Shivaji and His Times c4.s6.2

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.)