Ferishta‘s History of Dekkan, from the first Muhammedan Conquests: with a continuation from other native writers, of the events in that part of India, to the reduction of its last monarchs by the Emperor Aulumgeer Aurungzebe

Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Astarabadi, called Ferishta and Johnathan Scott, Ferishta's History of Dekkan, from the first Muhammedan Conquests: with a continuation from other native writers, of the events in that part of India, to the reduction of its last monarchs by the Emperor Aulumgeer Aurungzebe: also, the reigns of his successors in the empire of Hindostan to the present day: and the History of Bengal, from the accession of Aliverdee Khan to the year 1780, comprised in six parts, Shrewsbury: Printed for the Editor, by J. & W. Eddowes, 1794, first edition

In two volumes
Volume I: (i-v) vi-vii, (viii-ix) x-xiii, (xiv-xvi) (1)-411
Volume II: (i-iii) (1-3) 4-461
Later matching half calf, the spines in dark brown calf, ruled and tooled in gilt with double fillets forming compartments, lettered in gilt HISTORY OF DEKKAN, with volume designations VOL. I and VOL. II, and the author name SCOTT at foot. Boards in marbled paper (swirled stone pattern), neatly framed by a gilt rule at the leather–paper junction (each)
27 x 23 cm (each)

The First English Translation of Ferishta’s Monumental Deccan Chronicle—Scott’s Foundational 1794 Edition, the Cornerstone for All Later Scholarship on the Bahmani Sultanate, Its Successor States, Aurangzeb’s Conquests, and the Rise of Maratha Power

This is Jonathan Scott’s landmark first English translation of Ferishta’s Tarikh-i Firishta, universally recognised as the single most important Persian chronicle for the political and military history of the Deccan. Ferishta’s narrative traces the first Muhammadan conquests in southern India through the full arc of Deccan sultanate power: the emergence, dominance, and dissolution of the Bahmani Sultanate, followed by the formation and rivalries of its successor states at Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda, and Berar, and their complex and often adversarial relationship with the Mughal Empire.

The work carries the story forward to the decisive reduction of the last Deccan monarchs by the Emperor Aulumgeer Aurungzebe (Aurangzeb), and further encompasses the reigns of his successors in Hindostan “to the present day.” Its scope is extended still more by the inclusion of a substantial History of Bengal, from the accession of Aliverdee Khan to the year 1780, making Scott’s edition not merely a Deccan chronicle but a wide imperial history of Mughal India in its later phase.

Ferishta’s account is also indispensable for preserving early material on the origins of Maratha power, rendering it foundational for understanding the context in which later figures such as Shivaji, Sambhaji, and their successors operated. Scott’s translation was therefore far more than a literary undertaking: it became the standard authority for Deccan political history throughout the nineteenth century and remains the textual backbone against which later scholarship has been constructed.

Scott was uniquely qualified for this enterprise. An East India Company officer proficient in Persian, he saw action during the First Anglo-Maratha War, serving as Persian translator to Major William Popham. In 1783, Governor-General Warren Hastings appointed Scott his private Persian translator, entrusting him with communications with native powers judged too diplomatically sensitive to be handled by an Indian secretary. Hastings also valued Scott’s historical investigations, which took their cue from Robert Orme’s thesis that the reign of Aurangzeb and his successors constituted the key epoch of Mughal Indian history.

Scott consulted the best native authorities and amassed extensive materials collected both by his brother, Captain Richard Scott, and by Lieutenant-Colonel Henri Polier, concluding that a fuller understanding of recent Indian history could only be gained through deeper insight into the history of the Deccan itself (ODNB). For the continuation of Ferishta’s history, Scott relied principally upon Mubarik-Allah Inadat Khan, while for the Bengal narrative he drew upon Ghulam Husayn Khan Tabataba’i, underscoring the scholarly breadth of the compilation.

In the context of this sale’s Deccan and conflict themes, Ferishta’s History of Dekkan forms the essential textual counterpart to the military and cartographic record: a monumental printed foundation through which the region’s wars, dynastic transformations, and imperial consolidations must be read.

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