The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s8.t6.8

c14.s8.t6.8

The work is said to have been composed in the lifetime of Śivāji. Nay, it is alleged to have originated in his express order to describe all his *charitra* (exploits) commencing with his grand father Maloji (I. 36-37). But curiously enough the story comes down to Śivāji's conquest of Ratnāgiri (1661). Whatever be the historical basis, the work has grown into a treatise on *dharma*, *artha*, *kāma*, *mokṣa*, horses, elephants, forts, and what not. *Śiva-Bhārata* has turned out to be nothing short of a *rājanīti śāśvatī*, i.e., a text of eternal politics (I. 40).