पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

120 PANIPAT: 1761 self to any business with full attention. This was natural when we take into account the decline in his health which is noted in many places. In 1755, he was suffering from toothache⁴ which is a sure sign of declining health. In 1758 Sadashivrao Bhau⁵ notes that the Peshwa's health is not what it should be. When at the end of 1759, Bhau started for the Udgir campaign, the Peshwa's health had already become a state problem. He was not in a position to fol- low the campaign himself⁶ with its daily marches. Bhau's one anxiety through- out the Panipat campaign was for the Peshwa's health. He writes⁷ from Delhi on 16th September, 1760, that all problems would be best solved when the Peshwa's health improved. We are at a loss to know why, when things had come to such a pass, the Peshwa was thinking of marriage. It could not have been for mere sex satisfaction, because he had any number of concubines and dancing girls at his service. Three things are suggested as probable causes for marriage. (1) The advice of the Hindu Vaidyas who prescribed young girls as a cure for venereal diseases. A Sanskrit verse states that a tender girl below sixteen adds to the strength of the husband; a youthful one makes her husband youthful like herself,—an elderly woman drains away the strength of her partner; and an old woman leads her partner on his way to death. (Bala tu balada prokta taruni tarunajate, praudha s'aktihara prokta vrddha mrtyuva- sam nayet.) It is not unlikely that some such advice might have been of- fered to the Peshwa, though we do not know whether it falls under the category of medicine or sexual science (Kamasastra). But we have already suggested that this remedy could have been followed even by having extra-marital rela- tions with girls, and so we reject this cause. (2) The second cause which is more probable comes from astrological advice. It is thought that the stars of certain girls so ordain that a person marrying them cannot possibly die, as it is written that these girls have no widowhood ordained for them in their horo- scopes. Of course there is the possibility of the girl herself dying before her husband so as to justify the stars. We presume that the inquiry for girls was possibly based on this point. Though this cause seems more probable, even this is not completely satisfactory, because had the inquiry been only based on horoscopes, it would not have been found necessary to bring all these young girls from distant places, and there was no particular necessity for seeing them unless men who judge horoscopes from bodily features wished to view and ex- amine them. We would have believed such to have been the case, but the Peshwa is found in a somewhat playful mood in marrying, as he not only marries, but makes two of his bosom associates, Aba Purandare and Vireshwar Dikshit Manohar,⁸ marry, side by side. (3) The third cause is equally likely, namely, his quarrel with his first wife, Gopikabai. For one reason or another, they had not been on good terms for some time. The difference of opinion had arisen on account of domestic causes as well as state policy. The episode at Patdur, described in the Bhau Bakhar and Kaifiyat before Sadashivrao's ap- pointment for the Panipat campaign, illustrates one phase of this difference. ⁴ Purandare 3.206 ⁵ Ibid. 3 193. ⁶ SPD 1 10. ⁷ Purandare, 1 389. ⁸ SPD 2.149, pp 162, 171