India, Oct. 15 -- Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833) was a Scottish soldier-diplomat who later served as Governor of Bombay and helped extend East India Company authority across western and central India. Like several contemporary colonial officials, he treated knowledge of local religious life and social hierarchy as essential to political intelligence and imperial administration. He was in Pune in late 1799, when relations between the East India Company and Peshwa Baji Rao II were politically sensitive.

In an account written in Pune on November 24, 1799, Malcolm described the observances of Navratra and Dasara during the late Peshwa period. Published in 1823 in the third volume of the Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, the essay...