Introduction

Dr. A. L. Srivastava was an authority on Medieval Indian History and one of the foremost historians of India. He remained engaged in historical research for over forty five years. Besides English and his mother tongue Hindi, he had mastered Persian and Urdu and possessed a working knowledge of Sanskrit, Marathi, Rajasthani and Panjabi. He had authored fifteen works on Medieval and Modern History of India. All of which are the result of his critical study of contemporary sources in original Persian and other languages and ten of these are research monographs. Dr. Srivastava was not only a researcher and a teacher, but also an expert research guide. He had supervised around thirty Doctoral students in History and Political Science from the Universities of Panjab (Chandigarh), Rajasthan (Jaipur), Meerut and Agra, and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. His works are characterised by objectivity, candour, brevity and comprehensiveness. His writings are very readable and useful for several categories of readers. The clarity and lucidity of style has made the reading of his books pleasurable. Dr. Srivastava was a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th Edition, 1974), and to the Bengali and the Marathi Encyclopaedias of Calcutta and Poona. He is a recipient of Sir Jadunath Sarkar Gold Medal of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta (1953) for his research work on the Medieval Indian History. Research work is being carried out on his life and works in a few Universities.