A History of the Mahrattas v1.c12.78

v1.c12.78

¹ [Rāmdās Swāmī (1608–81), whose original name was Narayan, son of Suryājī Pant, established himself as a youth in Chaphal, Sātāra District, and claimed to be an incarnation of Hanumān, the monkey-god, who assisted the hero of the Rāmāyaṇa in his search for Sītā. Hence the name Rāmdās, or ‘slave of Rāma.’ Sivājī’s meeting with the Swāmī is supposed to have taken place in 1649, and subsequently Sivājī bestowed upon him the hill-fort of Parli (or Sajjangarh) in Sātāra, where Rāmdās resided until his death. The date of Sivājī’s meeting with Rāmdās has recently been discussed in the vernacular press of the Deccan, some writers holding that it took place only a year or two before Sivājī’s coronation. Brahman admirers of Sivājī accept the earlier date, and prefer to give to Rāmdās the chief credit of Sivājī’s political achievements. The evidence so far available is not sufficiently definite to warrant the rejection of the view that the meeting took place before Sivājī’s twenty-fifth year. (Professor H. G. Limaye’s review in Fergusson College Magazine, February 1919, pp. 155–68.) Professor J. Sarkar is of opinion that Rāmdās’s influence was purely spiritual, and that the evidence as to his political influence is ‘neither adequate nor free from suspicion.’ (Shivaji and His Times, pp. 474–5.)]