Administrative System of the Marathas c7.s5.1

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.