Page:History of the Armenians in India.djvu/13

 1889, to complete my education, I endeavoured while at school to gather information regarding the early Armenians in this country. At the outset I was disappointed, there being no archives or any library in Calcutta containing books and MSS. in the Armenian language, and the Araratean Library at the Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy, where I studied, had on its shelves but a few unimportant printed volumes (see page 1.78, footnote). " There is nothing on record about them ! " was the general response to my enquiries from everyone.

Next I consulted every available English historian of India from Orme to Marshman and Hunter, but found only a few references to individual Armenians. Extracts from these and other writers on India have been given in this work. The interesting Ain-i-Akbari, compiled in 1596 by Abul FazI, the learned finance minister of Akbar the Great, and other Muhammadan histories of India were searched with no better results. After great difficulty, I procured complete sets of some of the Armenian journals published from time to time in India, and from these I was able to glean consider- able fragmentary information, and afterwards a few manuscripts and letters in Armenian, connected with India, came into my possession.

Another field remained practically unexplored, namely, the interesting inscriptions in the Armenian burying-