The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.s1.3

v4.c21.s1.3

For the next three centuries, with the Deccan under the heel of the Muhammadans, no writer of note appeared. Then in the seventeenth century, the national renaissance which culminated in Shivājī began to gather force. The earliest poet of this period was Eknāth of Paithan, who, though a Brāhman, denounced the caste-system, and went so far as to dine with a Mahār, an almost unheard-of action. He died in 1608. His grandson Mukteshvar, together with Tukārām and Rāmdās, was a contemporary of Shivājī. Shivājī, though formally illiterate, was a fervent admirer of his country's songs and legends, and it is said that more than once he risked capture when going to Poona in disguise to hear a religious recitation. He tried to persuade Tukārām to come to his court. But Tukārām, absorbed in his intense love of Vithobā, cared for none of these things. He was a poor trader by profession, knowing no Sanskrit, and his artless verses are sung in countless village homes all over the Deccan to-day. Rāmdās, on the other hand, was a Brāhman, and was Shivājī's *gurū* or spiritual preceptor. It is said that Shivāji surrendered his kingdom to him, and received it back "in trust from God", and for this reason, the national standard of the Marāthās, the *Bhagwā Jhanda*, was the orange robe of the ascetic. The verses of Rāmdās, full of wise saws, remind us of the Proverbs of King Solomon, and his teaching undoubtedly had a formative effect upon Shivāji. He died in 1681.