1919.] Bardie and Histl. Survey of Rajputana. 27 
names and dates, these facts contemporary and many of them 
witnessed by the writer with his own eyes. They could not be 
the production of bards, and if there were a shade of doubt 
about it, the mere consideration that they do not contain 
whom were they simaspitied then ? Abul Fazl in several places 
chapter in his second volume ef meg tells us that in the 
nineteenth year of his reign (1574 A.D.) Akbar established a 
Record Office. The example of the Emperor must have been 
to them that they should also keep records of all the notable 
events happening in their respective territories and of the cam- . 
paigns which they were making in the service of the Empire, 
and they readily responded to the hint. Maybe Akbar wanted 
these ir mc records to supplement the records in the 
central] office, or he wanted to have them read before his pre- 
sence, a suppenion not altogether unlikely in the case of a 
monarch who caused the Rajatarangini to be translated on the 
occasion of his first visit to Kasmir.' Anyhow, the Rajput 
inces kept their own records and in a manner which more 
than anything gives credit to the view that they were inspired 
by Akbar. The compilers can hardly have been anybody else 
but the Princes’ officials themselves, the Paficolis and the 
Mahajanas, collectively known as mutsaddis, who from those 
times to the present day have been filling all the most impor- 
tant posts in the establishments of the Rajput States. These 
were the only people who were able to write correctly and 
currently ; te bards having never had a reputation for ‘ortho- 
graphical and intelligible writing. Besides, they were the only 
people who could view facts in their natural light, grasp a 
meaning, and write an accurate and luminous account of t 
They were ee trained to business transactions, desk iivell. 
gery, and office routine, and hire arsed were well qualified for 
a work which is essen ntially k of methodical and patient 
accuracy. And they 166 tke thamnbslvén of their task admir- 
ably. 
nfo rtunately, of these contemporary chronicles which the 
— that these iS sie er records were safely treasured in ~ 
1 Jestott's diné Abbr; ii, p. 380. 
