BISM Featured Archives
For more than a century the Mandal has gathered and protected the papers of the Maratha centuries: royal orders, letters between commanders and ministers, revenue accounts and family records.
A first selection of these papers is now open to read online, collection by collection, rumal by rumal and letter by letter.
- Inaugurated by
- Shri Amit Shah
- Launched
- 15 November 2026, Pune
- Digitisation supported by
- Shri Narendra Murkumbi मुरकुंबी इतिहास उपक्रम
Explore
The Collections
मंडळातील बहुमूल्य ऐतिहासिक ठेवा
Mandal Sangraha
मंडळ संग्रह Open collection
Pa. Na. Patwardhan
प. ना. पटवर्धन Open collection
Aatar (Miya) Shikandar Lal (Rumal-01) Coming soon
Abane Coming soon
Baba Baburao (Khajaki Patravyavahar) Coming soon
Chandorkar (Sankirna) Coming soon
Chandorkar Aaba Coming soon
Chichwad-Devasthan Coming soon
Star documents
Treasures from the archive
निवडक मोडी पत्रेTap a letter to view it full size. Rotate it to read the lines written across the page.
About the Mandal
An institution built from a search for sources
V.K. Rajwade went from village to village across Maharashtra, looking for the original papers from which the history of the Marathas could be written.
On 7 July 1910 he founded Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal with Sardar Khanderao Chintaman Mehendale, at the Mehendale residence at Appa Balwant Chowk in Pune. At its first meeting Rajwade read an essay to an audience of one: Sardar Mehendale. He gave the Mandal the historical papers he had gathered, and they became the foundation of its collections.
The Mandal later moved to its own stone building in Sadashiv Peth, in the heart of old Pune, where it still works today. Generations of historians have read in its rooms, and its publications, among them Rajwade's Sources of Maratha History and the volumes of records from the Shivaji period, have shaped how the period is studied.
- 1910The Mandal is founded in Pune on 7 July by V.K. Rajwade and Sardar K.C. Mehendale.
- Sadashiv PethThe Mandal moves from Appa Balwant Chowk to its own stone building.
- 1926Rajwade dies at Dhule. The Mandal in Pune carries his mission forward.
- 2026The first featured archives open online, for readers anywhere in the world.
The digitisation
कृतज्ञताThese papers can be read online because their digitisation was made possible by Shri Narendra Murkumbi. Shri Narendra Murkumbi, Managing Director, Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd. The Mandal records its gratitude for his support in opening its archives to the world.
Murkumbi Itihas Upakram
The complete collection will be available on the upcoming Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute Digital Library.