Digital Rare Book:
Mémoires sur l'Indoustan, ou Empire Mogol
By Jean Baptiste Joseph Gentil
Published by Chez Petit, Paris - 1822
In French

Extract from Vikram Doctor's article:

http://bit.ly/SYlCcz

It was an illuminated manuscript prepared in Faizabad, the old capital of Awadh, in 1773 and the author was Jean-Baptise Joseph Gentil, one of several French adventurers who were in India at that time to seek his fortune.

Gentil was in Faizabad because one of his employers was Shuja ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Awadh, who hoped that French soldiers could make a difference in his battles with the British.

Gentil saw action in the Battle of Buxar, which the nawab lost, but he stayed on in north India for several years, and as a part-scholar, he collected miniatures, maps, manuscripts, coins and anything else of interest to him. (Gentil should not be confused with GUILLAUME LE GENTIL, the unlucky astronomer who was in India at around the same time to see the two transits of Venus, both of which he missed due to bad weather).

Gentil's collection ended up in several European collections, including the Bibliotheque Nationale, which is where Jean-Marie Lafont, a famous scholar of Indo-French history found this manuscript. Bhandare says that it is significant for a simple reason — apart from describing coins that were current in India at the time of writing, Gentil also described Indian coins from eras long past.


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