Foreword To The Book 'Maharaja Ranjit Singh and His Times' By H S Chopra

Maharaja Ranjit Singh's contribution to the social and political life of the Punjab is tremendous. The celebrations of bi-centenary of his coro­nation, therefore, are very appropriate. These celebrations have invigor­ated the academia to give a fresh look at the life and times of the Maharaja. In this context, the project to prepare an exhaustive and annotated bibliog­raphy on 'Maharaja Ranjit Singh and His Times' is one way to give intel­lectual tribute to the memory of the great Maharaja.

Dr. H.S.Chopra has prepared this bibliography with annotations in a short time. 1 congratulate him and hope that this will become an indispen­sable source of information for every student and researcher of history of the Punjab and of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his times.

Guru Nanak Dev University                                                                                               S.P.Singh
Amritsar                                                                                                                   Vice-Chancellor

Preface To The Book 'Maharaja Ranjit Singh and His Times' - Book By H S Chopra

In this work an effort has been made to cover the manuscripts and books published on Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his times. The books en­tered have been physically scanned by the author in different libraries and archives. Bibliographical detail consists of name of the author, title of the work, sub-title, place of publication, publisher, year of publication and pages. In the case of manuscripts stress has been laid on author and title as folios of the same manuscript differ from one copy to another copy.

In the bibliographical entry the spellings of names and places have been retained as are in the works. Leaving article in the beginning only the first letter of first word has been retained capital. Names, places begin with capital letters. In addition to it an annotation of each book and manu­script has been given after examining the works practically. However, in the annotation the spellings of personal names, places etc. have been changed to that of present times for the easy understanding of the reader. Entries have been arranged alphabetically.

There are a number of documents, deeds, agency papers, parwanas, sanads, maps, portraits etc. which have not been included in this work.

If one finds the absence of any work in the list, it is because of its non-availability. The arrangement of works has been made keeping in mind the proximity and its contemporaneity to Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In the Primary section the manuscripts/books have been retained as Persian, Urdu, English and Punjabi and in Secondary works Urdu, English, Punjabi and Hindi.

I hope this work of annotated sources will prove very useful to stu­dents, researchers as well as of various other disciplines.

Guru Nanak Dev University                                                                                     H.S. Chopra
Amritsar                                                                                                            Deputy Librarian

Table Of Contents Of The Book 'Maharaja Ranjit Singh and His Times' By H S Chopra