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Administrative System of the Marathas c16.s1: 1. Administration of Justice

Administrative System of the Marathas c16.s1

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1. Administration of Justice

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Shivaji's Maharashtra still retained her simple primitive method of administering justice. Elaborate rules of procedure, volumes of codified law, costly court houses were absolutely unknown. The village elders met in the Patil's office or before the village temple or under the spreading branches of a sacred fig tree to hear civil suits and administer common-sense justice. Some of these amateur judges were certainly illiterate, for they put their signs of *nangar*, *tagri*, *ghana*, or *katyar* whenever a signature was necessary. But they must have been conversant with the customary laws of their land. The *balutas* or village artisans were frequently summoned before the Panchayat to aid the judges with their invaluable knowledge of village history or tradition. But when no evidence was available, divine aid was freely invoked and the Marathas of those days had so much faith in the potency of truth that they fearlessly and sometimes with impunity grasped a red hot iron ball and plunged their hand into boiling ghi or oil to draw out a piece of metal or *rava.* These were not the only popular ordeals; ordeals by water, libation water, lamp and circumambulation of a sacred temple, were also known. The unknown author of *Shivaji Pratap* describes a peculiar ordeal of which we find no other instance. In an alleged case of adultery, two drops of blood, one each from the veins of the man and the woman, were taken and dropped into a cauldron full of boiling oil. But lo! they would not mingle; so the lady was honourably acquitted. For all we know this ordeal possibly had never been practised.

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Criminal cases were heard in the first instance by the Patil, a gentleman without much learning and hence unlikely to be familiar with the injunctions of the old Hindu law-givers like Manu and Yajnavalkya. But the Brahman Nyayadhish who heard appeals in both civil and criminal suits was as a matter of course well versed in the *shastras.* The Hazir Majalasis to hear final appeals perhaps met more often in the days of Shivaji and his immediate successors than during the Peshwa regime. And we very frequently come across two functionaries who seem to have silently slipped away from existence during the Peshwa days. These were the Sabha Naik or Judge President and the Mahaprashnika or Chief Interrogator whose duty appears to have been to examine and cross-examine the parties. Whether they were elected by their brother judges or nominated by the king we do not know. Perhaps an elderly member who commanded the respect of his co-villagers, assumed some sort of superiority over others as a matter of course and a younger member of the Panchayat perhaps volunteered to examine the parties in order to save his colleagues from that trouble.¹

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¹ The old method of administering justice was practically unaffected by the rise of the Peshwas and will be treated at a greater length in Book II.

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2. Education:

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Shivaji fostered and encouraged education in an indirect way. There was no organised education department under him. State-founded or state-aided schools were unknown. Learned scholars as in the days of yore attracted eager students from all parts of the country and the schools which thus grew formed the only centres of culture. Shivaji indirectly encouraged the foundation of these schools by making large grants in money or land to all the distinguished scholars of his time. Similar grants were made to physicians of note irrespective of their caste and creed and so the votaries of the science of medicine were permitted to carry on their studies and humanitarian endeavours in comparative ease and security. It was one of the duties of the Pandit Rao to test the merit of and assign a proper inam to the deserving candidates. This system of Dakshana grant for the encouragement of learning has survived Shivaji and the Peshwas.

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Many poets and literary men were attracted to Shivaji's court. Among them the most well known was Bhushan the Hindi poet. Jayaram the author of *Parnal Parvat Grahanakhyan* and Paramananda the author of *Shiva Bharat* wrote in Sanskrit. Their poetical efforts were munificently rewarded as were those of the celebrated ballad writers of the time, Ajnandas and Tulshidas.

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