Primary Sources:
What is a Primary Source? Primary Sources are written by people who either A) directly witnessed a historical event or B) recorded the experiences of someone who witnessed a historical event.
India in the 16th-18th Centuries:
Between 1526 and 1757, the region known today as the Indian subcontinent underwent great upheavel. The region and its peoples were thrust, all of a sudden, into an early modern era – gone were the late medieval kingdoms and rulers that dominated this land; replaced by the gunpowder wielding Mughals.
With this new power, came new technologies, new cultural influences, new forms of trade and commerce; Indian society was changed almost overnight. The following primary sources can provide some insight into how and why.
- Abu Al-Faizal, Ain-i-Akbari or The History of Akbar, All Volumes (Harvard; 2015) & H. Beveridge (tr.), Akbarnama, Vols. I and II, (1903)
- Ain-i-Akbari Link: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.529980
- Akbarnama Link: https://archive.org/details/the-akbarnama-volume-1
- William Foster (ed./tr.), The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul, Vols. I and II, (Hakluyt Society; 1899)
- Gul-Badan Begam, Humayun-Nama or The History of Humayun, tr. Annette S. Beveridge, (Royal Asiatic Society; 1902)
- John J. Ovington, A Voyage to Suratt, Vols. I & II or India in the Seventeenth Century, multiple editions
- M. Hunt, P. Stern, The English East India Company at the Height of Mughal Expansion: A Soldier’s Diary of the 1689 Siege of Bombay, with Related Documents (Bedford; 2015), pp. 25-180
- I have not been able to find a free version.
- Niccolao Manucci, Storia de Mogor or The History of the Mughals, All Volumes, multiple editions
- Link to the Abridged Version: https://archive.org/details/pepysofmogulindi00nicc
- Link to the Translated Vol. I: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.208237
- Saqi Mustad Khan, Maasir-i-Alamgiri or A History of Emperor Aurungzeb-Alamgir, multiple editions
- John Burnell, An Account of Bombay in the Days of Queen Anne, ed. Samuel Sheppard (Hakluyt Society; 1933)
- Jagdish Narayan Sarkar, The Life of Mir Jumla, General of Aurungzeb (Thacker, Spink & Co.; 1951)
- Mirza Nathan, Baharistan-i-Ghaybi or A History of the Mughal Wars in Assam, Cooch Behar, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa During the Reigns of Jahangir and Shahjahan, tr. M. I. Borah (Assam; 1936)
- Hamid Ud-din Khan Bahadur, Anecdotes of Aurungzeb, tr. Jadunath Narayan Sarkar (Calcutta; 1949)
- Mahommad Kasim Ferishta, History Of The Rise Of The Mahomedan Power In India till the Year 1612, tr. Jonathan Briggs (London; 1829)
- Jagdish Narayan Sarkar (tr./ed.), The Military Despatches of a Seventeenth Century Indian General – Haft Anjuman (SBA; 1969)
- Emperor Jehangir, Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jehangir, tr. A. Rogers, H. Beveridge (Delhi; 1978)
- I have not been able to find a free version.