• ISBN13: 9789383098774
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: History
• Publisher: Niyogi Books
• Publisher Imprint: NiyogiBook
• Publication Date: September 12, 2016
• Pages: 298
• Original Price: INR 4500.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 1960 grams

The book has a selection of 186 of the most interesting arms in the Jaipur royal palace and discusses them as weapons in their social and historical context. The book breaks new ground in Indian arms scholarship and is also a very readable account that takes in Rajput, Mughal and British Indian history, anthropology and art history. The objects are stunning: swords belonging to the Mughal Emperors Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, wonderful court daggers with hilts of carved rock crystal, jade, ivory and gilt steel, ferocious tribal arms, some remarkable historic firearms and beautiful painted shields, some of which were decorated in Japan for the Mughal court. There is even a device for extracting arrows from wounds with toe-curling ancient medical remedies. Most of these arms are from the reserve collections and published for the first time. One in a series illustrating the collections of the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, City Palace, Jaipur, the book will be essential for all museum curators, dealers and collectors working in this field. Others in the series are Festivals at the Jaipur Court by Vibhuti Sachdev and Costumes and Textiles at the Jaipur Court by Rahul Jain.

The author, Robert Elgood is a much-published expert in the field of Arms and Armour. He has a BA in Islamic History from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London University and a D. Phil. from Oxford University in Indian Anthropology. He was consultant in Indian and Islamic arms at Sotheby's London in the 1980s and Research Fellow, Eastern European, Islamic and Asian Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection 2006 – 2012. Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, he is also guest scholar at the Islamic Museum, Doha and lectures at the SOAS and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Aga Khan University and The French Institute, Cairo. He is currently working as a consultant for the Al Sabah Collection, Kuwait.