COMPILED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE HON. COURT OF DIRECTORS, AND
CHIEFLY FROM DOCUMENTS IN THEIR POSSESSION,

BY

EDWARD THORNTON, ESQ.

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AUTHOR OF THE "HISTORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN INDIA."

R

Corrected to the Latest Period by the Author.

LONDON:

WM. H. ALLEN & CO. 7, LEADENHALL STREET.

1857.

1

PREFACE.

THE desire repeatedly expressed in the GENERAL COURTS of the EAST-INDIA COMPANY that an authentic Gazetteer of India should be offered to the British public in a cheap and convenient form, has led to the publication of the present edition. The work has been compiled by the authority of the Court of Directors, and though comprised within a single volume, it will be found to contain the great mass of information comprehended in the four volumes of the "Gazetteer of India," published by the same author in 1854.

This result has been obtained by retrenching some few redundancies, and by adopting an enlarged page and distributing the matter into two separate columns. By these means space has been also acquired for the insertion of much new matter, rendered necessary by the political and territorial changes which have more recently taken place within our Eastern possessions. On the character of the work a few remarks will be sufficient. Its chief objects are,—1st, To fix the relative position of the various cities, towns, and villages, with as much precision as possible, and to exhibit with the greatest practicable brevity all that is known respecting them; and, 2ndly, To note the various countries, provinces, or territorial divisions, and to describe the physical characteristics of each, together with their statistical, social, and political circumstances. To these have been added minute descriptions of the

principal rivers and chains of mountains; thus presenting to the reader, within a brief compass, a mass of information which could not otherwise be obtained, except from a multiplicity of volumes and manuscript records.

The volume, in short, may be regarded as an epitome of all that has yet been written and published respecting the territories under the government, or political superintendence, of the British power in India. Its merits have been frequently discussed in the General Courts of the East-India Company, where successive Chairmen have borne ample testimony to the utility of the publication, and where it has been characterized by the best-informed among the Proprietors as "a complete history of India, untainted in any degree by political bias.”