The opening of Preface
No one can undertake with a light heart the preparation of a new edition of Colonel Tod’s great work, The Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. But the leading part which the Rājputs have taken in the Great War, the summoning of one of their princes to a seat at the Imperial Conference, the certainty that as the result of the present cataclysm they will be entitled to a larger share in the administration of India, have contributed to the desire that this classical account of their history and sociology should be presented in a shape adapted to the use of the modern scholar and student of Indian history and antiquities.
In the Introduction which follows I have endeavoured to estimate the merits and defects of Colonel Tod’s work. Here it is necessary only to state that though the book has been several times reprinted in India and once in this country, the obvious difficulties of such an undertaking have hitherto prevented any writer better qualified than myself from attempting to prepare an annotated edition.