History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s6.25

v3.c33.s6.25

Mr. Sardesai thinks that Mahmud had already a large force which he had perforce to feed and employ in conquering India. But this does not seem to be true though probably he had at the beginning a larger force than Shivaji had. But even if he had a large force, if he had been incapable, what was there to prevent him from disbanding it gradually? And whence was the money to come, even if Turk or Afghan turbulent spirits were available in numbers? The plunder of temples and idols came in later. And whence did Shivaji get his resources? Even the men whom he had at hand for turning into soldiers were peaceful Māvalas. The greatness of great men lies indeed in their power to find men and money and to train them and use them in the proper way. The greatness lies in the unshaking resolve and the burning desire. "Get up" says Vidulā, in the famous Mahābhārata episode, to her whining son defeated and dispossessed of his kingdom. "Get up with the firm resolve of fighting and getting your kingdom back and you will find the men and the money you want." The organizing power and the moral ascendancy of both Shivaji and Mahmud are apparent in their training up their people so as to fit them for tough fighting and make them ready to die for them and further in keeping the trenchant weapon they had forged under due control. For, as Gibbon has said, legions become dangerous not only to the enemy but also to their master. Where national feeling does not exist to restrain or defeat the ambition of traitorous governors and generals, they can only be kept in their proper sphere by the overpowering personality of the master. When the dominating personality is removed, the formidable army becomes the destroyer of its own master as we actually find happening later on in the case of the incapable successors of Mahmud himself. Many feudatories became independent and a king of Ghazni was seized and blinded by his own generals. The very formidable nature of the striking machine forged by Mahmud or Shivaji and the successful use of it by them for their own purposes, prove the immense power which they wielded over the hearts of their soldiers and captains.