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Persian

129 bundles, "some of the bundles are as much as three feet in length, and contains as many as 3000 sheets. the paper used is of the kind commonly known as Kashmiri or Sialkoti paper and, as a rule, the sheets measure 5" x 7,1/2". The language is persian and the running shikasta by no means easy to dfecipher without considerable practice."

The Khalsa Darbar Records consist of about quarter million sheets of Kashmiri or Sialkoti paper covering much of the reign of Maharaj Ranjit Singh and the decade of his successors. These records relate to each year from 1811 to 1849 and contain detailed information on income from various sources and expenditure on various heads. They are extremely useful for the civil and military history of the period and valuable for understanding the agrarian structure.

Besides the Khalsa-Darbar Records, there are a large number of manuscripts pertaining to the history of the Punjab. The Gulgasht-i-Punjab by Raja Ram Tota records the history of the Punjab up to 1849. This is a fine specimen of calligraphy. The Iqbalnama-i-Maharaja Ranjit Singh by Raja Ram Tota is the history of Maharaja Ranjit Singh up to his death in 1839. The Tankh-i-Kalan Kashmir is a statistical compendium on Kashmir prepared at the behest of Colonel Mihan Singh, the Governor of Kashmir during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. The Zafarnama is a military manual pertaining to the rules and training of army during the reign of the Maharaja.

One of the remarkable objects on view is a parwana of Maharaja Ranjit Singh addressed to Raja Fateh Singh of Kapurthala. It bears the seal of Ranjit Singh and his palm impression in saffron. It was inscribed on 13th April 1827. Important correspondence with the Kapurthala Chiefs and other Chiefs is also available."

Part of the archives of the Punjab kingdom have disappeared. Following the annexation of the country by the East India Company in 1849, number of Persian documents were transfered from the toshakhana (Lahore fort) where they were kept, and put on the shelves of the Civil Secretariat. Rediscovered in the early 1900's,the 129 remaining bundles were catalogued by Sita Ram Lolhi in two remarquables volumes published repectively in 1919 and 1927.
In 1947, The Supreme Council of the Partition decided tha the British Records kept in the Punjab Record Office, Lahore, Would stay in Pakistan, while the Khalsa Darbar Records would be given to India. The transfer of the documents took two years (1947-1949). They were first kept in Simla, then transferred to Patiala in 1959. Now kept at Chandigarh, they are certainly a most precious legacy of the kingdom of the Punjab and Maharana Ranjit Singh.

kept in Punjab State Archives - Chandigarh

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