Annals of Mewar - The Annals of Rajasthan

Wherever I go, whatever days I may number, nor can neither time nor place ever weaken, much less obliterate, the memory of the valley of Udaipur." Such are the words with which Colonel James Tod closed his great work, the Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. Few men have ever known an eastern race as Tod knew the Rájpúts He not only knew them through and through, their manners, their traditions, their character, and their ideals; but so great was his admiration for their many noble qualities, and so completely did he identify himself with their interests, that by the time he left India he had almost become a Rájpút himself. The history of Rájpútana was, therefore, a subject very dear to Tod's heart; and, possessing both imagination and descriptive power, he was able to infuse into his pages much of the charm of a romance, and, what is still more rarely to be found in historical works, a powerful human interest. His sympathy for the Rájpúts is apparent in every line he wrote; but if his enthusiasm leads him at times to overestimate their virtues, he never seeks to palliate their faults, to which, in the main, he attributes the ruin which overtook their race. Notwithstanding its author's occasional inaccuracies, and the somewhat glaring defects of his style, the Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan still holds its place as the standard authority on the history of the Rájpútana states. Of subsequent writers of Indian history, it would be difficult to point to a single one who has not benefited directly or indirectly by Tod's labours. But however great the value of the 'Annals,' viewed in the light of historical record, they owe their chief charm to the vivid pictures they present of the character, sentiments, and heroic exploits of one of the bravest races that ever came under British control, and of the manner in which that control was established. Rájpútana has passed through a century of progress since the 'Annals' were written.