1. Origin of the Marathas.
2. The Marathi language.
3. Political Background of Maharashtra.
4. Rise of the Manabhav sect.
5. Manabhav literature.
6. Deaths of Chakradhar and Hemadri.
7. Successful revolt against Muslims.
8. Saints and writers of Maharashtra.
9. Maratha character.
10. The present day Marathas.
11. The Maratha country pulsation.

v1.c5.27

1. Origin of the Marathas.—The latest census has computed two and a half crores of persons to be the Marāthi-speaking population of India, and most of them inhabit that portion of the country which has been known by the ancient name Mahārāshtra, ‘the great nation of the Rathas, Rathikas or Rashtrikas’, famous from the days of yore for valour and energy. In the literature of the early Christian centuries the words Mahārāshtra, Mahārāshtrika and Mahārāshtri (the last being the name of one of the Prakrit languages) occur in copious frequency. Mahārathi (masculine) and Mahārathini (feminine) are words in the Karla cave and other inscriptions of the Sātavāhana period. Varāhamihira, a famous astronomer of the sixth century, uses the word Mahārāshtras, which later came to be corrupted into Mahrāttā or Marāthā. Rājashekhar, a Sanskrit author of the 9th century, uses the word Marahatti in the feminine gender. The word occurs in various forms in all subsequent literatures of India.¹

v1.c5.28

Mahārāshtra, as its plain meaning shows, is a great Rāshtra or nation formed by a race of men who in ancient times were probably known as Ratthas, some of whom came to be styled Mahāratthas or great Ratthas. The land which they occupied also came to be called after them, that is, the

v1.c5.29

1. Several hypotheses have been put forth by different scholars on the origin of the word Maratha.

v1.c5.30

country of great men. Their language too was first known as Mahārāshtri, a Prakrit dialect whose range was originally much wider than that of the present Marāthi, its later derivative. The large tract of western India known to this day as Mahārāshtra, extended from the Arabian sea on the west to the Satpura mountains in the north, and comprised the modern tracts of Konkan, Khandesh, Berar, part of the Central Provinces, the British Deccan and about a third of the Nizam’s dominions, the whole being known as Marātha-vādā.

v1.c5.31

The land south of the river Narmada was called by the Aryan settlers as Dakshināpatha and included the Dandakāranya which was so named from the vast forest that stretched southwards from the Tapti to the Godavari. During the early centuries of the Christian era Mahārāshtra consisted of three distinct portions, *viz.* the first, Vidarbha or Berar; the second, Asmaka or the Godavari basin (later known as Seuna Desh); and the third Kuntala, that is the valley of the river Krishnā. It also embraced the western coastal region known as Aparānta or Konkan, stretching from Daman in the north to Goa or even Karwar in the south. Thus, the lands between the Narmada and the upper Krishna practically formed the main Mahārāshtra country in which first the Prakrit Mahāshtri and later its derivative Marathi, was spoken and which linguistically and geographically is one solid homogeneous block, although at present cut up into several disjointed political areas.²

v1.c5.32

² The Aihole inscription of the famous Chalukya monarch Satyāshraya Pulakeshi dated the Christian year 634 (556 Shaka), accurately mentions the extent of Mahārāshtra, as containing three portions, altogether comprising 99,000 villages. The three parts probably are Vidarbha (including Asmaka), Kuntala, and Aparanta. अगमदधिपतित्वं यो महाराष्ट्रकाणां, नवनवतिसहस्रग्रामभाजां श्रयाणाम् ॥

v1.c5.33

Thus Mahārāshtra proper where the Marāthi language prevails, can be understood with almost exact accuracy as a right-angled triangle, of which one side is represented by the western coast line from Daman to Karwar and the other from

v1.c5.34

Subsequent to the date of this inscription ample testimony is available confirming this description of Mahārāshtra, but the exact number of villages in it and its accurate demarcation are still open questions.

v1.c5.35

Daman straight east to Nagpur and Gondia, practically along the river Tapti. The hypotenuse of this triangle would be an irregular line joining Gondia to Karwar and touching in its course the towns of Belgaum, Sholapur and Bidar. The North Khandesh territory lying between the rivers Tapti and Narmada is indeed a border land of essentially Mahārāshtrian character. In the daily religious rites of the Maratha people this demarcation of Mahārāshtra is still being commonly repeated.³

v1.c5.36

The people of this land were known in early ages as Ratthas, Mahāratthas or Rāshtrakutas, who had long since earned great distinction for wealth, valour and political power. An image of a Mahā-rattha warrior is to be seen to this day in the Nane-Ghat caves near Junnar, which were carved by the Andhra rulers about the first century of the Christian era. The present Marathi tongue is the direct descendant of the literary Prakrit *Mahārāshtri*, the language of Mahārāshtra.

v1.c5.37

These ancient Ratthas came to be divided into and known by the names of several sub-tribes or families, such as the Sātavāhanas, the Bhojas, the Mauryas, the Kadambas, the Silāharas, the Yādavas, the Chālukyas, the Rāshtrakutas, etc., some of whom established in this region powerful kingdoms of their own, patronized arts and literature and produced many great rulers of outstanding merit. Their cultural achievements are perpetuated to this day by the unique execution and grandeur of the caves of Bhaja and Karla, of Ellora, Ajanta and Elephanta, and the temples and sculptures in which this land of Mahārāshtra so fully abounds. These Ratthas or Mahāratthas must have been a hardy race in whose character the best traits of the Aryan settlers from the north were blended with the best characteristics of the indigenous stock of western India.

v1.c5.38

2. The Marathi language.—The Aryan settlers when they first entered this vast Indian continent brought with them their ancient Vedic culture and their highly refined tongue Sanskrit, which in due course imparted its polish to the origi-

v1.c5.39

3. “गोदावर्याः उत्तरे or दक्षिणे तीरे or कृष्णावेण्योः उत्तरे तीरे”

v1.c5.40

nal dialects which used to be spoken in the various wild recesses of the land. These local speeches came to be styled under the common denomination "Prakrit", meaning the natural and unartificial dialects used by the common folk as distinguished from Sanskrit, which was the refined medium employed by learned priests, poets and authors in their works. These Prakrit speeches came to be classified, according to their regional character or religious importance, into five or six main divisions each with a literature and a grammar of its own, viz. Mahārāshtri, Pāli or Māgadhi, Ardha-Māgadhi, Sauraseni and Paisachi, not to speak of Tamil and other primary Dravidian tongues which prevailed in the southern peninsula. Of all these mediæval languages, Mahārāshtri was the most highly cultivated and at one time it was most widely used in popular speech and literature, right from the borders of Malwa and Rajputana in the north to the banks of the Krishna and the Tungabhadra in the south. Buddhist literature mostly exists in Pāli and Jain literature in Ardha-Māgadhi, while Sauraseni prevailed in the region round about Mathura, the land of the Saurasenas, and Paisachi had its hold in the north-west, i.e., in the western Punjab and beyond. All these Prakrit languages have been freely employed by classical writers like Kalidas and others in the dramas that they produced, Sanskrit being spoken by the higher characters and the Prakrits by the females, servants and lower classes. It is clear that by about 500 B.C. Sanskrit had gone out of use as a spoken language and the Prakrits had taken its place in popular parlance. The most important of these Prakrits was doubtless Mahārāshtri in which there exists a copious literature, consisting of several well-known works of high merit, such as *Sapta-Shati*, *Setu-bandha*, *Gauda Vaho* and *Karpura-Manjari*, etc. The first of these, that is, *Sapta-Shati*, is a famous anthology of 700 verses selected from different writers by King Hala of the Sātavāhana dynasty, who flourished about the first century after Christ. This *Sapta-Shati* contains the names of mountains, rivers and towns of Mahārāshtra, many of which are still extant. Grammarians specifying rules for the various Prakrits mainly depend upon Mahārāshtri for their illustrations. The word Mahārāshtri came to be corrupted into Marhati or as it was latterly called, Marathi. Rajashekhar, a learned Mahārāshtra poet, who is known to have lived from 884 to 959 A.C., has written several Sanskrit and Prakrit works, *Ramayana*, *Bala-Bharata*, *Viddha-Shala-Bhanjika*, *Karpura-Manjari*, etc., and his Prakrit works in point of style mark the borderland between the outgoing Mahārāshtri and the incoming Marathi.

v1.c5.41

If one were to trace the linguistic development of India through ancient times, one might roughly put down Vedic Sanskrit to be the spoken speech of the early Aryans until about 500 B.C. ; Mahārāshtri and the other Prakrits were in vogue for about a thousand years from 500 B.C. to 500 A.C., after which Marathi and other modern Indian languages gradually began to take shape; and Marathi became the language of the court and learned writers from about 800-1000 A.C. onwards. *Bhāvārtha-Dīpika*, a commentary on the *Bhagavadgita* by the first great writer in Marathi, Jnaneshwar, is the earliest celebrated work in Marathi, having been completed in the year 1290 A.C. during the reign of King Ramachandra Yadav of Devgiri, only four years before he was attacked and his kingdom destroyed by the Muslim conqueror Ala-ud-din Khilji. Jnaneshwar concludes his work with these words, "I have thus decorated the Goddess of Gita with this country ornament."⁴ Side by side with the use of the Prakrits and Marathi, the use of classical Sanskrit was never abandoned as the literary tongue *par excellence*. Learned scholars always preferred to write in Sanskrit.

v1.c5.42

⁴ शके बाराशें बारोत्तरें । तैं टीका केली ज्ञानेश्वरें । केले ज्ञानदेवें गीते । देशीकार लेणें ।

v1.c5.43

One may be curious to know what are the oldest existing compositions in Marathi. Curiously enough, the oldest writings⁵ in Marathi comes from the Mysore State, being dated 983 A.C. A few inscriptions in old Marathi have been found in different places, such as Palasdev (1157 A.C.), Ter (1184 A.C.), Parel (A.C. 1180), another at Patan in Khandesh (A.C. 1206) and one at Pandharpur (A.C. 1273). Some stray pages of *Panchatantra* translated from Sanskrit into old Marathi and an astronomical treatise by Shripati called *Ratnamālā* are known to be the earliest extant compositions in Marathi. Mukundrāja preceded Jnaneshwar by about a hundred years and wrote his work *Viveka-Sindhu* in Marathi, although the present manuscripts give a modernized form of it. The Mahanubhav literature of the last quarter of the thirteenth century is also available for the study of old Marathi. While, therefore, we are sure that modern Marathi began to take a definite shape about 1200 A.C., the writing, the forms and structure now available to us, belong to a much later period.

v1.c5.44

⁵ श्रीचामुंडराएं करवियले= "Executed by Chamund Rai" is an inscription near the left-foot of the statue of Gomateshwar at Sravana-Bel-gola about 60 miles north-west of Mysore.

v1.c5.45

It was Jnanadev’s boast to have transplanted the best thoughts of the Sanskrit language into the popular Marathi. He bestows the highest eulogy on Marathi and declares it to be in no way inferior to the polished Sanskrit. What height the Marathi language and the Maratha people had then attained can well be imagined from the following eloquent words of Jnanadev. “There rules,” says he, “Shri Ramachandra, the magnificent scion of the Yadav dynasty, the supporter of all arts, a monarch who rules justly.” ⁶

v1.c5.46

Since the days of Jnaneshwar a regular succession of saints and poets began to appear rapidly and to enrich the Marathi language in increasing volume and grandeur, till the advent of the great Maratha hero Shivaji. A people is thus inseparably connected with its land and language.

v1.c5.47

3. Political background of Maharashtra.—How was this land of the ‘great nation’ ruled in bygone ages? The earliest glimpse we obtain in this connection refers to Chandra-

v1.c5.48

6. तेथ यदुवंश विलास । जो सकल कला निवास ।
न्यायातें पोषी क्षितीश । श्रीरामचंद्र ॥

v1.c5.49

This compliment paid by the great author to King Ramadeva need not be interpreted as an accurate historical statement. It was rather the formal expression of a poet’s reverence towards the ruling sovereign.

v1.c5.50

About Marathi Jnaneshwar says —

v1.c5.51

मूळ ग्रंथीचिया संस्कृता— । वरी मराठी नीट पाहतां ।
अभिप्राय मानलिया चित्ता । कवण भूमि ते न चोजवे ॥
माझा मऱ्हाठाचि बोल कौतुकें । परी अमृतातें ही पैजा जिंके ।
ऐसी अक्षरेंचि रसिकें । मेळवीन ॥

v1.c5.52

gupta Maurya, an Indian warrior contemporary with Alexander the Great, who had established his sway over Mahārāshtra. Chandragupta’s grandson Ashoka took the cue from his grandfather and extended his Empire to the east and the south. Throughout this Indian continent his numerous edicts have been discovered, which prove that great monarch’s zeal for the spiritual amelioration of his people and his enthusiasm for the spread of the teachings of Lord Buddha. Thereafter during the early centuries of the Christian era, Mahārāshtra was ruled for about 300 years (B.C. 73 to A.C. 218) by a dynasty of rulers known as Āndhra or Sātavāhana whose capital city was Pratisthān or Paithan, situated on the river Godavari, then a renowned seat of learning, culture and commercial activity. Some of the Puranas enthusiastically describe the conquests and achievements of these Sātavāhana rulers, after whom the present Shaka era has been named. The Sātavāhanas attained a high degree of civilization which is disclosed by the wonderful caves of Nasik, Karla, Bhaja, and Kanheri, as well as by a number of coins and inscriptions which have been discovered, belonging to that dynasty.

v1.c5.53

The several clans of the ancient Ratthas, among whom may be included the Rāshtrakutas, the Bānas, etc., exercised influence at different places under the Sātavāhanas, although they were then too weak to assert any organized political power. During the 4th and 5th centuries the Gupta Emperors of northern India now and then extended their influence over rulers of the Deccan such as the Vakatakas, Kalachuris and Kadambas, but it is doubtful if the Guptas actually ruled over any portions of these Deccan lands. At the beginning of the sixth century, however, a new dynasty of the Chālukyas appeared on the scene and gave this land a succession of wise and strong rulers for more than a century and a half. They ruled from Badami, now a town in the district of Bijapur. Satyāshraya pulakeshi, the most famous ruler of this Chālukya dynasty,⁷ who reigned from 608—642 A.C., successfully repelled an attack of the Emperor Harsha and strongly guarded the northern boundary of Mahārāshtra at the river Narmada. The Chinese traveller Yuan Chwang visited Pulakeshi’s court and has left an illuminating account of that ruler's policy and achievements, and of the Maratha people as well. The Chālukyas worshipped the God Shiva and assumed grand titles significant of their power and fame.

v1.c5.54

⁷ See note 2 on page 12.

v1.c5.55

The Chālukyas were succeeded by another powerful dynasty, the Rāshtrakutas, who ruled Mahārāshtra for a period of 225 years from about 750 to 975 A.C., the longest on record for any southern Hindu dynasty to hold sway. It is a most important epoch in the history of the Deccan, when both the Karnatak and Mahārāshtra were welded into one political entity. Most of the rulers were able men; in a line of 14 kings only 3 were found to be inefficient. Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism lived side by side in this land in perfect harmony under these Rāshtrakuta rulers.

v1.c5.56

Krishna I of this dynasty was a great builder who caused to be excavated out of solid rock the celebrated Kailas temple of Ellora, a magnificent specimen of Hindu art and a veritable wonder of the world. The name Rāshtrakuta was in local parlance changed into Rathod a clan-name later assumed by the proud rulers of the Jodhpur State. This dynasty had its main capital at Mānyakhet (Malkhed) with minor capitals, such as Chandrapur (Chandwad), Lattatur (Latur), etc. at different times. However clever and valiant might have been these Rāshtrakuta rulers, they altogether neglected the naval defence of their country, in which the Arabs of the west seemed to excel at this period.

v1.c5.57

It was the later Chālukyas again who gave a death-blow to the Rāshtrakuta power and ruled Mahārāshtra for some two hundred years from 975 to 1189 A.C. from their capitals of Mānyakhet and Kalyani near Bidar. They produced some ten brilliant rulers of outstanding merit. Tribhuvanmalla Vikramāditya VI was the greatest monarch of this dynasty, and he founded an era named after himself. His prime minister Vijna-neshwar, the author of the Mitāksharā, is still held in high esteem as an eminent jurist of Hindu Law.

v1.c5.58

After the later Chālukyas, Mahārāshtra came to be ruled by another powerful dynasty, the Yādavas, a clan from north India who had been striving in ages past to wield power and influence at different places. They wrested the sceptre from the Chālukyas and ruled for over a hundred years from 1187 to 1294 from their famous capital Deogiri, which the Muslims later named Daulatabad. Four eminent Yādava rulers, Singhana, Krishnadeva, Mahādeva and Rāmadeva became celebrated in the history of the Deccan for having patronized art and literature, the signs of which are amply visible to this day. The great mathematician Bhāskarācharya, the Yādava minister Hemādri, a versatile writer and inventor of many practical arts, and Hemādri's right-hand helpmate the scholarly Bopadeva, are all names among many others, still cherished in Maratha memory with peculiar reverence.

v1.c5.59

Hemādri holds an important place in the history of Mahārāshtra. He was in many respects far ahead of his times. He was not only a learned scholar, but also a minister (*Shrikaranadhipa*) of the Yādava rulers possessing great powers of organization and a wide outlook directed to the many-sided improvement of the people inhabiting the Yādava dominion. With the help of a number of scholars he promulgated a huge compendium of religious observances, entitled *Chaturvarga-Chintamani*. He also produced works on medicine, introduced a code of private and official etiquette and of forms of address in private and public correspondence. He changed the Devnāgari script so as to suit a fast running hand by joining the letters, a mode which is known as Modi and which has long been current in Mahārāshtra.⁸ A special art of constructing houses and temples with hewn stones piled one upon another without the use of cement or mortar, was invented by Hemādri and came to be widely adopted throughout Mahārāshtra. The grain Bajri as a cheap food-stuff of plentiful yield, is said to have been first introduced by Hemādri. To his great work *Chaturvarga-Chintamani* he has added an illuminating supplement entitled *Yādav-Prashasti* in which he has immortalized the history of the Yādava rulers ending with Mahādeva Yādava.

v1.c5.60

⁸ The oldest paper now available in this script dates about half a century after Hemādri.

v1.c5.61

4. Rise of the Manabhav sect.—With the changes of dynasties, Mahārāshtra preserved its political freedom for some two hundred years more than its sister provinces in the north. Here foreign conquest was never dreamt of and no provision against it was considered necessary. About 1000 A.C. the Muslims began to knock at the gates of India, and by the end of the twelfth century Delhi passed into their hands, ushering in a new political experience for the warring indigenous princes of this vast country. It required a hundred years more for the shock to reach Mahārāshtra from Delhi. During the last quarter of the thirteenth century between about 1270 and 1295 when Jnaneshwar was penning the eulogy of Rāmachandra Yādava, a sudden collapse came, which requires to be explained on the basis of recent historical research. A dim light in the midst of complete darkness is perhaps to be found in the rise of the Mānabhāv sect and the conflict it provoked in the religious sphere. Let us see what the Mānabhāv revolution effected in the spheres of religion, society and politics of the period.

v1.c5.62

The word Mānabhāv is a corruption of the Sanskrit original Mahānubhāva, meaning great respectability. The Mānabhāv sect, also known as Jayakrishna or Achyuta, is an important body of free-thinkers advocating a distinct departure from the traditional Vedānta system of religion formulated by Shankarāchārya. Indeed, from about the eleventh century onwards, as in earlier times, there has been a peculiar upheaval in Indian religion and society, giving rise from time to time to a number of divergent sects, such as the Vaishnavas, the Shaivas, the Lingayats, the Nath-panthis and Warkaries of the Pandharpur movement. During the thirteenth century a learned Nagar Brahman from the district of Broach in Gujarat named Haripāldev migrated to Ridhpur near Amraoti in Berar, and there under the inspiration of a learned saint named Govind Prabhu started preaching doctrines of a revolt against some of the absurdities of current orthodoxy.

v1.c5.63

This Haripāldev, newly named Chakradhar by his guru, toured through Mahārāshtra and by his earnest oratory and forceful reasoning, collected round himself a large number of disciples, mostly learned Brahmans from different places. He possessed a wonderful mastery over the Marathi language and explained through its medium the best thoughts in the Upanishads and other old philosophical works, exposing the incongruities that existed between the real ideals and the actual practice of the Hindus of his time. Chakradhar soon came to be worshipped and respected by large masses of people as the very incarnation of God wherever he went. Thus a new sect came into existence, although Chakradhar himself never avowed that he was preaching a new religion. He is credited with an abnormally long life of more than a century, 1153 to 1276 A.C., which he spent in passionate preaching and enforcing rigid discipline upon his followers in every minute detail of conduct and worship. He did not confine his activities to Mahārāshtra only, but travelled over wide regions outside, extending roughly from the river Krishna in the south to the bank of the Indus in the north, a unique performance in the history of religious movements. Chakradhar’s successes extended even beyond the Indus to Peshawar and on to Kabul, where his followers read and recited the sacred texts in the language.

v1.c5.64

Chakradhar concentrated his teaching upon the worship of Krishna, emphasising dualism in contravention to the then existing Advait system as enunciated by Shankarāchārya and adopted for centuries by the common masses and rulers of the Yādava dynasty. The main points on which this new teaching differed from the old can be thus summarized : (1) Chakradhar did not accept the sanctity of the Vedas as the ultimate authority, (2) he denounced the artificial divisions of caste and (3) the adoration of the numerous gods, their forms and incarnations. (4) He also rejected the pollution by touch in any shape or form, upholding all human beings as equal in sanctity. He also enforced a strict vegetarian diet and allowed no sensual excesses unlike the Shāktas and Tāntrikas. The Mānabhāvs have two distinct orders, the householders and the recluses. The latter admit even women to the status of religious celibates ; the former live much the same social life as the common mass of their brother Hindus, and can be hardly distinguished by any special conduct at this day.

v1.c5.65

5. Manabhav literature.—But it is more in the literary sphere than in the religious, that the Mānabhāvs have rendered their greatest service, which is not yet widely nor adequately recognised. They rigidly prohibited the use of Sanskrit either in common prayer or in their literary works. They adopted pure Marathi as the only channel of expression holding it to be as sacred as Sanskrit and, like our popular Mahārāshtra saints, made available to the common folk the highest philosophical thought of the old Sanskrit works. They were the first to create Marathi proto-types of the various forms, constructions and styles of classical writers, their Samhitas, Sutras, Bhāshyas and even the metres of the Sanskrit verse, both of the *Aksaragana* and the *Mātrāgana* systems. The Mānabhāv scholars were the first to write elegant Marathi prose, unlike the Sanskrit writers who preferred the metrical form. This Mānabhāv prose is of the blank verse type.

v1.c5.66

Chakradhar himself never wrote any work of his own. He had a large number of gifted disciples all passionately devoted to him and whole-heartedly co-operating with him in his attack on orthodoxy. Every act and incident of his life, as also every utterance of his, were properly recorded and later arranged in two important works,—the first containing his sermons and utterances is termed *Siddhanta-Sutra-path*⁹ and has become the sacred book of the sect which the followers read and recite. The other, recording his acts and incidents, is called *Lilacharitra*.¹⁰ In order to preserve the sanctity of the text of these works, they were purposely written in thirteen different code-scripts according to as many sub-divisions, which prevented their being tampered with by ignorant readers. These two form the sacred scriptures of the Mānabhāv sect and are the compositions of Mahindra Bhatt Vyās, a learned scholar, who was helped in his task by half a dozen other scholars of equal calibre. One noticeable peculiarity of these works is that exact dates and places are mentioned in most cases for the occurrences that are narrated, and this fact materially helps the student of history. The use of the code scripts has preserved the original language from any manipulation or interpolation by subsequent scribes, so that in the Mānabhāv works we find today the very words, phrases and forms of the day of their composition, without the modernization which has vitiated the contents and form of the writings of our other Mahārāshtra saints like Jnaneshwar and Eknāth.

v1.c5.67

⁹ सिद्धान्तसूत्रपाठ.

v1.c5.68

¹⁰ लीलाचरित्र.

v1.c5.69

Other works of high literary merit came to be written in quick succession by Mānabhāv writers on the model of the old poetical compositions of the Sanskrit Kavyas : the following seven of these are held in great esteem—

v1.c5.70

1. *Rukmini-Swayamvara* by Narendra Borikar ;

v1.c5.71

2 & 3. *Shishupāla Vadha* and *Uddhav-gita* by Bhāskar-bhatt ;

v1.c5.72

4. *Vatsalā-Harana* by Dāmodar Pandit ;

v1.c5.73

5 to 7. *Riddhipur Varnan*, *Jnana-bodh* and *Sahyādri-Varnan* are three descriptive narrations.

v1.c5.74

The first of these *Rukmini-Swayamvara* is contemporary with the *Jnaneshwari* : the others belong to a little later period. All are in the common ovi metre and can take a high rank for their literary merit. Not a few women have figured among their authors. These Mānabhāv compositions long remained unnoticed by the scholarly world probably on account of the strange antipathy that Hindu orthodoxy entertained towards that sect. How and why such antipathy arose is a riddle which deserves to be satisfactorily solved.

v1.c5.75

6. Deaths of Chakradhar and Hemadri.—The propagation of the Mānabhāv doctrines appears to have had an intimate relation with and was certainly a contributory cause of the sudden fall of the Yādavas of Deogiri, the very heart of the region, where Chakradhar first began his fanatical activities by openly preaching against orthodox beliefs and practices. He was doubtless a contemporary of the great Hemādri, the *Shrikaranādhipa* of the powerful king Mahādeva Yādava (A.C. 1260-1271), so that Hemādri and Chakradhar are found acting on the stage of mediæval history, both learned and possessing extraordinary capacity for organization and using their utmost powers, the one upholding the orthodox system and the other preaching a revolt. It would appear that Hemādri purposely promulgated his comprehensive code of religious observances (the *Chaturvarga-Chintamani*) consisting of four large books or parts, (1) the *Vratakhanda* or vows, (2) the *Dāna-khanda* or charities, (3) the *Tirtha-khanda* or pilgrimages, and (4) the *Moksha-khanda* or salvation, with several supplements (*Parishesha-khanda*) emphasizing the worship of various deities, of the manes and ancestors, the daily and seasonal duties with penances for failure. Hemādri completed this work during the regime of Mahādeva Yādava, who was succeeded by his nephew Rāmachandra in 1271. Rāmachandra obtained the crown by cruelly putting to death Mahādev’s son Aman, and confirmed Hemādri in his post. It is well-known that these Yādava rulers traced their descent from Shrikrishna and were his ardent devotees, just as were Chakradhar and his followers, who on that account were freely admitted into the palace and harem of Deogiri in a brotherhood of common worship, a result which the minister Hemādri highly resented and opposed with all the powers he possessed.

v1.c5.76

Recent research based on the evidence of the Mānabhāv writings throws a lurid light on the manner in which both Chakradhar and Hemādri met with their deaths.¹¹ A certain manuscript of the *Lilā-Charitra*, written shortly after 1276 (and not yet published) mentions that Hemādri with the help of his own priests and those of the Yādava rulers discovered the whereabouts of Chakradhar, sent his troops after him and had him killed in 1276 at Khokargaon (near Pāthardi, District Ahmadnagar). When this event came to be reported to Rāmdev, he was filled with wrath against Hemādri and soon after put him to a cruel death in retaliation for Chakradhar’s death. This conclusion is indirectly corroborated by some verses in the *Mahikāvati bakhar* published by Rajawade.¹²

v1.c5.77

¹¹ A large amount of literature of inscriptions and *prashastis* is available on the life and work of Hemādri, but there is no mention how he came by his death. See K. A. Padhye’s *Life of Hemādri*, wherein are reproduced all the inscriptions and *Prashastis* in full.

v1.c5.78

¹² Page 81, verses 54 and 55. See Prof. V. B. Kolte’s paper in the *Nagpur University Journal*, December, 1941.

v1.c5.79

This story may be true or false, but the reason of the sudden fall of king Rāmachandra Yādava may be looked for in the weak and vicious character of his rule (notwithstanding his eulogy by Jnaneshwar) aggravated by religious disputes distracting the king’s attention from preparations for defence against attacks from outside. Disorder and neglect certainly appear to have facilitated Ala-ud-din’s sudden and successful attack upon Deogiri in 1294, probably incited thereto by Mānabhāv agents imparting secret information to the conqueror about the weakness of Yādava rule.

v1.c5.80

But here we must first turn to the strong Hindu reaction which the rapid Muslim conquest provoked in the southern lands of this continent.

v1.c5.81

7. Successful revolt against the Muslims.—Towards the end of the 10th century of the Christian era a new race of conquerors from beyond the Himālayas began to knock at the gates of India. The task was begun by that consummate Turkish general Mahmud of Ghazni and completed by an equally tenacious conqueror known to history as Muhammad of Ghor. Within two hundred years, the whole of northern India was reduced. A hundred more years passed and the Muslims undertook the subjugation of the Deccan by crossing the Narmada for the first time.

v1.c5.82

There were at the time, in the south, four or five important Hindu Kingdoms which the Muslims reduced within less than a quarter of a century. Ala-ud-din Khilji attacked Deogiri in 1294 and forced its ruler Rāmdev Rao into submission. Malik Kafur, Ala-ud-din’s Lieutenant, overran and destroyed the Kākatīya kingdom of Warangal¹³ in 1309, and the Hoysala kingdom of Dwārasamudra in 1310. Immediately after these successes he overran the Chola and Pandya kingdoms of the extreme south and planted the green banner of Islam on the southernmost point of India. Thus Ala-ud-din Khilji before his death could boast of having subjugated the whole of the Indian Continent. His son Mubarak Khilji and thereafter the stern Tughlak Sultan Muhammad, extinguished the last vestiges of Hindu power in the south; and this Tughlak ruler in order to hold the lately conquered territory in perfect submission, in 1325 transferred his capital to Deogiri, which he named Daulatabad, and for some years after he took up his residence here in the south. Thus the Muslim conquest of India appeared to be complete by the year 1326. In this way all the work of the great builders from Chandragupta Maurya to Rāmdev Rao of Deogiri and of Pratāprudra of Warangal, covering a period of some sixteen and a half centuries, was undone within less than a quarter of a century, an extraordinary phenomenon, for which no parallel can be found in the history of the world.

v1.c5.83

¹³ Old name *Ekashila-Nagari* or *Varnakula*, hence the present name.

v1.c5.84

There had been foreign conquerors in India before; and they had all been quickly absorbed and assimilated in the body of Hindu society. But these new Turkish fanatics were of an entirely different type. They were not content with the acquisition of mere political power. They descended upon the plains of Hindustan not as mere conquerors and plunderers, but as crusading warriors bent upon spreading their holy faith in the land of the infidels. When they overthrew the Hindu kingdoms of the north and established themselves in the land, they set about systematically to force their religion upon the people, to desecrate the Hindu temples and their magnificent edifices, to break down the idols, mutilate statues and works of art, disfigure stone inscriptions beyond recognition. Out of the material obtained by such wanton destruction, they erected prayer-houses for the use of the Faithful. In order to stamp out heathenism and gather the Indian people within the fold of Islam, these ruthless vandals prohibited the public exercise of the Hindu religion and subjected its devotees to disabilities and penal laws. The Hindus were not allowed to dress well, live well or appear prosperous. Vexatious taxes were imposed upon them and their seats of learning were destroyed.

v1.c5.85

North India is a huge plain with hardly any natural impediment or stronghold to withstand hardy and determined soldiers sweeping from Attock down to the Bay of Bengal. The Hindus of this vast region internally divided and disorganised as they were, offered little or no resistance to their Turkish oppressors. They meekly submitted to all the ill-treatment that was inflicted upon them, and betrayed a strange incapacity to offer a combined opposition in defence of their land and religion. But the Hindus of the south, particularly the stern Kāpālika and Shaiva sects, the Mānabhāvas and the Lingayats inhabiting the lands of Kampli, near Anagondi and Warangal, were not slow to react and resist the Muslim aggression. How this revolt was successfully organised forms an instructive study.

v1.c5.86

Warangal was the capital of Telangana, the coastal region between the Godavari and the Krishna, and for centuries it was ruled by a dynasty of the Kakatiyas. It was first attacked in 1303 by Ala-ud-din’s general Malik Fakhruddin Juna, who later figured as the notorious Sultan Muhammad Tughlak of Delhi. He was routed with heavy loss by the valiant ruler Pratāprudra Kakatiya, who then became an eyesore to the Muslim conquerors. Years passed. The Khiljis were succeeded by the Tughlaks, who sent a strong expedition against Warangal in 1321. For two years the struggle continued unabated. Pratāprudra was overcome and captured alive. He was being taken to Delhi as a trophy of the war, when, finding the insult too bitter to bear, he put an end to his life in 1323. This sad end of their valiant leader roused the people as nothing else would have done.¹⁴

v1.c5.87

¹⁴ For this and the following narrative N. Venkataramanayya’s *The Early Muslim Expansion In South India* (Madras Univ. Publication, 1942), is the main authority. On p. 188 occurs this evidence on the foundation of Vijayanagar.—

v1.c5.88

After a year’s time Muhammad Tughlak became the Sultan of Delhi and at once removed his capital to Deogiri (1325); and from his seat in that strong fort he started measures to put down the rising opposition of the Hindus. The fall of Warangal had spread the infection of revolt to the neighbouring region of Kampli on the Tungabhadra, where another brave Hindu warrior Kāmnāth, inflicted crushing defeats upon the forces sent against him by the Sultan from Deogiri. Exasperated by this disgraceful reverse, the Sultan sent another and more powerful expedition for the conquest of Kampli in 1327. Kampildeva finding resistance hopeless, prepared a huge fire and along with all his women folk burnt

v1.c5.89

स एव खलु माधवो वसुमतीं चतुःसागरी-
मसाकलितमेखलां नयति बुक्कराजं युधः ।
तमन्यजनि सायणस्तमनु भोजनथश्चता-
शुभावुदयमाश्रितावचलमत्र विश्वेश्वरं ॥

v1.c5.90

himself alive in it in order to escape the disgrace of falling into the enemy's hands. A large number of prisoners was however captured and carried in chains to the Sultan, whose joy at this success was unbounded. He returned to Delhi with his booty and prisoners. Among these latter were two brothers, Harihar and Bukka, who had formerly served as ministers at Kampli and helped Pratāprudra of Warangal. The Sultan knew their worth, converted them to Islam and used them well with a view to employing them in the event of any Hindu revolt in the south. These spirited brothers had witnessed the changing fortunes of the Hindus ever since the fall of the Yādavas and secretly nursed in their hearts a feeling of revenge, and they waited for a suitable opportunity.

v1.c5.91

Sultan Muhammad Tughlak soon found himself involved in serious troubles as much in the north as in the south, but he was not a bit inclined to relent in his resolve to put down the Hindu Kafirs. During 1330 and 1331, one Kapayyā Nāyak of Warangal and another Somdevrāj of Kampli rose against the Sultan, put the Muslim governors to flight and asserted independence in their respective localities. The news reached the Sultan at Delhi. He held a council of war with his advisers and decided upon their suggestion to employ the services of the two brothers Harihar and Bukka, now Muslim converts and as such expected to do their best to uphold their adopted faith in the same manner as their predecessor Malik Kafur had done. The two brothers accepted the mission readily and fully provided with men and materials soon appeared before Kampli.

v1.c5.92

How wide-spread and bitter was the Hindu feeling of revolt at this time can be gathered from the conspicuous part which the Shankarāchārya Mādhav Vidyāranya, the learned and influential head of the Shringeri Math, played by taking the lead in politics for putting down Muslim aggression. Mādhavācharya and his two equally competent brothers, Sāyannā and Bhojanāth held deliberations with the two heroes Harihar and Bukka, persuaded them to renounce their newly-accepted faith and after bringing them back to the Hindu fold by means of certain penances, made them lead the whole movement to a successful issue. Thus were politics and religion put to the highest test in the nation's cause. The example proved highly rousing. The Sultan’s plans were entirely foiled. The holy Guru Mādhavācharya took up his residence at Anagondi where the two brothers Harihar Rai and Bukka Rai paid him due reverence. A fresh plan was conceived in mutual consultation for founding the seat of a new Hindu Empire at the bend of the river Tungabhadra, just opposite Anagondi. This was the origin of Vijayanagar which rapidly grew into a well-protected, wealthy and powerful city. In this new capital the two brothers were crowned kings on 18 April 1336. Muhammad Tughlak had the mortification to lose his southern provinces for good.

v1.c5.93

This newly created Empire of Vijayanagar gradually increased in power and extent and for more than two hundred years stemmed the tide of Muslim conquest in the south. Although thereafter Vijayanagar was itself destroyed by the combined power of the Muslim rulers in the famous battle of Talikot (January 22, 1565), the various local powers that survived, were never crushed altogether, but continued to drag on a submerged existence in different localities right up to the British conquest of India. Historically, however, this experiment of Vijayanagar served as a source of power and inspiration to the genius of Shivaji, since his father Shahji had his life’s activities concentrated upon the region of Bangalore, Kampli and Kanakgiri, and, we may be sure, that Shivaji took his cue from the example of Harihar and Bukka, of personal valour joined to the spiritual power of the Shankarāchārya. It is well known, that Shivaji closely followed this model and revered his gurus Tukārām and Rāmdās. The causes of this Hindu rebellion against Muhammad Tughlak, as later of Shivaji’s against Aurangzeb, were, it should be noted, more cultural than political; the Hindus always attached greater importance to the preservation of their religion than to political freedom. Herein lies the importance to Maratha history of the Hindu revolt which led to the foundation of Vijayanagar.

v1.c5.94

8. Saints and writers of Maharashtra.—As a reaction to Muslim aggression in India, the spirit of revolt rapidly spread throughout the land and paralysed all the energy of Muhammad Tughlak. Mahārāshtra was not slow to follow in the footsteps of Vijayanagar, but here the revolt took a different shape. Husain Zafar Khan, a trusted commandant whom the Tughlak Sultan despatched to quell the rebellions in the south, himself assumed the lead of the rebels, and declared his own independence at Gulburga, assuming the royal title of Ala-ud-din Bahman Shah and founded in 1347 what came to be known in history as the Bahamani Kingdom. This Muslim ruler was shrewd enough to realize that it was no use exasperating the Hindus by interfering with their religion. They readily accepted his new tolerant rule though alien in faith. During the next two hundred years this Bahamani Kingdom, like its sister of Vijayanagar, went on flourishing side by side, although between them a spirit of rivalry and mutual aggression continued all the time. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, the Bahamani Kingdom broke up into five separate branches, of which three, namely those of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar and Golkonda became fairly powerful after absorbing the other two of Bidar and Berar. These three have become known to history as the Adil Shahi, Nizam Shahi, and Qutb Shahi, from the names of their respective founders. We are not here concerned with the internal administration of the original Bahamani kingdom or of its later branches, except in so far as they contributed to the Maratha rise.

v1.c5.95

As the founder of the Maratha kingdom had his home near the western ghats, his fortunes came to be mainly connected with only the Nizamshah of Ahmadnagar and the Adilshah of Bijapur. Although the five combined Muslim rulers dealt a death blow to the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, they did not succeed in subjugating the more southerly territories of that Hindu power. The general policy of these Deccani rulers was of tolerance towards the Hindus, as they had become wiser by the fate which the intolerant Khiljis and Tughlaks had to suffer on account of their extreme hatred towards the main populace over whom they ruled. In all essentials the Bahamani rulers and the Sultans of the offshoot kingdoms, depended upon the Hindus for their own existence and studiously refrained from injuring Hindu sentiment. The hilly regions of the west remained practically unconquered. The Muslim character of the rulers was confined only to their personal religion and did not affect their subjects. Writes Ranade, “These nominal Muhammadan rulers were virtually controlled both in the civil and military departments by Maratha statesmen and Maratha warriors. The hill-forts near the Ghats and the country thereabout, were in the hands of Maratha captains, who were nominally dependent upon these Muhammadan sovereigns.” Indeed, if Muhammad Adilshah of Bijapur, who came to the throne in 1627 and who completely reversed the tolerant policy of his father Ibrahim Adilshah, a ruler of exceptional impartiality who had been revered as Jagat-Guru by the Hindus themselves, had not resumed the old practice of desecrating Hindu temples and plundering their wealth, it is probable that Shivaji would not have undertaken to found an independent Maratha Kingdom. Under the advice of his minister Mustafa Khan, Muhammad Adilshah promulgated fresh regulations¹⁵ for putting down the Hindu religion and thus invited the extreme wrath of prominent Marathas of the day. The conversion of Bajaji Nimbalkar of Phaltan to the Muslim faith is an evidence of this changed policy of Bijapur which impelled Shivaji to make a fresh bold move.

v1.c5.96

¹⁵ See Regulations of Md. Adilshah, Nos. 21, 44, 48, 51 and 53 in Parasnis’ *Itihas-Sangraha*, *Aitihasik Sphuta Lekh* 2-7.

v1.c5.97

The Hindus in general—the Maratha forming no exception—have during historic times cared more for their religion than for political power. When the Ghaznivides and the Ghoris, the Khiljis and the Tughlaks practised fearful persecution in religious matters, they provoked opposition and revolt. The great Emperor Akbar wisely changed this policy and thereby strengthened his empire. Akbar’s policy was reversed by Aurangzeb and this generated the Maratha movement for independence, a repetition of the same experiment that had led to the foundation of Vijayanagar. This vein of rebellious sentiment runs through the vast Marathi literature of the three or four centuries that followed the extinction of the Yādavās of Deogiri; from the time of Mukundraj and Jnaneshwar to that of Tukārām and Rāmdās, the whole range of Marathi literature accurately reflects the workings of the popular mind. Viewed in this light the teachings of these saints are clearly marked by three successive schools of thought, first that of Jnaneshwar and Nāmdev (13th and 14th centuries), the second Eknāth and Tukārām (15th and 16th centuries), and the third of Rāmdās (17th century), the last being contemporary of Shivaji himself. These saints and writers were mostly men of learning and experience, having widely travelled on pilgrimages throughout India on foot, and gained first-hand information of local occurrences which they often actually witnessed. They can be likened to our present day newspaper reporters. They delivered orations and held *Harikirtans* which were avidly listened to, and which supplied the spiritual background to the political aims of workers like Shivaji.

v1.c5.98

There are two particular services which these writers have rendered to society. The old precious store of learning and philosophy which till then had been confined only to Sanskrit and was consequently unintelligible to the masses, was rendered by them into various popular and attractive forms of Marathi verse, often set to musical tunes ; and secondly, they made an ardent and piteous appeal to God Almighty through their favourite deity to intervene on behalf of the oppressed peoples and bring them relief from Muslim persecution. The well-known story of Dāmāji Pant, a revenue collector of the Bedar district, is a typical instance in which he miraculously escaped the wrath of his master for having distributed grātis government stores of corn, through the actual intervention of the Vithoba of Pandharpur.¹⁶ A studied effort was made by some of the saints towards reconciling the two conflicting faiths in mutual recognition of the essential unity of Rāma and Rahīm, of Vithobā and Allāh. The warring sects of the Hindus themselves, the Shaivas and the Vaishnavas were reconciled in a symbolized installation of Vithobā at Pandharpur.¹⁷ Tukārām represented the Pandharpur movement of passionate prayer of complete non-violence and patient resignation to the Divine Will. "The pulsation of a new national life began to stir throughout the land and was accompanied in the popular belief by the revolt of the Hindu pantheon against the tyrannous deity of the Muslim."18

v1.c5.99

¹⁶ The story refers to a devastating famine which occurred in Mahārāshtra for seven long years from 1396 A.C., which is still remembered as Durgādi.

v1.c5.100

¹⁷ "It cannot be doubted," writes S. M. Edwardes, "that the remarkable movement which centres so largely about the God Vithobā and Pandharpur, embraced persons of various castes and elevated to sainthood

v1.c5.101

The rapid change in the structure of the Marathi language itself bears unmistakable evidence to the political domination secured by the Muslim conquerors. While the great work of Jnaneshwar contains not a single Arabic or Persian word, Eknāth's writings exhibit a very large percentage of those foreign words imposed on Marathi. When Shivaji came forth boldly to oppose Muslim aggression and renovate Hindu religion and culture, he promulgated his own Sanskrit code of official terms, replacing the Persian ones of the court language of the foreigners. The change back to Sanskrit became quickly effective during Maratha rule.

First 100 of 119 passages. Read on

Linked texts (20)

Jñāneśvarī — Jñāneśvara, Marathi
Śiśupālavadha — Māgha, Sanskrit
Upaniṣad — Sanskrit
玄奘 — Classical Chinese
Kārlā
Bhaja Caves
Devagiri (Daulatabad)
Nasika
Karle caves
Bhâjâ
Badami
Kailasanatha Temple
Manyakheta
Vijayanagara
Līḷācaritra — Mhāimbhaṭ, Marathi
Caturvargacintāmaṇi — Hemādri, Sanskrit
Dānakhaṇḍa — Hemādri, Sanskrit
Śivabhārata — Paramānanda, Sanskrit
Vratakhaṇḍa — Hemādri, Sanskrit
Uddhavagītā — Bhāskarabhaṭṭa Borīkar, Marathi