Shivaji and His Times c4.s6: §6. Literature and Language
Shivaji and His Times c4.s6
- Language
- English
§6. Literature and Language
c4.s6.1
Literature afforded another bond of union in Maharashtra. Its themes were taken from the ancient scriptures and epics which are the heritage of all the Hindus. The devotional songs and moral maxims of popular teachers like Tukaram and Ramdas, Vaman Pandit and Moro Pant, made their way to every home where Marathi letters could be read. “In every town and village in the Deccan and Konkan, especially during the rains, the pious Maratha will be found enjoying with his family and friends the recitation of the *Pothi* of Shridhar [b. 1679], and enjoying it indeed. Except an occasional gentle laugh, or a sigh, or a tear, not a sound disturbs the rapt silence of the audience, unless when one of those passages of supreme pathos is reached, which affects the whole of the listeners simultaneously with an outburst of emotion which drowns the voice of the reader." (Acworth's *Ballads*, xxvii.)
c4.s6.2
The simplicity and uniformity of early Maratha society are also reflected in the language. Their poetry consisted of short jingles and apopthegms or monotonous metrical couplets like the epics,—with no lyric outburst, no long-flowing sonorous verses, no delicate play on the whole gamut of sounds. Like the other daughters of Sanskrit, the Marathi vernacular had no literary prose till well into the 18th century. The prose that was created by the official class in their letters and chronicles, was a barbarous jargon composed nearly three-fourths of Persian words and grotesque literal translations of Persian idioms. The highly Sanskritized, elegant and varied prose that is now used, is a creation of the British period. (Rajwade, viii. Intro., fully discusses the Persian element.)
c4.s6.3
"On the whole it may be said that the written [Marathi] poetry, consisting as it does in such very large measure of moral disquisitions and reflections, and the praises of this deity or that, is little known to the ryots and the Mavalis of Maharashtra, and that it would not command their attention or admiration if it were known... In Maharashtra, where the immense majority of the peasantry can neither read nor write, it is a mere truism to say that the literature of their country is absolutely unknown to them.* It is not to be supposed, however, that they are without a poetry of their own. With the Marathas, the feelings of the commons have taken shape in the ballads, which are the genuine embodiment of national enthusiasm...Over the plains of the Deccan, and the deep valleys and bold ridges of the Sahyadris, from village to village, the humble Gondhali (minstrel) still travels, and still to rapt and excited audiences sings of the great days when the armed fathers of the men around him gave laws at the spear's point to all the princes of India, or retreated wounded and dismayed before the sword of the sea-dwelling stranger." (Acworth and Shaligram, *Powadas*, i and ii.) But this national ballad literature was the creation of the age of Shivaji and his successors.
c4.s6.4
Not only was their literature poor, but their popular spoken tongue was a rough practical speech, incapable of expressing the ceremonious courtesy, indirectness, and delicate shades of meaning of the highly developed Urdu language. The democratic temper of the Maratha people is shown by their having no respectful mode of address like the *ap* ("your honour") of Northern India; all ranks are theed and thoued.
c4.s6.5
Thus, a remarkable community of language, creed, and life was attained in Maharashtra in the 17th century, even before political unity was conferred by Shivaji. What little was wanting to the solidarity of the people was supplied by his creation of a national State, the long struggle with the invader from Delhi under his sons, and the imperial expansion of the race under the Peshwas.
c4.s6.6
∗ But the entire mass of legends and traditions of the race was the common property of all classes of people throughout the land and gave them cultural homogeneity.
c4.s6.7
Thus, in the end a tribe,—or rather a collection of tribes and castes,—was fused into a nation,[*] and by the end of the 18th century a Maratha people in the political and cultural senses of the term had been formed, though caste distinctions still remained. Thus history has moulded society.