Rajput Arms & Armour: The Rathores & Their Armoury at Jodhpur Fort – Vol. I & II: 2 (Hardcover)

VOL 1: Some years ago the study of arms and armour of the subcontinent reached a plateau where enough was known to allow curators and collectors a veneer of authority when writing and speaking about the topic. This book shows how very thin that veneer was. For political and more recently commercial reasons the cultural history of the subcontinent has been largely expressed through the Mughal experience of India. Whilst it is true that the Muslim Mughals dominated India the empire they ruled was predominantly Hindu. This book reclaims the Hindu contribution to the military culture of the Mughal period. The Rajputs were very closely aligned to the Mughals from the reign of Akbar in the sixteenth century but they retained their own distinctive values: in the military sphere their preferences were extremely conservative. A Rajput warrior’s sword was his most valued possession, guardian of his honour and his women, the means to fame and spiritual release. The armoury at Mehrangarh helps us to enter an unfamiliar world with a tradition of courage and self-sacrifice conserved in music and poetry that was so extreme that scholars have struggled to concede its existence. This radical book challenges arms and armour orthodoxy and is essential reading for scholars, collectors and dealers interested in India and its wider culture.

VOL 2: Some years ago the study of arms and armour of the subcontinent reached a plateau where enough was known to allow curators and collectors a veneer of authority when writing and speaking about the topic. This book shows how very thin that veneer was. For political and more recently commercial reasons the cultural history of the subcontinent has been largely expressed through the Mughal experience of India. Whilst it is true that the Muslim Mughals dominated India the empire they ruled was predominantly Hindu. This book reclaims the Hindu contribution to the military culture of the Mughal period. The Rajputs were very closely aligned to the Mughals from the reign of Akbar in the sixteenth century but they retained their own distinctive values: in the military sphere their preferences were extremely conservative. A Rajput warrior’s sword was his most valued possession, guardian of his honour and his women, the means to fame and spiritual release. The armoury at Mehrangarh helps us to enter an unfamiliar world with a tradition of courage and self-sacrifice conserved in music and poetry that was so extreme that scholars have struggled to concede its existence. This radical book challenges arms and armour orthodoxy and is essential reading for scholars, collectors and dealers interested in India and its wider culture.

About the Author

Robert Elgood studied Islamic History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and has a Doctorate in Indian Anthropology from Oxford University. He worked for Sotheby’s and The Wallace Collection as their expert on Indian and Islamic arms and armour. He lectures round the world and has been a Guest Scholar in Kuwait and Qatar. He is internationally known for his many pioneering arms history publications, commissioned by museums in the Arab world, Greece and India.

Mehrangarh Museum Trust is India’s leading cultural institution, a centre of excellence established in 1972 by the 37th Custodian of Marwar- Jodhpur, H. H. Maharaja Gaj Singhji to make the fort come alive for visitors. Today Mehrangarh Museum has a unique importance as a repository of the artistic and cultural history of a large area of central Rajasthan, Marwar-Jodhpur, ruled by the Rathore dynasty. The Museum displays one of the most important and best preserved collections of fine and applied arts of Rathore history.
Apart from the Museum, the Trust is at the forefront of conservation and restoration, a generous patron of the arts and music and a lively centre of academic studies. Mehrangarh Museum Trust is the recipient of UNESCO ASIA-PACIFIC Awards in the field of Architectural Conservation, Cultural Heritage and Adaptive Re-use. Rajput Arms and Armour – The Rathores and their Armoury at Jodhpur Fort is part of the Trust’s ongoing publication series of its Museum collection.