पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

THE JUDGMENT 119 up or condemn downright an individual, however great personally The final result must be attributed to the static system and cannot be attributed to any one actor in history. DEATH OF NANASAHEB PESHWA The Peshwa's death six months after the battle of Panipat, on 23rd June, 1761, is treated as the last event of the Panipat campaign It is almost thought as a consequence of it That the unexpected disaster unhinged his mind by that tremendous shock, by the loss of all that was dear and valuable, was natural enough, but it is utterly wrong to say that his death was due to it As a matter of fact there seems to have been some hereditary defect in the Peshwa family which made its members prone to sudden collapse of health and wasting diseases The uneven life of camp and war had something to do with it Nor were they free from vices Peshwa Nanasaheb particularly seems to have been inordinately fond of the company of women He loved ease and pleasure Beautiful young girls¹ from northern India were always requisitioned by him This trait of his life had become known throughout India and even the distant Kashiraj, living far away in the north at the Lucknow Court, knew of it and thought it necessary to mention it at the beginning of his account of the battle of Panipat The Peshwa had started from Poona in November and had made known his plan of proceeding to the north to set the matters right at the Delhi court in the company of Nizam Ali, the younger brother of the Nizam Salabat Jang But his march was delayed on account of the "wait and see" tactics of the Nizam brothers Though it was a condition of the peace treaty after the battle of Udgir in the previous year, that the Nizam should join the Peshwa whenever there was any urgent need² and now definitely such a need arose due to the beleagurement of Bhau at Panipat, the Nizam brothers would not move from their cantonments even after the cessation of rains The need for taking Nizam Ali with him to the north arose in a double sense Firstly, his Gardi troops with their fine park of artillery would have been in- valuable in a fight against Abdali and the Ruhelas, next it was dangerous to keep such a mischievous man behind, with power to do what he liked when the Peshwa had moved north with all his troops But this was a political ex- cuse The Peshwa was entangled in other domestic matters also For some time, it seems, he was not keeping on good terms with his wife and had taken it into his head to marry a second time, though three sons from the first mar- riage were available as heirs Match makers had been dispatched far and wide from the one end of Maharashtra to the other He was prepared to marry a girl from any of the three³ sub-castes of Maharashtra Brahmins, Karhada, Deshasthas or Chitpavans, to which last caste he himself belonged The Peshwa's diary shows expenditure incurred in this search for suitable girls where half a dozen girls have been noted The Peshwa had become so weak, irritable and listless that his memory was failing and he could not devote him- ¹ RAJ 1.214, 3 158 ² SPD 40 128. ³ SPD 2 133