Shivaji and His Times c20.s5: Worthless laudatory poems
Shivaji and His Times c20.s5
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Worthless laudatory poems
c20.s5.1
(iii) Some Sanskrit poems of Shivaji's time have survived and have been recently printed. Bardic flattery and exaggeration have been found in all countries to be the greatest perverters of historical truth. In India the art of literary beggary was carried to nauseating lengths by the Brahman Court flatterers of the Hindu kings and even of some of the Mughal Emperors. The very training, mode of life, and literary models of these Brahman poets made them unfit to be sober recorders of fact. Even for the events that they personally witnessed, one has to largely discount their narrative, while for the events of earlier times or elsewhere, they are absolutely untrustworthy. It is not the business of priests and poets to keep public records or copies of State-papers; at best they reproduce the traditions current among their class.
c20.s5.2
The absurd flights of exaggeration which a venal poet can take in flattering his patron may be exemplified from the poem of Lal Kavi who alleges that during the invasion of Deogarh (1669) the entire Mughal army was defeated and put to flight, but the defeat was turned into a victory by the boy Chhatra Sal charging the enemy host single-handed and routing it without anybody's aid! A parallel to this is afforded by Paramanand's allegation that Malik Ambar's crushing defeat of the Mughal and Adil-Shahi armies at Bhatvadi (1624) was mainly due to Shahji and his Bhonsle contingent. (Shiva Bharat, canto 4.)
c20.s5.3
(iv) Maratha history has been muddled also by the silly but very bitter quarrel between the Brahman and Prabhu castes, which began (with growing wealth and public safety) under Shivaji, burst into a flame in Shambhuji's reign (at the outcasting of Balaji Avji), and has been revived and widely extended in modern times by the help of a cheap printing-press, the multiplication of newspapers as sectional organs, and the easy means of distributing writings. Each caste interprets the past history of the country and "discovers" old documents so as to heighten its own glory and depress its rival caste. A historical statement or argument is valued differently according as it comes from a Chitpavan or a Karharé, a Brahman or a Prabhu!