James Tod

James Tod (1782–1835) was a Scottish officer of the East India Company and the first historian of the Rajputs. He arrived in India in 1799, served in the Maratha territories as a surveyor and intelligence officer, and from 1818 to 1822 was political agent to the western Rajput states, where he settled their affairs with the Company and collected inscriptions, manuscripts and oral tradition. Ill health sent him home, and he published Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1829–32), a vast and admiring account of the Rajput states, and Travels in Western India (1839), which appeared after his death. His work shaped both British and Indian views of Rajput history.