09-06-2006, 04:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-06-2006, 04:26 PM by Bharatvarsh.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bharat, Do we have more info on Shivaji's vision? The reason why I am asking is it is important to dispell the 'modern' version put out by JNU historians that he was just a bandit chief.
I know J.N. Sarkar wrote a book on Shivaji. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes there is a lot of info but I am still in the process of reading the different books available online and am posting interesting extracts when I come across them, the best way to know Shivaji's ambitions is to go through the original contemporary Hindu sources and every one of them confirms that Shivaji's vision was Hindavi Swarajya (a state independent of foreign domination over Hindus).
This by the way is not just confined to Maratha sources, one of Shivaji's most ardent admirers was Kaviraj Bhushan, Bhushan was not Maratha, he came from Bundelkhand and was Hindi speaking but he was the one who wrote the famous lines:
"Kasihki Kala Gayee, Mathura Masid Bhaee; Gar Shivaji Na Hoto, To Sunati Hot Sabaki!" [Kashi has lost its splendour, Mathura has become a mosque; If Shivaji had not been, All would have been circumcised (converted)].
We also read about Shivaji's vision in his own letters and proclamations and treaties, for example in his own letter to Dadaji Naras Prabhu he refers to the oath they took at Rohideswar about founding a Hindavi Swarajya, also he was the only Raja I know who was so devtoted to the Hindu cause that he couldn't even tolerate the excessive use of foreign words by Hindus in everyday language, so here is what he did:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->But while such local knowledge and identity could be valuable to the head of a small principality, a subconti-nental imperial system could benefit from a high lan-guage that favored no specific ethnicity â the role played by Persian in the Mughal Empire. In later years, Sivaji and his son and successor Sambhaji seem to have con-sidered the possibility of Sanskrit playing such a role. Thus the Rajavyavaharakosa â a thesaurus of official us-age â was prepared shortly after Sivaji's coronation as Chatrapati. This has sometimes been presented as an effort at the triumphant return of Sanskrit with the end of Muslim rule. S. B. Varnekar, for example, claims that the author was commissioned to write this text in order to save the language of the gods (devabhasa).34 The text itself is much more modest: âHaving completely up-rooted the barbarians (mleccha), by the best of kings a learned man was appointed ... to replace the overvalued Yavana words (atyartham yavanavacanair) with educated speech (vibudhabhasam).â35 There is, for a period, a sig-nificant change in register in official documents, with a new prominence given to Sanskritic terminology, even though Marathi remained the official language. I shall return to this theme later in this essay.
http://www.cssaame.ilstu.edu/issues/24-2/guha.doc<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The above article writer Guha is by no means a Hindutva writer, infact he is a blue blooded secularist but atleast he is honest enough to quote original sources sometimes. No other Hindu king took such measures towards everyday language, not even the Peshwas.
Also if you read the treaty agreed upon between Shivaji and his cousin brother Vyankoji (founder of the Maratha line at Tanjore), one of the clauses quite explicitly states that no enemy of the Hindu religion should get shelter in the kingdom, it was only after this agreement was signed that Shivaji returned back most of the territory he conquered to Vyankoji.
The commies will have no chance in an open debate, that is why they never come out and debate whether Shivaji was a bandit or not besides making these allegations in their books, the tons of native source material and Shivaji's own letters quite explicitly refute this view, by the way even the contemporary English factory sources recognise Shivaji as the captain of the Hindu forces and comment upon the fact that Aurangzeb's religious bigotry was bringing the downfall of the empire.
As for Jadunath Sarkar's book, I haven't read it but it is titled "House of Shivaji", but Sarkar is always overly reliant on foreign sources (Persian and English) and I suspect it's no different in that book either.
I know J.N. Sarkar wrote a book on Shivaji. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes there is a lot of info but I am still in the process of reading the different books available online and am posting interesting extracts when I come across them, the best way to know Shivaji's ambitions is to go through the original contemporary Hindu sources and every one of them confirms that Shivaji's vision was Hindavi Swarajya (a state independent of foreign domination over Hindus).
This by the way is not just confined to Maratha sources, one of Shivaji's most ardent admirers was Kaviraj Bhushan, Bhushan was not Maratha, he came from Bundelkhand and was Hindi speaking but he was the one who wrote the famous lines:
"Kasihki Kala Gayee, Mathura Masid Bhaee; Gar Shivaji Na Hoto, To Sunati Hot Sabaki!" [Kashi has lost its splendour, Mathura has become a mosque; If Shivaji had not been, All would have been circumcised (converted)].
We also read about Shivaji's vision in his own letters and proclamations and treaties, for example in his own letter to Dadaji Naras Prabhu he refers to the oath they took at Rohideswar about founding a Hindavi Swarajya, also he was the only Raja I know who was so devtoted to the Hindu cause that he couldn't even tolerate the excessive use of foreign words by Hindus in everyday language, so here is what he did:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->But while such local knowledge and identity could be valuable to the head of a small principality, a subconti-nental imperial system could benefit from a high lan-guage that favored no specific ethnicity â the role played by Persian in the Mughal Empire. In later years, Sivaji and his son and successor Sambhaji seem to have con-sidered the possibility of Sanskrit playing such a role. Thus the Rajavyavaharakosa â a thesaurus of official us-age â was prepared shortly after Sivaji's coronation as Chatrapati. This has sometimes been presented as an effort at the triumphant return of Sanskrit with the end of Muslim rule. S. B. Varnekar, for example, claims that the author was commissioned to write this text in order to save the language of the gods (devabhasa).34 The text itself is much more modest: âHaving completely up-rooted the barbarians (mleccha), by the best of kings a learned man was appointed ... to replace the overvalued Yavana words (atyartham yavanavacanair) with educated speech (vibudhabhasam).â35 There is, for a period, a sig-nificant change in register in official documents, with a new prominence given to Sanskritic terminology, even though Marathi remained the official language. I shall return to this theme later in this essay.
http://www.cssaame.ilstu.edu/issues/24-2/guha.doc<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The above article writer Guha is by no means a Hindutva writer, infact he is a blue blooded secularist but atleast he is honest enough to quote original sources sometimes. No other Hindu king took such measures towards everyday language, not even the Peshwas.
Also if you read the treaty agreed upon between Shivaji and his cousin brother Vyankoji (founder of the Maratha line at Tanjore), one of the clauses quite explicitly states that no enemy of the Hindu religion should get shelter in the kingdom, it was only after this agreement was signed that Shivaji returned back most of the territory he conquered to Vyankoji.
The commies will have no chance in an open debate, that is why they never come out and debate whether Shivaji was a bandit or not besides making these allegations in their books, the tons of native source material and Shivaji's own letters quite explicitly refute this view, by the way even the contemporary English factory sources recognise Shivaji as the captain of the Hindu forces and comment upon the fact that Aurangzeb's religious bigotry was bringing the downfall of the empire.
As for Jadunath Sarkar's book, I haven't read it but it is titled "House of Shivaji", but Sarkar is always overly reliant on foreign sources (Persian and English) and I suspect it's no different in that book either.