New History of the Marathas v1.c16.26

v1.c16.26

During the unhappy closing days of Shivaji's life, his vision came to be dismally clouded for various reasons, and he purposely went to seek advice from his *guru* and spent a month in his company at Sajjangad. The question was, as Shivaji was visibly dying, who should conduct the affairs of the Maratha State, seeing that Sambhāji had proved himself hopelessly unfit. Taking a dispassionate view of the situation as we know it now, Rāmdās, if he had had the inclination to handle political matters, should have called together when Shivaji was there on a visit to him, the principal officials and publicly declared some definite scheme of succession for their execution. Such a course would have averted the perilous situation which developed from the absence of a formal declaration of Shivaji's heir. Instead of this Rāmdās at that visit of Shivaji merely gave expression to the conventional blissful sentiments of satisfaction at Shivaji's achievements, which we find embodied in that exquisite poem *Anand-Vana-Bhuvan*, summarizing the hero's life-work.