A History of the Mahrattas v2.c35.39

v2.c35.39

¹ The Bramins of Poona have two stories respecting the fate of this criminal, both intended as apologies for the execution of a Bramin under a Bramin government. One is, that the impostor was not a Bramin, but a goldsmith; and the other is, that he was secretly removed and immured in a dungeon at Ahmednugur, where he was starved to death, and a condemned criminal, by trade a goldsmith, substituted to deceive the populace. Starvation, insufficient, unwholesome food, and a damp dungeon was really the dreadful execution frequently reserved for Bramins, and practised by the Bramin government by way of evading the inexpiable sin of depriving one of that sacred class of life. Amongst other stories, raised by the Peishwas to prejudice the vulgar against the race of Sivajee, it was pretended that the boon of the goddess Bhowanee, the truth of which no one could deny, which granted the Mahratta sovereignty to his lineal descendants for twenty-seven generations, had been taken away because Sivajee killed two Bramin spies with his own hand, having shot them with arrows, by means of that unerring aim which was one of the gifts of the goddess, and impiously hit them in the forehead, right through the distinguishing mark of their cast.