Military
opera-
tions must not be precipitated.
tions must not be precipitated.
Cambridge History of India - v4 - Mugul Period
In the Peshwa's court, the elaborate etiquette
of the Mughul nobility was strictly followed. But all this imported
luxury had a demoralising effect upon the hardy and simple character
of the nation.
Balaji, in the intervals of his campaigns, did a great deal to improve
the administration of the Maratha state. Regularly appointed officers
1 See chap. XIII, p. 390.
2 D. B. Parasnis, Poona in Bygone Days, chap. I
## p. 414 (#452) ############################################
414
RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
were placed in charge of the several districts; and the territory round
Satara, being the best protected and most productive, was entrusted
to the Peshwa's favourites. They had absolute charge of the civil
administration, but they were expected to furnish proper accounts:
this, however, was very irregularly done, as the holders of these
offices, being usually absent on campaign or in attendance on the
Peshwa in Poona, left the work in the hands of dishonest and extor-
tionate deputies. Balaji, however, placed the civil administration in
the hands of his great minister Ramchandra Shenvi, and after his
death in those of his cousin Sadashiv Rao. The latter appointed as
chief of the revenue-collectors a very able man by name Balloba
Manduvaguni, who introduced sweeping reforms, and forced the
collectors to produce their accounts. At the same time, the admini-
stration of justice was reformed : a strong police force was organised
in Poona city : and a famous jurist, Bal Kishan Gadgil, was appointed
as chief justice. The panchayats or courts of arbitration were im-
proved, and altogether the administration was established upon a
sound basis; abuses in revenue collection were checked, and the
villages were encouraged to resist the exactions of every petty com-
mander of horse who tried to levy blackmail on them. Each village
was, of course, a tiny republic, administered by the headman,
assisted by the accountant and other village officers: over the head-
man was the sub-collector, and over him the collector, who had
armed irregulars to assist in keeping order.
Balaji Baji Rao (or Nana Sahib, as he was familiarly called) had
the handsome appearance and gracious manner, but not the lofty
character, of his father and grandfather. His conduct towards Sakwar
Bai and Damaji Gaikwar has been stigmatised as unpardonably
treacherous, and later in life. he became indolent and sensual. But
the Maratha peasantry, remembering the all-round improvement
which took place in local government under his regime, have ever
since blessed the days of "Nana Sahib Peshwa". ?
The chief objection to be urged against the Maratha system of
government is that, outside its own territory, it was almost purely
predatory. The Maratha was never a colonist. While away on his
expeditions, his thoughts were always with his little holding in the
Deccan hills, and he seldom intermarried with the people of the
country. 3 Other Hindu states took a pride in improving the con-
dition of the territory they conquered. They constructed temples,
wells, canals, roads and other public works. The Marathas did nothing
of this kind. Their mulukgiri raids, by destroying the industries and
wealth of the countries overrun, merely "killed the goose which
1 Grant Duff, 1, 29 sqq. and 579 sqq. with Edwardes' footnotes. Sen, op. cit.
Book u, passim.
2 Grant Duff, 1, 531-2.
3 Grant Duff dwells on the devotion of the Maratha to his watan or hereditary
holding, 1, 340, 370, passim.
## p. 415 (#453) ############################################
1
THE MARATHAS IN THE NORTH
416
laid the golden eggs”. The Maratha state was a Krieg Staat, pure
and simple : and it is the fate of the Krieg Staat, as Sarkar justly
observes, to defeat its own ends. The severity of the Maratha raids,
for the collection of chauth and other arrears, varied of course, in
intensity. In Gujarat, and in the Carnatic in 1754-56, the plundering
was as thorough as it was merciless : in Malwa, on the other hand,
war was waged against the government rather than the people, and
though the bulk of the revenue was appropriated at each incursion,
the sources from which it was drawn were crippled but not entirely
ruined. But the principle was the same. 2
Meanwhile, stirring events were happening in Hindustan, but only
a brief outline of the tangled skein of intrigue can be given here.
Nadir Shah died in 1747, and Ahmad Shah Abdali, the founder of
Afghanistan, continued his policy of raiding the declining empire,
which he invaded in 1748 and 1749. In the 1751 Safdar Jang, the Nawab
of Oudh, with the sanction of the young emperor, Ahmad Shah, and
heedless of the danger of drawing the Marathas into disputes in the
very heart of the empire, called in Malhar Rao Holkar from Malwa,
Jayappa Sindia from Narnaul, and Suraj Mal the Jat, to help him
against the Bangash Afghans, who had invaded Oudh and plundered
Allahabad and Lucknow. The Marathas drove the Afghans into the
hills with severe loss, and occupied Rohilkhand in 1751. They “sacked
the whole country, not allowing a single man to escape, and every
article they carried away as booty”. 4 For their help, they were given
half the Bangash territory in the Duab, which they held precariously
till the Panipat disaster (1761). This was the first territorial
acquisition of the Marathas beyond the Jumna. In 1752 Ahmad
Shah Abdali invaded the Punjab for a third time. There was a wild
panic at Delhi, and the invader was bought off with promises of the
cession of the Punjab and Multan. ”
A new figure now appears upon the scene in the person of Ghazi.
ud-din the younger, who at the time of his father's murder in 1752
was in Delhi, and, with the help of Safdar Jang, became paymaster-
general. Almost immediately, he turned against his patron, and
called in the Marathas under Raghunath Rao and Malhar Rao
Holkar, who were just then engaged in exacting money from the
Jats. With the help of Holkar, Ahmad Shah was deposed and blinded,
and ‘Alamgir II installed as emperor. Anarchy prevailed in the
unhappy capital, and the rival factions fought daily in the streets.
The Marathas bled the empire white with their insatiable demands,
and this led to a mutiny among the imperial soldiers, who were
months in arrears and starving. They then retired to Rajputana,
1 Shivaji, 3rd ed. chap. XVI, 4.
2 Grant Duif, 1, 464, 585; Malcolm, op. cit. chap. IV.
3 See chap. xv, p. 429.
4 See chap. XV, p. 431.
6 See chap. xy, p. 434.
## p. 416 (#454) ############################################
416 RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
" 2
where they had for some time been engaged in taking part in dynastic
disputes and collecting tribute. Here Jayappa Sindia was murdered
in July, 1755.
In October, 1756, the Abdali once more invaded the Punjab. In
January of the following year he entered Delhi and plundered it,
and two months later sacked the holy city of Muttra. He returned
with booty reckoned at twelve million rupees, leaving Najib Khan
as his agent in Delhi, and his son, Timur Shah, as viceroy of Lahore.
As soon as Ahmad Shah's back was turned, Ghazi-ud-din once more
called in the Marathas, and in February, 1758, a Maratha force
under Raghunath Rao invaded the Punjab, drove out Timur Shah,
and occupied Lahore (April, 1758). The Maratha power was now
at its zenith. “Their frontiers”, says Elphinstone, "extended on the
north to the Indus and the Himalaya, and to the south nearly to the
extremity of the peninsula : all the territory which was not their own
paid tribute. The whole of this great power was wielded by one
hand. . . and all pretensions of every description were concentrated
on the Peshwa. ” News of these successes were received with wild
elation in the Poona court, where it was fondly believed that the
Bhagwa Jhanda was "flying over the walls of Attock”. 3 As a matter
of fact, the wisdom of Raghunath Rao's ambitious policy was open
to grave doubts. It did not bring an anna to the Peshwa's coffers,
and the Marathas were not in a position to hold the country, where
both Sikhs and Muslims looked on them as hated intruders. Lastly,
by provoking the retaliation of the Abdali, it led to the downfall
of the Maratha power in Hindustan.
In 1758 the main Maratha army retired, leaving a garrison at
Lahore in charge of Sabaji Sindia. Meanwhile the Abdali, who was
furious at the expulsion of his son, and resolved “to bring to a
decisive issue the quarrel with the Hindu power which had crossed
his track of conquest, ill-treated his allies, and made war on true
believers", had settled his internal dissensions and was preparing
a fresh invasion. He crossed the Indus in August, 1759, and Sabaji
was forced to evacuate Lahore and fall back on Delhi. Having been
joined by the Rohilla chiefs, Ahmad Shah advanced on the capital,
driving the Marathas before him. His movements were hastened by
the news of the cruel murder of the emperor by Ghazi-ud-din on
29 November. On 9 January, 1760, at the Barari Ghat ten miles
north of Delhi, Ahmad Shah defeated and slew Dattaji Sindhia; his
nephew Jankoji fled with the remnants of his army to Rajputana,
where he managed to effect a junction with Malhar Rao Holkar.
Worse, however, was to follow. On 4 March Ahmad Shah's general
Jahan Khan, after a forced march, surprised and completely routed
1 See chap. xv, p. 445.
2 Cf. Grant Duff, I, 507.
3 Actually, the Marathas never crossed the Chenab.
4 Sarkar, Fall of the Mughul Empire, u, 159.
## p. 417 (#455) ############################################
THE BHAO SAHIB TAKES THE FIELD
417
Malhar Rao near Sikandarabad. In one short campaign the power
of the Marathas in Hindustan was completely shattered.
The news of the defeat and death of Dattaji reached the Peshwa
on 15 February, while the Marathas in the Deccan were jubilantly
celebrating the victory of Udgir. It was at once decided that a force
must be despatched under a member of the Peshwa's family to restore
Maratha influence in Hindustan. Raghunath Rao applied for the
command, and with his experience of fighting in northern India,
undoubtedly the choice should have fallen upon him. But Raghunath
Rao had incurred very heavy expenditure during his last campaign,
which had brought no revenue to the exchequer, and for this reason
he was under a cloud. Little love was lost between the two cousins,
and on the strength of this Sadashiv Rao, the hero of Udgir, claimed
the command. The Peshwa, now too indolent to take the field him-
self, unwisely agreed: but with him, "according to the ancient
custom of the Marathas”, he sent his young heir, Vishvas Rao, a
gallant and handsome lad of nineteen years, as nominal commander
and the Peshwa's representative. The army which set out from
Patdur in the Deccan on 10 March, 1760, was the most magnificent
that the Marathas had ever sent forth to battle. There were twenty
thousand of the famous Maratha horse, including the Khas Paga,
or household cavalry, commanded by chieftains of note who had
fought from one end of India to the other-Balvant Rao Mehendale,
Shamsher Bahadur, Baji Rao's son by the notorious Mastani, Naro
Shankar, Vithal Shivdeo Vinchurkar, Trimbak Sadashiv Purandhare,
Antaji Mankeshwar, and a host of others. With them went Ibrahim
Khan Gardi's corps of 9000 sepoys, trained under Bussy on the French
model, with forty pieces of cannon, which had done so well at Udgir.
But the experienced observer would have noted signs about this im-
posing array well calculated to make him uneasy. Shivaji's successes
had been due to the fact that his men moved without transport, sub-
sisting on a nose-bag of grain carried on the saddle and on food
taken from the surrounding country. And that great commander
had made it an offence punishable with death to bring a woman
into the camp. But the Bhao Sahib moved with a vast amount of
equipage and thousands of camp followers; behind followed numbers
of elephants, loaded with lofty silken tents; the wives of the principal
nobles accompanied their husbands with numerous retinues, and the
officers were resplendent in cloth of gold. Lastly, the Marathas were
forsaking their traditional tactics for new methods, based on European
models imperfectly assimilated.
But no thought of disaster troubled the mighty but unwieldy host,
as it slowly made its way, through Aurangabad, Burhanpur and
1 The best account of the campaign of Panipat is in Sarkar's Fall of the
Mughul Empire, vol. II, which is based on the most recent researches and
supersedes earlier narratives.
27
## p. 418 (#456) ############################################
418
RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
Gwalior, to the banks of the Chambal, which was reached on 4 June.
As it moved northwards, reinforcements poured in. Malhar Rao
Holkar, Jankoji Sindia, Damaji Gaikwar, Yashwant Rao Powar,
with other Maratha chiefs and innumerable swarms of vagabond
Pindaris, flocked to the royal standard, till the total exceeded 300,009,
of whom about one-fourth were fighting men, with 200 cannon. It was
not merely an army, but a crusade, united to drive the Afghan
invaders from the sacred soil of India. But now rifts began to appear.
The Rajputs, offended at the high-handed conduct of Sindia and
Holkar, held aloof. At the Chambal, Suraj Mal, the Jat chief of
Bharatpur, rode in with his force, and a council of war was held
Suraj Mal, a veteran fighter, earnestly advised the Bhao Sahib to
park his baggage and artillery at Bharatpur, and then to start guerrilla
operations in the traditional Maratha fashion against the Abdali's
flank and rear: by this means, he said, and by avoiding a pitched
battle they would compel him very quickly to retreat. Holkar and
Sindia heartily concurred, but the Bhao Sahib contemptuously
rejected the sage advice of these experienced warriors, as "the chatter
of goatherds and zamindars”. 1 The taunt deeply wounded the pride
of the Maratha generals, and the old jealousy of the rule of the
Chitpavan broke out afresh. “If this Brahman wins", they said, "he
will send his couriers to collect the revenues of Hindustan, and we
shall have to wash his loin-cloths. It is better that he should meet
with a defeat, or else what consideration shall we be allowed? ” Suraj
Mal determined to slip away from the doomed force at the first
suitable opportunity.
The Marathas were outside Delhi by the end of July, and the fort
was captured without much difficulty on 2 August. Here also the
Bhao Sahib's conduct gave great offence. In order to pay his troops,
he stripped off the silver from the ceiling of the great hall of audience,
and plundered tombs and shrines which Persian and Afghan had
respected. A rumour was even spread abroad that he intended to
place Vishvas Rao on the Mughul throne. Dismayed at this behaviour,
Suraj Mal and his Jats quietly decamped: the loss of these seasoned
troops was a serious matter, but the Bhao Sahib affected to make
light of it, saying that nothing better could be expected of mere
landholders. The Marathas spent the rainy season encamped in and
around Delhi, while the Abdali was in quarters at Anupshahr in the
Bulandshahr district; both parties being busily engaged in intriguing,
through their agents, for the support of Shuja'-ud-daula, the Nawab
Vazir, who had succeeded his uncle Safdar Jang in 1754 and at first
remained neutral. Proposals were also made by the Bhao Sahib that
1 Sarkar, op. cit. pp. 258 sqq. , doubts the arrogance of the Bhao Sahib. But
Nana Farnavis, who was present, says: "His Highness had latterly become
proud and arrogant, and had lost his usual wisdom”, to which he mainly attri-
butes the disaster.
3 Siyar-ul-Mutaakhkhirin, ITI, 385.
## p. 419 (#457) ############################################
START OF THE CAMPAIGN
419
the Abdali should be given large territories north of the Sutlej on
condition that he withdrew, but they fell through, chiefly on account
of the opposition of Najib Khan the Rohilla, who had good cause to
hate the Marathas for ravaging Rohilkhand and wanted them to
retire for good and all behind the line of the Chambal. Shuja'-ud-
daula reluctantly decided to join his co-religionists.
The rains were now over; the Dasahra festival was at hand, and
both sides prepared to take the field. The Bhao Sahib moved up-
stream, leaving Naro Shankar with about 7000 Marathas to garrison
Delhi. The Abdali was on the other side of the river: his army was
slightly superior in numbers to that of his opponents, and the
Durranis were men of great bodily strength, mounted on swift
Turki horses. ? About seventy-eight miles north of Delhi lay the
fortified post of Kunjpura, well-stocked with money and provisions,
of which the Marathas were in sore need, and commanding an
important ford over the Jumna. It was held by Nijabat Khan with
10,000 picked Rohillas, and on 17 October the Bhao Sahib determined
to attack it. It was taken by storm after a fierce bombardment by
Ibrahim Khan's heavy guns, and the garrison was put to the sword
on the pretext that Nijabat Khan had been responsible for the death
of Dattaji Sindia at Badaun Ghat. The Jumna was still in full flood
and impassable, and Ahmad Shah was forced to look on helplessly
while his troops were cut to pieces. The bad discipline and the
notorious love of plunder of the Marathas now proved their undoing.
While they were engaged in ransacking Kunjpura for treasure and
celebrating the Dasahra feast, they failed to keep the enemy on the
further bank under observation. Ahmad Shah cleverly slipped away
and marched down stream. With the help of Shuja'-ud-daula, he
-
found a ford at Baghpat, about twenty-five miles north of Delhi, and
in spite of the flood, in two days he pushed his whole army across
at all costs, losing numbers of men in the process. By this masterly
stroke he placed himself between his opponents and their base. This
was on 25 October. The Marathas came up soon after and were
repulsed with loss: had they arrived a little while earlier, they would
have had the Afghans at their mercy. Now that it was too late, the
Marathas attacked, but were driven off with loss, and fell back
fighting on the little town of Panipat, about sixty miles north of
Delhi. Holkar once more begged the Bhao Sahib to resume the old
guerrilla tactics of the Marathas, but Ibrahim Khan Gardi threatened
to turn his guns upon his own side if they deserted him. The Bhao
1 In 1760 it fell on October 19th.
2 Sarkar, op. cit. , II, 289, gives the forces actually engaged as Afghans, 60,000;
Marathas, 45,000, exlcuding irregular troops and followers. Kasi Raj gives the
numbers as follows: Afghans, 41,800 cavalry, 38,000 infantry: total 79,800.
Marathas, 55,000 cavalry, 15,000 infantry, 15,000 Pindaris : total 85,000. Both
sides had immense numbers of camp-followers,
## p. 420 (#458) ############################################
420 RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
Sahib therefore threw himself into Panipat, where with the help of
Ibrahim Khan he proceeded to "dig himself in " in approved European
fashion, throwing up a broad rampart with a ditch in front of it and
mounting his cannon at regular intervals. He hoped to provoke the
Durrani to attack him, by means of raids upon his lines of commu-
nications, but the Afghan artillery was inferior to that of the Marathas,
and Ahmad Shah was too old a soldier to be drawn into a conflict
except on his own terms. He therefore proceeded to entrench him-
self also in a fortified camp with an abattis of felled trees, about eight
miles away, between the enemy and the Jumna. By this fatal move,
the Marathas permanently lost the initiative, sacrificing also their
mobility, which was their most valuable asset. But the Bhao Sahib
made a still graver blunder. He had taken into the field his own
wife and the wives of his officers, instead of leaving them behind at
Delhi. The vast crowd of retainers and camp followers were bound
to eat up the provisions of Panipat in a short time. Meanwhile,
negotiations were proceeding behind the scenes. Shuja'-ud-daula was
still inclined towards peace, but Najib Khan, the sworn enemy of the
Marathas, again dissuaded Ahmad Shah. "The Marathas", he said,
“are the thorn of Hindustan: if they were out of the way, this empire
might be Your Majesty's whenever you should please. " The Bhao
Sahib would not have been averse from an arrangement by which
he should fall back behind the Chambal leaving northern India in
the hands of the Abdali. But such an idea met strong opposition
in Poona from Raghunath Rao, who was not unnaturally reluctant
to see the fruits of his conquests abandoned.
The space between the lines was now the scene of almost daily
skirmishes : horsemen rode out challenging their foes to single combat,
and a number of fierce actions developed from chance encounters.
Raids by the Gardi infantry on 19 November and by Sindia on
the 22nd were repulsed with loss, after some initial successes; and
on 7 December a Rohilla attack was defeated in a spirited manner
by Balvant Rao Mehendale, who drove off the Afghans with great
slaughter, but was unfortunately killed in the hour of victory, when
his men fled. The Afghans pursued them and nearly stormed the
Maratha camp, which was only saved by the approach of night.
The death of Mehendale, his brother-in-law and most trusted coun-
sellor, was a serious loss to the Bhao Sahib, but about the same time
he managed to get into touch with Govind Pant, the Peshwa's col-
lector in Bundelkhand and the Duab. Govind Pant advanced rapidly
with a swarm of light horsemen, and skirmishing in the traditional
Maratha manner, began to cut off the enemy's supplies and harass
his foraging parties.
The tables were now turned. The Afghan camp was in a state of
1 His despatches are translated in the Appendix to Kasi Raj, Account of
the Last Battle of Panipat (Oxford, 1926).
## p. 421 (#459) ############################################
THE MARATHA CAMP BLOCKADED
421
siege, and there was a serious shortage of food. Many of the Afghan
generals became seriously alarmed, and urged the Abdali either to
attack the Marathas or to break camp and retreat. But here Ahmad
Shah showed himself a great captain. “This”, he answered, “is a
matter of war with which you are not acquainted.
Military opera-
tions must not be precipitated. You shall see how I will manage
this affair, and bring it to a successful conclusion. ” He then proceeded
to tighten the blockade. He established an advanced post of 5000
men half-way between the lines; and there he pitched a little red
tent, which he made his head-quarters from sunrise to nightfall, riding
fifty or sixty miles a day to visit his outposts. After dark, the advanced
post was pushed up to the very walls of the enemy's camp, and re-
mained under arms all night, while other bodies went the rounds.
“Ahmad Shah's orders were obeyed like destiny," says Kasi Raj,
"no man daring to hesitate or delay one moment in executing
them. ”
The effect of this pressure soon began to tell. On 17 December
a body of horse under 'Ata Khan, riding fifty miles in a day,
surprised Govind Pant and his raiders and cut them to pieces. A few
nights later, some twenty thousand camp followers, who had left
the Maratha camp to go foraging, were caught by the advanced post
and all slaughtered; and to crown everything, on 6 January a convoy
bringing specie from Delhi to pay the troops, together with its escort,
was similarly cut up.
The state of things in the Maratha camp was now indescribable.
Grief and terror prevailed. Hundreds died every day of famine, and
an epidemic, the result of starvation and absence of sanitation, broke
out in the vast host cooped up in this narrow area. “We were sur-
rounded," says Nana Farnavis in his autobiography, "and the
enemy's shots fell thickly among our tents daily. . . . There we re-
mained in a state of siege for two months, during which most of the
cattle of the army died, and the stench was dreadful. ” Attempts to
open negotiations with the enemy were once more foiled by the
implacable hatred of Najib Khan.
On 13 January the Maratha chiefs approached their leader. "It
is now two days since we have had anything to eat”, they said.
“Do not let us perish in this misery : let us make one spirited effort
against the enemy, and whatever is our destiny that will happen. ”
Holkar and Sindia urged once more that
more that the cavalry should
abandon the camp, leaving the infantry and non-combatants to their
fate, and cut their way through to Delhi. Ibrahim Khan not un-
naturally refused to be sacrificed, and the Bhao Sahib rightly
declined to abandon the women to the mercy of the Afghans. It
was determined to deliver a general assault on the enemy's lines on
the following day. Whatever were the Bhao's feelings, he was too
brave a man to show them; and at the close of the council, he
## p. 422 (#460) ############################################
422 RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
2
distributed pan and supari to his officers with all the dignified cere-
mony of a darbar.
Shortly before dawn, Shuja'-ud-daula received a last despairing
letter from the Bhao Sahib. “The cup is now full to the brim, and
cannot hold another drop. If anything can be done, do it or else
inform me plainly at once: hereafter there will be no time for writing
nor speaking. ” It was plain from this that the Marathas were
coming out. The Nawab at once told his men to fall in, and galloped
off to warn Ahmad Shah. Ahmad Shah, who was sleeping, was
aroused, and was soon up and seated on his charger outside the little
red tent, calmly smoking his hookah, and listening to the commotion
in the enemy's camp. It was as yet uncertain whether the Marathas
were preparing to attack or to slip away, but at length the long lines
of troops were seen deploying in the dim light. "Your servant's
news is very true”, said Ahmad Shah, and at once issued the neces-
sary instructions to his officers. The Marathas advanced slowly, the
ends of their turbans loose and their faces anointed with saffron-a
sign that they had come out to conquer or to die on the field. On the
left of the line was Ibrahim Khan with his regular battalions, with
Damaji Gaikwar on his immediate right. On the right flank were
Malhar Rao Holkar and Jankoji Sindia. The centre was com-
posed of the household cavalry. The Bhao himself, seated besid?
Vishvas Rao on a magnificent war-elephant, took station beneath
a black mango-tree, and over him floated the famous Bhagwa
Jhanda, the national standard of the Marathas. Three Jari Phatkas,
or grand ensigns of the Peshwas, were in the field. The Afghan
centre was commanded by the chief minister, Shah Wali Khan, with
the pick of the Durrani troops on their great Turki mounts. On the
left flank were Shah Pasand Khan and Najib-ud-daula, the latter
facing his old enemies, Sindia and Holkar. Between these and the
centre was Shuja'-ud-daula with the Oudh troops. On the right
flank were Barkhurdar Khan and Amir Beg with Rohilla and Mughul
contingents.
The two lines advanced obliquely on a front of about 742 miles,
the Maratha left under Ibrahim Khan making contact first. The
battle began with a fierce discharge of artillery and rockets all along
the line, but the Maratha gunners, deceived probably by the light,
fired high, and the shots flew harmlessly overhead. Thus the weapon
on which the Bhao Sahib chiefly relied failed him at the critical
1 Another version is "the flood has risen above my head" (Sarkar, op. cit.
p. 320).
2 The Maratha order of the battle from the left was : Ibrahim Khan;
Damaji Gaikwar; Vithal Shivdeo; Sadashiv Rao and Vishvas Rao (centre);
Jaswant Rao Powar; Shamsher Bahadur; Malhar Rao Holkar; Jankoji Sindia.
The Durrani order, facing the Marathas, was : Barkhurdar Khan; Amir Beg;
Dunde Khan; Hafiz Rahmat Khan; Ahmad Khan Bangash; Grand Vazir (cen-
tre); Shuja'-ud-daula; Najib-ud-daula; Shah Pasand Khan.
## p. 423 (#461) ############################################
THE BATTLE OF PANIPAT
423
moment. Ibrahim Khan, who had promised Sadashiv Rao that on
this day he would justify the trust placed in him, thereupon ordered
the guns to cease firing, and closed his opponents with the bayonet.
After a fierce struggle, during which their commander was wounded,
the regular sepoys pressed back the Rohillas. This exposed the Afghan
centre under the chief minister, and at once the Bhao Sahib, seeing
his opportunity, charged into the gap with the whole of the house-
hold cavalry at full gallop. The impact was incredibly violent; the
Afghans were surprised and met their enemies at the trot, and the
Marathas broke through three lines of their opponents. It was now
impossible to see anything for the clouds of dust, and nothing could
be heard but the opposing cries of Har, Har Mahadeo! and Din, Din!
as the troopers, locked in a death grip, stabbed and struck with lance
and battle-axe, and even with daggers. The Shah Wali Khan, who
commanded the centre, dismounted and in full armour, in a paroxysm
of rage, was trying to rally his men in vain. "Our country is far
off, my friends," he was crying, "whither do you fly? " But none
heeded his orders or his exhortations.
It now looked as if the battle was going against the Afghans. Their
right flank was turned and their centre was broken: only on their
left were they holding their own. Here Najib-ud-daula was facing
his old enemy, Jankoji Sindia. Anticipating modern methods, he
advanced by short rushes, his men halting to "dig themselves in",
and the sappers throwing up field-breastworks, while the Maratha
formations were broken up by salvos of rockets. From dawn to
midday the engagement raged with the utmost fury, and at any
moment the line might give way. But the Abdali knew that the
commander who throws in his reserves last wins. The psychological
moment had now come. He brought up his fresh reserves, and at
the same time sent military police to whip up, on pain of death, the
stragglers who were dribbling away to the rear, and to call up the
troops left to guard the camp. He then posted 4000 men to cover
his right, sent 10,000 to Shah Wali Khan, with orders for him to
charge with the sword in close order at full gallop, and issued direc-
tions to Pasand Khan and Najib-ud-daula to take the Maratha
centre in flank, as soon as as he saw the minister's troops on the move.
Meanwhile, the mounted infantry galloped along the enemy's line,
firing from their saddles into the close ranks of the enemy.
The simultaneous counter-attack was launched all along the line
early in the afternoon. It was excellently timed, and its effect upon
the exhausted Marathas was terrible. Men and horses had been
starved for weeks, and had had no food at all since dawn. Still,
1 Sarkar points out that Hindu armies, for caste-reasons, took no food into
the field, and were accustomed to break off action in order to prepare a meal
about noon. Clive at Plassey, and General Harris at Seringapatam, took advan-
tage of this fact.
## p. 424 (#462) ############################################
424 RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
" 2
however, they contested the ground, inch by inch. “A furious engage-
ment ensued,” says the author of the Siyar-ul-Mutaakhkhirin, "and
for full two hours there arose such a cloud of dust that none of the
combatants could distinguish the earth from the heavens. From mid-
day to four o'clock, nothing could be heard or seen, but a furious
slaughter which was going on at an incredible rate. ” To the fire
of the mounted infantry was added that of the camel-guns (shutarnal),
which caused many casualties. About 2. 15 p. m. , Vishvas Rao was
wounded and had to be taken to his elephant, but the Bhao still
fought on at the head of his men for an hour longer. Then with
dramatic suddenness, resistance collapsed. “All at once, as if by
enchantment, the whole Maratha army turned their backs and fled
at full speed, leaving the field of battle covered with heaps of dead. "'1
In the dramatic words of an eyewitness, the Hindu host suddenly
melted away "like camphor". The victors pursued them to their
camp, giving no quarter, and the ditch was soon choked with bodies,
“The field of battle looked like a tract sown with tulips, and as far
as the sight could extend, nothing could be discovered but bodies
stretched at the foot of bodies, as if they had been asleep, or mar-
shalled by art. " 2 It was a moonlight night, and the slaughter of
fugitives went on till dawn. Next morning the camp was stormed,
and a further massacre took place. Surrender availed nothing. The
unhappy prisoners were paraded in long lines, given a little parched
grain and a drink of water, and beheaded. Every Afghan tent had
heads piled before its doors. The plunder of the camp was prodigious,
and the women and children who survived were driven off as slaves. 3
The body of Vishvas Rao was brought to the Shah, and every one
gazed in admiration of the beauty of the lad, who seemed to be only
sleeping. The Durranis cried out: “This is the body of the king of
the unbelievers: we will have it dried and stuffed to carry back to
Kabul. ” But Shuja'-ud-daula, who did all he could to help the
vanquished army, arranged to have him cremated according to Hindu
rites. He was, however, unable to protect Jankoji Sindia or Ibrahim
Khan, who were both taken prisoners and sacrificed to the conqueror's
rage. Ibrahim Khan was a renegade, who had fought on the side
of the infidel against true believers : Jankoji was hated by the
Rohillas. The Bhao Sahib, when he saw that all was lost, had
mounted his charger, and collecting a few men, galloped into the
thick of the battle to find a soldier's death. When last seen, he was
surrounded by Afghans and fighting desperately. A headless corpse,
identified as his, was recovered and cremated along with that of his
nephew. 4
1 Kasi Raja, pp. 39-40.
2 Siyar-ul-Mutakhkhirin, loc. cit.
3 Twenty-two thousand, many of them of the highest rank in the land,
says the Siyar-ul-Mutakhkhirin.
4 There is no doubt about his fate, though two impostors, claiming to be
the Bhao, appeared in Poona and Benares and were thrown into prison.
## p. 425 (#463) ############################################
DEFEEAT OF THE MARATHAS
425
Meanwhile, the Peshwa had been planning an expedition to
northern India to extricate the Bhao Sahib, and he had, without
success, endeavoured to enlist the co-operation of the Nizam. Balaji
was now in failing health, and incapable of acting with promptness.
He was distracted by family dissensions, and haunted by the spectre
of bankruptcy, the result of his far-flung ambitions in the north.
But in any case, the Bhao and his heroic comrades were beyond the
reach of earthly help. On 24 January, at Bhilsa, a banker's letter
was intercepted, which announced in enigmatic language the tragedy
of ten days previously. "Two pearls have been dissolved,” it said,
"twenty-seven gold mohurs have been lost, and of the silver and
copper, the total cannot be cast up. ” Balaji pressed on, hoping that
some of his family might have survived, but fugitives now began to
come in, who confirmed the completeness of the tragedy. Balaji
slowly fell back on Poona, which he reached in June. Here, on the
23rd, he passed away in the palace which he had erected on the
Parvati hill, calling for his lost son. It is easy to be wise after the
event, and innumerable criticisms have been passed upon the Bhao
for his arrogance and refusal to take advice from his captains. But
Sadashiv Rao, with all his faults, atoned by death for any errors of
which he may be adjudged guilty. Defeat is sometimes as honourable
as victory, and at Panipat the Marathas went down fighting.
Holkar and Damaji Gaikwar withdrew when they saw that all
was lost. But there does not appear to be sufficient reason for
accusing the former of deliberate treachery. According to his owi?
account, the Bhao Sahib sent him a message, telling him to "do as
he had directed”—perhaps to rescue the women and children in
the camp, who had been committed to his charge, and escort them
to Delhi. In this he was unsuccessful. Naro Shankar and part of
the Delhi garrison managed to get away. Mahadji Sindhia and
Nana Farnavis were among the few fugitives who escaped almost
miraculously from the field; the former received a wound in the leg
from a gigantic Afghan which lamed him for life. About 100,000
Marathas must have perished: and only one-fourth of the fighting
men ever saw the Deccan again. Many fugitives were murdered by
the peasants, who were only too eager to turn the tables upon their
former oppressors. Those who straggled into Dig were, however,
hospitably entertained by Suraj Mal, and in this way about four
thousand men reached home. Shamsher Bahadur and Antaji Man-
keshwar died of wounds at Dig.
"Never was a defeat more complete", says Elphinstone, "and
never was there a calamity that diffused so much consternation.
Grief and despondency spread over the whole Maratha people: most
had to mourn relations, and all felt the destruction of the army as
a death-blow to their national greatness. ” Most disastrous of all,
1 Siyar-ul-Mutaakhkhirin, DI, 392.
## p. 426 (#464) ############################################
426
RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
perhaps, was the fact that it dealt a fatal blow to the one unifying
influence in the Deccan, the prestige of the Peshwas. It is, of course,
true that the Marathas, with characteristic resiliency, recovered from
what would have been a crushing disaster to a less hardy nation.
In August, 1763, they won a brilliant victory over the Nizam at
Rakshasbhavan. But their armies were never again the same. The
Arab and Hindustani mercenary to an increasing degree replaced
the free Maratha trooper, and most important of all, the weakened
power of the Peshwa paved the way to English interference in
Maratha affairs. Panipat, in other words, was the prelude to Assaye
and Kirkee. To Ahmad Shah also, the victory was a Pyrrhic one:
on 22 March, after ransacking Delhi, he withdrew his army. His
men, who hated the Indian hot weather, were on the verge of mutiny,
and insisted on returning home with their plunder. Ahmad Shah,
accordingly, after having left Najib Khan as regent of Delhi, retreated
beyond the passes, and did not again invade India.
A NOTE ON MARATHI LITERATURE
The Marathas are typical hil en, independent and freedom-loving, and their
language and literature reflect these characteristics. Marathi is a rugged ton-
gue, with none of the courtly refinements of northern India, and the early poetic
literature is the simple, natural expression of religious emotion. The earliest
Marathi poetry is an offshoot of the Bhakti movement which swept over India
from the twelfth century A. D. , and gave such an impetus to the development of
vernaculars. Its essential doctrine is that salvation may be attained, independent-
ly of priests, ritual and caste, by devotion to the Divine Name. The Deity, whe-
ther manifested as Shiva, or Vishnu in his various incarnations, is Bhagavan, the
Adorable, and his devotees are the Bhagavatas. It has been not inaptly com-
pared to the Protestant Reformation in Europe.
In Maharashtra, the central object of devotion was Vithoba, a local form of
Vishnu, who dwells at the famous shrine of Pandharpur. It was upon him that
the worship of the poet-sainis of the Deccan was focused. The earliest writers
in Marathi (as opposed to the Maharashtri Prakrit) belong to the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, and flourished under the Yadavas, the last Hindu
dynasty of the Deccan. They are Mukundraj, Namdev (A. D. 1270-1350) and
Jnaneshvar. Their object was to bring the learning of the pundits down to the
level of the common people. Jnaneshvar, who lived at Alandi near Poona, is
commonly believed to have made a buffalo recite the Veda! He wrote a para-
phrase of the Bhagavad Gita. Namdev, a devotee of Vithoba, was a tailor by
caste. He wrote in Hindi as well as Marathi; some of his poems found their way
to northern India, and were incorporated in the Adi Granth of the Sikhs.
For the next three centuries, with the Deccan under the heel of the Muham-
madans, no writer of note appeared. Then in the seventeenth century, the
national renaissance which culminated in Shivaji began to gather force. The
earliest poet of this period was Eknath of Paithan, who, though a Brahman,
denounced the caste-system, and went so far as to dine with a Mahar, an almost
unbeard-of action. He died in 1608. His grandson Mukteshvar, together with
Tukaram and Ramdas, was a contemporary of Shivaji. Shivaji, though formally
illiterate, was a fervent admirer of his country's songs and legends, and it is said
that more than once he risked capture when going to Poona in disguise to hear
## p. 427 (#465) ############################################
MARATHI LITERATURE
427
a religious recitation. He tried to persuade Tukaram to come to his court. But
Tukaram, absorbed in his intense love of Vithoba, cared for none of these things:
He was a poor trader by profession, knowing no Sanskrit, and his artless verses
are sung in countless village homes all over the Deccan to-day. Ramdas, on
the cther hand, was a Brahman, and was Shivaji's guru or spiritual preceptor.
It is said that Shivaji surrendered his kingdom to him, and received it back
"in trust from God”, and for this reason, the national standard of the Mara-
thas, the Bhagwa Jhanda, was the orange robe of the ascetic. The verses of
Ramdas, full of wise saws, remind us of the Proverbs of King Solomon, and
his teaching undoubtedly had a formative effect upon Shivaji. He died in 1681.
The most interesting products of the period, however, are the pawadas or
ballads. Their most singular characteristic is that they are unwritten, being
handed down from generation to generation by the gondhalis, a tribe or caste
of wandering bards who composed and recited them. The gondhalis are devo-
tees of the goddess Amba Bhavani, and the recitations are accompanied by an
elaborate ritual, in which the goddess herself is supposed to descend upon the
reciter. The ballads deal with the deeds of the Maratha heroes in their strug-
gles against the Muhammadans, such as the slaying of Afzal Khan, the taking
of Sinhgarh by Tanaji Malusre, the battle of Kharda, and the tragedy of
Panipat. These ballads were intensely popular with the unlettered peasantıy,
and played a great part in arousing them against their Muhammadan rulers. i
The period after the death of Shivaji witnessed a great outburst of Marathi
poetry, and it will here be possible only to mention a few leading names. Shri-
dhar was the most beloved of the writers of this time, and shares with Tukaram
the palm of popularity in the Deccan to-day. His mission was to make the heroic
legends of Hinduism accessible to women and others who knew no Sanskrit.
The titles of his works, the Tri of Rama ma Vijay and the Exploits
of the Pandavas, speak for themselves. He was born at Pandharpur in 1670
and died in 1728. "In every town and village in the Deccan and Konkan,
especially during the rains, the pious Maratha will be found enjoying with his
family and friends the Pothi of Shridhar. ” Moropant, admired by connoisseurs
for his verbal ingenuity, does not appeal to western taste. Another writer of
great interest is Mahipati, whose Bhakta Vijaya and Santa Vijaya, Triumphs
of the Devotees and Saints, are a mine of information about the picturesque
legends which have grown up round the poet-saints of the Deccan.
During the eighteenth century, the Maratha character started to change.
Poona was filled with loot from Hindustan, and the manners and ceremonial
of the Mughul Court were introduced. Contact with the western nations, espe-
cially the English at Bombay and Surat, was beginning to have its effect. Erotic
poetry became popular, and Ram Joshi (1762-1812) was the most celebrated of
the writers of Lavanis or Love Songs. The conquest of an empire, and the
appearance of state-papers and despatches, led to the development of Marathi
prose. Bakhars or historical chronicles were compiled, but their barbarous
idiom, three-quarters Persian, bears little relation to the elegant, highly sanskri-
tised prose style which arose in the nineteenth century, as a result of contact
with western literature.
of the Mughul nobility was strictly followed. But all this imported
luxury had a demoralising effect upon the hardy and simple character
of the nation.
Balaji, in the intervals of his campaigns, did a great deal to improve
the administration of the Maratha state. Regularly appointed officers
1 See chap. XIII, p. 390.
2 D. B. Parasnis, Poona in Bygone Days, chap. I
## p. 414 (#452) ############################################
414
RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
were placed in charge of the several districts; and the territory round
Satara, being the best protected and most productive, was entrusted
to the Peshwa's favourites. They had absolute charge of the civil
administration, but they were expected to furnish proper accounts:
this, however, was very irregularly done, as the holders of these
offices, being usually absent on campaign or in attendance on the
Peshwa in Poona, left the work in the hands of dishonest and extor-
tionate deputies. Balaji, however, placed the civil administration in
the hands of his great minister Ramchandra Shenvi, and after his
death in those of his cousin Sadashiv Rao. The latter appointed as
chief of the revenue-collectors a very able man by name Balloba
Manduvaguni, who introduced sweeping reforms, and forced the
collectors to produce their accounts. At the same time, the admini-
stration of justice was reformed : a strong police force was organised
in Poona city : and a famous jurist, Bal Kishan Gadgil, was appointed
as chief justice. The panchayats or courts of arbitration were im-
proved, and altogether the administration was established upon a
sound basis; abuses in revenue collection were checked, and the
villages were encouraged to resist the exactions of every petty com-
mander of horse who tried to levy blackmail on them. Each village
was, of course, a tiny republic, administered by the headman,
assisted by the accountant and other village officers: over the head-
man was the sub-collector, and over him the collector, who had
armed irregulars to assist in keeping order.
Balaji Baji Rao (or Nana Sahib, as he was familiarly called) had
the handsome appearance and gracious manner, but not the lofty
character, of his father and grandfather. His conduct towards Sakwar
Bai and Damaji Gaikwar has been stigmatised as unpardonably
treacherous, and later in life. he became indolent and sensual. But
the Maratha peasantry, remembering the all-round improvement
which took place in local government under his regime, have ever
since blessed the days of "Nana Sahib Peshwa". ?
The chief objection to be urged against the Maratha system of
government is that, outside its own territory, it was almost purely
predatory. The Maratha was never a colonist. While away on his
expeditions, his thoughts were always with his little holding in the
Deccan hills, and he seldom intermarried with the people of the
country. 3 Other Hindu states took a pride in improving the con-
dition of the territory they conquered. They constructed temples,
wells, canals, roads and other public works. The Marathas did nothing
of this kind. Their mulukgiri raids, by destroying the industries and
wealth of the countries overrun, merely "killed the goose which
1 Grant Duff, 1, 29 sqq. and 579 sqq. with Edwardes' footnotes. Sen, op. cit.
Book u, passim.
2 Grant Duff, 1, 531-2.
3 Grant Duff dwells on the devotion of the Maratha to his watan or hereditary
holding, 1, 340, 370, passim.
## p. 415 (#453) ############################################
1
THE MARATHAS IN THE NORTH
416
laid the golden eggs”. The Maratha state was a Krieg Staat, pure
and simple : and it is the fate of the Krieg Staat, as Sarkar justly
observes, to defeat its own ends. The severity of the Maratha raids,
for the collection of chauth and other arrears, varied of course, in
intensity. In Gujarat, and in the Carnatic in 1754-56, the plundering
was as thorough as it was merciless : in Malwa, on the other hand,
war was waged against the government rather than the people, and
though the bulk of the revenue was appropriated at each incursion,
the sources from which it was drawn were crippled but not entirely
ruined. But the principle was the same. 2
Meanwhile, stirring events were happening in Hindustan, but only
a brief outline of the tangled skein of intrigue can be given here.
Nadir Shah died in 1747, and Ahmad Shah Abdali, the founder of
Afghanistan, continued his policy of raiding the declining empire,
which he invaded in 1748 and 1749. In the 1751 Safdar Jang, the Nawab
of Oudh, with the sanction of the young emperor, Ahmad Shah, and
heedless of the danger of drawing the Marathas into disputes in the
very heart of the empire, called in Malhar Rao Holkar from Malwa,
Jayappa Sindia from Narnaul, and Suraj Mal the Jat, to help him
against the Bangash Afghans, who had invaded Oudh and plundered
Allahabad and Lucknow. The Marathas drove the Afghans into the
hills with severe loss, and occupied Rohilkhand in 1751. They “sacked
the whole country, not allowing a single man to escape, and every
article they carried away as booty”. 4 For their help, they were given
half the Bangash territory in the Duab, which they held precariously
till the Panipat disaster (1761). This was the first territorial
acquisition of the Marathas beyond the Jumna. In 1752 Ahmad
Shah Abdali invaded the Punjab for a third time. There was a wild
panic at Delhi, and the invader was bought off with promises of the
cession of the Punjab and Multan. ”
A new figure now appears upon the scene in the person of Ghazi.
ud-din the younger, who at the time of his father's murder in 1752
was in Delhi, and, with the help of Safdar Jang, became paymaster-
general. Almost immediately, he turned against his patron, and
called in the Marathas under Raghunath Rao and Malhar Rao
Holkar, who were just then engaged in exacting money from the
Jats. With the help of Holkar, Ahmad Shah was deposed and blinded,
and ‘Alamgir II installed as emperor. Anarchy prevailed in the
unhappy capital, and the rival factions fought daily in the streets.
The Marathas bled the empire white with their insatiable demands,
and this led to a mutiny among the imperial soldiers, who were
months in arrears and starving. They then retired to Rajputana,
1 Shivaji, 3rd ed. chap. XVI, 4.
2 Grant Duif, 1, 464, 585; Malcolm, op. cit. chap. IV.
3 See chap. xv, p. 429.
4 See chap. XV, p. 431.
6 See chap. xy, p. 434.
## p. 416 (#454) ############################################
416 RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
" 2
where they had for some time been engaged in taking part in dynastic
disputes and collecting tribute. Here Jayappa Sindia was murdered
in July, 1755.
In October, 1756, the Abdali once more invaded the Punjab. In
January of the following year he entered Delhi and plundered it,
and two months later sacked the holy city of Muttra. He returned
with booty reckoned at twelve million rupees, leaving Najib Khan
as his agent in Delhi, and his son, Timur Shah, as viceroy of Lahore.
As soon as Ahmad Shah's back was turned, Ghazi-ud-din once more
called in the Marathas, and in February, 1758, a Maratha force
under Raghunath Rao invaded the Punjab, drove out Timur Shah,
and occupied Lahore (April, 1758). The Maratha power was now
at its zenith. “Their frontiers”, says Elphinstone, "extended on the
north to the Indus and the Himalaya, and to the south nearly to the
extremity of the peninsula : all the territory which was not their own
paid tribute. The whole of this great power was wielded by one
hand. . . and all pretensions of every description were concentrated
on the Peshwa. ” News of these successes were received with wild
elation in the Poona court, where it was fondly believed that the
Bhagwa Jhanda was "flying over the walls of Attock”. 3 As a matter
of fact, the wisdom of Raghunath Rao's ambitious policy was open
to grave doubts. It did not bring an anna to the Peshwa's coffers,
and the Marathas were not in a position to hold the country, where
both Sikhs and Muslims looked on them as hated intruders. Lastly,
by provoking the retaliation of the Abdali, it led to the downfall
of the Maratha power in Hindustan.
In 1758 the main Maratha army retired, leaving a garrison at
Lahore in charge of Sabaji Sindia. Meanwhile the Abdali, who was
furious at the expulsion of his son, and resolved “to bring to a
decisive issue the quarrel with the Hindu power which had crossed
his track of conquest, ill-treated his allies, and made war on true
believers", had settled his internal dissensions and was preparing
a fresh invasion. He crossed the Indus in August, 1759, and Sabaji
was forced to evacuate Lahore and fall back on Delhi. Having been
joined by the Rohilla chiefs, Ahmad Shah advanced on the capital,
driving the Marathas before him. His movements were hastened by
the news of the cruel murder of the emperor by Ghazi-ud-din on
29 November. On 9 January, 1760, at the Barari Ghat ten miles
north of Delhi, Ahmad Shah defeated and slew Dattaji Sindhia; his
nephew Jankoji fled with the remnants of his army to Rajputana,
where he managed to effect a junction with Malhar Rao Holkar.
Worse, however, was to follow. On 4 March Ahmad Shah's general
Jahan Khan, after a forced march, surprised and completely routed
1 See chap. xv, p. 445.
2 Cf. Grant Duff, I, 507.
3 Actually, the Marathas never crossed the Chenab.
4 Sarkar, Fall of the Mughul Empire, u, 159.
## p. 417 (#455) ############################################
THE BHAO SAHIB TAKES THE FIELD
417
Malhar Rao near Sikandarabad. In one short campaign the power
of the Marathas in Hindustan was completely shattered.
The news of the defeat and death of Dattaji reached the Peshwa
on 15 February, while the Marathas in the Deccan were jubilantly
celebrating the victory of Udgir. It was at once decided that a force
must be despatched under a member of the Peshwa's family to restore
Maratha influence in Hindustan. Raghunath Rao applied for the
command, and with his experience of fighting in northern India,
undoubtedly the choice should have fallen upon him. But Raghunath
Rao had incurred very heavy expenditure during his last campaign,
which had brought no revenue to the exchequer, and for this reason
he was under a cloud. Little love was lost between the two cousins,
and on the strength of this Sadashiv Rao, the hero of Udgir, claimed
the command. The Peshwa, now too indolent to take the field him-
self, unwisely agreed: but with him, "according to the ancient
custom of the Marathas”, he sent his young heir, Vishvas Rao, a
gallant and handsome lad of nineteen years, as nominal commander
and the Peshwa's representative. The army which set out from
Patdur in the Deccan on 10 March, 1760, was the most magnificent
that the Marathas had ever sent forth to battle. There were twenty
thousand of the famous Maratha horse, including the Khas Paga,
or household cavalry, commanded by chieftains of note who had
fought from one end of India to the other-Balvant Rao Mehendale,
Shamsher Bahadur, Baji Rao's son by the notorious Mastani, Naro
Shankar, Vithal Shivdeo Vinchurkar, Trimbak Sadashiv Purandhare,
Antaji Mankeshwar, and a host of others. With them went Ibrahim
Khan Gardi's corps of 9000 sepoys, trained under Bussy on the French
model, with forty pieces of cannon, which had done so well at Udgir.
But the experienced observer would have noted signs about this im-
posing array well calculated to make him uneasy. Shivaji's successes
had been due to the fact that his men moved without transport, sub-
sisting on a nose-bag of grain carried on the saddle and on food
taken from the surrounding country. And that great commander
had made it an offence punishable with death to bring a woman
into the camp. But the Bhao Sahib moved with a vast amount of
equipage and thousands of camp followers; behind followed numbers
of elephants, loaded with lofty silken tents; the wives of the principal
nobles accompanied their husbands with numerous retinues, and the
officers were resplendent in cloth of gold. Lastly, the Marathas were
forsaking their traditional tactics for new methods, based on European
models imperfectly assimilated.
But no thought of disaster troubled the mighty but unwieldy host,
as it slowly made its way, through Aurangabad, Burhanpur and
1 The best account of the campaign of Panipat is in Sarkar's Fall of the
Mughul Empire, vol. II, which is based on the most recent researches and
supersedes earlier narratives.
27
## p. 418 (#456) ############################################
418
RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
Gwalior, to the banks of the Chambal, which was reached on 4 June.
As it moved northwards, reinforcements poured in. Malhar Rao
Holkar, Jankoji Sindia, Damaji Gaikwar, Yashwant Rao Powar,
with other Maratha chiefs and innumerable swarms of vagabond
Pindaris, flocked to the royal standard, till the total exceeded 300,009,
of whom about one-fourth were fighting men, with 200 cannon. It was
not merely an army, but a crusade, united to drive the Afghan
invaders from the sacred soil of India. But now rifts began to appear.
The Rajputs, offended at the high-handed conduct of Sindia and
Holkar, held aloof. At the Chambal, Suraj Mal, the Jat chief of
Bharatpur, rode in with his force, and a council of war was held
Suraj Mal, a veteran fighter, earnestly advised the Bhao Sahib to
park his baggage and artillery at Bharatpur, and then to start guerrilla
operations in the traditional Maratha fashion against the Abdali's
flank and rear: by this means, he said, and by avoiding a pitched
battle they would compel him very quickly to retreat. Holkar and
Sindia heartily concurred, but the Bhao Sahib contemptuously
rejected the sage advice of these experienced warriors, as "the chatter
of goatherds and zamindars”. 1 The taunt deeply wounded the pride
of the Maratha generals, and the old jealousy of the rule of the
Chitpavan broke out afresh. “If this Brahman wins", they said, "he
will send his couriers to collect the revenues of Hindustan, and we
shall have to wash his loin-cloths. It is better that he should meet
with a defeat, or else what consideration shall we be allowed? ” Suraj
Mal determined to slip away from the doomed force at the first
suitable opportunity.
The Marathas were outside Delhi by the end of July, and the fort
was captured without much difficulty on 2 August. Here also the
Bhao Sahib's conduct gave great offence. In order to pay his troops,
he stripped off the silver from the ceiling of the great hall of audience,
and plundered tombs and shrines which Persian and Afghan had
respected. A rumour was even spread abroad that he intended to
place Vishvas Rao on the Mughul throne. Dismayed at this behaviour,
Suraj Mal and his Jats quietly decamped: the loss of these seasoned
troops was a serious matter, but the Bhao Sahib affected to make
light of it, saying that nothing better could be expected of mere
landholders. The Marathas spent the rainy season encamped in and
around Delhi, while the Abdali was in quarters at Anupshahr in the
Bulandshahr district; both parties being busily engaged in intriguing,
through their agents, for the support of Shuja'-ud-daula, the Nawab
Vazir, who had succeeded his uncle Safdar Jang in 1754 and at first
remained neutral. Proposals were also made by the Bhao Sahib that
1 Sarkar, op. cit. pp. 258 sqq. , doubts the arrogance of the Bhao Sahib. But
Nana Farnavis, who was present, says: "His Highness had latterly become
proud and arrogant, and had lost his usual wisdom”, to which he mainly attri-
butes the disaster.
3 Siyar-ul-Mutaakhkhirin, ITI, 385.
## p. 419 (#457) ############################################
START OF THE CAMPAIGN
419
the Abdali should be given large territories north of the Sutlej on
condition that he withdrew, but they fell through, chiefly on account
of the opposition of Najib Khan the Rohilla, who had good cause to
hate the Marathas for ravaging Rohilkhand and wanted them to
retire for good and all behind the line of the Chambal. Shuja'-ud-
daula reluctantly decided to join his co-religionists.
The rains were now over; the Dasahra festival was at hand, and
both sides prepared to take the field. The Bhao Sahib moved up-
stream, leaving Naro Shankar with about 7000 Marathas to garrison
Delhi. The Abdali was on the other side of the river: his army was
slightly superior in numbers to that of his opponents, and the
Durranis were men of great bodily strength, mounted on swift
Turki horses. ? About seventy-eight miles north of Delhi lay the
fortified post of Kunjpura, well-stocked with money and provisions,
of which the Marathas were in sore need, and commanding an
important ford over the Jumna. It was held by Nijabat Khan with
10,000 picked Rohillas, and on 17 October the Bhao Sahib determined
to attack it. It was taken by storm after a fierce bombardment by
Ibrahim Khan's heavy guns, and the garrison was put to the sword
on the pretext that Nijabat Khan had been responsible for the death
of Dattaji Sindia at Badaun Ghat. The Jumna was still in full flood
and impassable, and Ahmad Shah was forced to look on helplessly
while his troops were cut to pieces. The bad discipline and the
notorious love of plunder of the Marathas now proved their undoing.
While they were engaged in ransacking Kunjpura for treasure and
celebrating the Dasahra feast, they failed to keep the enemy on the
further bank under observation. Ahmad Shah cleverly slipped away
and marched down stream. With the help of Shuja'-ud-daula, he
-
found a ford at Baghpat, about twenty-five miles north of Delhi, and
in spite of the flood, in two days he pushed his whole army across
at all costs, losing numbers of men in the process. By this masterly
stroke he placed himself between his opponents and their base. This
was on 25 October. The Marathas came up soon after and were
repulsed with loss: had they arrived a little while earlier, they would
have had the Afghans at their mercy. Now that it was too late, the
Marathas attacked, but were driven off with loss, and fell back
fighting on the little town of Panipat, about sixty miles north of
Delhi. Holkar once more begged the Bhao Sahib to resume the old
guerrilla tactics of the Marathas, but Ibrahim Khan Gardi threatened
to turn his guns upon his own side if they deserted him. The Bhao
1 In 1760 it fell on October 19th.
2 Sarkar, op. cit. , II, 289, gives the forces actually engaged as Afghans, 60,000;
Marathas, 45,000, exlcuding irregular troops and followers. Kasi Raj gives the
numbers as follows: Afghans, 41,800 cavalry, 38,000 infantry: total 79,800.
Marathas, 55,000 cavalry, 15,000 infantry, 15,000 Pindaris : total 85,000. Both
sides had immense numbers of camp-followers,
## p. 420 (#458) ############################################
420 RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
Sahib therefore threw himself into Panipat, where with the help of
Ibrahim Khan he proceeded to "dig himself in " in approved European
fashion, throwing up a broad rampart with a ditch in front of it and
mounting his cannon at regular intervals. He hoped to provoke the
Durrani to attack him, by means of raids upon his lines of commu-
nications, but the Afghan artillery was inferior to that of the Marathas,
and Ahmad Shah was too old a soldier to be drawn into a conflict
except on his own terms. He therefore proceeded to entrench him-
self also in a fortified camp with an abattis of felled trees, about eight
miles away, between the enemy and the Jumna. By this fatal move,
the Marathas permanently lost the initiative, sacrificing also their
mobility, which was their most valuable asset. But the Bhao Sahib
made a still graver blunder. He had taken into the field his own
wife and the wives of his officers, instead of leaving them behind at
Delhi. The vast crowd of retainers and camp followers were bound
to eat up the provisions of Panipat in a short time. Meanwhile,
negotiations were proceeding behind the scenes. Shuja'-ud-daula was
still inclined towards peace, but Najib Khan, the sworn enemy of the
Marathas, again dissuaded Ahmad Shah. "The Marathas", he said,
“are the thorn of Hindustan: if they were out of the way, this empire
might be Your Majesty's whenever you should please. " The Bhao
Sahib would not have been averse from an arrangement by which
he should fall back behind the Chambal leaving northern India in
the hands of the Abdali. But such an idea met strong opposition
in Poona from Raghunath Rao, who was not unnaturally reluctant
to see the fruits of his conquests abandoned.
The space between the lines was now the scene of almost daily
skirmishes : horsemen rode out challenging their foes to single combat,
and a number of fierce actions developed from chance encounters.
Raids by the Gardi infantry on 19 November and by Sindia on
the 22nd were repulsed with loss, after some initial successes; and
on 7 December a Rohilla attack was defeated in a spirited manner
by Balvant Rao Mehendale, who drove off the Afghans with great
slaughter, but was unfortunately killed in the hour of victory, when
his men fled. The Afghans pursued them and nearly stormed the
Maratha camp, which was only saved by the approach of night.
The death of Mehendale, his brother-in-law and most trusted coun-
sellor, was a serious loss to the Bhao Sahib, but about the same time
he managed to get into touch with Govind Pant, the Peshwa's col-
lector in Bundelkhand and the Duab. Govind Pant advanced rapidly
with a swarm of light horsemen, and skirmishing in the traditional
Maratha manner, began to cut off the enemy's supplies and harass
his foraging parties.
The tables were now turned. The Afghan camp was in a state of
1 His despatches are translated in the Appendix to Kasi Raj, Account of
the Last Battle of Panipat (Oxford, 1926).
## p. 421 (#459) ############################################
THE MARATHA CAMP BLOCKADED
421
siege, and there was a serious shortage of food. Many of the Afghan
generals became seriously alarmed, and urged the Abdali either to
attack the Marathas or to break camp and retreat. But here Ahmad
Shah showed himself a great captain. “This”, he answered, “is a
matter of war with which you are not acquainted.
Military opera-
tions must not be precipitated. You shall see how I will manage
this affair, and bring it to a successful conclusion. ” He then proceeded
to tighten the blockade. He established an advanced post of 5000
men half-way between the lines; and there he pitched a little red
tent, which he made his head-quarters from sunrise to nightfall, riding
fifty or sixty miles a day to visit his outposts. After dark, the advanced
post was pushed up to the very walls of the enemy's camp, and re-
mained under arms all night, while other bodies went the rounds.
“Ahmad Shah's orders were obeyed like destiny," says Kasi Raj,
"no man daring to hesitate or delay one moment in executing
them. ”
The effect of this pressure soon began to tell. On 17 December
a body of horse under 'Ata Khan, riding fifty miles in a day,
surprised Govind Pant and his raiders and cut them to pieces. A few
nights later, some twenty thousand camp followers, who had left
the Maratha camp to go foraging, were caught by the advanced post
and all slaughtered; and to crown everything, on 6 January a convoy
bringing specie from Delhi to pay the troops, together with its escort,
was similarly cut up.
The state of things in the Maratha camp was now indescribable.
Grief and terror prevailed. Hundreds died every day of famine, and
an epidemic, the result of starvation and absence of sanitation, broke
out in the vast host cooped up in this narrow area. “We were sur-
rounded," says Nana Farnavis in his autobiography, "and the
enemy's shots fell thickly among our tents daily. . . . There we re-
mained in a state of siege for two months, during which most of the
cattle of the army died, and the stench was dreadful. ” Attempts to
open negotiations with the enemy were once more foiled by the
implacable hatred of Najib Khan.
On 13 January the Maratha chiefs approached their leader. "It
is now two days since we have had anything to eat”, they said.
“Do not let us perish in this misery : let us make one spirited effort
against the enemy, and whatever is our destiny that will happen. ”
Holkar and Sindia urged once more that
more that the cavalry should
abandon the camp, leaving the infantry and non-combatants to their
fate, and cut their way through to Delhi. Ibrahim Khan not un-
naturally refused to be sacrificed, and the Bhao Sahib rightly
declined to abandon the women to the mercy of the Afghans. It
was determined to deliver a general assault on the enemy's lines on
the following day. Whatever were the Bhao's feelings, he was too
brave a man to show them; and at the close of the council, he
## p. 422 (#460) ############################################
422 RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
2
distributed pan and supari to his officers with all the dignified cere-
mony of a darbar.
Shortly before dawn, Shuja'-ud-daula received a last despairing
letter from the Bhao Sahib. “The cup is now full to the brim, and
cannot hold another drop. If anything can be done, do it or else
inform me plainly at once: hereafter there will be no time for writing
nor speaking. ” It was plain from this that the Marathas were
coming out. The Nawab at once told his men to fall in, and galloped
off to warn Ahmad Shah. Ahmad Shah, who was sleeping, was
aroused, and was soon up and seated on his charger outside the little
red tent, calmly smoking his hookah, and listening to the commotion
in the enemy's camp. It was as yet uncertain whether the Marathas
were preparing to attack or to slip away, but at length the long lines
of troops were seen deploying in the dim light. "Your servant's
news is very true”, said Ahmad Shah, and at once issued the neces-
sary instructions to his officers. The Marathas advanced slowly, the
ends of their turbans loose and their faces anointed with saffron-a
sign that they had come out to conquer or to die on the field. On the
left of the line was Ibrahim Khan with his regular battalions, with
Damaji Gaikwar on his immediate right. On the right flank were
Malhar Rao Holkar and Jankoji Sindia. The centre was com-
posed of the household cavalry. The Bhao himself, seated besid?
Vishvas Rao on a magnificent war-elephant, took station beneath
a black mango-tree, and over him floated the famous Bhagwa
Jhanda, the national standard of the Marathas. Three Jari Phatkas,
or grand ensigns of the Peshwas, were in the field. The Afghan
centre was commanded by the chief minister, Shah Wali Khan, with
the pick of the Durrani troops on their great Turki mounts. On the
left flank were Shah Pasand Khan and Najib-ud-daula, the latter
facing his old enemies, Sindia and Holkar. Between these and the
centre was Shuja'-ud-daula with the Oudh troops. On the right
flank were Barkhurdar Khan and Amir Beg with Rohilla and Mughul
contingents.
The two lines advanced obliquely on a front of about 742 miles,
the Maratha left under Ibrahim Khan making contact first. The
battle began with a fierce discharge of artillery and rockets all along
the line, but the Maratha gunners, deceived probably by the light,
fired high, and the shots flew harmlessly overhead. Thus the weapon
on which the Bhao Sahib chiefly relied failed him at the critical
1 Another version is "the flood has risen above my head" (Sarkar, op. cit.
p. 320).
2 The Maratha order of the battle from the left was : Ibrahim Khan;
Damaji Gaikwar; Vithal Shivdeo; Sadashiv Rao and Vishvas Rao (centre);
Jaswant Rao Powar; Shamsher Bahadur; Malhar Rao Holkar; Jankoji Sindia.
The Durrani order, facing the Marathas, was : Barkhurdar Khan; Amir Beg;
Dunde Khan; Hafiz Rahmat Khan; Ahmad Khan Bangash; Grand Vazir (cen-
tre); Shuja'-ud-daula; Najib-ud-daula; Shah Pasand Khan.
## p. 423 (#461) ############################################
THE BATTLE OF PANIPAT
423
moment. Ibrahim Khan, who had promised Sadashiv Rao that on
this day he would justify the trust placed in him, thereupon ordered
the guns to cease firing, and closed his opponents with the bayonet.
After a fierce struggle, during which their commander was wounded,
the regular sepoys pressed back the Rohillas. This exposed the Afghan
centre under the chief minister, and at once the Bhao Sahib, seeing
his opportunity, charged into the gap with the whole of the house-
hold cavalry at full gallop. The impact was incredibly violent; the
Afghans were surprised and met their enemies at the trot, and the
Marathas broke through three lines of their opponents. It was now
impossible to see anything for the clouds of dust, and nothing could
be heard but the opposing cries of Har, Har Mahadeo! and Din, Din!
as the troopers, locked in a death grip, stabbed and struck with lance
and battle-axe, and even with daggers. The Shah Wali Khan, who
commanded the centre, dismounted and in full armour, in a paroxysm
of rage, was trying to rally his men in vain. "Our country is far
off, my friends," he was crying, "whither do you fly? " But none
heeded his orders or his exhortations.
It now looked as if the battle was going against the Afghans. Their
right flank was turned and their centre was broken: only on their
left were they holding their own. Here Najib-ud-daula was facing
his old enemy, Jankoji Sindia. Anticipating modern methods, he
advanced by short rushes, his men halting to "dig themselves in",
and the sappers throwing up field-breastworks, while the Maratha
formations were broken up by salvos of rockets. From dawn to
midday the engagement raged with the utmost fury, and at any
moment the line might give way. But the Abdali knew that the
commander who throws in his reserves last wins. The psychological
moment had now come. He brought up his fresh reserves, and at
the same time sent military police to whip up, on pain of death, the
stragglers who were dribbling away to the rear, and to call up the
troops left to guard the camp. He then posted 4000 men to cover
his right, sent 10,000 to Shah Wali Khan, with orders for him to
charge with the sword in close order at full gallop, and issued direc-
tions to Pasand Khan and Najib-ud-daula to take the Maratha
centre in flank, as soon as as he saw the minister's troops on the move.
Meanwhile, the mounted infantry galloped along the enemy's line,
firing from their saddles into the close ranks of the enemy.
The simultaneous counter-attack was launched all along the line
early in the afternoon. It was excellently timed, and its effect upon
the exhausted Marathas was terrible. Men and horses had been
starved for weeks, and had had no food at all since dawn. Still,
1 Sarkar points out that Hindu armies, for caste-reasons, took no food into
the field, and were accustomed to break off action in order to prepare a meal
about noon. Clive at Plassey, and General Harris at Seringapatam, took advan-
tage of this fact.
## p. 424 (#462) ############################################
424 RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
" 2
however, they contested the ground, inch by inch. “A furious engage-
ment ensued,” says the author of the Siyar-ul-Mutaakhkhirin, "and
for full two hours there arose such a cloud of dust that none of the
combatants could distinguish the earth from the heavens. From mid-
day to four o'clock, nothing could be heard or seen, but a furious
slaughter which was going on at an incredible rate. ” To the fire
of the mounted infantry was added that of the camel-guns (shutarnal),
which caused many casualties. About 2. 15 p. m. , Vishvas Rao was
wounded and had to be taken to his elephant, but the Bhao still
fought on at the head of his men for an hour longer. Then with
dramatic suddenness, resistance collapsed. “All at once, as if by
enchantment, the whole Maratha army turned their backs and fled
at full speed, leaving the field of battle covered with heaps of dead. "'1
In the dramatic words of an eyewitness, the Hindu host suddenly
melted away "like camphor". The victors pursued them to their
camp, giving no quarter, and the ditch was soon choked with bodies,
“The field of battle looked like a tract sown with tulips, and as far
as the sight could extend, nothing could be discovered but bodies
stretched at the foot of bodies, as if they had been asleep, or mar-
shalled by art. " 2 It was a moonlight night, and the slaughter of
fugitives went on till dawn. Next morning the camp was stormed,
and a further massacre took place. Surrender availed nothing. The
unhappy prisoners were paraded in long lines, given a little parched
grain and a drink of water, and beheaded. Every Afghan tent had
heads piled before its doors. The plunder of the camp was prodigious,
and the women and children who survived were driven off as slaves. 3
The body of Vishvas Rao was brought to the Shah, and every one
gazed in admiration of the beauty of the lad, who seemed to be only
sleeping. The Durranis cried out: “This is the body of the king of
the unbelievers: we will have it dried and stuffed to carry back to
Kabul. ” But Shuja'-ud-daula, who did all he could to help the
vanquished army, arranged to have him cremated according to Hindu
rites. He was, however, unable to protect Jankoji Sindia or Ibrahim
Khan, who were both taken prisoners and sacrificed to the conqueror's
rage. Ibrahim Khan was a renegade, who had fought on the side
of the infidel against true believers : Jankoji was hated by the
Rohillas. The Bhao Sahib, when he saw that all was lost, had
mounted his charger, and collecting a few men, galloped into the
thick of the battle to find a soldier's death. When last seen, he was
surrounded by Afghans and fighting desperately. A headless corpse,
identified as his, was recovered and cremated along with that of his
nephew. 4
1 Kasi Raja, pp. 39-40.
2 Siyar-ul-Mutakhkhirin, loc. cit.
3 Twenty-two thousand, many of them of the highest rank in the land,
says the Siyar-ul-Mutakhkhirin.
4 There is no doubt about his fate, though two impostors, claiming to be
the Bhao, appeared in Poona and Benares and were thrown into prison.
## p. 425 (#463) ############################################
DEFEEAT OF THE MARATHAS
425
Meanwhile, the Peshwa had been planning an expedition to
northern India to extricate the Bhao Sahib, and he had, without
success, endeavoured to enlist the co-operation of the Nizam. Balaji
was now in failing health, and incapable of acting with promptness.
He was distracted by family dissensions, and haunted by the spectre
of bankruptcy, the result of his far-flung ambitions in the north.
But in any case, the Bhao and his heroic comrades were beyond the
reach of earthly help. On 24 January, at Bhilsa, a banker's letter
was intercepted, which announced in enigmatic language the tragedy
of ten days previously. "Two pearls have been dissolved,” it said,
"twenty-seven gold mohurs have been lost, and of the silver and
copper, the total cannot be cast up. ” Balaji pressed on, hoping that
some of his family might have survived, but fugitives now began to
come in, who confirmed the completeness of the tragedy. Balaji
slowly fell back on Poona, which he reached in June. Here, on the
23rd, he passed away in the palace which he had erected on the
Parvati hill, calling for his lost son. It is easy to be wise after the
event, and innumerable criticisms have been passed upon the Bhao
for his arrogance and refusal to take advice from his captains. But
Sadashiv Rao, with all his faults, atoned by death for any errors of
which he may be adjudged guilty. Defeat is sometimes as honourable
as victory, and at Panipat the Marathas went down fighting.
Holkar and Damaji Gaikwar withdrew when they saw that all
was lost. But there does not appear to be sufficient reason for
accusing the former of deliberate treachery. According to his owi?
account, the Bhao Sahib sent him a message, telling him to "do as
he had directed”—perhaps to rescue the women and children in
the camp, who had been committed to his charge, and escort them
to Delhi. In this he was unsuccessful. Naro Shankar and part of
the Delhi garrison managed to get away. Mahadji Sindhia and
Nana Farnavis were among the few fugitives who escaped almost
miraculously from the field; the former received a wound in the leg
from a gigantic Afghan which lamed him for life. About 100,000
Marathas must have perished: and only one-fourth of the fighting
men ever saw the Deccan again. Many fugitives were murdered by
the peasants, who were only too eager to turn the tables upon their
former oppressors. Those who straggled into Dig were, however,
hospitably entertained by Suraj Mal, and in this way about four
thousand men reached home. Shamsher Bahadur and Antaji Man-
keshwar died of wounds at Dig.
"Never was a defeat more complete", says Elphinstone, "and
never was there a calamity that diffused so much consternation.
Grief and despondency spread over the whole Maratha people: most
had to mourn relations, and all felt the destruction of the army as
a death-blow to their national greatness. ” Most disastrous of all,
1 Siyar-ul-Mutaakhkhirin, DI, 392.
## p. 426 (#464) ############################################
426
RISE OF THE MARATHA EMPIRE (1707-1761)
perhaps, was the fact that it dealt a fatal blow to the one unifying
influence in the Deccan, the prestige of the Peshwas. It is, of course,
true that the Marathas, with characteristic resiliency, recovered from
what would have been a crushing disaster to a less hardy nation.
In August, 1763, they won a brilliant victory over the Nizam at
Rakshasbhavan. But their armies were never again the same. The
Arab and Hindustani mercenary to an increasing degree replaced
the free Maratha trooper, and most important of all, the weakened
power of the Peshwa paved the way to English interference in
Maratha affairs. Panipat, in other words, was the prelude to Assaye
and Kirkee. To Ahmad Shah also, the victory was a Pyrrhic one:
on 22 March, after ransacking Delhi, he withdrew his army. His
men, who hated the Indian hot weather, were on the verge of mutiny,
and insisted on returning home with their plunder. Ahmad Shah,
accordingly, after having left Najib Khan as regent of Delhi, retreated
beyond the passes, and did not again invade India.
A NOTE ON MARATHI LITERATURE
The Marathas are typical hil en, independent and freedom-loving, and their
language and literature reflect these characteristics. Marathi is a rugged ton-
gue, with none of the courtly refinements of northern India, and the early poetic
literature is the simple, natural expression of religious emotion. The earliest
Marathi poetry is an offshoot of the Bhakti movement which swept over India
from the twelfth century A. D. , and gave such an impetus to the development of
vernaculars. Its essential doctrine is that salvation may be attained, independent-
ly of priests, ritual and caste, by devotion to the Divine Name. The Deity, whe-
ther manifested as Shiva, or Vishnu in his various incarnations, is Bhagavan, the
Adorable, and his devotees are the Bhagavatas. It has been not inaptly com-
pared to the Protestant Reformation in Europe.
In Maharashtra, the central object of devotion was Vithoba, a local form of
Vishnu, who dwells at the famous shrine of Pandharpur. It was upon him that
the worship of the poet-sainis of the Deccan was focused. The earliest writers
in Marathi (as opposed to the Maharashtri Prakrit) belong to the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, and flourished under the Yadavas, the last Hindu
dynasty of the Deccan. They are Mukundraj, Namdev (A. D. 1270-1350) and
Jnaneshvar. Their object was to bring the learning of the pundits down to the
level of the common people. Jnaneshvar, who lived at Alandi near Poona, is
commonly believed to have made a buffalo recite the Veda! He wrote a para-
phrase of the Bhagavad Gita. Namdev, a devotee of Vithoba, was a tailor by
caste. He wrote in Hindi as well as Marathi; some of his poems found their way
to northern India, and were incorporated in the Adi Granth of the Sikhs.
For the next three centuries, with the Deccan under the heel of the Muham-
madans, no writer of note appeared. Then in the seventeenth century, the
national renaissance which culminated in Shivaji began to gather force. The
earliest poet of this period was Eknath of Paithan, who, though a Brahman,
denounced the caste-system, and went so far as to dine with a Mahar, an almost
unbeard-of action. He died in 1608. His grandson Mukteshvar, together with
Tukaram and Ramdas, was a contemporary of Shivaji. Shivaji, though formally
illiterate, was a fervent admirer of his country's songs and legends, and it is said
that more than once he risked capture when going to Poona in disguise to hear
## p. 427 (#465) ############################################
MARATHI LITERATURE
427
a religious recitation. He tried to persuade Tukaram to come to his court. But
Tukaram, absorbed in his intense love of Vithoba, cared for none of these things:
He was a poor trader by profession, knowing no Sanskrit, and his artless verses
are sung in countless village homes all over the Deccan to-day. Ramdas, on
the cther hand, was a Brahman, and was Shivaji's guru or spiritual preceptor.
It is said that Shivaji surrendered his kingdom to him, and received it back
"in trust from God”, and for this reason, the national standard of the Mara-
thas, the Bhagwa Jhanda, was the orange robe of the ascetic. The verses of
Ramdas, full of wise saws, remind us of the Proverbs of King Solomon, and
his teaching undoubtedly had a formative effect upon Shivaji. He died in 1681.
The most interesting products of the period, however, are the pawadas or
ballads. Their most singular characteristic is that they are unwritten, being
handed down from generation to generation by the gondhalis, a tribe or caste
of wandering bards who composed and recited them. The gondhalis are devo-
tees of the goddess Amba Bhavani, and the recitations are accompanied by an
elaborate ritual, in which the goddess herself is supposed to descend upon the
reciter. The ballads deal with the deeds of the Maratha heroes in their strug-
gles against the Muhammadans, such as the slaying of Afzal Khan, the taking
of Sinhgarh by Tanaji Malusre, the battle of Kharda, and the tragedy of
Panipat. These ballads were intensely popular with the unlettered peasantıy,
and played a great part in arousing them against their Muhammadan rulers. i
The period after the death of Shivaji witnessed a great outburst of Marathi
poetry, and it will here be possible only to mention a few leading names. Shri-
dhar was the most beloved of the writers of this time, and shares with Tukaram
the palm of popularity in the Deccan to-day. His mission was to make the heroic
legends of Hinduism accessible to women and others who knew no Sanskrit.
The titles of his works, the Tri of Rama ma Vijay and the Exploits
of the Pandavas, speak for themselves. He was born at Pandharpur in 1670
and died in 1728. "In every town and village in the Deccan and Konkan,
especially during the rains, the pious Maratha will be found enjoying with his
family and friends the Pothi of Shridhar. ” Moropant, admired by connoisseurs
for his verbal ingenuity, does not appeal to western taste. Another writer of
great interest is Mahipati, whose Bhakta Vijaya and Santa Vijaya, Triumphs
of the Devotees and Saints, are a mine of information about the picturesque
legends which have grown up round the poet-saints of the Deccan.
During the eighteenth century, the Maratha character started to change.
Poona was filled with loot from Hindustan, and the manners and ceremonial
of the Mughul Court were introduced. Contact with the western nations, espe-
cially the English at Bombay and Surat, was beginning to have its effect. Erotic
poetry became popular, and Ram Joshi (1762-1812) was the most celebrated of
the writers of Lavanis or Love Songs. The conquest of an empire, and the
appearance of state-papers and despatches, led to the development of Marathi
prose. Bakhars or historical chronicles were compiled, but their barbarous
idiom, three-quarters Persian, bears little relation to the elegant, highly sanskri-
tised prose style which arose in the nineteenth century, as a result of contact
with western literature.
