History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c42: Appendix III. Sambhaji Ganesh Khandekar
History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c42
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Appendix III. Sambhaji Ganesh Khandekar
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Chance led me to correspond with Mr. Ganpatrao Gopal Khandekar of Harasidhi gate, Ujjain, and thus to the discovery of the real name of Sambhaji Ganes, at one time Subha of Orissa. As Kāsirao Rājesvar Gupte's Bakhar, edited by Vāman Dāji Ok and published by Kāsi Nāth Nārāyaṇ Sāne of the Deccan College, Poona, is extremely rare in Northern India, I had to apply to Mr. Govind Sakhāram Sardesai for it. Mr. Sardesai kindly requested Mr. Khandekar to lend me an incomplete copy of the edition of 1885, as he could not spare his own copy at that time. On receiving Mr. Sardesai's requisition Mr.Khandekar at once lent me his copy, which has enabled me to add many important details to Chapter XXVII. During the correspondence which followed Mr. Khandekar supplied me with some very important facts of the Maratha rule in Orissa. The first important item of information was about the surname of Sambhaji Ganes. Mr.Khandekar informed me that Sambhaji Ganes or Ganes Sambhaji was the brother of one of his ancestors. He wrote to me on the 2nd October, 1929, that so far the family name of Sambhaji Ganes has not been traced and that formerly it was considered uncourteous to write the family names of distinguished persons in his community, i.e., Deccani Brahmanas, in official correspondence. Mr. Ganpatrao Gopal Khandekar is a direct descendant of the younger brother of Sambhaji Ganes, the Subha of Orissa.
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Details of the Jagamohana of the Liṅgarāja
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The second important point, the knowledge of which we also owe to Mr. Khandekar, is the real name of this important person. There is a certain amount of confusion in the Calendar of Persian Correspondence published by the Imperial Record Department of the Government of India. In the majority of cases the name is written in the form of Sambhājī Ganeś.¹ In one case only the name is given as Ganeś Sambhājī. In the case of this letter, which was received from Mahārājā Jānojī Bhonsle on the 2nd July, 1768, the summary says, : "Since the return of Bhavani Pandit, who was the former Subahdar of Cuttack, Ganesh Sambhaji who is a man of great knowledge and tried courage, and is perfectly polite in his manner, has been deputed from hence with a well-appointed army."²
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¹ Calendar of Persian Correspondance, Vol. II, p. 252, No. 892.
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² Ibid., p. 282, No. 1027.
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Hitherto this transposition in the name was regarded as being due to the very careless and ignorant compilers of the Calendar, as even letters from accredited agents of the Maratha Government of Nagpur, like Udepuri Gosain, use the form Sambhaji Ganeś.³ Mr. Khandekar's claim now lays stress on the form of the name Ganeś Sambhājī. Moreover, this letter, received by the Governor of Bengal on the 2nd July, 1768, was written by Mahārājā Jānojī and not by any agent or intermediary of the Government of Nagpur. Only one fact still stands in the way; that the names Ganeś and Sambhājī were transposed so many times in the Persian Correspondence of the Government of India. Mr. Ganpatrao Gopal Khandekar informs me in the same letter that in an old memorandum preserved in his family records Ganeś Sambhājī is said to have enjoyed the patronage of the Bhonsles. Such memoranda, Qursinamahs and Roznamchas very rarely commit such mistakes in the case of proper names. The full name of Sambhājī Ganeś is really Ganeś Sambhājī Khandekar and his family came to Orissa from Upper India. The subsequent migrations of his descendants to Ujain in the dominions of the Mahārāja Sinde of Gwalior do not concern the History of Orissa.
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³ Ibid., p. 273, No. 961.