The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c5.73

c5.73

The achievements of Shivaji's army need not detain us long. They are well known. The Maratha chroniclers assert with evident pride that he fought with success against four great powers. The numerical strength of his army has been variously stated. Krishnaji Anant Sabhasad puts it well above 100,000. But the causes of his military success are not far to seek. Superior discipline, superior leadership and the unquestioning confidence of his men account for the brilliant victories which the great Maratha obtained over the Mughals, the Portuguese, the Bijapuris and the Haidrabadis, not to mention the petty poligars who acknowledged his suzerainty. But the main question yet remains to be answered. Why did the self-seeking, watan-loving Marathas submit to Shivaji's leadership? Their devotion no doubt was due to the personal magnetism of the leader, but what first caught their imagination and made them forget their agelong policy of blood-feud and personal aggrandisement? In that age the idea of nationality was yet unborn; but race and religion still stirred the deepest chord in the sentiment of the rude Maratha peasant soldiery. It was to these feelings that Shivaji appealed. The ideal he set forward before his people was a Hindvi Swarajya (Hindu empire), a Maharashtra Padshahi (Maratha kingdom),¹ but above all a Dharma Rajya, a kingdom of righteousness. He assumed the title of Go Brahman pratipalak, and the protection of the cow and the priestly caste was considered the paramount duty of every Hindu.² For this cause the Brahman could fight shoulder to shoulder with the meanest of the untouchables, the Mahar, who is not allowed to live within the village walls. And Shivaji excluded none from his army, not even the Mahar. In India religious intolerance has been very rare and Shivaji's conception of a Hindu empire was in no way identified with religious persecution. He enlisted in his army seven hundred Pathan deserters from Bijapur, at least three of his naval commanders were Muslims by faith, and he venerated the Muhammadan saint Sheikh Muhmmad as he venerated the Hindu Saints Tukaram and Ramdas. He granted *inam* lands for ‘the illumination of, and food offerings to, the shrines of Muhammadan saints, and Muslim mosques were maintained by state allowance’.¹ Only once in his eventful career did he fail to respect the asylum given by a Muhammadan saint to some fugitives,² but he never failed to show due respect to the holy scriptures of the Muslims. And Khafi Khan who delights in showering the most opprobrious epithets (e.g. the reprobate, the sharp son of the devil, the father of fraud, that dog, hell dog, evil malicious fellow)³ on him is yet constrained to admit that, ‘he made it a rule that whenever his followers went plundering, they should do no harm to the mosques, the Book of God, or the women of any one. Whenever a copy of the sacred Kurán came into his hands, he treated it with respect, and gave it to some of his Musalmán followers. When the women of any Hindu or Muhammadan were taken prisoners by his men, and they had no friend to protect them, he watched over them until their relations came with a suitable ransom to buy their liberty’.⁴ The ideal of a Maratha kingdom when preached by such a man made an irresistible appeal to the Marathas and they saw in him the long expected and long prophesied deliverer of the land that had once belonged to their ancestors. A grandson of Lukhji Jadhav, Shivaji could claim to be a descendant of the hero of the *Mahabharata*, while his father claimed the hero of the *Ramayana* for his ancestor.⁵ Shivaji was himself popularly regarded as an incarnation of the god Shiva.¹