The Golden Book of India
 

For those of you who have The Golden Book of India by Rober Lightbridge, Printed in 1893, reprinted later, I have found an interesting addition to the text.
"Sir Roper has done a brilliant work on the important personalities living in India in the twilight years of the Victorian Era. The title badges in India have been unique in many ways and the detailed accounts of the ruling princes, chiefs, title holders etc are very informative.
There seems to have some factual errors in certain areas while mentioning the ruling Rajas. For example, while mentioning the Rajas of Travancore and Cochin, it is mentioned as if the son inherits the title from the father. The matrilineal system of inheritance followed by the Kshathriya kings of Travancore and Cochin was called Marumakkathayam and the inheritance was always through the females and the nephew succeeded the king and not the son.
But the small errors as above in no way diminishes the importance of this great work. Even in India, getting this much voluminous information from any other books could be really exhausting."

I believe you can find a copy here that can be read online.

https://archive.org/details/goldenbookofindi00lethuoft

The book is on 584 pages - a lot of reading on the screen I would think, but the reprint is quite cheap.

The text version is a bit easier to read. Some really fascinating information.
https://archive.org/stream/goldenboo...huoft_djvu.txt

https://archive.org/stream/goldenboo...huoft_djvu.txt is indeed a complex document filled with interesting facts on the Indian System Quote""The golden book of India, a genealogical and biographical dictionary of the ruling princes, chiefs, nobles, and other personages, titled or decorated, of the Indian empire"Unquote. It is a bewildering compendium of associated fine detail well worth having to hand when delving into India's fabulous past... This is an excellent and free text.