Muntakhab al-lubab 35.1

35.1

[vol. ii. p. 110.] I now relate what I have heard from trusty men of the Dakhin and of the Mahratta race about the origin and race of the reprobate Sivaji. His ancestors owe their origin to the line of the Ranas of Chitor. In the tribe of the Rajputs, and among all Hindus, it is the settled opinion, that to have a son by a woman of a different caste, or to beget one upon a slave-girl (kaniz), is wrong and censurable. But if in youth, when the passions are strong, a man should have a son by a strange woman, he should take him into his house and have him brought up among his confidential handmaids and slaves. But nothing descends to such a son on the death (of the father). Even if the mother of the child is of a better stock than the father, she cannot marry him unless she be of the same tribe. If, through love, a man consorts with such a woman, and has a son, the child is looked upon with great disdain, he is brought up as a bastard, and can only marry with one like himself. If a woman of the merchant caste goes into the house of a man of lower caste than herself, or the daughter of a Brahman consorts with a Khatri, every child that is born is looked upon as a slave (kaniz o ghulam). It is said that one of the ancestors of Sivaji, from whom he received the name of Bhoslah, dwelt in the country of the Rana. He formed a connexion with a woman of inferior caste, and, according to the custom of his tribe, he took the woman to himself without marriage. She bore him a son.