Asar-us-Sanadid, variously translated as ‘The Remnant Signs of Ancient Heroes’, ‘Vestiges of the Past’ or ‘Traces of the Notables’, is a book on pre-1857 Delhi, its main buildings, monuments and people, written by Sayyid Ahmad Khan. Two versions of the book were published, one in 1847, and the second in 1854. A third version was perhaps in the works, but for the Uprising. Asar-us-Sanadid, today, is a canonical text, but even when it was published it was considered most impressive for its contribution to the knowledge of the history and archaeology of Delhi.
The first book consisted of a substantial preface, followed by four chapters: the first chapter described the buildings outside the walled city; the second, the Fort and the structures within it; the third, the walled city of Shahjahanabad; and the fourth, Delhi and its people. The book had more than 130 illustrations, a novelty for that time. The sketches drawn by Faiz Ali Khan and Mirza Shahrukh Beg, who are both noted by Sayyid Ahmad Khan in the chapter on Delhi’s notables, are quite attractively and accurately produced. Asar-1 is also important for being among the first lithographically produced book having illustrations in India, and shows how readily Delhi craftsmen of the time took up new techniques and excelled in them. Additionally, Asar-1 contained four taqriz, or praising statements, by some of the most distinguished citizens of Delhi of the time: Nawab Ziauddin Khan of Loharu, who was himself greatly interested in the study of history and archaeology; Mufti Sadruddin Azurda, the highest ranking Indian officer in the British administration at Delhi; Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, the great poet; and Maulavi Imam Bakhsh Sahbai, the Persian master at Delhi College.
The second version, a vastly different book, was published merely seven years after the first. There are ‘additions and ameliorations’ mentioned by the author in the preface. The first chapter, an addition, is taken from Sayyid Ahmad’s listing of names and dates of all the rulers of Delhi from ancient times to his day, Silsilat-al-Muluk (‘Chain of Kings’, published 1852). In the appendix, Sayyid Ahmad notes down several inscriptions written on the buildings of Delhi in their original form. In Asar-2, Sayyid Ahmad makes a conscious effort towards chronological precision and in improving the general presentation by quoting in full in the margin the titles of all the books he had referred to and numbers the paragraph like a legal document. The most significant change in Asar-2 is the language of Sayyid Ahmad. Many portions of the first book are written in a highly ornate and Persianized Urdu, while the second is in a factual, and much more concise style, which came to be later recognized as the style of ‘Sir Sayyid’. CM Naim and others have suggested that much of the first was written by Sayyid Ahmad’s senior friend and collaborator on Asar-us-Sanadid—Maulvi Imam Baksh Sahbai—to whom the ornate style is attributed. Sahbai, who taught Persian at Delhi College from 1840 till his brutal death at the Yamuna near the Rajghat darwaza in 1857, had a reputation for ghostwriting. In this period, what is now called the ‘Delhi Renaissance’, Sahbai had limited himself to writing in Persian, which was a waning language. Apart from Ghalib, he had no equal in Persian prose or poetry. Sahbai was also keenly interested in the art of mu’amma or word puzzles, a genre of writing that Sayyid Ahmad was also fond of; he appreciates Sahbai’s mu’ammas by giving examples in the first book, which the translator of the book under review, unfortunately, has not included.