Fonds SC31 - Indian Accounts or Response Forms

1 folder handwritten

These papers were created in India. It is unknown how they came to be part of the Royal Asiatic Society's collections.

The source of acquisition is unknown.

A series of accounts or response forms concerning Indian districts. These are handwritten on Indian paper and the accounts are accompanied by letters. One of these has been identified as an 'arzee' or response form from a junior to a senior. The junior identifies himself as Syed Mehdi Hasan and he is responding to a question posed as to whether or not the provinces demarcated in the Ain-i-Akbari by Abul Faz still exist. The response is that there are many changes which Syed Mehdi Hasan then lists. This letter is dated to 1844.

Further material has yet to be identified. One sheet bears the English words 'Benares and Mirzapore' (Varanasi and Mirzapur).

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The interpretative details were provided by Naveena Naqui, Assistant Professor of Persianate Islamic Cultures of South Asia, University of British Colombia, in 2015.

These papers were catalogued by Nancy Charley, RAS Archivist, in 2022.