The rare Peshwa Daftar

One of the most well-known archives in India is the Peshwa Daftar, which is also called the Pune archives.

As the name itself suggests, the archives are located in Pune and a majority of the archives belong to the Peshwa period. Since, the records and archives were collected and indexed during the Peshwa period, they came to be called as Peshwa Daftar.

The Peshwas, whose headquarters was at Pune, maintained a separate establishment for records and administrative purposes and the British continued with the Daftar after they defeated the Peshwas in 1818.

Today, the Daftar is housed in an old granite building which houses the State documents of the Peshwa Government. These documents are kept in 39,000 bundles called Rumals.

The archives are located in a building opposite the council hall and it is often described as a storehouse of old and rare documents. The archives even has documents dating back to the period of Chatrapati Shivaji.

The building houses over four crore documents and of them three lakhs are classified as rare manuscripts.
When the Peshwas were defeated, the then British Governor Mountstuart Elphinstone took over the Peshwa Daftar and decided to preserve the documents. The British then constituted a Imam Commission to look into land records and documents of the Peshwa Kingdom and also suggest measures about preserving these documents. By 1863, the Inam Commission had concluded its task and it gave a report. The British then decided that the documents verified and drafted by the committee should be kept along with the Peshwa Daftar in Nana Wada, in central Pune. To this day, these documents are part of the archives.
The British government finalised the design for the new building (Till the new building was completed., the archives were kept at Nana Wada building) in 1884 and the then under secretary, W A Baker, sanctioned Rs 1,14,335 towards the construction of the building.
The building has eight big halls meant for preserving documents. A special tower houses a water tank that was made for storing water in case a fire broke out in the building. The documents were shifted to this building from Nana Wada on February 6, 1890.

The archives today sees a rush of people. No, the people do not come here to study. They want  copies of old land records.

This is so as most land records are found in the Inam Commission Enquiry Daftar that has 7,864 rumals. If you need your family's s land rights claims verified and attested, the archives is the place. To obtain a Inam Commission document, you have to pay an Rs. 250 fee. The copies are provided in a month’s time.

Most records are in the Modi script. In the Inam section, one can find papers from the times of Shivaji, the Adilashahs of Bijapur and the Nizamdshahs of Ahmadnagar.

The Inam Commission papers comprise of land records given as inams or gifts by the Marathas. Since the Marathas ruled over large parts of south India, the records are many. The Imam Commission was formed in 1843 when the British rulers wanted to investigate and adjudicate on inams. In course of investigations, the Commission collected papers from individuals, officers, watandars and sanad holders.

The collection at the Archives has sanads, nivadapatras, mahzars and kaifiyats along with accounts of other areas. The archives need to be preserved so that we can read about our forefathers and the history of a place.

The archives has plans to digitalise its vast collection. There are also plans to refurbish, renovate and repair the building housing the archives. This is different from the National Film Archives, which is also headquartered at Pune.

Pune is also home to the archives belonging to the Tata group. It contains thousands of documents, letters, agreements, maps, press clippings, audio and video recordings, awards, trophies, medals, citations, paintings, and memorabilia relating to the House of Tatas.

The sword that fell out of a cupboard

There were several locked cupboards in a university. These cupboards had remained unopened for decades. In February 2011, when one of the cupboards were opened, a sword with Persian engravings fell out.
The sword belonged to the last great Mughal emperor Aurangzeb who practically ruled over the whole of India in the late 17^th century. Aurangzeb was the Emperor from 1658 to 1707 and he head succeeded Shahjahan to the throne.
The Mughal kings and royalty, including Aurangzeb, possessed several arms and many of these articles were noted for their magnificent make and beautiful carvings. Swords, daggers, knives, pistols and other arms belonging to the Mughals are found in many museums across India, particularly in Delhi, Agra, Ajmer, Hyderabad and even Lahore.
Aurangzeb’s sword was found in a cupboard in the manuscript section of the library of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh. Alipur is a city nearly 345 kms from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh. It s much nearer to Delhi which is  140 kms away. The AMU library is the second biggest in Asia.
There were several cupboards in the manuscript section and when the head of the section, Khurshed, opened one of them on February 26, 2011, the sword tumbled out. Some of the students managed to read one of the many Persian words on the scabbard of the sword. It said Aurangzeb.
The sword was then taken to the Head Librarian, Azarmi Tukht. When none could decipher the wordings, it was taken to Azarmi Tukht, head of the Institute of Persian Studies and Asif  Naeem, a Professor of Persian. Both of them deciphered the Persian couplet on the sword.
It is believed that this sword was presented to Aurangzeb. The sword was not the only artefact found. There are others such as a sapphire pen stand and a paper cutter presented by the then king of Afganisthan, Nadir Shah, to the then Vice-chancellor of AMU in 1933.
Other ancient articles found were photographs of Shahajan and Mumtaz Mahal and 350 manuscripts, including a deed executed by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1602. The AMU has also in its collections royal decrees of Mughal Emperors Babur, Shahajahan, Aurangzeb and Shah Alam from 1602 to the later part of the eighteenth century have been discovered. More than a dozen royal families have presented the AMU with manuscripts and historic artefacts. The sword of Aurangzeb could have come with them. But who gave it, still remains a mystery. 
This is not the only sword of Aurangzeb. Emperors and nobles in India and the aristocracy had several swords. The Mughal Emperors had several swords and in those days it was customary in India to present swords and other arms to a ruler or a nobleman.  
There is another sword belonging to Aurangzeb in the Indian collection of the Victoria and Alfred Museum in London, England. This sword is inlaid in  gold in Persian saying Alamgir Padshah 24. Alamgir was another name for Aurangzeb and Padshah is another name for Badshah or Emperor. The number 24 is believed to be the date on which the sword was manufactured. It was believed to have been cast in 1680.
The sword was in the personal collection of  Lord Kitchner of Khatroum. It was presented to the museum in 1964.
You can also see a sword of Aurangzeb at the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad. This museum has also daggers belonging to Jahangir, Shahajan and Noorjahan.
Well, coming back to Aligarh and the AMU. The manuscript section of the Maulana Azad library has some of the most valuable books of ancient and Mediaeval India in Persian, Sanskrit, Urdu and other languages.
The Persian translation of the Leelawathi, a book on mathematics, by Abul Faizi is in the library. Leelawathi is part of the book Siddantha Shiromani authored by renowned astronomer and mathematician, Bhaskaracharya in 1150. Emperor Akbar had commissioned Faizi, one  of the famed Navaratnas of his court, to translate Leelawathi from Sanskrit to Persian.

The library is reputed to have more than 16,000 manuscripts from almost all the periods of Indian history. Other rare books include a fragment of the holy Koran inscribed more than 1400 years ago by Hazrat Ali, the 4^th Calpih of Islam. The AMU was set up as Mohammadan Anglo Oriental College and Centre for Muslim education, learning and excellence in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. It got its present name. AMU, in 1920. It is one of the most famous central universities.

Aligarh is also well known for locks. It is also historically important as  it was here that Balarama, brother of Krihsna, slew Kol, a demon. Therefore, in ancient days, it was known as Kol. Qutb-Ud-Din Aibak was the first Muslim ruler to subdue Kol or Koil and appoint a Muslim Governor, Hisam-ud-din Ulbak, to rule over the province.