New History of the Marathas v1.c8.32

v1.c8.32

Harikirtan or what may be called devotional songs and sermons by household preachers and celebrated saints like Tukārām, was then a very common means of general education and the training of the young and the old; and Shivaji lost no opportunity of profiting himself by such occasions. Hindu shrines and places of worship he punctiliously visited and took an intelligent concern in their working as a nation-building factor. A large number of his letters deal with the management and proper upkeep of shrines and religious establishments.³ Of all concerns of life religion occupied his best thoughts and energies. He received his most useful education not through books on the present day model but in the wide school of experience, supplemented by such portions of old texts as relate to the common maxims of politics, morals and philosophy, e.g. parts of the Rāmāyan, Mahābhārat, some of the Smritis, probably portions of Shukraniti and Chānākyaniti and the lives of the saints. Vidurniti was possibly a favourite chapter selected from the Mahābhārat. It is said that the Yuddha-Kand or the War-chapter of the Rāmāyan was regularly read and expounded at night to all the garrisons of Shivaji's forts as part of their discipline.