Shivaji and His Times c20.s2.2

c20.s2.2

Even the *Sabhasad Bakhar*, though written by a contemporary of Shivaji, is not based on State-papers and written notes, because it was composed while Rajaram was closely besieged in Jinji fort, to which he had escaped from Maharashtra by the skin of his teeth, leaving everything behind him, and after roving hither and thither in constant risk of capture. Such a master and his servants, running with their lives in their hands, before relentless pursuers, could not have burdened themselves with papers during their perilous flight across the entire Deccan peninsula. Sabhasad's work, therefore, is entirely derived from his memory—the half-obliterated memory of an old man who had passed through many privations and hardships. But he was a contemporary and servant of Shivaji, while Malhar Ram Rao Chitnis wrote 130 years after that king's death, and had no State-papers of Shivaji's or Shambhuji's times, because he does not cite a single document, and all his true facts are derived from Sabhasad, thereby proving that he had no independent source of information. Therefore, I have totally rejected Chitnis.