Administrative System of the Marathas c7.s5: Portuguese Sources
Administrative System of the Marathas c7.s5
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Portuguese Sources
c7.s5.1
One of the earliest biographies of Shivaji was written in Portuguese. The author, Cosme da Guarda, styles himself as a citizen of Marmugao near Goa. His work, though composed in 1695, was not published till 1730 and the editor says that the manuscript was discovered by a fortunate accident only. Of the author we know absolutely nothing. According to the *Diccionario* *Bibliographico Portuguez*, Prof. Pissurlencar informs us,⁷ Cosme da Guarda was not the real name of Shivaji's Portuguese biographer (O nome de Cosme da Guarda é affectado) and the late Sr. J. A. Ismael Gracias seriously held that Guarda, though a genuine Portuguese, did not belong to Portuguese India at all. Guarda's work seems to have been known to that indefatigable English historian Robert Orme, for among his manuscripts we find an index of a work called *Vida de Celebre Sevagy*.⁸ Cosme da Guarda, whoever he might have been, did not care, like many of his contemporaries, for accuracy and he gravely asserted that Shivaji, though popularly known as the youngest of Shahaji's twelve sons, was really the offspring of an illicit relation between Jijabai and Dom Manoel de Menezes, a Portuguese gentleman of Virar near Bassein. This naturally reminds us of Clement Dunning's story about the Abyssynian origin of Kanoji Angria. The credulity of that age rendered Guarda incapable of being overcritical, but strangely enough even in these days of historical criticism Guarda's story has afforded a source of interminable and bitter controversy. The story was given currency in English by the Late Dr. Gerson da Cunha in the *Journal of the* Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society and it at once drew an angry retort from Mr. V. K. Rajwade in the *Saraswati Mandir*. Rajwade demolished this palpably absurd story so thoroughly that his article was expected to give the controversy a quietus. But only recently another Luso Indian writer Dr. J. J. Fragoso has come forth to vindicate Guarda in a small pamphlet entitled *Xivaji Maharaj Vencedor de Abdulcan*. He suggests that the word doze in "doze filhos de Sagy" was a printing mistake and if we substitute dois (two) for doze (twelve), there need not be any difficulty in accepting Guarda's story. Prof. Pissurlencar has given a crushing reply to Fragoso's contention in his *Xivaji Maharaj Com Sangue Portugues* and this question need not detain us any longer. Full of gross inaccuracies as Guarda's work is, it is not altogether useless to a student of Maratha history for it supplies some information about Shivaji's navy.
c7.s5.2
⁷ Shivaji Maharaj Com Sangue Portuguez?
c7.s5.3
⁸ Hill, Catalogue of Manuscripts in European Languages belonging to the Library of the India Office, Vol II, pt. 1, p. 204.
c7.s5.4
Julio Firmino Judice Biker has published in his *Cooleçao de Tratados e Concertos de pazes que o Estado da India Portugueza fez com os Reis e Senhores com que teve relaçoes nas partes da Asia e Africa Oriental* the texts of two treaties concluded between Shivaji and the Portuguese in 1667 and 1670. They throw some light on the military and naval exploits of the Maratha hero as well as on his diplomatic activities. An English summary of the more important clauses of these treaties will be found in the present writer's *Report on the Historical Records at Goa*.
c7.s5.5
The late Dr. Dalgado of the Academy of Sciences, Lisbon, informed Prof. Sarkar that there are no Portuguese State papers relating to Shivaji at Lisbon.⁹ The perusal of Danvers's report also leads one to the same conclusion.¹⁰ None of these scholars make any reference to the Goa records. The courtesy of H. E. Dr. Jaime de Morais, late Governor General of Portuguese India, afforded the present writer an opportunity of going through some unpublished Portuguese records embodied in the *Livros dos Reis Visinhos*. The first volume of *Reis Visinhos* is of unique importance to the students of Shivaji's administrative institutions as we come across here some letters throwing new light on the origin of Chauth. An English translation of these letters has been for the first time published in my *Historical Records at Goa*, but the Portuguese original is not yet available to the general reader. I am inclined to think that further researches at Goa and Lisbon may be rewarded with adequate results. The Portuguese had for so many centuries to deal with the Marathas, both as friends and foes, that many contemporary events must have found place in their letters, reports and despatches.
c7.s5.6
⁹ Sarkar, Shivaji, 1st Ed., p. 508.
c7.s5.7
¹⁰ Report to the Secretary of State for India in Council on the Portuguese Records relating to the East Indies, contained in the Archivo Da Torre Do Tombo, and the public Libraries at Lisbon and Evora, by F. C. Danvers, Registrar and Superintendent of Records, India Office, London, 1892.
c7.s5.8
The Portuguese deliberately refrained from interfering with the ancient rights and privileges enjoyed by village communities of Goa and the Government often instituted enquiries about the customary rights and perquisites of the village officers. The results of one such enquiry are available in a Foral issued by Affonso Mexia, Veedor da Fazenda, as early as 1526. The text of this Foral is available not only in official publications like *Codigo das Communidades* but also in such popular works as *India Portuguesa* by Lopes Menedes. An abstract of this important document was published by R. S. Whiteway in his *Rise of the Portuguese Power in India* and B. H. Baden-Powell dealt with it more minutely in a learned paper contributed to the *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society* in 1900 under the heading—*The Villages of Goa in the Early Sixteenth Century*. The Portuguese also decided to retain the old taxes and duties levied by their Muhammadan predecessors and as a result many of these old taxes survived in Portuguese India long after they had become obsolete in Maharashtra. A reference to taxes and duties in Portuguese India therefore sometimes enables us to ascertain the real nature and incidents of similar taxes mentioned in old Marathi records. In this respect, Saldanha's *History of Goa*, Moniz's work on Daman, Joao Baptista Amancio Gracias' *Subsidios para a Historia Economico. Financeira da India Portugueza* and Phillipe Nerry Xavier's works on village communities are of very great use.
c7.s5.9
As the average British Indian reader is not sufficiently aware of the importance of the Portuguese sources of Maratha History, I may here briefly indicate how much we can learn about the army and navy of Shivaji's successors even from published Portuguese works. Almost all the important records of a political character have been published by Cunha Rivara, Balsemão, Phillipe Nerry Xavier, Ismael Gracias and others. Most of these published records have found a place in the monumental work of Judice Biker. They afford us an insight not only into the military and naval organisation of the Marathas but also in their court life and civil institutions. We get an interesting account of Sambhaji's campaign against Goa in Ismael Gracias's *Uma Dona Portugueza no corte do Grao Mogol*.¹ In the appendices of the same work we come across a few original letters about the maritime activities of the Angrias. Ismael Gracias has published almost all papers relating to the Maratha conquest of Bassein in *O Oriente Portugues* of which he was long the sole editor and principal contributor. No more important and reliable account of the Maratha military system can anywhere be obtained than that supplied by an exceptionally brilliant Viceroy, the Marquis of Alorna, in the instructions that he left for his successor, the Marquis of Tavora. The original Portuguese work was published more than seventy years ago under the able editorship of F. N. Xavier and a few extracts were quoted by Danvers in his *Portuguese in India*. The entire work has, however, been rendered into English by the present writer. The Marquis of Alorna did not confine himself to military matters alone, and his remarks upon the peculiar organisation of the Maratha empire and its inherent weakness deserve careful consideration. An estimate of the military and naval power of the Marathas is found also in *Instrucçoes do Dom Jose I*, the authorship of which is rightly attributed to the celebrated Marquis of Pombal. Pombal had no first-hand knowledge of Maratha affairs, but he must have found ample materials for his subject in the reports and correspondence from India. Space does not permit me to deal with this subject in detail here, nor am I in a position to give a list of the interesting manuscript accounts of naval encounters between the Portuguese and the Marathas, preserved at Lisbon and Evora. Curious readers are referred to the works of Cunha Rivara and Ismael Gracias. It is superfluous to say that the unpublished records of Goa have not all been exhaustively studied and they may be made to throw light where darkness now prevails. The Portuguese Government have appointed a distinguished Indian scholar as Curator of their archives at Goa, and there is every reason to hope that his contribution to our knowledge of Maratha history will not be less important than that made by his predecessor and teacher J. A. Ismael Gracias.
c7.s5.10
¹ A Portuguese account of this campaign translated into English for the India Office has been published by Prof. Sarkar in the *Journal of the Hyderabad Archaeological Society* (1919-20). The word *Lascarin* in that paper (p. 15) however, has somewhat puzzled the learned Professor. It stands for, as every student of old Portuguese records knows, native Sepoys. Dalgado has explained the word in his *Glossario*.