Khalsa Darbar records
[2][4] This category of records consists of pay-rolls of the cavalry, infantry, and artillery of the Sikh Empire's military forces, from which information can be deduced about the composition and strength of it.
[4] The pay-roll records and the jama' kharch (income and expenditure) records reveal the expenditures for the three branches of the military but also notes the income from rents of shops in regimental bazaars, revenue earned from selling the property of men dying without heirs, and a return of the in'ams or awards bestowed upon infantry officers on the occasions of Dussehra and Diwali.
[2][4] They can be further subdivided into three sub-categories:[4] The Sikh system of collecting revenue and maintaining accounts was well-developed, including the royal expenditures.
[4] From these records, information can be obtained regarding the reorganization of administrative sub-divisions of the polity, namely the taluqas, detailing the districts and their subdivisions.
[4] Within each taluqa of the Sikh Empire, a general summary settlement was produced, recording the total area of cultivable land and the liabilities and rights of the landlords over the paying tenants.
[7] The documents were written in Persian as the Sikh Empire was a highly Persinate entity, showing aspects of continuity but also change in the tradition of administrative writing.
[7] Much of the collections of the Khalsa Darbar records were catalogued and published by Sita Ram Kohli in two volumes in 1919 and 1927, respectively.
[2][6] Sita Ram Kohli studied 300,000 Khalsa Darbar records, from between the years 1811–1849, that were tied-up with red-cloth in bundles at the Tomb of Anarkali in Lahore.
[6] After the annexation of the Sikh Empire in 1849, the vast corpuses of Khalsa Darbar records fell into the possession of the British.
[4] A supplement to the record bundles are fifteen manuscripts that are bound in leather, which are copies of the orders issued to various government officials and the sizable correspondence between the Lahore Darbar and the Ambala and Ludhiana political agencies of the British.
[3] The Punjab Archives has in its collection the Akhbar Darbar-e-Lahore, produced between 1835 and 1849, which were the written accounts of the daily court proceedings of the Sikh Empire.
[7] Pakistani scholar Khizar Jawad is currently working on a project to catalogue and translate all of the Khalsa Darbar records kept at the Lahore Museum.
[10] The British Library has a collection of Persian manuscripts from the darbar (court) of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
