I started this topic to post exclusively about this great man, these days efforts are being made by commie traitors and morons like James Laine to portray Shivaji as a looter looking for adventure and nothing more (same thing with Maharana Pratap, Banda Singh and other national heroes). So I thought I would post some interesting stuff about Shivaji with supporting evidence that he fully aimed at an independent Hindu empire, to start this off an article by Sandhya Jain:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Demeaning Shivaji, denigrating dharma
Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 27, 2004
Having purchased and read James Laine's Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India only after it was officially withdrawn by the publishers, I cannot view the events at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) as totally unjustified. Certainly, attacks on centres of learning have no place in Hindu ethos and must not recur. Yet, having gone through 105 pages of shoddy polemics posing as historical research, I am constrained to state that Oxford University Press needs to re-examine its commissioning policy if it hopes to retain credibility as a publishing house.
Moreover, the BORI scholars acknowledged by Laine must honestly inform the nation of the extent to which they are responsible for the unwarranted assertions - we cannot call them conclusions, as no evidence has been adduced or offered - in the impugned book. Far from being a meticulous scholar who has uncovered unpalatable truths about a revered historical figure, Laine is an anti-Hindu hypocrite determined to de-legitimize India's ancient civilizational ethos and its grand rejuvenation by Shivaji in the adverse circumstances of the seventeenth century. BORI is not generally associated with substandard scholarship, and should explicitly declare its position on the actual contents of the book.
Laine exposes his agenda when he foists the unnatural concept of South Asia upon the geographical and cultural boundaries of India; this is awkward because his discussion is India-centric and specific to the Maharashtra region. He is also unable to disguise his discomfort at the fact that Shivaji withstood the most bigoted Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, and established political agency for the embattled Hindu community, amidst a sea of Islamic sultanates. This has so unnerved Laine that he repeatedly makes inane remarks about Hindus employed under Muslim rulers and vice versa, to claim that the two communities lacked a modern sense of identity, and could not be viewed as opposing entities. What he means, of course, is that Hindus of the era cannot be ceded to have had a sense of 'Hindu' identity.
Reading the book, I was struck by the fact that it did not once mention Shivaji's famed ambition to establish a Hindu Pad Padshahi. This is a strange omission in a work claiming to study how contemporary authors viewed Shivaji's historic role, and the assessment of his legacy by subsequent native and colonial writers. The most notable omission is of the poet Bhushan, who wrote: "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)].
Bhushan's verse has immense historical value because the Kashi Vishwanath temple was razed in 1669 and thus lost its splendour, and the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple was destroyed and converted into a mosque in 1670. Bhushan came to Shivaji's kingdom from the Mughal capital in 1671, and within two years composed Shiv Bhooshan, a biography of Shivaji. It clearly states that Shivaji wanted to set up a Hindu Pad Padshahi.
Hence the view that Shivaji had no ideological quarrel with Aurangzeb and was only an adventurer in search of power and resources is juvenile. Laine obviously subscribes to the secularist school of historiography that decrees that Hindus must forget the evil done to them, a phenomenon Dr. Koenraad Elst calls negationism. But history is about truth, and Hindu society's long and painful experience of Islamic invasions and the subsequent Islamic polity has been so well documented in standard works like Cambridge History of India, that it is amazing a modern historian should claim there was no tension between Muslim rulers and their Hindu subjects.
Shivaji strove consciously for political power as an instrument for the resurrection of dharma (righteousness), a quest he termed as "Hindavi Swarajya," a word having both geographical and spiritual-cultural connotations. When still in his teens in 1645 CE, Shivaji began administering his father's estate under a personalized seal of authority in Sanskrit, an indication that he envisaged independence and respected the Hindu tradition. A 1646 CE letter to Dadaji Naras Prabhu refers to an oath that Shivaji, Prabhu, and others took in the presence of the deity at Rayareshwar, to establish "Hindavi Swarajya."
Shivaji was aware of the economic ruin and cultural annihilation of Hindus under the various sultanates. He desired to end this suffering, but was personally free from bigotry, as attested by contemporary Muslim chroniclers, notably Khafi Khan. It is therefore galling when Laine smugly proclaims: "I have no intention of showing that he was unchivalrous, was a religious bigot, or oppressed the peasants." A.S. Altekar (Position of Women in Ancient India) has recorded how Shivaji, in stark contrast to Muslim kings and generals of his era, ensured that Muslim women in forts captured by him were not molested and were escorted to safety. It is inconceivable that Shivaji would not know that Hindu women similarly situated would have to commit jauhar. It is therefore incumbent upon Laine and BORI to explain what "unchivalrous" and "bigot" mean.
The insinuation about "bigot" is especially objectionable in view of Laine's insistence that Shivaji had no particular interest in Hindu civilization and no proven relationship with the revered Samarth Ramdas or sant Tukaram. A Maharashtrian friend suggests that Laine has probably not read the references cited in his book! What the reader needs to understand is that Ramdas' historical significance lies in the fact that he openly exhorted the people to rise against oppression and hinted in Dasbodh that Shivaji was an avatar who had come to restore dharma. By denying that he was Shivaji's spiritual mentor, Laine seeks to disprove that the great Maratha wanted to establish a Hindu Pad Padshahi.
Ramdas, a devotee of Rama (Vaishnava sampradaya), visited the Khandoba temple at Jejuri, Pune; apologized to the god (Shiva) for boycotting the temple due to the practice of animal sacrifice there; and built a Hanuman temple at its entrance. I mention this to debunk Laine's pathetic insistence that devotion to a personal god divides Hindu society. This is alien to our thinking; we see no conflict between Ramdas and the Bhavani-worshipping Shivaji.
Then, there is Laine's tasteless allegation that Shivaji may possibly (whatever that means) be illegitimate, simply because Jijabai, who bore many children while living with her husband in the south, gave birth to Shivaji on her husband's estate near Pune and continued to live there. Maharashtrians point out that Shahaji had to send his pregnant wife to safety in Shivneri due to political instability. Shahaji was on the run with the boy king Murtaza Nizamshah, in whose name he controlled the Nizamshahi. After its fall in 1636, service in the Adilshahi took him to Bangalore (his remarriage produced the distinguished Thanjavur-Bhonsle dynasty); he administered his Pune lands through Dadaji Konddev.
My response to Laine's profound Freudian analysis is that he has thanked his wife and children and dedicated his book to his mother; I couldn't but notice the absence of a father. Is one to deduce something from the omission? Laine can relax: since the Vedas, Hindus have placed only proportionate emphasis on biological bloodlines; there is no shame if a man cannot mention his father; a true b@st@rd is one who does not know the name of his mother.
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0104/159.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I went to the reference library yesterday, found the following quotes in some books:
A court historian sums up Shivaji's sentiments (Shivaji was not literate according to J.N Sarkar):
"Why should we remain content with what the Muslim rulers choose to give us? We are Hindus. The whole country is ours by right, and is yet occupied and held by foreigners. They desecrate our temples, break holy idols, plunder our wealth, convert us forcibly to their religion, carry away our women folk and children, slay the cows and inflict a thousand wrongs upon us. We will suffer this treatment no more. We possess strength in our arms. Let us draw the sword in defense of our sacred religion, liberate our country and acquire new lands and wealth by our own effort. Are we not as brave and capable as our ancestors of yore? Let us undertake this holy mission and God will surely help us. All human efforts are so helped. There is no such thing as good luck and ill luck. We are the captains of our fortunes and the makers of our freedom." (Pg 251 and 252 - The Moghul Empire edited by R.C Majumdar and J.C Chaudhuri. The citation give in this book for this quote is G.S Sardesai's "New history of the Marathas, 1957, Vol I, Pg 97, 1st edition).
Pg 253 of the Mughal Empire says that at Bijapur Shivaji would not bow down to Adil Shah in his court and stops a Muslim butcher trying to slaughter a cow in a public thoroughfare.
Pg 268 and 269 - "Instead of Urdu and Persian which were the court languages for centuries past, Shivaji introduced Marathi and coined Sanskrit techincal terms for administrative purposes. Thus came into being the famous Raja-Vyavahara-Kosa, a dictionary of official terms. This was composed by a panel of experts under the supervision of Ragunath Pandit Hanumante" (Ragunath Pandit I think was the minster for religion, one of Shivaji's 8 ministers).
Pg 276 quotes from Shvaji's elder son Shambhuji's Sanskrit letter to Kunwar Ram Singh, son of Jai Singh it says that - "This kingdom belongs to Gods and Brahmans," "Hindustan is essentially a land of the Hindus."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
04-18-2006, 10:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-18-2006, 10:53 PM by Bharatvarsh.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The resulting mixed idiom, with an interesting infusion of Sanskrit tatsamas (loan words) is found, for example, in Sivaji's letter to Dadaji Naras Prabhu, deshpande of the Rohida valley, where the major appeal is to a territorial rootedness in the valley as well as putative wider subcontinental identity (again, Perso-Arabic is highlighted):
shahasi bemangiri tumhi va amhi karit nahi Srirohides-vara tumce khoriyatil adi kuladeva tumca dongarmatha patharavar sendrilagat svayambhu ahe tyani amhas yas dilhe va pudhe sarva manoratha Hindvi svarajya karun puravinar ahe tyas bavas haval hou naye khamakha sangava.33
[You and I are not being disloyal to the Shah. Sriro-hidesvara, the original presiding deity of your valley, exists in self-created form next to the sendri tree on the plateau at the crest of your mountain: he has given me success and will in future fulfill the desire of creating a Hindavi kingdom. So say to the Bava (ad-dressee's father): âDo not be unnecessarily down-cast.â]
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-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pollock also suggests that some of Jagannathaâs Sanskrit verse was modeled on the well-established Persian theme of a lamentation over the unattainable beloved.49 the well-known Sivabharata,50 as well as several lesser-known Sanskrit kavyas. Sivaji patronized the important Rajavyavaharakosa, a thesaurus of Sanskrit official terms The northern Bhonsle kingdom established by Sahujiâs son Sivaji seems, in the last years of Sivaji, and more vigorously under Sambhaji, to have aimed at a rein-statement of Sanskrit as a language of history and even of diplomacy. We have. There was also a certain effort to correspond with the Rajput courts of Rajasthan in Sanskrit.51 In part, this may have been a counter to the increasingly Islamic tone of Aurangzeb after 1678. In the last years of Sivaji's reign, and throughout that of Sambhaji, titles were Sanskritized to a considerable de-gree and we find significantly more Sanskrit words in official documents. This continued with the succession of Rajaram (1689) and the desperate guerilla struggle of the ensuing years, when every ideological appeal was thrown into the scales, with routine use of jihad by the Mughals, and appeals such as this from the Maratha ruler: âsvamice rajya mhanaje deva-brhamanaci bhumi. Ya rajyaci abhivrddhi vhavi ani Maharashtradharma ra-hava.â52 (That the Lord [Rajaram] holds this kingdom is equivalent to the Gods and Brahmans holding it. This kingdom must be sustained and the dharma pertinent to Maharashtra survive.)
We also have a return to a stronger emphasis under Rajaram and Tarabai on the ethnic Maratha character of the kingdom. In a letter â likely one of many sent in the desperate year 1690 â Rajaram wrote to Baji Sarjerao Jedhe, âhe Marasta rajya aheâ (this is a Maratha king-dom).53 Writing in 1693, the experienced minister Krishnaji Ananta Sabhasad nostalgically read ethnic as-sertion into Sivaji's coronation as Chatrapati in 1674. âIn this epoch all the great kings have been barbarian (mlec-cha); now a Marast padshah became chatrapati. This was no ordinary event.â
http://www.cssaame.ilstu.edu/issues/24-2/guha.doc<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bharatvarsh,
Please list some good books on Shivaji.
Shivaji Maharaj is a real enigma and a sore thumb for jnu-scumbags. He was not kshatriya but he was conferred a kshatriya status - he is popular amongst all jatis - his popularity is far and wide across India. Dharampal observes that Brits found more then half of hindu kings were from Shudra jatis and Shivaji might be a glaring example of that. Shivaji was all that Hindu India was about , a solid pluralistic society with equal respect for all jatis and varnas with an overwhelming Hindu identity. That is why Laine tried to attack Shivaji I think but the kind of response he got must have really surprised the Witzel/Farmer-types.. They cant really place this response.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bharatvarsh,
Please list some good books on Shivaji. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The best one which several people recommended to me is:
Shivaji the Great Maratha/H.S. Sardesai
https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no24361.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Here is an extract from a letter that Shivaji write to Ramdas (a great saint at the time), in 1678:
"Obesiance to my noble teacher, the father of all, the abode of bliss. Sivaji who is merely as dust on his Master's feet, places his head on the feet of his master and submits. I was greatly obliged to have been favoured by your supreme instruction, and to have been told that my religious duty consists in the establishment of Dharma, in the service of God and the brahmins in the amelioration of my subjects and in their protection and succour. I have been advised that herein is spiritual satisfaction for me. You were also pleased to declare that whatever I should earnestly desire would be fulfilled. Comsequently, through your grace I have accomplished the destruction of the Turks and built at great expenses fastnesses for the protection of my kingdom. Whatever kingdom I have acquired I have placed at your feet and dedicated myself to your service. I desired to enjoy your close company, for which I built this temple at Chapal and arranged for its upkeep and worship. Then when I again desired to make over 121 villages to the temple at Chapal, and also intended to grant eleven vitas of land to every place of worship, you said that all this could be done in due course. Consequently, I have assigned the following lands for the service of God... "
(source: H.S. Sardesai, Shivaji: The Great Maratha, page 224-225) <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Complexities of Shivaji
Author:Â Assistant Professor Vijay Prashad
URL: http://www.proxsa.org/history/shivaji.html
Our modern consciousness harbors within itself rather peculiar ideas. We pride ourselves on our tremendous advances from a pre-modern past which we almost universally see as depraved (at the very least in economic and political terms). On the other hand, we turn to the past for our heroes: and these heroes are absorbed without criticism (in fact, criticism is tantamount to heresy in some circles). Thus, America lauds its Founding Fathers (Jefferon, Madison, Hamilton, Washington) even though these gentlemen practiced a form of slavery which does not square with their genteel image. The Indian Republic has immortalized Gandhi, which is one of the tragedies of our contemporary world: Gandhi, the mischievous radical, is reduced to being a statue rather than a living presence in our corrupt and battered body politic. The Pakistani state has hallowed Jinnah, whose virulent criticisms of theocracy are now not allowed to inform the citizens of a state wracked by avarice and hypocrisy. The Rashtriya Sevak Sangh and its American kin, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), have taken Shivaji as their icon (India West, 21 June 1996): that adoption needs to be criticised for what it does to the historical record.
At their 16 June Hindu Sangathan Diwas, the HSS hosted Shripati Shastry (RSS) who recounted the life of Shivaji who (as India West reports) "fought Mughal emperor Aurangzeb." "Hindu civilization," Shastry said, "had been battered by the constant brutal assaults of foreigners. Shivaji challenged that attack." HSS also presented a play by Bal Bihar students entitled 'Shivaji and Afzal Khan.' Reading this story, I was startled by the ease with which our media allows such presentations to pass by without comment. At the very least, the historical record should be scoured to check if Shivaji indeed did fight Aurangzeb to constitute 'Hindu civilization' and if he made it his purpose to cleanse the subcontinent of 'foreigners.'
(1) Shivaji and Aurangzeb.
Shivaji Bhonsla (1627-1680) came from a family of Maratha aristocrats and military bureaucrats. The first half of his career (until 1660) as a fief-holder was consumed by his battle with the rather powerless Sultanate of Bijapur. He was able to extend his power by making alliances with Maratha hill chiefs and by ensuring that the Mughal overlord was given a wide berth: Shivaji was not interested in taking Delhi, only in forming a fiefdom in Aurangabad and Bijapur. In November 1656, Aurangzeb and his amir, Mir Jumla, went ahead with an old plan to take Bijapur at the death of the Sultan, Muhammad Adil Shah. Shivaji was not a factor in the equation (for he was only one of many factious nobles and zamindars). Shivaji was able to rout the Bijapur army and Afzal Khan, commander of a Mughal force. of 10, 000. In Shivaji's second phase (1660-1674), he extended his holding, notably by destroying Baharji Borah who was reputed to be the world's richest merchant. At Purander in 1665, Shivaji capitulated to Jai Singh and Aurangzeb. In 1668, Shivaji's repeated petitions to Aurangzeb won him the title 'Raja' and Chakan fort. After the Mughal treasury refused to reimburse him for a trip he took to Agra, he took up arms again. With Aurangzeb the battle was over power and resources, rather than on religious grounds. Shivaji very comfortably petitioned Aurangzeb to recognize him as a 'Raja,' a feat which would not sit well with the HSS rendition of the man as a fighter for Hinduism.
(2) Shivaji and 'Hindu civilization'
In June 1674, Shivaji was crowned as a Hindu monarch. Since he came from Shudra stock, the chief sent for Gagga Bhatta (the notable Brahmin from Benares) to declare that Shivaji's ancestor's were truly Kshatriyas who descended from the solar line of the Ranas of Mewar. He was invested with the janeau, with the Vedas and was bathed in an abisheka. A Shudra became a Rajput, but the bulk of the other dalits remained in their misbegotten position at the bottom of society. Shivaji's investiture was a political move which allowed him to exert his power over hill chiefs who were not under his military control. One would imagine that Shivaji would now eschew alliances with Muslims, however, the first major alliance made by the monarch was with Abul Hasan, the Qutb Shah Sultan. They began a campaign against the Bijapur Karanatak, including the monarch's own half-brother, Vyankoji Bhonsla. The Mughal regime was left untouched by this 'Hindu' king. The later Shivaji did not consolidate 'Hindus' to fight 'Muslims,' but he continued his trajectory of securing power in the Konkan region. One might add that Shambhaji, Shivaji's son, raped a Brahmin woman in December 1678: such facts often get lost in the blind valorization of historical figures.
I have offered all these details for the simple reason that one must not allow our contemporary politicians (and the HSS/RSS are politicians) to define our historical record. There is a tendency to simplify, which is tantamount to distortion. Shivaji claimed to be a 'Hindu' king when it suited him, but he acted (most of the time) as a rebellious zamindar and hill-chief. History must remain more than propaganda. The tragedy of the communalization of history is that those who write these false histories are less interested in the past and more interested in organizing people into bigoted groups.
Vijay Prashad
---------------------------
Vijay Prashad
Assistant Assistant Professor, International Studies
214 McCook Academic Building
Trinity College, Hartford, CT. 06106.
Ph: 860-297-2518!
Â
===================================
RESPONSE
Â
One could not agree more with Assistant Professor Vijay Prashad's contention that turning to the past for our heroes, and absorbing them without critical scrutiny, is in direct contrast to our pride in having outgrown our presumably baneful pre-modern past. Indeed, one may even say that it is tantamount to a blatant renunciation of the much-vaunted spirit of objectivity - the presumed hallmark of our times! It is perfectly in order, therefore, for one ostensibly as committed to the importance of impartial inquiry as Assistant Professor Prashad, to subject the life of Shivaji to the touchstone of thorough research and logical inference. Needless to state, the exercise must not stop at Shivaji, but must equally be extended to other eminent Indians that have been 'commandeered' for seemingly political purposes.
Unfortunately for all of us, and ever more so for him, his short article, "The Complexities of Shivaji", <http://www.proxsa.org/history/shivaji.html>, cannot become his best claim to have done either of those things.
His research on Shivaji, if indeed he has done any, is far from thorough. For instance, when he mentions that, "Shivaji was able to rout the Bijapur army and Afzal Khan, commander of a Mughal force of 10,000", he is blissfully unaware that Afzal Khan was commander NOT of the Mughal force, but the Adilshahi army from Bijapur! Also, in 1656, at the time of the death of Muhammad Adilshah of Bijapur (November 4), Shah Jehan and NOT Aurangzeb was on the throne of Delhi, the latter ascending to it only in 1658 after neutralising the challenge posed by his three brothers, and incarcerating his ailing father in the Agra fort. He says further "Shivaji was not a factor in the equation". Apparently unbeknownst to the learned Assistant Professor, Shivaji had become very much of that 'factor' way back in 1649, ever since he succeeded in bringing indirect Mughal pressure to secure the release of his father from Adilshahi imprisonment. Surely, the Mughals could not have been bothered about Shivaji if he was "only one of many factious nobles and zamindars" (even one of whom he conveniently omits to name)! He also says that Shivaji sent "repeated petitions to Aurangzeb" for recognition as 'Raja'. The fact is that Shivaji had so intensified his attacks on the Mughals after his dramatic escape from Agra (August 17, 1666, or, according to researcher Dr.Ajit Joshi, July 22), that it was the Governor in Aurangabad - and NOT Shivaji - who, in utter desperation and as a measure of appeasement, pleaded with Aurangzeb for that imperial 'favour'! The Assistant Professor introduces Shivaji as hailing from "a family of Maratha aristocrats and military bureaucrats", and then goes on to state "he came from Shudra stock"! Let us, only for the sake of argument, assume that this palpable contradiction is not too inane to be shunned out of hand, and that the Bhosala family was socially one of the lowest-born. Even so, one is clueless at best to comprehend why someone claiming descent from the preeminent Yadav dynasty of Devgiri (Islamised to 'Daulatabad'), should have committed the hierarchical 'atrocity' of giving his daughter, Jijabai (Shivaji's mother), in marriage to a lowly born Shudra! The Assistant Professor seems to have rashly ignored the possibility that social taboos were infinitely more tenacious three centuries ago than they are today, and that Lakhuji Jadhavrao (Jijabai's father) might have faced grave problems marrying off his other children! Hence, what the Assistant Professor states about Gaga Bhatta being invited to declare the Shudra as a Rajput is pure poppycock, and the result of motivated scholarship.
These are bloomers, and bloomers hardly sit well with either honesty and sincerity on the one hand, or academic excellence and professional reputation on the other!
The inferences drawn by reliance on superficial research and incorrect information are doomed to be flawed, illogical and undependable.
The writer wishes to bring home his view that Shivaji had no real ideological quarrel with Aurangzeb; that he was merely competing with him for power and resources; that he patched up alliances with more proximate Muslim rulers even at the height of his power only to undo other local rulers including his kith and kin, leaving the Mughals unscathed; that his coronation as a Hindu monarch "was a political move which allowed him to exert his power over hill chiefs who were not under his military control"; that he had little or nothing to do with the emancipation of 'Hindu Civilisation'; and finally that much of what the rest of us consider as a fairly accurate estimate of the man is the result of our incorrigible "tendency to simplify, which is tantamount to distortion"!
The wisdom of passing judgement on someone's life work based solely on his nascent career and a few selected policies and acts, is questionable. For instance, when Assistant Professor Prashad decided to undertake the pursuit of academics as a profession, he must necessarily have made a modest beginning at some unglamorous elementary level in an obscure institution within his once limited reach. He can hardly be expected to have sprung directly from the cradle into either a University of Chicago doctorate in 1994 or an Assistant Professorship at Trinity College! And, if one were to say at such early juncture that his aim was not Professorship (Assistant though it is) at the Trinity College, but merely the attainment of some non-descript inferior degree, one might be accused of silliness and immature judgment. Given the time and circumstances, the good Assistant Professor did eventually make it to the coveted position in which we happily find him today! However, an estimate of his entire career, based completely on his hardly spectacular or selectively-rendered early achievements, wouldn't be short of gross absurdity. Indeed, it is hoped he may yet attain higher positions demanding greater responsibility and thoroughness in his chosen calling! Sadly, one is not privy to sufficient information about Assistant Professor Prashad's aspirations in his formative years to say with any degree of certainty whether or not a he aspired to something higher than a comfortable and lucrative teaching job in the New World!
In the case of Shivaji, on the other hand, we are more fortunate, for there is enough contemporary source material, establishing unambiguously that he not only intended to rid the land of intolerant governments arrogantly inimical to indigenous interests, but also to re-establish a rule of righteousness, which he chose to identify as "Hindavi Swarajya"!
As early as 1645 C.E., when Shivaji was yet in his teens, he had begun the administration of his father's estate under a pesonalised seal of authority in Sanskrit - a clear indication of his envisaged independence and his reverence for the indigenous Hindu tradition! In a letter written in 1646 to Dadaji Naras Prabhu (Deshpande & Kulkarni of the Rohidkhore and Velvand sub-division), Shivaji refers to a solemn oath they (Shivaji, Prabhu, and several others) had taken in the presence of the presiding deity at Rayareshwar, whereby they had resolved to found 'Hindavi Swarajya'. The word "Hindavi" connotes both 'Indian' in a loose geographical sense (just as the word 'Ludhianvi' is used to mean 'belonging to Ludhiana'), and 'Hindu' in a deeper religio-cultural sense.
That an independent 'Hindavi' state should be established, was regarded by him almost as a divine cause - a conviction reflected much too often in his letters and records to be dismissed as mere coincidence. So, there ought really to be no doubt that swarajya or self-determination, qualified by the adjective 'Hindavi' (unequivocally testifying to his firm conviction about the beneficial effects of inclusivist, humane and tolerant characteristics of pristine Indian thought), was one of his principal aims.
On the backdrop of this indisputable evidence, which has obviously escaped the 'research' conducted by the Assistant Professor, his claim that Shivaji was only interested in carving out a fiefdom for himself at Aurangabad and Bijapur, becomes untenable. On the contrary, Shivaji emerges as one of the greatest sons of India, benevolently nationalistic to the core, and endowed with a vision conspicuous only by its absence among all of his contemporaries! Unlike them, he was moved by the prevailing pathetic state of the polity very early in his career, and did everything within his power to provide the necessary corrective. He evinced both the desire and the ability to lead the Nation to finally come into its own!
If Shivaji began his exploits first against the "rather powerless Sultanate of Bijapur" it was perhaps because the latter was his immediate neighbour! Whether that Sultanate was indeed as powerless as the good Assistant Professor attempts to make out, is a debatable point, especially when it is observed that it took the powerful Mughals all of thirty years from 1656 C.E., as well as Aurangzeb's personal campaigning, to finally relegate it to oblivion! The Assistant Professor also forgets that it was the Adilshah at Bijapur who held possession of much of the western coastline, the control of which would secure logistic support for the first indigenous Navy that Shivaji was to commission not too much later.
At one stage in his article, the Assistant Professor falsely infers from Shripati Shastri's remarks that 'Shivaji made it his purpose to cleanse the subcontinent of 'foreigners'. What that ideologue of the RSS had actually said, as quoted in the article itself, was 'Hindu civilization had been battered by the constant brutal assaults of foreigners. Shivaji challenged that attack.' Challenging attacks by foreigners and evicting them are two qualitatively distinct matters, and one is astonished at the relative ease and audacity with which the author attempts to confound the two! As can be seen from the many 'foreigners' employed by Shivaji to serve even in responsible positions, he seems to have had the least intention to undertake any form of 'ethnic cleansing'. Indeed, his unremitting commitment to the tolerance and inclusivism of Hinduism would have prevented any such act even if the thought had occurred to him. For centuries before Shivaji, these intolerant and hostile foreign elements, in the form of one Sultanate or the other, had subjected the indigenous population to cultural humiliation and economic ruin by their religio-cultural, economic and political policies. All Shivaji aspired to do, and seemed to have been eminently successful in initiating, was to put an end to this. And in doing so, it must be emphasized, he was free from even the slightest bigotry (for which most of the Sultans, particularly his arch-adversary, Aurangzeb, are perhaps best known); even contemporary Muslim records (notably Khafi Khan) bear testimony to this unique quality.
In any case, one wonders why the Asstt.Professor dwells so emphatically on Shripati Shastri's first claim that Shivaji "fought Mughal emperor Aurangzeb"? Whether he fought the relatively distant Mughals, the proximate Deccan sultans, or his own folk is a point that should interest historiographers. For the rest of us - and that does not exclude Assistant Professor Prashad - interested in understanding Shivaji's motives without unnecessarily being weighed down with intricate and cumbersome details, it is enough to appreciate the fact that he fought anybody and everybody who came between him and his declared objective of self-determination.
In one of the more amusing statements in the article, the author cites the case of a certain merchant, Bahirji Bohra, who he claims was 'destroyed' by Shivaji enabling the latter to 'extend his holding'! The Assistant Professor's sense of proportion makes the lamented Bahirji, richest merchant in the world et al, into something of a powerful adversary, singled out for 'destruction' by Shivaji! He was nothing of the sort. Bahirji was just one of the many prosperous traders in Surat who were subjected to a levy by Shivaji (the names of some of the other merchants were: Haji Sayyad Beg, Haji Kasam, Sayyad Shahid Beg, Mulla Abdul Jafar, etc.). This levy, incidentally, would otherwise have been credited to the Mughal treasury - more specifically to the paan and tobacco expenses of Aurangzeb's pampered and profligate sister. (It is more than likely that these worthies, with their keen business acumen, made up for the levy before the year was out!) For Shivaji, however, it meant a substantial compensation from Mughal territory for the economic devastation that Shaista Khan's three-year campaign (March 3, 1660 to April 8, 1663) had visited upon the Maratha hinterland.
One wonders how Shivaji's lofty ideals and noble deeds are in any way eclipsed or compromised if his son, Sambhaji, raped a woman, unless the Assistant Professor has uncovered some new evidence in his 'research' which implicates Shivaji in the heinous act as an instigator or accomplice! That Sambhaji was given a trial and sentenced to imprisonment has been conveniently ignored. (Fortunately, the woman in question was not of Shudra stock, otherwise the article might easily have assumed the length of a tome!)
Perhaps, it would do all of us a great deal of good to consider the careers of some other warrior-patriots. Maharana Pratap, preceded Shivaji by a hundred years and Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi, followed two centuries later: both opposed the foreign ruler - the Mughals in the first case and the British in the second. Their exemplary resolve and indefatigable courage set a lofty precedent for many generations of freedom fighters to emulate. Dispossession of their respective kingdoms and holdings supplied the chief motive for a recourse to armed struggle. On the other hand, Shivaji lacked like provocation for his initiative - a feature that sets him apart from most. He was put in charge by his father of the jagirs of Pune and Supe which yielded sufficient revenue to assure him a life of opulence and ease, like almost all of his peers, needing only occasionally to render military service to the Sultan. With the exceptional qualities of head and heart with which he was amply endowed, it would not have been long before he rose to eminence in such service and effortlessly seized himself of 'fiefdoms in Aurangabad and Bijapur', or for that matter, any other places he may have been eyeing with avaricious interest, if that was his sole aim as propounded by the Assistant Professor! There was no earthly need for him to ceaselessly risk his life and fortunes for almost four decades for something he already had in sufficient measure, and could have rejoiced in the certain prospect of getting more! One wonders if either the Assistant Professor or such others as have had a significant part to play in 'setting the historical record right' have ever been perturbed by considerations like this!
It is more than apparent from his article that the Assistant Professor's knowledge of Maratha history of Shivaji's time is sketchy at best and appallingly inaccurate at worst. One is forced to feel that the author has only used the occasion of the news item of the 16 June Hindu Sangathan Divas to vent his spleen against a developing cultural awareness among an increasing number of thinking people. Why the Assistant Professor should regard this phenomenon with indignant apprehension, as he obviously seems to, is unfathomable. However, he is not the only one to be thus shaken. There are large numbers among our respected intelligentsia who have begun to see the writing on the wall!
Incidentally, Assistant Professor Prashad is not the first to point accusing fingers or downplay the unparalleled achievements of one of the greatest men who walked the earth. He is in august company, ranging from those who, in sheer helpless exasperation called him a 'mountain rat', to those who, either from ignorance or plain malice, had the effrontery to evaluate him as a 'misguided patriot' (as if the 'rightly-guided' variety was their inherited monopoly!) There is also a disturbing but distinct tendency to conjure up a truism that disproportionate, 'larger-than-life' statures are accorded to historical personalities to create a 'nationalist mythology'! In the April 10-16, 1993 issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India, Nancy Adjania, in her article, 'Myths and Supermyths', refers to Maharana Pratap, Shivaji and Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. Quite predictably, she toes just such a line like the adept in contemporary 'intellectualism' she believes herself to be! She writes, "History is a luxury that a colonised population on the threshold of freedom cannot afford. It thus becomes imperative for a nascent nation to produce a costume drama for itself, in lieu of the past. The nation's origins and antecedents are explained away by means of a series of tableaux vivants, splendidly mounted by adept ideologues within the proscenium of mythology. The first function of this nationalist mythology is the creation of exemplars, role models. For this purpose, cultural heroes and heroines are abstracted from the intricate cross-weave of their original context. Deprived of the political and cultural specificities of which they were actually the creatures, they are converted into larger-than-life figures."
However, the overwhelming mass of contemporaneous evidence - as much from hostile as from friendly sources - leaves little room for presuming the creation of any such 'costume drama'. History, to one like the Hindu who needs to measure it not in centuries but in unbroken millennia, far from being a luxury, is but a re-statement of the sublime cause that make his cultural moorings fast and unique in the world. The tableau vivant, to which she so disparagingly refers, in the case at least of Shivaji, was actually played out three centuries ago amid vibrant, vivid, hard adversity - with real weapons honed on the noble aspirations and untold suffering of millions of sons-of-the-soil. The more than scintillating results broke forth from within the confines of the proscenium to leave a lasting impression on the stage of the world! Real Indian history, it needs to be appreciated, does not require stage props to be inspiring!
Shivaji thought way ahead of his times. His hand was guided by justice and his heart was expanded by benevolence; his actions resulted from an inspiration of which none of his peers knew even by hearsay!
The uniqueness of this great Hindu has been aptly summed up in the following:
"He (Shivaji) taught the modern Hindus to rise to the full stature of their growth. So, when viewed with hindsight through twentieth century glasses, Aurangzeb on the one side and Shivaji on the other come to be seen as key figures in the development of India. What Shivaji began Gandhi could complete ......and what Aurangzeb stood for would lead to the establishment of the separate state of Pakistan"
No, this isn't part of the unrepentant Sangh Parivaar's communal propaganda. It is a statement made by Bamber Gascoigne, author of "THE GREAT MOGHULS", (Constable & Co. Ltd., 3, The Lanchesters, 162 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 9ER)!
Since there is no known link between Gascoigne and the RSS, a serious reflection upon his remarkable statement by the likes of Asstt.Prof. Prashad should not prove too detrimental to their much-vaunted secular, progressive and modernist credentials!
An honest, unmotivated appraisal of history, might just convince the Assistant Professor that few, if any, in India's recent history could measure up to the stature of Shivaji. Far from lauding the RSS/HSS, therefore, for its excellent judgment in seeking inspiration from so stimulating an emancipator, the Assistant Professor goes to the preposterous extent of saying that the move should 'be criticised for what it does to the historical record'. Mere adoption as an icon cannot do anything whatsoever to the historical record. Neither, for that matter, can a play dramatising the momentous meeting between Shivaji and Afzal Khan, unless of course the Khan gets to be portrayed in it as a Mughal general, a la Prashad!
If Asstt.Prof. Prashad is as justly proud and comfortable with his Hindu name as I am with mine, he might perhaps be able to appreciate the tremendous significance that the following couplet by the poet, Bhooshan (a contemporary of Shivaji), has for most of us:
"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 (islamised)!]
If that significance is not lost on the learned Asstt. Professor, Shivaji would forthwith cease to be so replete in complexities!
==================
Bhalchandrarao C Patwardhan
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0901/219.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->D. Kincaid - The Grand Rebel "In spite of the character of a crusade which Ramdas's blessings gave to Shivaji's long struggle, it is remarkable how little religious animosity or intolerance Shivaji displayed. His kindness to Catholic priests is an agreeable contrast to the proscriptions of the Hindu priesthood in the Indian and Maratha territories of the Portuguese. Even his enemies remarked on his extreme respect for Mussulman priests, for mosques and for the koran. The Muslim historian Khafi Khan, who cannot mention Shivaji in his cronicle without adding epithets of vulgar abuse, nevertheless acknowledges that Shivaji never entered a conquered town without taking measures to safeguard the mosques from damage. Whenever a koran came to his possession, he treated it with the same respect as if it had been one of the sacred works of his own faith. Whenever his men captured Mussulman ladies, they were brought to Shivaji, who looked after them as if they were his wards till he could return them to their relations."
As Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958) eminent historian, has well expressed:
"Shivaji proved, by his example, that the Hindu race could build a nation, found a State, defeat its enemies; they could conduct their own defence; they could protect and promote literature and art, commerce and industry; they could maintain navies and ocean going fleets of their own, and conduct naval battles on equal terms with foreigners. He taught the modern Hindus to rise to the full stature of their growth. He demonstrated that the tree of Hinduism was not dead, and that it could put forth new leaves and branches and once again rise up its head to the skies."
(source: Shivaji and His Times - By Sir Jadunath Sarkar p. 406). Â
http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Glimpses_VIII.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->saint Ramdas in Maharashtra identified Shivaji as a Hindu King in whose kingdom Hindu nation was strengthened. While praising Shivaji after his coronation, Ramadas wrote, âbuDAle sarvahI pApI| hindusthAna baLAvle| abhaktAncA kZayo jhAlA| Anandavana bhUvani.|| i.e. all the sinners are drowned, Hindustan is strengthened, non devout are eliminated in the land of bliss â Ananda vana bhuvanI. The Hindu identity is made very clear in this whole composition of saint Ramdas.
http://pramodpathak.voiceofdharma.com/reviews/axel.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I had read somewhere (most likely Dharampal) that marathas hiked the revenue and brought it on par with the mughals. The increased revenues IIRC were for fighting the mlechchas. If someone can post more details on this that would be great.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I had read somewhere (most likely Dharampal) that marathas hiked the revenue and brought it on par with the mughals. The increased revenues IIRC were for fighting the mlechchas. If someone can post more details on this that would be great. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes that is true, the Marathas after Shivaji hiked the revenue especially in parts outside Maharashtra but I do not know how much of it was due to military and other needs, after Shivaji most Maratha rulers lacked the foresight, although they were aware of Hindu suffering, many did not actively try to do something about it. The last great Maratha ruler in my opinion was Peshwa Baji Rao, he was a fully concious Hindu and sent help to Hindus of Bassein to save them from Portuguese deperedations and said several times that "this is the time to drive out the mlecchas" and extended Maratha power up into the North, he was going to oust the Mughal emperor but was restrained by Shiavji's grandson. He earned Marathas the reputation of being defenders of Hindus which was later jeopardised by Maratha depredations (including hiking of revenue to intolerable levels) in other parts including Bengal, they basically ended up as bullies to the Jats of Bharatpur (who also restored Hindu rule under the great Maharaja Surajmal) and Rajputs.
I see it a little differently. Increased spending was required to oust the mlechchas who had huge revenue collections. Perhaps that is something we lacked when compared to the invaders. It needs some looking into..
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The third Bundela rebellion was still in the future. Champat Raiâs son, Chhatrasal, had joined the imperial army sent against Shivaji in 1671 when Shivaji drew his attention to what was being done to the Hindus by Aurangzeb. It may also be pointed out that our professors stretch the Mathura region too far when they include Bundelkhand in it.
http://voi.org/books/htemples2/ch4.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->With the object of understanding Mughal warfare practises he enrolled in the Mughal army first. On an expedition to suppress Shivaji under the command of Mirza Raja Jai Singh of Jaipur he met with dissappointment at the shabby treatment of his bravery by the Mughals. Disillusioned and estranged, Chhatrasal deserted the Mughal forces soon and met Shivaji at Raigarh with the aim of joining him. It was then that Shivaji recognizing the potential of Chhatrasal advised him to return back to his motherland and take up cudgels against the Mughals there and put an end to their rule.
http://ind1ww1-a.sancharnet.in/tvsdvd/chhatrasal.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The year 1679 AD was the year of triumph for the âtrue faithâ. On April 2, jizyah was reimposed on Hindus to âspread Islam and put down the practice of infidelismâ. The Hindus of Delhi and around organised a protest and blocked Aurangzebâs way to the Jami Masjid on one Friday. The mighty Mughal Emperor ordered his elephants to be driven through the mass of men. Many were trampled to death. Shivaji also wrote a letter of protest from distant Maharashtra. But it fell on deaf ears.
http://voiceofdharma.org/books/siii/ch7.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The letter goes something like this:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->âVerily, Islam and Hinduism are terms of contrast. They are used by the true Divine Painter for blending the colours and filling in the outlines. If it is a mosque, the call to prayer is chanted in remembrance of him. If it is a temple, the bells are rung in yearning for him alone.â
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivaji<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It obvious that Shivaji like many other Hindu rulers never managed to get to the root of the problem (the teachings of Islam).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Povada: In Maharashtra the narrative khanda-kavya is called povada. The first available povada in Marathi was written on the thrilling episode of Shivaji killing Afzal Khan. The tradition of povada singing has been kept alive by folk singers known as shahirs. The povada is presented in a dramatic manner, and high-pitch singing and melodramatic acting is its soul. The shahir and his supporting singers play the duf and the tuntuni. The duf is like the Hindi dufli - but only about 6 inches in diameter and made of thicker hide; the tuntuni is a one-stringed instrument. The povada is also sung by the Gondhali, who normally sing in praise of the goddess (Dhere, 1988).
According to Varsha Bhosle (personal communication), the number of verses may be as few as 20 but, by tradition, 300 verses or more is the norm. A povada must record the correct historical dates and names in the events it depicts. It is a vira-shri form of song to exhort a people to battle and to honour a hero, or to lament a defeat by foul means. Panipat cha phatka (the blow of Panipat, on Prithviraj Chauhan) is probably the best known povada. It is necessarily a virile form of poetry - there are povadas on Krishna in the battlefield but none on Buddha; people have written povadas on Gandhi too, but depicting events of confrontation like the Salt March and ignoring the philosophy of ahimsa. A povada is also a metre. A long poem that fulfills the other criteria, but is not in the povada metre, is merely a poem. Adnyandaas is the best known shahir. His most famous povadas are Afzalkhanacha Vadha (the killing of Afzalkhan) and Agryahun Sutka (Shivaji's escape from Agra).
Varsha Bhosle adds that one of the earliest povada poets was the Hindi poet Kaviraj Bhushan, who not only wrote Shiva-Bani, but also influenced the povada tradition immeasurably. The story of how he traveled to Maharashtra is as follows: One day, when Bhushan was eating lunch, he told his elder sister-in-law that the food lacked enough salt. She laughed and said, Pehle namak kama ke to lao, `first earn some salt.â He's said to have walked out that very minute and proceeded to the king Chhatrasal, who told him not to waste his time on minor figures like himself and go to Chhatrapati Shivaji instead. When Bhushan sang his song in the darbar, Shivaji was so pleased that he told him to ask for anything he wanted. Bhushan asked for 80 sacks of salt to be delivered to his sister-in-law. Bhushan's samadhi is in a tiny village called Ateet in Maharashtra.
http://subhashkak.voiceofdharma.com/articles/busan.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It is not at all surprising that the corollaries of these controversial guidelines should be equally questionable. We are told that âAurangzeb can no longer be referred to as the champion of Islamâ, and that âShivaji cannot be overglorified in Maharashtra textbooksâ.
Shivaji first. It is sheer mischief to suggest that Shivaji is glorified in Maharashtra alone. The fortunate fact is that he is honoured by every Hindu worth his name, wherever that Hindu may reside in the length and breadth of India. Rabindranath Tagore, who was not a Maharashtrian, paid his homage to Shivaji in a long poem pulsating with the great poetâs image of a Hindu hero. Many more poems and dramas and novels about Shivajiâs chivalry and heroism are to be found in all Indian languages. It is, therefore, presumptuous on the part of some very small people to lay down that Shivaji shall not be overglorified. The fact is that he cannot be overglorified, such is the majesty of his character and role. The historian who will do full justice to the personality of Shivaji as well as to his role in Indian history is yet to be born. Some puny politicians pretending to be historians are trying to cut Shivaji to their own size. They are like street urchins spitting at the sun.
http://voiceofdharma.org/books/siii/ch2.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Plunge in Maratha History
However, the peculiar circumstances that were prevailing in the last decades of the 19th century, made him set aside his prime interest in the researches of Ancient India, and plunge into the history of the immediate past of Maharahstra i.e. the Maratha History.
The intellectuals of Maharashtra had started taking interest in their history. Neelakantha Janardhan Kirtane, a junior student of the Deccan College, assailed Grant Duff's History of the Marathas (1826) in his lecture delivered in the Young Men's Association of the College in 1868. He rhetorically pointed out that Grant's History was no more than an account of the military expeditions of the Marathas, rather than the glorious achievements of the Maratha people, of which the people of this region were proud. Rajwade V.K. another historian of the Marathas, after enlisting many deficiencies and mistakes in Grant's History confirmed the assessment of Kirtane and said further that his history was not more than a chronicle. Grant's history was also translated into Marathi by Captain David and Baba Sane and published in 1829-30. Text books on History were prepared on the basis of information contained in these histories which presented a distorted picture of the Maratha Rule with a view to justify their conquest of the country. It was, therefore, necessary to remove the prejudices developed by the non-Marathi speaking people, through reading the historical writings of the British to whom the Marathas were simply plunderers who thrived on looting other Indian powers.
The British rulers, who strove to inculcate the feeling of distrust among the Indians, and prevent the revival of Maratha power, put restrictions on the researches in the Maratha period, which was a hot bed according to them. This restrictive policy of the British denying free access to the archival material preserved in the Government Archives, induced a group of Marathi scholars to launch a popular movement for collecting historical material from the historically old families of the Marathas in the last quarter of the 19th century. Individual historians like Kashinath Narayan Sane (1851-1927) Vasudev Shastri Khare (1858-1924), Vinayak Kashinath Rajwade (1864-1926) and Dattatraya Balwant Parasnis (1870-1926) dug out private archives of Maratha princes, jagirdars, sardars, ministers, and others to counteract the restrictive policy of the colonial rule and present an authentic and real picture of the Maratha power, and remove thereby the misgivings created by the historical writing of the British. Rajwade V.K., for instance founded the Bharat Itihas Samshodhak Mandal at Pune in 1910 on the model of the German historian Leopold Von Ranke (1795-1886), with a view to collect, preserve, and publishing authentic source material and promote scientific research in Indian history. The latter half of the 19th century witnessed a flood of historical writings including various forms of literature like novels, plays, poetry, epics, miscellaneous writings, besides the publication of source material. Thus, the period from Gopal Hari Deshmukh, (Popularly known as Lokhitwadi) (1823-1892) to Lokmanya B.G. Tilak (1856-1920) produced many historical writings, which helped to awaken the interests of masses in their past history.
Immediate Cause
However the immediate cause which aroused much interest in Shivaji among the intellectuals, elites and masses of Maharashtra was the references to the dilapidated condition of Shivaji's tomb at Raigad, made by a British visitor James Douglas in his work entitled `A book of Bombay', first published in 1883 and reproduced in his bigger book `Bombay and Western Indian' published from London in 1893. Douglas visited the Raigad fort in 1883 and when he found the cenotaph (Samadhi) of Shivaji in a dilapidated condition, the temple in a wretched plight, and the image therein thrown on the ground, pathetically observed, "Nobody now cares for Shivaji, not one rupee is spent on the annual repairs of the tomb of Shivaji Maharaj who was master of an enormous kingdom."
Douglas further urged the British Government, who had acquired the Kingdom of Shivaji and his successors to look into this matter, in a note in which he said, "The British Government conserves the architectural remains of Tudor and Stuarts. Will not the Bombay Government do as much for the tomb, the temple and the arch of Shivaji? A few crumbs that fall from the archaeological bureau of Western India would suffice to keep in repair memorials of a dashing and most romantic period."
The efforts of James Douglas, however, did not go in vain. In view of these remarks, and the pressure from the public, the British Government, not only declared it as a Monument of Protection but also made some provision for its repairs and maintenance.
The remarks of James Douglas about the neglect of the forts in general and Raigad in particular also created a stir in Maharashtra and both the press and the intellectuals resented the Government policy strongly. Raigad was made the symbol of patriotism, and people were reminded by the Press, as early as 1885, of their negligence of patriotism. Justice M.G. Ranade, the author of the famous classic `Rise of the Maratha Power' organised a public meeting at Hirabag in Pune in 1886 to promote interest in the issue of Shivaji Memorial. It was attended by many important people including the Maratha Sardars, Landlords and even the representative of the Kolhapur State.
Lokmanya and the Shivaji Memorial Movement
Lokmanya Tilak being otherwise busy with several other issues including his own research in Vedic literature, perhaps, did not actively participate in the Shivaji Memorial issue. But an article in the Native opinion of V.N. Mandlik (1895) in which the author after personally visiting the Raigad fort concurred with James Douglas's views which were reproduced again in his book Bombay and Western India in 1893 about the deplorable condition of the shrine of Maharaja Shivaji at Raigad. This kindled the imagination of Tilak and in his article in the Kesari of April 23, 1895 he condemned himself and the sardars and jagirdars for letting the samadhi to fall into decay. He wrote sarcastically, but the sardars and the chiefs knew that they are not likely to be benefited by Shivaji as he is dead and gone. This exhortation had its desired effect in attracting people from all strata of society and raising the funds for repairs, maintenance, a chhatri on the tomb, and annual birthday celebration. He made this a issue of national interest and gave to it the shape of a movement which was later on known as the Shivaji Movement which spread in the other parts of the country like Bengal, United Provinces, Assam and some places in the South as a political movement and a part of the India's struggle for freedom.
Tilak organised a public meeting on 30th May 1895 at Hirabag, Pune on the same lines as Justice Ranade had done in 1886. A Smarak Committee of 50 members including Tilak was appointed in this meeting to raise substantial funds for the Shivaji Memorial to give a fitting reply to the Bombay Government which had sanctioned a ridiculous grant of Rs. five per annum for the repairs and maintenance of the tomb of the Maratha Chhatrapati. This appeal touched the public and donations started pouring into the Memorial Fund from two annas of a student to one thousand of Maharaj Sayajirao Gaikwad of Baroda, and within a period of six months an amount to the tune of Rs. Nine thousand was collected.
In view of this unexpected response from the public it was decided that henceforth the birthday of Shivaji be celebrated on the Raigad fort itself, instead of the earlier practice of organising it at Mahad. The Committee also framed provisional rules to regulate celebrations to be held at Raigad from 1896 on a large scale, and published them in the Kesari (3rd March 1896).
Tilak had also planned to direct the attention of the National leaders and make the birthday celebrations of Shivaji, a national festival. He organised a meeting on 29th December 1895 at the Reay Market (now known as Phule Market) which was addressed by national leaders like Surendra Nath Banerjee, President of the Indian National Congress, and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya.
Tilak had decided to hold the Birthday celebrations at Raigad with a double purpose, firstly to take the people to the fort and let them see for themselves the dilapidated position of the Shivaji Memorial and make them contribute generously to the Fund; and secondly, to declare that what government could not do, the people of Maharashtra will do i.e. the repairs and maintenance by raising funds.
Several objections were raised by the Government while granting permission to hold the function at Raigad. The proposal was rejected first on the ground that Raigad was a reserved forest area, and secondly by objecting to the Marathi term Yatra used in the letter of the organizers which was translated into English by the Oriental Translator to the Government as Fair, which was considered equivalent in English to Market and as per the provisions of the Markets and Fairs Act of 1862 for want of sufficient notice, the request of the organisers was turned down. The organisers substituted the word `Yatra' by `Utsava' and approached the Government again.
Tilak was an elected member of the Legislative Council of the Bombay Government since 1893. He arranged a personal interview with the Governor of Bombay who was holidaying in Mahabaleshwar in April 1896 and obtained the necessary permission from the Governor by promising him that no untoward incidents would take place during the course of the festival. Thus, with the explicit permission of the Government, the celebrations were held on 15th April 1896, as declared, and the National Festival of Shivajayanti was inaugurated with great pomp and splendour. The Kesari of 21st April 1896 reported that over 6000 persons from various places of Maharashtra had gathered on the fort to witness the festival and pay their humble homage to their great national hero. The press in general reported it as `the most glorious and successful function that was ever held at the Raigad fort.' Probably since the coronation of Shivaji which was held over 250 years ago, there had been no function similar to the one held this year.
The Government, however, was not prepared to express any opinion in favour or otherwise on this movement officially called `the Shivaji boom'. To Mr. Nugent, a member of the Council of Governor, `the entire agitation is purely a Brahmin move. The Marathas have held aloof' (25-7-1897).
Direct Contribution to Research
The initial success in celebrating the birthday of Shivaji, involved him in direct research in Maratha history, particularly regarding fixing the correct date and place of Shivaji's birth. As regards, the place of birth of Shivaji, all historians unanimously accepted the fort of Shivaneri as the place where Shivaji was born; but opinion was divided about the year and date of his birth -whether it was Vaishakha of Shaka 1549 (1627 AD) or Falgun of Shaka 1551 (1630 AD).
V. K. Rajwade, the doyen among the Maratha historians, in his introduction to the Marathyanchya Itihasachi Sadhane vol. IV published in 1900 discusses the issue of Shivaji's birthdate and on the basis of a chronological note submitted by one Kashinath Krishna Lele of Dhar (Dewas) in 1801 for publication in Kavyeitihas Samgraha periodical of K.N. Sane. This chronology of Dhar mentions that Shivaji was born on Monday, the Vaishakha Shudha Panchami of the Prabhav Samvatsar and the nakshatra (constellation) was Rohini. According to the English calender the birthday falls on 10th April 1627. Grant Duff denies it and says that Shivaji was born in the month May of the Year 1627 which is obviously not correct. He examined the bakhars (chronicles) saptaprakarnatmak Charitra of Shivaji by Malhar Ramrao Chitnis and Shivadigvijya (found in Baroda in 1818, written by an unknown author) suggesting Shaka 1549 Vaishakha Shudha Dwitiya, Thursday as the birthday of Shivaji, and rejected it on the ground that the Rohini nakshatra does not occur on Thursday. Rajwade doubts the motives of the chroniclers in advocating Vaishaka Dwitiya (7 April 1627) instead of Panchami. It was believed in those days that the king must be born on an auspicious day, and as Panchami did not fulfil that, they must have rejected it and conveniently fixed the birthdate on Dwitiya.
Tilak who was anxious to determine the exact birth date of Shivaji , was dragged into this birthday controversy by the above mentioned Introduction of Rajwade. He elaborately examined this issue in his article in the Kesari of 24th April 1900. He read Rajwade's 140 pages long introduction, it seems and appreciated his efforts of collecting all available information and examining it scientifically and carefully and arriving at some conclusions after examining the contradictory views of scholars. He also hoped that Rajwade would continue his research and examine the controversial or doubtful issues and enlighten his readers by supplying proper information.
Tilak was amazed to see that there was lack of consistency in the chronicles and historical documents about the birth date of a person who was born some 275 years ago, and that five to six versions about his birth date differing in the shaka (year) or, samvatsar (era) or tithi (date). On the basis of information that was available for him he could only surmise that most of the sources agree only on the month of birth, i.e. vaishakha but not with the date and other details, and therefore, he says, one can arrive at a proper decision only after critically examining all the issues involved in it.
Tilak critically examined nearly fourteen sources of information, contemporary and of little later period produced between 17th and early 19th century. They included poetic works like Shivaraj Bhushan or Shiva-Bhavani of a contemporary Hindi poet Bhushan of the North India, Shivakaya by Purushottam, bakhars like Sabhasadi, Citnisi, Chitragupta, Rairi, Shivadgvijaya, Shivapratap, Marathi Samrajyachi Choti Bakhar, 91 Qalimi bakhar, Panditrao bakhar, Pratinidhi bakhar, a chronological note from Dhar and horoscope published in Kavyeitihas Samgraha a periodical of K.N. Sane, and a chronology of the Chhatrpatis published in the Bharatvarsha periodical of D.B. Parasnis. This long list of sources alone is enough to show the deep interest taken by Tilak to establish a single point, namely the birth date of Shivaji.
He did not find a single correct date in all these sources which would fulfil all the tests of astronomical calculations. Out of the 14 sources, 9 give 11 different dates, and the remaining five are unanimous on one date but it does not pass the test of astronomy. He thus came to the conclusion that there are four major versions found in these sources and one has to decide the exact date of birth only after examining them. These probable four dates are :
1. Shaka 1549, Prabhav, Vaishakah Shudha 2, Saturday (7th April 1627)
2. Shaka 1549, Prabhav, Vaishakha Shudha 5, Tuesday (10th April 1627)
3. Shaka 1548, Kshaya, Samvatsar, Vaishakh 2, Monday (17th April 1626)
4. Shaka 1548, Kshaya, Vaishakha Shudha 5, Thursday (20th April 1626)
In these four versions, the month Vaishakha is common in all, but there is a difference in the tithi or day. As regards the difference in the year, Tilak rejects the year 1548 on the basis of the references to the date of his death which was shaka 1602, Chaitra Shudha 15, Sunday (4th April 1680) as all sources were unanimous on it, and after calculating the span of the career of Shivaji, he fixed the year 1549 as the year of birth.
He finally accepted a date which was nearer to the bakhar than that of Rajwade and it was Shaka 1549, Pravhav Samvatsar, Vaishakha Shudha Pratipada (nor 2nd or 5th Thursday, Ashwinin nakshatra (not Rohini) equivalent to 6th April 1627. However, he confessed that there was good deal of confusion regarding the date of birth of Shivaji, and appealed to the research scholars to express their views on this issue which he would gladly publish in his newspaper. He requested the organizers of the birthday celebrations to be held on Vaishakha Shudha pratipada from 1900 onwards.
The year and month, thus continued to be followed by the people for a fairly long time till new sources came forward. In the subsequent years two major sources namely the Jedhe Shakavali and the Sanskrit epic Shiva Bharat and epic composed by Kavindra Paramanand the poet laureate of Shivaji. However, when Tilak wrote the article in 1900 non of these sources of information were available to him. His search for getting an authentic source continued and he succeeded in laying his hands on the Jedhe Shakavali which he secured from Daji Saheb Jedhe Deshmukh of Kari (Bhor princely state ) by 1906-7 but could not find enough time to analyse it and so published it as he found it with a brief note, in the journal of the Bharat Itihas Samshodhak Mandal (BISM) in 1916. The other source i.e. Shivabharat came to light only in 1927, which confirmed the date given in the Jedhe Shakavali. A learned research scholar Dattopant Vinayak Apte of the BISM considered afresh in the light of these two new sources and rejected the findings of both Rajwade and Tilak, and declared Shaka 1551, Shukla Samvatsar, Falgun Vadya Tritiya, Friday, nakshtra, hasta, equivalent to 19th February 1630, as the correct date of Shivaji's birth. For a long time historians like G.S. Sardesai, Jadunath Sarkar and others, however did not accept the date advocated by the BISM, and the celebrations continued to be held at two different dates. After the information of Samyukta Maharashtra, the Government appointed a Committee of historians in 1960 to give a finality to this long pending controversy. But the majority decision of the committee submitted in 1966 was not implemented by the Government till February 2000, and now it is officially declared that Falgun Vadya Tritiya of Shaka 1551 (1630 AD) approved by the majority and advocated by the BISM as the authentic date for the celebration of Shiva Jayanti. Thus after nearly hundred years i.e. since Tilak wrote his article in April 1900, the controversy is now resolved. Tilak must get credit for this.
Tilak wrote a number of articles on Shivaji and other historical matters connected with Maharashtra since 1895 practically till the end of his life in 1920. During his long imprisonment at Mandalay (1908-1914) it is discovered from his note book, among other things, like history of Hinduism, Indian nationality, Hindu law, Geeta Rahasya, etc. he had even planned to write a biography of Shivaji. He also jotted down the purpose of his Shiva Charitra. According to him, Shivaji did not establish Maratha power for self but for the people of Maharashtra as a whole; his example was emulated by Peshwa Bajirao I, who by elevating Shinde, Holkar, Gaikwad, to the status of Maratha Sardars tried to show that this Maratha nation was for all. The lesson which Shivaji's life teaches, according to Tilak, was that leaders should not exploit caste, emphasis should be on talent and quality irrespective of the individual's social status.
http://www.ncte-in.org/pub/tilak/4.10.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->CHARACTER OF SHIVAJI
Sir Jadunath Sarkar
Shivaji's private life was marked by a high standard of morality. He was a devoted son, a loving father and an attentive husband. Intensely religious from his very boyhood, by instinct and training alike, he remained all through his life abstemious, free from vice, respectful to holy men, and passionately fond of hearing scripture readings and sacred stories and songs. But religion remained with him an ever-fresh fountain of right conduct and generosity; it did not obsess his mind nor harden him into a bigot. The sincerity of his faith is proved by his impartial respect for the holy men of all sects (Muslim as much as Hindu ) and toleration of all creeds. His chivalry to women and strict enforcement of morality in his camp was a wonder in that age and has extorted the admiration of hostile critics like Khafi Khan.
Royal Gift
He had the born leader's personal magnetism and threw a spell over all who knew him, drawing the best elements of the country to his side and winning the most devoted service from his officers, while his dazzling victories and ever ready smile made him the idol of his soldiery. His royal gift of judging character was one of the main causes of his success, as his selection of generals and governors, diplomatists and secretaries was never at fault and his administration was a great improvement on the past.
New system of warfare
His army organization was a model of efficiency; everything was provided beforehand and kept in its proper place under a proper caretaker; an excellent spy system supplied him in advance with the most minute information about the theater of his intended campaign; divisions of his army were combined or dispersed at will over long distances without failure; the enemy's pursuit or obstruction was successfully met and yet the booty was rapidly and safely conveyed home without any loss. his inborn military genius is proved by his instinctively adopting that system of warfare which was most suited to the racial character of his soldiers, the nature of the country, the weapons of the age, and the internal condition of his enemies. His light cavalry, stiffened with swift-footed infantry, was irresistible in the age of Aurangzeb.
Essence of statesmanship
The greatness of Shivaji's genius can be fully realised not from the extent of the kingdom he won for himself, nor from the value of the hoarded treasure he left behind him, but from a survey of the conditions amidst which he rose to sovereignty.
He was truly an original explorer, the maker of a new road in medieval Indian history, with no example or guide before him. When he chose to declare his independence, the Mogul empire seemed to be at the height of its glory. Every local chief who had, anywhere in India, revolted against it had been crushed. For a small jagirdar's son to defy its power, appeared as an act of madness, a courting of sure ruin. Shivaji, however, chose his path, and he succeeded.
His success can be explained only by an analysis of his political genius. First and foremost he possessed that unfailing sense of reality in politics, that recognition of the exact possibilities of his time ( tact des choses possibles ) which Cavour defined as the essence of statesmanship. His daring was tempered and guided by an instinctive perception of how far his actual resources could carry him, how long a certain line of action or policy was to be followed, and where he must stop.
Faithful lieutenants
Shivaji possessed the true master's gift of judging character at sight and choosing the fittest instruments for his work. This is proved by the successful execution of his orders by his agents in his absence. Many of the distant expeditions of his reign were conducted not by himself in person but by his generals, who almost always carried out his orders according to plan. This was a novel feat in an Asiatic monarchy, where everything depends on the master's presence. It was the training gained in Shivaji's service, aided by the Maratha national character for personal independence and initiative, that enabled the disorganized Maratha people to stand up against all the resources of the mighty Aurangzeb for eighteen years after the murder of Sambhaji and ultimately to defeat him, even though they had no king or capital to form the centre of the national defence.
Women's honour assured
His reign brought peace and order to his country, assured the protection of women's honour and the religion of all sects without distinction, extended the royal patronage to the truly pious men of all creeds ( Muslims no less than Hindus ), and presented equal opportunities to all his subjects by opening the public service to talent irrespective of caste or creed.* This was the ideal policy for a State with a composite population like India.
His gifts were peace and a wise internal administration. The stability of these good conditions was the only thing necessary for giving permanence to Shivaji's work and ensuring national consolidation and growth. But that stability was denied to his political creation. Only his example and name remained to inspire the best minds of succeeding generations with ideals of life and government, not unmixed with vain regrets.
*He was himself a Hindu, sincere in belief and orthodox in practice, and yet he employed a number of Muhammadan officers in the highest positions, such as Munshi Haidar ( who became Chief Justice of the Mogul empire on entering Aurangzeb's service ), Siddi Sambal, Siddi Misri and Daulat Khan ( admirals ), besides commanders like Siddi Halal and Nur Khan ( Dil. i-100 ). He gave legal recognition to the Muslim qazis in his dominions.
http://members.tripod.com/~Shivshahi/sarkar.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
[quote=Bharatvarsh,Apr 18 2006, 09:59 PM]
I started this topic to post exclusively about this great man, these days efforts are being made by commie traitors and morons like James Laine to portray Shivaji as a looter
[quote]Demeaning Shivaji, denigrating dharma
Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 27, 2004
Having purchased and read James Laine's Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India only after it was officially withdrawn by the publishers, I cannot view the events at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) as totally unjustified.
Moreover, the BORI scholars acknowledged by Laine must honestly inform the nation of the extent to which they are responsible for the unwarranted assertions -
Then, there is Laine's tasteless allegation that Shivaji may possibly (whatever that means) be illegitimate, simply because Jijabai, who bore many children while living with her husband in the south, gave birth to Shivaji on her husband's estate near Pune and continued to live there.
[/quote]
Noone is anti Hindu to start
Laine spent his time at ABORI.
His information came from there.
If Laine is writing negative material re Shivaji, the ABORI Hindu Scholars have only themsleves to blame
Ravi Chaudhary
04-19-2006, 08:14 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-19-2006, 08:20 PM by Bharatvarsh.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->His information came from there.
If Laine is writing negative material re Shivaji, the ABORI Hindu Scholars have only themsleves to blame<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No it did not come from there, he has not given any source for his claim that Shivaji was b@st@rd other than how some Marathas tell such naughty jokes (funny no Hindu I know ever heard of such a joke), BORI simply provided him access to the sources, what he wrote is his responsibility and as a supposed scholar he should be responsible about what he writes, with freedom comes responsibility. His insistence that Shivaji had no Hindu conciousness is nonsensical especially in light of the letters Shivaji wrote to Dadaji Naras Prabhu, Samarth Ramdas and Aurangzeb. Even his contemporary biographers and court historians are quite clear that he intended to establish a Hindu kingdom.
If someone goes to a research library and comes out with a book, the claims made in the book unless substantiated by historical sources are that persons responsibility, not the responsibility of the research library or its staff. Other people can't determine what Laine writes.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It may be surprising that, while none seriously
contends that Shivaji was indeed what he was
among his biographers in recent times, whether
Muslim, Hindu, or British: but that each and
every one is forced to confront the issue, for, as
we find in G. S. Sardesai's _New History of the
Marathas_:
   "But there is another class of writings which
   tried to account for this new agitation in
   Maharashtrian life, which few students have
   so far noticed. They consist of early
   BAKHARS and Prashastis (introductions)
   attached to Sanskrit works. Most of the
   Bakhars of Shivajim (here Sardesai lists the
   names of twelve separate early works), all
   these particularly treat the subject of the rise
   of Shivaji, but explain it in a different manner.
   They describe the earth as personified,
   unable to bear the atrocities... towards gods,
   brahmans and cows, and seeking relief from
   the God, Brahma, who in his turn appeals to
   Shankar (Shiva), Vishnu, or the Goddess
   Bhavani, and ultimately these gods heeded
   the solemn prayer of the earth and undertake
   a fresh incarnation for redressing the
   prevailing wrongs, and thus is Shivaji
   described to have been born." ...(Vol. One,
   pp. 39-40).
(For readers unaware of Indian historians, Mr.
G. S. Sardesai, close friend of Sir Jadunath
Sarkar and Mr. Rajwade's associate, is a first
class historian of our time with impeccable
credentials. He adds that the above as quoted
from him was the orthodox Hindu explanation
for the phenomenon known as the rise of Shivaji).
http://avatarmeherbaba.org/pipermail/quote...ril/000381.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Whatever its origins, the term was certainly well established in official usage by the 1670s, when the Maratha sovereign Shivaji ordered the preparation of a thematic Sanskrit thesaurus that would reduce the excessive use of "Yavani" (Islamic) terms of statecraft. Bakhair is listed in a chapter dealing with specialized terms used by recordkeepers and accountants (lekhanvarga) of the Rajvyavaharkosa, and given the Sanskrit equivalent akhyayika.42Akhyayika itself is defined in a classical Sanskrit thesaurus as uplabdharthaâobtained or received knowledgeâin meaning therefore, exactly the same as the South Asian usage of khabar.43
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals...109.4/guha.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The above-cited officials of Anjanvel certainly saw the coronation of the Maratha sovereign Shivaji in 1674 as an epoch-making event. That act was the culmination of a campaign that both drew on and reinforced local and regional patriotism. Shivaji began raising a local militia in the 1640s and seized some crucial strongholds in western Maharashtra from his nominal overlord, the Adilshahi sultan. The sultan's ministers sent threatening letters warning the local gentry that their heads would be struck off if they connived with him. Shivaji reassured a wavering supporter in a message that subtly highlighted his own rootedness in the locality: "Rohidesvara, the original presiding deity of your valley, who exists in self-created form next to the sendri tree on the plateau at the crest of your peak, has assured me success."65 Shivaji succeeded in founding an independent kingdom that survived a full-scale Mughal assault. The introductory chapter to Ramacandra Pant's treatise on statecraft was written in 1717: "This is the kingdom that was assailed by a powerful enemy like [the Mughal emperor] Aurangzeb and still beat him back. Aurangzeb focused all his forces and expended all his resources against it, but failed to conquer; bootless, disheartened he took himself off to the land of death. And Aurangzeb was master of fifty-four kingdoms; endowed with wealth and soldiers second to none, of whom it was famously said 'either the lord of Delhi or the lord of the world' [are equal in wealth]."66 Dynastic identity thus merged with and built on regional pride, and the protean bakhar was turned to yet another narrative: the construction of a common glorious past. 30Â
   Not surprisingly, therefore, one of the most famous early bakharsâthat detailing the life and deeds of Shivaji, was written in 1694, during the hard days of the struggle with the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, whose armies had overrun most of Maharashtra. Its author Krishnaji Anant Sabhasad framed text as an answer to King Rajaram's question: "My father achieved great feats of arms, confronted four empiresâsuch was his valor. That being so, how has Aurangzeb been able to come and wreck fort after fort? You are an old and knowledgeable servant of the stateâwrite an account of his [Shivaji's] deeds [caritra] from the very beginning." Significantly enough, the text, while opening with an invocation of the deeds of the founder-hero, ends by speaking in terms of a regional patria ruled by a Maratha king: "He proclaimed his dominance from the Narmada river up to Ramesvara [traditional southern extremity of India] and captured the land. Adalshai, Kutubshai, Nizamshai, Moglaiâthese four empires as well as the twenty-two empires from beyond the seas were kept in check and a new empire founded; a Maratha Padshah seated himself on the throne as a Chhatrapati [sovereign monarch]." It is perhaps not without significance that, while the work opens by describing itself as a caritra (biography), the closing sentences refer to it as a bakhar.67 The Maratha identity had been foregrounded from at least the 1670s, when a dependent of the newly crowned Chatrapati wrote a Sanskrit epic on his career. It begins with Shivaji's grandfather, Malavarman, who is emphatically described as a Maratha king ruling in Maharashtra.68 The identity was also extensively invoked by Shivaji's sons and successors during the darkest periods of the war with the Mughals.69
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals...109.4/guha.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
|
