History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c41.258

v2.c41.258

News was received of the murder of the boy Peshwa Nārāyaṇ Rāo is said to have been murdered by Sakhārām and some other *Risaldārs* of Raghunāth Rāo on the 9th of September 1773. This date is not correct. According to Sardesai the murder of Nārāyaṇ Rāo took place on Monday the 30th of August 1773, *i.e.*, seven clear days before the date given in the paper of news received by the English Governor in Calcutta sometime between October 23 and 25. With the murder of Nārāyaṇ Rāo the entire trend of Maratha History changes completely. This cowardly assassination brought Raghunāth Rāo to the forefront and the Maratha power in India to the verge of a collapse from which it was saved by Nānā Faḍnis and Mahādji Śinde. In order to understand the real position so far as the Bhonsle kingdom and therefore Orissa was concerned we must go back a full year. The date of the death of Jānuji Bhonsle is not yet fixed. Sardesai states that Januji died in the month of May 1772, but his widow Mahārāṇi Daryābāī applied for permission to bring his ashes to the Ganges through Beṇi Rām Pandit in January 1775 and the earliest mention of Daryābāī is in a letter written to her on the 15th of August 1774. Unless Jānuji Bhonsle died at a later date there is no other reason for which his ashes were detained at Nagpur till January 1775. We have however to follow the lead of Sardesai¹ as the most trustworthy writer on modern Maratha History after Grant Duff. Raghuji Bhonsle I had left four sons, out of whom only Mudhoji had any children. Jānuji was the eldest. Sardesai gives a different date for Jānuji's death in a previous volume of his work, 29th April 1771.²