Shivaji and His Times c20.s1.1

c20.s1.1

The royal period (1660-1700) of Maratha history differs fundamentally from the Peshwa period (18th century) not only in the extent but also in the nature of its historical records. Not only is there a striking contrast between the wealth of contemporary documents in Persian and English that illuminate the history of the Peshwas and the comparative poverty of the same for Shivaji's reign and those of his two sons. But even when we come to Marathi sources, we find that not a single State-paper or official despatch of Shivaji's time in this language has been unearthed after a devoted search for half a century. But thousands of private legal documents, deeds of grant, decisions of lawsuits, orders on petitions and similar papers have been collected, and for the sufficient reason that they did not belong to the State archives (which perished long ago with their contents), but were the property of private families by whom they have been carefully preserved as title-deeds.