The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s8.t3.6

c14.s8.t3.6

Evidently all this jubilation over the annihilation of the *pāpī* and the restoration of *dharma* and expansion of *premā* is to be attributed to a date after the *dharma-rājya* of Śivāji has become a *fait accompli* (1674-80). We encounter here perhaps a “pious wish,” the expression of patriotic idealism on the part of Rāmdās. The material, as we have it, is of course regarded as a part of something dreamt of by Rāmdās in a period of national calamity, i.e., previous to Śivāji’s exploits and successes. The dream is narrated in the form of a prophecy and as something that is to happen at some future date. This futuristic forecasting of Maratha glories is in keeping with the prophetic form of the *Bhaviṣya-Purāṇa*’s dynastic history. One may often suspect as to whether the verses on *ānanda-vana-bhūvana* are to be ascribed to Rāmdās at all. Besides, one cannot be positive about their being composed even in the life-time of Śivāji himself. Whatever be the actual history of the composition, sociologically there can be no harm in believing that some Maratha author of the eighteenth century, while studying the glorious origins of the *dharmarājya* which had been established by the veritable *yugāvatāra* Śivāji and which maintained its career of *digvijaya* for quite a long time afterwards, should have been inspired by holy imagination to father such prophetic verses on the greatest patriot-poet of Śivāji’s times, Rāmdās. In any case, we understand from almost contemporary sources how powerfully the imagination of the young Maratha was inspired by the epoch-making and *kalpānta*-consummating achievement of Śivāji, the Indian Frederick the Great, perhaps the greatest Hindu of all ages, and one of the profoundest remakers of mankind. The fine lyrical verses on *ānanda-vana-bhūvana* constitute a valuable document of Maratha history as much as a text of Maratha *nītiśāstra* or political philosophy. Such texts, be it observed *en passant*, are very rare in Indian literature.