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Up for sale is this pair of1697 Jaipur State Raja's Account Ledgers (or Roznamchas).These documents were drafted in cursive Devanagari/Rajasthani scriptduring the reign ofRaja Bisham Singh (1688-1699).The layout uses structured horizontal and vertical grid lines to separate accounts, names, commodities, and ledger codes, accompanied by numeric entries and tally marks.As daily report slips or account sheets, they were used for traditional administrative purposes in the princely state of Jaipur.
The documents recorded income, expenditure, or official administrative business sent between regional divisions (Parganas) and the Accounts Office (Daftar Mustoffi). Each one features a circular hand-struck ink stamp, the official Jaipur State seal affixed by a dispatching official or local chief to validate the daily report. Theofficial seals arecharacteristic of the Jaipur court and royal bookkeeping office.
History: Jaipur seals are said to dating back to c. 1621, and they were round, oval, and square. They contained the name of the ruling family at the top, the Raja in the middle, and the dispatching at the bottom. Each name had Banda/Sewak (Servant), orSubhchintak(Well-Wisher) preceding it. The seals were in Hindi or Urdu, while the year was in Samvat or Hijri.During the 122 year period "pre-postal" seals were used (1621-1743), the State of Jaipur was divided into parganas (divisions).Each division had 2 officers who were required to maintain horses and narkwas (messengers) for sending the Roznamchas (Daily Reports) of income, expenditure, etc. to the Daftar Mustoff (Accounting Office) in Jaipur City. The Roznamchas were small sheets of handmade paper with the seal of the Officer/s affixed on them. This early system of official mail operated in only one directions and wasn’t available to the public. It performed the same function as current returns sent via “Service Mail”.Provenance: This document was acquired by ahistorical ephemera dealer based in Bandra, India(a suburb of Mumbai) as part of a large collection of antiquarian legal documents from the former princely state of Amber/Jaipur.
*Many more historical documents from British Colonial period, going back to the 1600s during the Mughal Empire!
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