James Tod

For the Lower Canada seigneur and politician, see James Tod (seigneur).

Lieutenant Colonel James Tod
by C. D. Blunt-Mackenzie

Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod (1782–1835), British East India Company officer and Oriental scholar, was born on 20 March 1782, and went to India as a cadet in the Bengal army in 1799. He commanded the escort attached to the resident with Sindhia from 1812 to 1817. In the latter year he was in charge of the Intelligence Department which largely contributed to break up the Maratha Confederacy in the Third Anglo-Maratha War, and was of great assistance in the campaign in Rajputana. In 1818 he was appointed political agent for the states of western Rajputana, where he conciliated the chieftains, settled their mutual feuds, and collected materials for his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (2 volumes, published 1829 and 1832), which detailed the contemporary geography and history of Rajputana and central India along with the history of the Rajput clans who ruled most of the area at that time. Another book, Travels in Western India (1839), was published posthumously. He returned to England in 1823.

An amateur numismatist, Tod is known for having discovered the first specimens of Bactrian and Indo-Greek coins from the Hellenistic period following the conquests of Alexander the Great, which were described in his books. These ancient kingdoms had been largely forgotten or considered semi-legendary by posterity, but Tod's findings — the coins have since been found in vast quantities and are highly renowned for their artistic qualities — confirmed the long term Greek presence in Afghanistan and Punjab.

In the preface, Tod explains that,

Being desirous of epitomising the chronicles of the martial races of Central and Western India, it was essential to ascertain the sources whence they draw, or claim to draw, their lineage. For this purpose I obtained from the library of the Rana of Oodipoor Udaipur their sacred volumes, the Pooráns, and laid them before a body of pundhits, over whom presided the learned Jetty Gyanchandra. From these extracts were made of all the genealogies of the great races [sic] of Soorya and Chandra, and of facts historical and geographical.

In recognition of his work in Mewar Province, the queen of Mewar named a village after Col. James Tod, as "Todgarh".

Further reading

• Giles Tillotson, James Tod's Rajasthan: The Historian and His Collections, Marg Publications (2008) ISBN 8185026807
• Gaurishankar Hirachand Ojha, Suprasiddha itihaskara Karnala James Toda ka jivana charitra (in Hindi) Jodhpur, Rajasthani Granthagara (2002)

External links

• "Tod, James" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)