Boundaries of Rajputana

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This page is an extract from ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES OF RAJASTHAN OR THE CENTRAL AND WESTERN RAJPUT STATES OF INDIA By LIEUT.-COL. JAMES TOD Late Political Agent to the Western Rajput States Edited with an Introduction and Notes by WILLIAM CROOKE, CIE. Hon. D.Sc. Oxon., B.A., F.R.A.l. Late of the Indian Civil Service In Three Volumes VOL.I: GEOGRAPHY OF RAJASTHAN OR RAJPUTANA [The Annals were completed in 1829] HUMPHREY MILFORD Oxford University Press London Edinburgh Glasgow New York Toronto Melbourne Bombay 1920 [The edition scanned]

Note: This article is likely to contain several spelling mistakes that occurred during scanning. If these errors are reported as messages to the Facebook page, Indpaedia.com your help will be gratefully acknowledged.

Boundaries of Rajputana

Rajasthan is the collective and classi cal denomination of that portion of India which is ' the abode ‘ of (Rajput) princes.' In the familiar dialect of these countries it is termed Rajwara, but by the more refined Raethana, corrupted to Rajputana, the common designation amongst the British to denote the Rajput principalities.

what might have been the nominal extent of Rajasthan prior to the Muhammadan conqueror Shihabu-d-din (when it probably reached beyond the Jumna and Ganges, even to the base of the Himalaya) cannot now be known. At present we may adhere to its restrictive definition, still comprehending a wide space and a variety of interesting races.

Previous to the erection of the minor Muhammadan monarchies Of Mandu and Ahmadabad (the capitals of Malwa and Gujarat), on the ruins of Dhar and Anhilwara Patan, the term Rajasthan would have been appropriated to the space comprehended in the map prefixed to this work : the valley of the Indus on the west, and Bundelkhand 2 on the east ; to the north, the sandy tracts (south of the Sutlej) termed Jangaldes ; and the Vindhya moun tains to the south.

1 Or ' regal (raj) dwelling (than).' 2 It is rather singular that the Sind River will mark this eastern boundary, as does the Indus (or great Sind) that to the west. East of this minor Sind the Hindu princes are not of pure blood, and are excluded from Rajasthan or Rajwara.

This space comprehends nearly 8° of latitude and 9° of longi- tude, being from 22° to 30° north latitude, and 69° to 78° east longitude, embracing a superficial area of 350,000 square miles1 [2].

Although it is proposed to touch upon the annals of all the States in this extensive tract, with their past and present condi- tion, those in the centre will claim the most prominent regard ; especially Mewar, which, copiously treated of, will afford a specimen, obviating the necessity of like details of the rest.