Shivaji and His Times c10.s4.3

c10.s4.3

But one great defect had to be removed before his coronation could take place. He had to be publicly purified and "made a Kshatriya." On 28th May he performed penance for his ancestors' and his own sin of omission in not having observed the Kshatriya rites so long, and was invested by Gaga Bhatta with the sacred thread, the distinctive badge of the twice-born castes like the "pure" Kshatriyas of Northern India. The next step was to teach him the mantra (sacred verses) and initiate him into the rules of the Kshatriya caste. Shivaji very logically demanded that all the Vedic verses appropriate to the initiation and coronation of a true Hindu king should be chanted in his hearing, because the Kshatriyas being one of the holy "twice-born" castes, he as an admitted Kshatriya was entitled to use the Vedic mantras equally with the Brahmans. At this there was a mutiny among the assembled Brahmans, who asserted that there was no true Kshatriya in the modern age* and that the Brahmans were the only twice-born caste now surviving! Even Gaga Bhatta was cowed by the general opposition and evidently dropped the Vedic chant and initiated the Rajah only in a modified form of the life of the twice-born, instead of putting him on a par with the Brahmans in this respect. (T. S. 39a; Dutch Records.) This purification and its sequel, the investiture with the sacred thread, were performed with "great ceremony"; a vast amount of money was distributed among the Brahmans, Gaga Bhatta alone getting 7,000 hun and the crowd of ordinary Brahmans 17,000 hun.