Shivaji and His Times c20.s4: The Marathi Shakavalis criticized
Shivaji and His Times c20.s4
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The Marathi Shakavalis criticized
c20.s4.1
The Jedhe Shakavali or skeleton chronology in its surviving fragment runs from 1618 to 1697, without any formal preface or conclusion. Its correctness depends upon three conditions, viz., (a) the Jedhes' personal knowledge of what they wrote down, (b) their promptness in recording every event after its happening, instead of trusting to a dim and distant memory, and (c) the accuracy of the transcriber of the only manuscript of it (copied in the middle of the 18th century) that has come down to us. This family did not record the successive occurrences in a bound volume (or in a big family Bible as in old English houses), but on loose sheets of paper, which were afterwards compiled together, we know not with what accuracy nor with what gaps between. For the period before 1660,—in which year Shivaji first clearly demonstrated his power of standing on his own legs and former vassals of Bijapur like the Jedhe chieftains found that it was safer to join him than to keep aloof or play a double game (which is Bhave's charge against Kanhoji Jedhe),—the dates in the Jodhe Chronology are often demonstrably wrong (e.g., the death of Ibrahim Adil Shah, the fall of Daulatabad, etc.) Even for later times, some months and years have been wrongly given or at least copied (e.g., the fall of Vellore.) Several of the entries, particularly those relating to the Muslim States, were merely borrowed by Jedhe's clerks from other sources, because we know that short Persian manuals of historical dates were in circulation in polished society in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Hence, it is not always safe to rely on Jedhe's testimony for any doubtful date when not supported by some other authority.
c20.s4.2
On the other hand, a hereditary writer-servant of Shivaji's family like Dattaji or Malhar Ram Rao, is a better authority for the date of Shivaji's birth, as the tithi (lunar day) of his birth was annually celebrated at his Court and was entered in the memorandum kept by the secretariat officers.
c20.s4.3
Such skeleton chronologies (Shakavalis) were in use among various noble families in Maharashtra in the 18th century, and have been recovered in parts only. There was a short kernel of the leading events common to them all; but each family added entries about what happened to its own ancestors or about events in its neighbourhood, and therefore they cannot serve as independent checks on one another. Many mistakes were also made in reading the old Modi script of the original MSS.
c20.s4.4
For a detailed discussion of the sources the reader is referred to my paper on "the Sources of the History of Shivaji critically examined" published in the *Journal* of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, March, 1924.
c20.s4.5
Four new sources of error produced in the 19th century.
c20.s4.6
While our knowledge of Shivaji's history has grown during the last hundred years by the discovery and publication of contemporary Persian, French, Portuguese, and Marathi records unknown to Grant Duff, certain new sources of error have also come into the field, and tend to deceive the unsuspecting historian by their cross-lights and false lights. They are:—
c20.s4.7
(i) The extinction of the Peshwa's rule in 1817,—and even earlier, his virtual deposition from sovereignty in 1803,—naturally led to a revolution in the mental attitude of the Marathas. The fallen house of usurping Brahman ministers was felt to be a wrong horse to back and the old dynasty of Bhonslé kings came into vogue in public estimation and was exalted by the paramount British Power. One may even say that patriotism could now find a free vent and Shivaji could be professed as a national idol without any fear of exciting the jealous suspicion of the Chitpavan dynasty on the throne of Puna. It became a social and political disadvantage for a noble family in Maharashtra to describe its founder as a creation of the Peshwa period, rather than as a follower of Shivaji. Then began a mad struggle among them to rewrite their family history and represent their first famous ancestors as patriotic supporters of that great king in weal and woe. Witness the longing of every Greek State to get its name enrolled in the second Book of the Iliad. While some of these claims are true, all cannot be so.
c20.s4.8
Forgery of grants and royal letters.
c20.s4.9
(ii) The evil was aggravated by the formation of the Inam Commission (1824) which called upon every holder of land or State-pension to prove his rights by producing old documents and giving his family history. The result was a vast crop of reports submitted to the English Government and designated variously as *Kaifiyat*, *Yadi*, *Haqiqat* and *Karina*. Composed between 1820 and 1830, they profess to give the family history (often with copies of alleged charters) from Shahji's time, (c. 1637) and in the cases of the prouder families from an even earlier date, such as the first Muslim invasion of the Deccan (1294.) Their only foundation was family tradition, dim with distance of time, or the daring imagination of the hereditary family priest and astrologer.
c20.s4.10
The holder of even the smallest plot of land or right to village-office now produced title-deeds in the form of grants and confirmations by the Hindu and Muslim kings before the British conquest. Some of these professed to be original, others copies of long-decayed originals certified by former *qazis* or kings as true. Of this class thousands of documents in the Marathi language have been printed. But their value is exceedingly small. Ninety-eight per cent. of these papers is of no historical significance at all, as they relate to the petty local rights of petty private individuals. Several are palpable forgeries. It is not possible to give detailed examples in this book.
c20.s4.11
The forger in each case had some genuine documents of the post-Shiva period before him and has transferred their exact language to his own fabrication which professes to belong to an earlier age! It is, therefore, very unsafe to rely for any date or event, on the sole testimony of these papers unless their authenticity has been placed beyond doubt by other and more unimpeachable sources; but such corroboration is mostly impossible.
c20.s4.12
The forgery of documents for establishing rights to property is a very ancient practice, from which the priestly and ruling classes have been no more free than others. (Cf. Harsha's copper-plate grant.)