Bombay 1824), pp. 31-2; 56-73.
8. Voyages de Francois Bernier, 2 vol. Amsterdam 1709-10. The author was a
doctor of medicine of the faculty of Montpellier, and what is far more important,
pupil and last companion of Pierre Gassendl. His discussion of Aurangzeb’s state
(les etats du Grand Mogol) is coloured by a fine bourgeois prejudice, but fundamentally
correct in spite of the unconscious theorizing. Some of it misled Marx and Engels, as
the conditions in the port-cities were entirely different from those at Delhi or Agra,
which Bernier knew best as personal physician to the Aga DaniSmahd Khan, a commander
of 5000 (panj hazari) for the emjteror. The translation Travels in the Mogul empire,
(A.D. 1656-1668, by A. Constable, revised by Vincent Smith (Oxford 1914), lacks
the flavour of the original.