पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

122 PANIPAT 1761 under some circumstances as honourable as a victory, and never, in all their annals, did the Maratha armies cover themselves with greater glory than when the flower of the chivalry of the Deccan perished on the stricken field of Pani- pat, fighting against the enemies of their creed and country But, after all, the general who wins a campaign is the one who makes the fewest mistakes The Bhausaheb did not commit a tithe of the blunders of both Wellington and Napoleon in the Waterloo campaign He lost not because he was a bad gen- eral, but because his opponent was a better one We have shown above that these opinions are correct as far as they go But that is beside the point The wisdom for the Marathas lay in not coming to grips with such an awkward enemy as Ahmad Shah Abdali Had Panipat resulted in a defeat of the Afghans it would not have meant the same thing to them or to others Nobody was going to invade barren Afghanistan and try to rule over it Instead of consolidating and making sure of what they had got, the Marathas had no business to march forward, lengthen their lines of communication and multiply their responsibilities This wrong policy had begun already with Bajirao s invasion of Delhi in 1736 Geographic fac- tors were completely ignored, because they were completely misunderstood by the Marathas The Marathas boasted all along that the Deccan was as good as theirs," but had never once understood the implications underlying that state ment Even in their hey day before Panipat, others had coolly stolen a march on them The implication of the destruction of the Angre s naval power seems to have been understood by Alivardi Khan³ in Bengal just before his death, but not by the Peshwa The short sighted policy pursued by the Peshwa even after his experience in the Vijayadurg affair resulted in his directly playing into the hands of his enemy and assured Clive's success in Bengal A similar thing occurred at Mysore and made the line clear for Haidar Ali It should never be forgotten that Surat and Janjira never came into the hands of the Peshwa, much less could he have hoped to touch the European citadels on his coast, Bombay and Goa While the Marathas were exhilarated by their march be- yond the Indus, the English were silently entering Surat by the back door of the sea A big army of the Marathas was encamping outside Surat and their navy had also entered the Tapti estuary Diplomats were coming and going and taking sides in the civil struggle at Surat, but still the English could carry on independent correspondence with the Wazir Ghazi ud-din (a so-called crea- ture of the Marathas) and get a Firman from the Mughal Emperor (who thought himself a protege of the Peshwa) appointing them the keepers of the Surat fort and admirals of the Mughal fleet This neglected Surat episode throws a flood of light on Marathi politics during its most triumphant days. Sadashivrao's defects have been well pointed out by the English envoy John

122 PANIPAT 1761 under some circumstances as honourable as a victory, and never, in all their annals, did the Maratha armies cover themselves with greater glory than when the flower of the chivalry of the Deccan perished on the stricken field of Pani- pat, fighting against the enemies of their creed and country But, after all, the general who wins a campaign is the one who makes the fewest mistakes The Bhausaheb did not commit a tithe of the blunders of both Wellington and Napoleon in the Waterloo campaign He lost not because he was a bad gen- eral, but because his opponent was a better one ' We have shown above that these opinions are correct as far as they go But that is beside the point The wisdom for the Marathas lay in not coming to grips with such an awkward enemy as Ahmad Shah Abdali Had Panipat resulted in a defeat of the Afghans, it would not have meant the same thing to them or to others Nobody was going to invade barren Afghanistan and try to rule over it Instead of consolidating and making sure of what they had got the Marathas had no business to march forward, lengthen their lines of communication and multiply their responsibilities This wrong policy had begun already with Bajirao's invasion of Delhi in 1736 Geographic fac- tors were completely ignored, because they were completely misunderstood by the Marathas The Marathas boasted all along that "the Deccan was as good as theirs," but had never once understood the implications underlying that state- ment Even in their hey day before Panipat, others had coolly stolen a march on them The implication of the destruction of the Angre's naval power seems to have been understood by Alivardi Khan³ in Bengal just before his death, but not by the Peshwa The short sighted policy pursued by the Peshwa even after his experience in the Vijayadurg affair resulted in his directly playing into the hands of his enemy and assured Clive's success in Bengal A similar thing occurred at Mysore and made the line clear for Haidar Ali It should never be forgotten that Surat and Janjira never came into the hands of the Peshwa, much less could he have hoped to touch the European citadels on his coast, Bombay and Goa While the Marathas were exhilarated by their march be- yond the Indus, the English were silently entering Surat by the back door of the sea A big army of the Marathas was encamping outside Surat and their navy had also entered the Tapti estuary Diplomats were coming and going and taking sides in the civil struggle at Surat, but still the English could carry on independent correspondence with the Wazir Ghazi ud din (a so called crea- ture of the Marathas) and get a Firman from the Mughal Emperor (wh thought himself a protege of the Peshwa) appointing them the keepers of th Surat fort and admirals of the Mughal fleet This neglected Surat episode throws a flood of light on Maratha politics during its most triumphant days Sadashivrao's defects have been well pointed out by the English envoy John Spencer⁴ four years before Panipat He knew him to be a man with great capacity for business, but as hasty and avaricious, too The impatience men- tioned by the English Vakil was born of ignorance The ignorance was due to the defective educational system or rather absence of a progressive system marching with the times and adequate for making its votaries able to cope with ³ S C HILL, Bengal in 1756-57 (1905), Vol II, pp 16, 65, & ⁴ C H F

THE JUDGMENT 123 any situation arising around them. Balaji Bajirao's studies in Sanskrit were advanced to the extent of writing verses in that language, but there is no evi- dence to prove that the Peshwa had enough geographical information to cope with that of the contemporary Europeans. RAJWADE'S statement⁵ that the Peshwas possessed maps of the various provinces in India is not borne out by any positive proof till after the First Maratha War. What knowledge they pos- sessed was gained from gossipy news or orally from visitors to their Court, but it was not sufficient to make these aspiring conquerors of India visualise either the shape of their country or correctly point to the directions of the various parts of the continent, nor an understanding of its correct extent. This had a disastrous effect on the policy of the Marathas. Their avarice made them grab everything which their hands could reach, but the political repercussions of that grabbing and the pressure it would exert on their military machine they were unable to comprehend. The non comprehension of political and military facts surrounding them is the chief defect which made the Peshwas act as way- wardly as they did. No other reason can explain their actions otherwise. The contrast can be best understood by studying the English documents and publi- cations of those times. All their military campaigns, naval fights, political ag- grandisements, are found fully reported, discussed threadbare and lines of policy deduced therefrom for future guidance. Not an iota of knowledge once gained, not a point of vantage once secured, not an inch of ground once oc- cupied was wasted or lost by them. The Marathas in their career had to go through many a campaign, to enter into diplomatic talks, to carry on political controversies and to devise various ways and means for securing their end, but scarcely any of these things are found published for public edification, for the use of the younger students in various walks of life. A nation which carried on wars in all directions over a wide continent for more than a century, has not produced a single treatise on warfare. That is the basic defect in the nation. Its want could not be supplied by any other means. When one finds such a book published in English in the very year of the Panipat disaster with de- tailed maps, plans of battles, illustrations of the positions of forts giving a visual demonstration of their military situation, naval manœuvres with drawings of the anchored ships, together with their full political and diplomatic back- ground, one is forced to exclaim that want of such training led to the Panipat disaster (Vide R. O. Cambridge's War in India, etc., 1761). THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS OF THE PANIPAT CAMPAIGN The Panipat campaign takes away the charge against the Marathas that they were not the rulers of India, but only robbers in the dominions of other rulers. This one campaign bears evidence not only to the military organiza- tion developed under the Peshwas, but also to the fact that they were waging war not for aggrandisement but for the defence of a principle, India for the Indians, governed by Indians. The Peshwa had accepted the responsibility of defending the Mughal Empire from its internal and external foes through his ⁵ RAJWADE, op. cit., p. 99

THE JUDGMENT 123 any situation arising around them. Balaji Bajirao's studies in Sanskrit were advanced to the extent of writing verses in that language, but there is no evi- dence to prove that the Peshwa had enough geographical information to cope with that of the contemporary Europeans. RAJWADE'S statement⁵ that the Peshwas possessed maps of the various provinces in India is not borne out by any positive proof till after the First Maratha War. What knowledge they pos- sessed was gained from gossipy news or orally from visitors to their Court, but it was not sufficient to make these aspiring conquerors of India visualise either the shape of their country or correctly point to the directions of the various parts of the continent, nor an understanding of its correct extent. This had a disastrous effect on the policy of the Marathas. Their avarice made them grab everything which their hands could reach, but the political repercussions of that grabbing and the pressure it would exert on their military machine they were unable to comprehend. The non-comprehension of political and military facts surrounding them is the chief defect which made the Peshwas act as way- wardly as they did. No other reason can explain their actions otherwise. The contrast can be best understood by studying the English documents and publi- cations of those times. All their military campaigns, naval fights, political ag- grandisements, are found fully reported, discussed threadbare and lines of policy deduced therefrom for future guidance. Not an iota of knowledge once gained, not a point of vantage once secured, not an inch of ground once oc- cupied was wasted or lost by them. The Marathas in their career had to go through many a campaign, to enter into diplomatic talks, to carry on political controversies and to devise various ways and means for securing their end, but scarcely any of these things are found published for public edification, for the use of the younger students in various walks of life. A nation which carried on wars in all directions over a wide continent for more than a century, has not produced a single treatise on warfare. That is the basic defect in the nation. Its want could not be supplied by any other means. When one finds such a book published in English in the very year of the Panipat disaster with de- tailed maps, plans of battles, illustrations of the positions of forts, giving a visual demonstration of their military situation, naval manœuvres with drawings of the anchored ships, together with their full political and diplomatic back- ground, one is forced to exclaim that want of such training led to the Panipat disaster (Vide R. O. Cambridge's War in India, etc., 1761).

THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS OF THE PANIPAT CAMPAIGN

The Panipat campaign takes away the charge against the Marathas that they were not the rulers of India, but only robbers in the dominions of other rulers. This one campaign bears evidence not only to the military organiza- tion developed under the Peshwas, but also to the fact that they were waging war not for aggrandisement but for the defence of a principle, India for the Indians, governed by Indians. The Peshwa had accepted the responsibility of defending the Mughal Empire from its internal and external foes through his

⁵ RAJWADE, op. cit., p. 99.

124 PANIPAT 1761 agents in 1752. From that date they had waged war against practically all the potentates in India, great and small. Jayapa Shinde had waged war unto death against Bijesingh of Marwar as a Mughal Subahdar of Ajmer and Mal- harrao Holkar had fought against Madhosingh of Jaipur and Surajmal Jat, as a Subahdar of Agra, in order to bring these recalcitrant chiefs under the rule of the Mughal Empire. In the campaign against the Nizam in 1760, Bhau had actually talked with him on the same basis. Bhau had received the Imperial Fir- man¹ from Alamgir II through his confidential secretary Kamyar Khan sent in August 1759 three months before that Emperor's assassination. In it, the Emperor had besought Bhau's help against his unprincipled and unscrupulous Wazir Ghazi ud din whose behaviour had become unbearable to the Emperor. The Emperor had given a carte blanche to Bhau to take over the sole charge of the Mughal Empire, with power to appoint his own Wazir and Mir Bakshi or any other official. The Emperor wished Bhau to arrange matters in such a way as to leave him in the position of the Maratha Chhatrapati at Satara. Those who are ticklish about the constitutional procedure cannot criticize the Marathas with high handedness in their dealings with the various Indian chiefs if they bear in mind this important fact often overlooked by the historians. There was no need for the Marathas to take upon themselves the onerous burden of running the Mughal Empire, had they wished only for self aggrandisement. As a matter of fact, matters became difficult for the Marathas by the acceptance of this burden, because they had to become enemies of all and sundry by this procedure. But they wished to preserve the grand fabric of the Mughal Em- pire in so far as it was possible. They had no wish to sweep away all trace of old rule and begin their rule anew. They did not wish to create anarchy throughout the length and breadth of India. But they were counting against the time. None of the chiefs and potentates who had risen in India during the 18th century, had a wish to lose what they had grabbed or usurped. The selfishness and machinations of these rulers foiled the attempts of the Marathas to run the empire on its Mughal basis. It looks as if it would have been far better for the Maratha state to have run its own course without getting into this entanglement with the Mughal Empire. But this is by the way. The critics of the Marathas cannot charge them with not knowing the constitu- tional ways or want of principles. They tried to follow the constitutional way, they fought for a principle. They understood the responsibility devolving on them by the acceptance of a treaty, which they did not treat as a scrap of paper, to be torn when it did not suit them. They would not sign away the rights of the Mughal Empire even when these had been usurped by such a potentate as Ahmad Shah Abdali. Raghunathrao would not part with Kabul and Kandahar² in 1758, Bhau would not accept the boundary of Sirhind in 1760. In these instances, the Marathas were fighting for regions and rights already lost by the Mughal Empire. Can any one say with this history be- fore him that the Marathas had no idea of a state, that they did not know the constitutional ways, that they had no respect for treaties or had no regard for principles? They certainly aspired to be the Regents of the Indian Empire and ¹ BISMQ 11 p. 44. ² Itihasa Sangraha— Ait. Sphuta Lekha, 1.11.

THE JUDGMENT 125 none can say that they were inferior to any in India of those days With all their internal quarrels, no other state in India could muster so many troops for war under a unitary command No other nation was less bigoted or more tolerant in religious and social matters, as is proved by the r behaviour towards their Muslim neighbours or their rule over Muslim subjects There is no in stance of their having fabricated a document like Clive, none where they tried to gain a point by assassination or intimidation They did not hire mercenaries for slaughtering their opponent in an unguarded moment They would not murder persons by calling them for an interview They would not kill foreign emissaries at their Court. No other war like nation is known to be milder in their peace time actions There are no instances where the Marathas entered into the slaughter of civilians after a victory, or during conquest to have created terror It is nowhere noted that they slaughtered disarmed prisoners, like the Durranis after Panipat, or uselessly cut off the head of a fallen soldier as in the case of Dattaji Shinde at Buradi They did not apply torture to ex tract hidden wealth like the Afghans at Delhi in 1757 In fact, one feels many a time that their comparative mildness, their humane behaviour their civil man ners, their unwillingness to gain their ends by back door machinations or solve their problems, internal or external, by swift unscrupulous actions such as mur- dering an opponent, or doing away with their unwanted brethren like the Mughals, has had the effect of their not succeeding in history Be that as it may, none can charge them as being morally condemnable in comparison with many other military nations in the world When a responsible historian of India like Sir Jadunath SARKAR charges the Marathas with being 'lesser breeds beyond the law,' ³ one does not know how to characterize such a statement and what standard of conduct and morality he wants to apply He seems to belong to that category of historians-cum moralists "who justify Providence by the event and hold nothing so deserving as success To them there can be no vic- tory in a bad cause, prescription and duration legitimate, and whatever exists is right and reasonable, and God manifests His will by that wh ch He tolerates Men must confirm to the divine decree by living to shape the future after the ratified image of the past "⁴ These writers should learn to know that there are many Marathas—perhaps the majority—who think it better to have lost the Empire than to have followed a line of conduct after the manner of a Clive or Najib or Abdali GENERAL THOUGHTS ON WAR Mankind since it began to think and take a retrospective view of human affairs, has been sharply divided on the moral basis of war, and it will prob- ably remain so divided for all time Indian civilisation, at least after the Aryan imposition, has not only sanctioned war but has consecrated a particular class for that work and given it the second rank in society This is in sharp contrast with the neighbouring Chinese civilisation which had relegated the soldier to the last place in society and only tolerated him as an unavoidable ³ Fall II.291 ⁴ Lord Action, Lectures on Modern History (1907) (Inaugural Lecture) p 25 ,

126 PANIPAT 1761 evil Turks who conquered India and held their sway over it for half a mil lennium were a moving nation in arms In addition, the Islamic teachings which they followed had charged them with waging an incessant war upon the infidels till they were converted to Islam When the Marathas rose upon the horizon of history they had perforce to take to the military profession for solving the Indian riddle It was a necessity imposed on them by the Epoch and they had no choice of refusing it How mild and inoffensive the Marathas otherwise are has been proved after the extinction of their sovereign power, for by the end of the 19th century they were relegated to the rank of non martial races in India in the Indo British political phraseology It means that the Marathas as a race take to arms only when they are insulted or forced to as the Chinese monk Yu an Chwang remarked long ago in his itinerary Spilling of blood never became a pastime with them as with the Afghans On the whole, the battles fought by the Marathas were the least bloody, the casualties on both sides being as few as possible Their so called guerilla mode of warfare was nothing more than seeking to gain their ends by manoeuvring and strategy more than by actual crossing of swords face to face Having acted throughout their career in this spirit, they naturally felt intensely such a disaster as Panipat on account of the heavy massacres following it When estimating the effects of Panipat on the Marathas, this fact should not be lost sight of The best of political thinkers have allowed war as a human necessity in solving uncompromising questions Some go so far as to call it a moral neces sity Taking the historic view, certainly the recorded history of mankind is mostly a history of wars waged by the various races of mankind between and amongst themselves as Sir John FORTESCUE says, but all would not agree with him in thinking the military force of a nation as a manifestation of its moral force At the same time it is certain that in history the military force has stood as the test of material civilisation if not of moral The best soldier has always manifested the highest human virtues personally, but collectively it is difficult to characterise war as a school for virtues If sometimes the best qualities of a nation are called forth and mobilised by war, it is also true and much more often true that the worst side of human nature is exhibited and given a licence as a result of war Whether a state lapses into degeneracy as a result of long peace is also a debatable point, because for counteracting such a possibility some- one else has to suffer The cruelty and the futility of war for final settlement of human world problems has become more and more manifest with the progress of modern civilisation and coming together of mankind Be that as it may, speaking about Panipat, it is very correct to say that the inferiority of the Marathas, in the material sense, became very manifest But on the moral side their record is very clean They had not fought for the three primary (and also primitive) aims of war as given by HOBBES, viz (1) material gain, (2) fear, or (3) glory It means they fought for a fourth cause unknown to that political philosopher, viz principle, the sanctity of the contract they had entered into with the Delhi Emperor for the guarding of his Empire On the other hand Ahmad Shah Abdali individually was also fighting for a cause he thought right, viz the cause of Islam in India He triumphed by his superior power, won glory, freed himself from the fear of the Marathas once for all,

THE JUDGMENT 127

but did not gain anything, materially speaking, thus proving the futility of war in the material sense to any party, long before Sir Norman ANGEL wrote his Great Illusion. Incidentally it also proved the correctness of the Maratha stand in the political sense. The Marathas lost the Panjab no doubt, but it was gained not by Abdali a foreigner, but by the Sikhs in the long run. The treacherous Najib-ud-daulah, the arch-villain of the piece, outwardly succeeded in warding off the Marathas, but found himself thrown between two mill- stones—the Sikhs from the north and the Jats from the south—never getting a moment's rest till his death a decade later. The hated Marathas again ruled in Delhi and uprooted Najib's family together with his buried bones in the grave at Najibabad. The trans-Ganges Ruhelas under Hafiz who had joined Abdali as Afghans, also experienced the scourge of the Marathas after Najib's death. Shuja-ud-daulah who had been enticed away into joining the side of Abdali by cajoling and threatening, not only left the Afghan side just after Panipat, but became the annihilator of the Ruhelas with the help of Warren Hastings, thus historically proving that he had acted under "duress" the wrong party. He himself had escaped falling under the suzerainty of the Marathas, only to find himself obliged to fall a victim to the utterly foreign English. In fact, the ultimate result of Panipat was to make the way smooth and clear for the English, a result which could have been avoided only by a victory for the Marathas. History thus vindicates the correctness of the Maratha stand and exposes the basic hollowness of their critics. Further, it also proves the com- plexity of the Afghan border problem, which has not been satisfactorily solved by the British even after a rule of 150 years. The irony of history can have no better illustration than Panipat.

a superior official, but thought him to be an ordinary munshi Kashiraj is self-contradictory in his account of Bhau's behaviour On the one hand, he condemns Bhau on his pride and obstinacy, on the other he depicts Bhau as ready to submit to any conditions mediated through the agency of such persons as Kashiraj himself Now to judge Bhau from his own letters, one thing is certain about him and that is that he was never proud, though his tone was often harsh and his manner peremptory Bhau should be the last person to assume a cringing role before a man of Kashiraj's position or to be over confi- dent about him There seems to be some discrepancy in the account of Kashiraj, as is acknowledged by Sir Jadunath Sarkar who has carefully studied the original manuscript. He thinks it due to lapse of memory or loose narrative of events ⁶ We cannot treat it so lightly Kashiraj tells us of Bhau's writing his last chit just before the battle of Panipat, a thing which no thoughtful person will be ready to believe A commander in chief intimating in his autograph the last desperate movement of his army, just before the commencement of the fatal battle, is a thing which cannot be inserted or allowed in fiction or poetry, much less can it be believed in a primary source of history Was Bhau such a fool as to believe and hope that his last note would bear any good and immediate results, after his experience in diplomacy for six months? Would he not rather fear the fatal consequence of pre-intimating his movement to such a consummate general as Ahmad Shah Abdali? It was a matter of astonishment to us when we tried to study this point deeply and found none of the previous writers even suspecting the full import of this, to us, a cock and bull story We call it such because fortunately for the historian there is the clear evidence of a con- temporary letter directly falsifying Kashiraj's narrative Sir Jadunath in his new translation of Kashiraj's narrative has given the name of Bhau's valet who took the last chit to Kashiraj as Balakram, who is styled as Bhau's betel-bearer, and is taken as the most confidential servant of his master ⁷ Anybody with an acquaintance with the Maratha names knows that Balakram is not a common Maratha name On the other hand, a letter from the Purandare Archives pub- lished by Rajwade in his sixth volume clearly gives the name of Bhau's valet as Balaram, a common name amongst the Marathas ⁸ Anupgir Gosawi writes in this post-Panipat letter to Nana Purandare that the Peshwa's valet, Balaram Vaghoji Naik, and some others also had gone to Shuja-ud-daulah's camp on some errand on the Sunday prior to the battle of Panipat, fought on Wednesday, 14th January, 1761 This proves that the chit Kashiraj is talking of as hav- ing been dramatically sent three hours prior to the battle had been actually sent (if at all) three days previous to it We suggest from this small but vital point that Kashiraj had not only forgotten the days and their proper order, but was narrating the whole story with a dramatic touch, as the battle of Panipat is a good theme for such treatment. 6 Fall 2.369 7 Ibid 2 320 8 Rajwade 6 No 407, p 472. P. F—9

A CRITICAL AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SOURCES (PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED) 1 Kashiraj • Persian account of the battle of Panipat and the events leading to it (Oxford University Press, 1926) Corrected by the translation of Sir JADUNATH SARKAR, published in Indian Historical Quarterly, 1934 and 1935 Kashiraj Shivdev was a Deshastha Brahmin (native of the Nizam's Dominions) at the court of Shuja ud daulah of Oudh, who was present through out the campaign in the camp of his master His narrative is taken as the best authority on the battle of Panipat He seems to have been working in the north for some twenty five years before Panipat since the time of Safdar Jang He had occasional correspondence with the Peshwas¹ for more than twenty years His exact status at the court of Shuja-ud daulah is not quite clear He is called a Vakil or a diplomat, but is scarcely sent anywhere as an emissary with full powers In his account he is found assuming superior airs, standing tightly on his dignity But there is no mention of him in the whole range of Marathi political correspondence,² an omission which seems to us rather significant His account was written nineteen years after the battle of Panipat, and from memory It appears to have been purposely written for some one inquisitive on the point, possibly a British official at the Oudh Court In 1780 when this account was written, the British power in India was already combating with that of the Maratha power The glory of the Maratha power was on the wane Kashiraj, though racially a Maratha, had culturally, by this time, become by his long sojourn in northern India, almost a U P Kayasth with all that it means When he wrote his account he was almost seventy, an age when the mental faculties are on the decline He seems to have been, at first, a disappointed candidate for service under the Peshwa,³ and later on moved to the north in search of employment, which he secured on account of his profi- ciency in the Persian language That there was no particular love lost between him and the Maratha nation or their Empire is evident from the tone of his ac- count. According to him, Sadashivrao Bhau was defeated on account of his arrogance and pride⁴ Throughout his narrative, he seems to have been con- vinced that fate had ordained the miscarriage of the Maratha enterprise⁵ On the other hand, whenever he had occasion to write about Ahmad Shah Abdali, he is found completely over awed by his superior prowess and his divine role of punishing the Marathas for their wicked pride, for in the eyes of Kashiraj, pride is sin This much for the mental make up of the man Bhau's munshi once wrote a letter to Kashiraj at which Kashiraj was offended on account of some deficiency in the proper form of address due to his station It means that the Maratha Court did not think Kashiraj to be 1 SPD 40.25 dated Feb 1741 2 KASHIRAJ 14 3 SPD 30.329 4 KASHIRAJ 52 5 Ibid. 8 IHQ 11.552, 10.266. [128]

CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 129 a superior official, but thought him to be an ordinary munshi Kashiraj is self contradictory in his account of Bhau's behaviour On the one hand, he condemns Bhau on his pride and obstinacy, on the other he depicts Bhau as ready to submit to any conditions mediated through the agency of such persons as Kashiraj himself Now to judge Bhau from his own letters, one thing is certain about him and that is that he was never proud, though his tone was often harsh and his manner peremptory Bhau should be the last person to assume a cringing role before a man of Kashiraj's position or to be over confi dent about him There seems to be some discrepancy in the account of Kashiraj, as is acknowledged by Sir Jadunath SARKAR who has carefully studied the original manuscript. He thinks it due to lapse of memory or loose narrative of events ⁶ We cannot treat it so lightly Kashiraj tells us of Bhau's writing his last chit just before the battle of Panipat, a thing which no thoughtful person will be ready to believe A commander in chief intimating in his autograph the last desperate movement of his army, just before the commencement of the fatal battle, is a thing which cannot be inserted or allowed in fiction or poetry, much less can it be believed in a primary source of history Was Bhau such a fool as to believe and hope that his last note would bear any good and immediate results, after his experience in diplomacy for six months? Would he not rather fear the fatal consequence of pre-intimating his movement to such a consummate general as Ahmad Shah Abdali? It was a matter of astonishment to us when we tried to study this point deeply and found none of the previous writers even suspecting the full import of this, to us, a cock and bull story We call it such because fortunately for the historian there is the clear evidence of a con- temporary letter directly falsifying Kashiraj's narrative Sir Jadunath in his new translation of Kashiraj's narrative has given the name of Bhau's valet who took the last chit to Kashiraj as Balakram, who is styled as Bhau's betel bearer, and is taken as the most confidential servant of his master ⁷ Anybody with an acquaintance with the Maratha names knows that Balakram is not a common Maratha name On the other hand, a letter from the Purandare Archives pub- lished by RAJWADE in his sixth volume clearly gives the name of Bhau's valet as Balaram, a common name amongst the Marathas ⁸ Anupgir Gosawi writes in this post Panipat letter to Nana Purandare that the Peshwa's valet, Balaram Vaghoji Naik, and some others also had gone to Shuja ud daulah's camp on some errand on the Sunday prior to the battle of Panipat, fought on Wednesday, 14th January, 1761 This proves that the chit Kashiraj is talking of as hav ing been dramatically sent three hours prior to the battle had been actually sent (if at all) three days previous to it We suggest from this small but vital point that Kashiraj had not only forgotten the days and their proper order, but was narrating the whole story with a dramatic touch, as the battle of Panipat is a good theme for such treatment. 6 Fall, 2.369 7 Ibid 2 320 8 RAJWADE 6 No 407, p 472 P. F-9

130 PANIPAT: 1761 Bhau Sahebanchi Bakhar,⁹ on the other hand, gives quite the opposite story It tells us of Abdali's Vakil coming to Bhau just before the battle and asking him to postpone the fight for the day in order to give a last chance fot peace talks Bhau is reported to have unceremoniously driven him back, be- ginning the fight at once thereafter Sir Jadunath, though he considers the Marathi Bakhars "as later gossipy fabrications no better than opium-eaters' tales,"¹⁰ has still to acknowledge that "there are some true traditions (as proved by authentic records) and some statements .which have every appearance of being true though unsupported elsewhere" We do not know whether Sir Jadunath would like to believe in this Bakhar story, which, we think, as most improbable and written to suit the whole tenor of the author, who was out to condemn Bhau and make a scapegoat of him Kashiraj was on the battle field that whole day, no doubt, but that fact cannot make any person see the whole line of battle with his own eyes, much less can it give him a correct idea of the order of the battle on the opposite side Kashiraj, with all his sagacity, was a civil official and not a soldier who could judge military matters correctly For the most part, he was standing ready in his own camp throughout the day of the battle He himself confesses that Shuja's side was the least affected part in the line of battle, because none came to attack it The whole line of battle is taken by Sir Jadunath to cover some seven miles So it was physically impossible for Kashiraj to see anything but a small part of the actual battle, and that, too, from a distance His value as an eye-witness must, therefore, be discounted to a great extent, and his version of the battle must be taken as gathered after the event from the gen- eral reports which came to his ears This work of collecting news from various sources and afterwards collating and correlating it into the form of a running narrative could be done by others also, and, therefore, we have no valid ground to reject the version given in the Marathi Bakhars and letters only because we are unaware of the status of the narrators We have shown in the detailed de- scription of the battle the various points wherein Kashiraj is proved to be wrong 2 Bhau Sahebanchi Bakhar (1922) and 3 Shrimant Bhau Saheb Yanchi Kaifiyat (1887) These two are the most important primary sources about the battle of Panipat in Marathi Their authors are unknown but they were certainly much nearer to the event than Kashiraj when they wrote, as can be proved from the language, the tone and the textual criticism of their manuscripts Certain pas- sages in the narration of the events in the Kaifiyat are found bodily incorporated in the Bakhar¹¹ which is a bigger narrative of the event From this we can say that the Kaifiyat, small and to the point, was the earlier narrative of the two, of which the Bakhar was an amplified edition with enlarged paraphrase. The Kaifiyat gives the life of Bhau from the point of his start for the Udgir cam- paign of 1759-60 and closes with the retreat from Panipat. The Bakhar, on the other hand, narrates the Maratha activities in the north from 1753 on- 9 Bhau Bakhar (1922) p 115 10 Fall 2.367 11 Cf Kaifiyat 21 and Bakhar 141, K 22, B 144, K. 23, B. 143.

CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 131 wards It is ostensibly written to glorify the achievements of the Shindes and these have no direct connection with the battle of Panipat. The author is evidently a biased person and on that account tries to supply and explain the genesis, the events and the activities behind the scenes of actual narration with all the personal bickerings of the actors in their full gusto The reports of these bickerings and their actual wording may or may not be true in their full import, but it is clear that they throw a necessary light on the seamy side of history We shall have to discount much of this report due to the bias of the author Another thing which has to be borne in mind is the fact that these reports must have necessarily come from the persons who ran away from the field of battle and as such were dubbed as renegades by the people at large The odium of this obloquy and the guilty conscience of having failed to be with their leaders in the thick of the fight, made the reports from these survivors naturally colourful and excusatory Most of these persons had di rect blame attached to their conduct and in sheer self-justification they gave such a retrospective turn to their own and Bhaus conduct as to lead to the disaster which would then appear inevitable If we compare the tone of the letters¹² which some of these survivors sent previous to the battle with those they wrote after it, we can understand the difference worked out in the minds of these writers by the fatal disaster When the authors of the Kaifiyat and the Bakhar wrote their accounts after a few years, the public in Maharashtra had come to form some sort of plausible opinion about the great disaster, after hearing, explaining, accounting and guessing about the various reports brought from the distant field The boiled essence of all these is found written in the Bakhar Sadashivrao Bhau was out to give a new turn to the ancient mode of Maratha warfare which was taken to be of the guerilla type Bhau had introduced the trained infantry tactics and tried to combine them with the original mode The good result of this innovation had been reaped in the Udgir campaign The Udgir victory had naturally increased the prestige of Ibrahim Khan Gardi and his mode of warfare Throughout the Panipat cam- paign, Bhau had put his main confidence in these infantry corps and they also gave a very good account of themselves The idea of entrenching at Panipat was a result of these tactics It made the Marathas unassailable so long as they remained within their entrenchments Bhau expected Abdali to attack them in this strong position, as he was sure of victory in the event of such an attack But Abdali had understood it equally well He himself never once tried to attack, and had strictly forbidden any one from his camp to go out with a view to attacking He played a game of waiting and hoped to get a victory when the Maratha army would come out due to starvation That is why Bhau is found raging and almost railing against Govindpant Bundele for not attacking Abdali from behind and making him compulsorily fall on the Maratha entrenchments to his sure destruction When, due to the failure of Govindpant and due to starvation, Bhau himself had to come out, that combi nation of artillery, infantry and cavalry tactics which it was necessary to keep 12 RAJ Vol. 6 Cf Satvoji Jadhavrao's letters No 404 dated 18-9-1760 and No 409 dated 10-3-1761 also cf Nana Purandare's letters No 391 of 14-11-1760 in Purandare

• Daftar Pt. 1, and No 118 in Pt. III

132 PANIPAT 1761 with an army on the march with all their camp followers, could not be kept up and the disaster inevitably followed The Maratha army was mainly composed of veteran horsemen with a life long belief in the guerilla mode of warfare It seems they neither understood nor had a mind to follow the cor- rect orders of their commander based on the tactics advised by Ibrahim Khan Gardi, and when the inevitable disaster followed, due to their misunderstand- ing and faint heartedness in the fight, they laid the whole blame on the new mode of "entrenched warfare" On this point the whole opinion in Maha- rashtra seems to be unanimous and it is reflected in these chronicles Notwithstanding these prepossessions, however, the Bakhar correctly reports Bhau's plan of the battle which was unknown to Kashiraj Pandit on the other side and which was not followed to the end Unaware of the plan and the aim, Kashiraj reports the battle in an inexplicable way, while the author of the Bakhar charges Bhau himself with breaking the plan decided on the previous night and thus becoming the author of the disaster All the his- torians up till now have been so much obsessed with the idea of the complete reliability of Kashiraj s report that they have never stopped to inquire how the account in the Bakhars is to be explained and why it should be disbe- lieved and set aside The full import of the intended plan in the Bakhar can- not be understood unless one studies the detailed maps of the battle-field in their complete environment, and tries to construe a connected idea with the help of every line reported in the Bakhar in combination with it The authors of the chronicles seem to be well acquainted with the topography of the battle field and its surroundings, and they might have been personally present in the Maratha camp themselves The chronicles correctly report the changes in Abdali's camp- ing ground during the two months and a half, while the impression created by Kashiraj's account fixes Abdali's camp once for all, a very serious discrepancy on the part of this eye witness ¹³ When one begins to re read the Bakhars in the light of the original letters, one is impressed by the substantiality of their account. THE COMMON POINTS IN KASHIRAJ'S NARRATIVE AND THE BAKHAR Comparison That Kashiraj wrote his account after reading some other accounts is proved by certain curious coincidences in the arrangement of his writing and that of Bhau Bakhar, which was definitely a northern Indian production The short Kaifiyat was definitely written earlier than the Bakhar But what seems strange to the reader is that the correct consecutive narration of events is fol- lowed by the writer of the Kaifiyat, and an absence of the sense of time char- acterises the writer of the gossipy Bakhar Thus the Bakhar gives Govindpant Bundele's death as the first event while it was actually the fourth during the beleagurement Similarly, the cutting off of Parashar Dadaji's treasure carry- ing party was the last event which is subsequently dealt with by the Bakhar ¹³ Bhau Kaifiyat pp. 14, 21

CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 133 The first event of the Shinde Ruhela fight is given next and Balvantrao Mehen- dale's event the last¹ Kashiraj is found following the incorrect order of the Bakhar in his narrative, giving the events of Govindpant, Parashar Dadaji, Shinde and Balvantrao consecutively. We cannot treat this as a mere accident in writing. Either Kashiraj had the Bakhar in his mind when writing his nar- rative, or both the Bakhar and Kashiraj copied from a third unknown, com mon source. This is further proved by Kashiraj's attempt at giving dates of certain events which are proved to be utterly wrong by other direct evidence. The Ka ffyat gives the correct dates wherever it has given these, while Kashiraj is found to be wrong—even in his date of the great battle, reckoning by the Muslim calendar. Sir Jadunath treats these points as 'lapses of memory or hurried writing.' But no serious student of textual criticism can be satisfied with this explanation. Kashiraj tries to foist authenticity on his hearsay nar- rative by introducing dates into it, thereby impressing upon the reader the cor- rectness thereof. We do not think he had kept a diary of the events. Had there been no verifying proofs for the events he narrates, he would have passed on as the writer on Panipat, eye witness as he was for the events from begin- ning to end. Unfortunately for Kashiraj, a few Marathi papers have survived the ravages of time, exposing him to the hilt. A man who treats the whole episode as a sort of play of destiny, who charges Bhau with pride, who though a Maharashtra Brahmin himself, cannot properly know Bhau's relationship to Balvantrao Mehendale, a man who could not understand the constitutional thread behind the Maratha politics in the north, a man who treats Surajmal's episode without understanding the politics behind it, who introduces rumours to heighten the romantic effect of his narrative, a man who omits important facts which militate against the tenor of his narrative (e.g. Bhau's deposition of Shah Jahan Sani and the proclamation of Shah Alam as Emperor), a man who gives incorrect dates, a man who does not report Abdali's shifting of camps, a man who is incorrect even in his narration of the actual battle in certain par- ticulars, and finally a man who would not mention the important fact of Abdali's appointment of the regicide Maratha protege Ghazi ud din as the Wazir with full powers before his departure because it would mar the effect of his whole narrative, shedding a powerful light as it does on the whole of the Panipat episode from beginning to end,—to call such a man's narrative as the most trustworthy authority on the Panipat campaign and to say that "no other author can be set against him in point of authenticity," is something beyond the range of historical research. The main points on which the chronicles differ from Kashiraj's ac- count are the following: (1) Changes in the sites of Abdali's camp. (2) Bhau's plan of battle. (3) The directions of the rival armies on the battle field. (1) The cause of the so-called Maratha right wing and the Durrani left wing never coming to grips throughout the battle.

134 PANIPAT 1761 (5) The actual site of the battle On all these points Kashiraj is proved to be wrong and loose in his account by the evidence of original letters. Because Sir Jadunath and others have placed their faith in Kashiraj, they have been completely misled in their account of the battle. Kashiraj's account should be relied upon only in so far as the Durrani side is concerned. The Maratha side cannot be understood un- less we rely upon the evidence of the Marathi chronicles and original letters. 4-5. Purandare Daftar Vols. 1 and 3 (1929 and 1934). These form a valuable primary source not only for the events after the battle of Panipat, but also for the events prior to it, because they throw a rare flood of light on the mental make-up and character of some of the chief characters in the Pani- pat episode. What Sadashivrao Bhau was really like cannot be understood without his early personal letters. The characters of Nanasaheb Peshwa, Nana Purandare, Sakharam Bapu and Raghoba Dada are properly understood in all their setting by a study of these volumes of intimate personal letters. Sir Jadunath has missed this point and so cannot properly appraise their part in the great drama of history. 6-7-8. RAJWADE V. K. Marathyanchya Itihasachin Sadhane Vols. 1, 3 and 6. They are the basic sources containing original letters direct from the scene of the battle as well as throughout the campaign and for events leading to it from the very beginning. When RAJWADE published his first volume in 1898 after accidentally getting possession of a number of original letters addressed to Govindpant Bundele, it was the only, and therefore, partial side of the cam- paign that was open to him. He should have corrected it when his own third and sixth volumes were published later on. But RAJWADE, after his own man- ner, left the scathing criticism of Govindpant in the first volume untouched throughout his life, though he lived twenty-eight years thereafter. Whatever excuse he had in his day for obstinately sticking to his own view based on one source only, we in 1946 have none. After the publication of the Peshwa Daftar in its forty-five volumes a decade ago, a flood of light has been thrown on the Maratha activities in the north in all their bearings. It is clear from evidence adduced in these volumes that Govindpant was not the only, if culprit he was, who should be made the scapegoat for the whole disaster. How historical perspective is blurred when only a part of the material is avail- able and historians try to draw a complete picture out of it, is best exempli- fied by RAJWADE's classical introduction to his first volume on the Panipat period. We shall have occasion to point out how far RAJWADE had been car- ried astray¹⁴ in his attempt. Psychological proof for it is available in that volume itself though none of his deep students uptil now have either detected it or have shown the candour to point it out openly. 9-10-11. Selections from The Peshwa Daftar Vols. 2, 21, 27. These directly deal with the north Indian activities of the Marathas for a period of almost two decades previous to the battle of Panipat, though cross-references. ¹⁴ RAJ. I. 1-5 and Note, 170. 183. 181. 181. 182. Note 325.

CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 135 will be found interspersed in many other volumes also For studying the char- acters of the main actors in the Panipat drama it is necessary to study most of the other volumes for the pre Panipat period, and sometimes even the later volumes The characters of the individuals are the one sure and constant guide from which we can correctly judge their activities in a proper perspective A man's life is never compartmental, and it is unjust and unhistorical to judge events in the lives of these individuals, from the bare data concerning particu lar events and, therefore, from a partial angle What a man will do under given circumstances mainly depends on his past, which is reflected in his char- acter Historians are not the advocates of the historical characters but their post mortem judges Unfortunately, very few historians correctly understand their proper role and praise or blame the historical characters in detail We have tried to study each single character separately, completely and in detail, and then come to form certain notions about the proper manner of judging their actions in this study, a procedure we think absolutely essential To at- tain this end, we had to utilize all the available material in the var ous volumes of original letters concerning these individuals 12-13-14 Shindeshahi Itihasach n Sadhane Part I (1929), Part II (1930), and Part III (1937) These contain a few original letters from Panipat itself Others throw a flood of light on the inner workings of Shinde affairs. Specially valuable is the correspondence of the diplomats connected with the Shinde family which is collected for publication in the third volume Ramaji Anant Dabholkar who was the Diwan of the Shindes from 1750 to 1761, and died after Panipat, was the chief director of Shinde affairs and his corre- spondence is the most valuable of all Sir Jadunath has overlooked these volumes and his description of the battle is deficient on that account. 15 16 17-18 Four Incomplete Manuscript Bakhars about Panipat were examined by us but they contain no authentic or new material They are gossipy in their contents and their burthen is all the same Malika Zamani is given as the ch ef instigator in calling Ahmad Shah Abdali Bhau and Bal- vantrao Mehendale are depicted as proud and bad Holkar and Shinde were against the war, but Bhau was adamant and bent on honour Only three per sons remained fighting to the last, v.z Bhau, Jankoji and Tukoji Shinde A portion of these Bakhars, especially that containing Malika Zamani's part in it is found incorporated in Bhausahebanchi Bakhar, the Bakhar published by Parasnis in his Marathyanche Parakrama (Bundelkhand part) and similar other attempts The theme was a favourite one with all Maratha clerks of the Peshwa times and they copied the story from wherever they could 19 A few pages of Bhausahebanchi Ka fijat were supplied to us by Mr K V PURANDARE These pages contain a few verbal changes but no new information We note this fact here to show that even the Ka fijat, though it was over shadowed by the more complete and the enlarged Bakhar, was still copied by a few in Maharashtra Rao Bahadur SANE was able to get only one copy of this Ka fijat and had to rely on that one alone He concluded there- from, that the Kaifijat was a rare brochure But this does not seem to have been the case

136 PANIPAT 1761 20 Raghunath Yadav's Panipat Bakhar Though ostensibly written by a court clerk and that by order of a member of the Peshwa's family, this is the most worthless of all the Panipat Bakhars 21 Aitihasik Lekha Samgraha Vol I (1897) by V V KHARE con tains a few letters on the Panipat Campaign 22 23 Chandrachuda Daftar Vol I (1920), and Vol II (1934) also contain a few letters dealing with the northern India affairs and bear evidence to the Maratha advance and rule upto Attock on the Indus 24 25 Holkarachin Kaifiyat (published in the Kavyetihasa Samgraha by K N SANE (1886), and Holkarachi Thaili (RAJ III, No 172 and Itihasa Samgraha) These are both explanatory after-thoughts, to justify Mal harrao Holkar's conduct in the Panipat affair That he ran away at the previous behest of Bhau in order to escort Parvatibai, the wife of Bhau, is now proved to be false, on the authority of contemporary letters How an imaginary turn can be given to historic events is proved by these attempts 26 Aitihasik Patren, Yadi Vagaire Lekha (2nd Ed 1929) This contains the autobiography of Nana Phadnis which we take to be written some- time soon after the event when the author was extremely grieved and repentant and almost on the point of forsaking the world to lead the life of a recluse, and not after thirty years as assumed by Sir Jadunath There is nothing incorrect in it when compared with the original letters Other letters in this volume are also important for the northern Indian affairs of the Marathas 27 Aitihasik Patravyavahara (1930) This volume also contains valuable correspondence, amongst them being an important letter by Nana Phadnis from the Panipat camp Sir Jadunath has wrongly understood it, as his translation of a line in it gives exactly the reverse meaning 28 Persian Akhbars (news letters) in manuscript form existing in the archives of the Bharat Itihasa Samshodhak Mandal contain valuable material not found elsewhere about the Panjab campaign of the Marathas, ending in the far famed carrying of the Maratha banners beyond the Attock to Peshawar 29 Bhau's Ballad (published in BDCRI 4 3) in the Jathi dialect of Hindusthani copied for us after the dictation of a Muslim ballad singer of Siwa, five miles to the south of Panipat, contains a more complete version of the ballad than that published in the Sardesai Commemoration Volume by Dr KANUNGO and also one given in pieces in the Marathi publication 'Bhaunchya Virakatha' Our copy which contains both prose and poetry, gives valuable information in deciding the field of battle, the environment and the actual point on the river Jamuna where Abdali crossed 30 ELLIOT and DOWSON, History of India (1877), Vol VIII, con tains selected translations of (1) Tarikh i Alamgir-Sani, (E & D CII) (ii) Manazil ul Futuh, by Md Ja'far Shamlu (E & D CIII)

CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 137 (iii) Nigar-nama-i-Hind, of-Saiyid Ghulam Ali (E. & D. CXLIII) (iv) Ibratnamah by Faqir-ud-din Md. of Allahabad (E. & D. CXIX) (v) Tarikh-i-Ibrahim Khan (E. & D. CXXI). Of these Ibratnamah and Tarikh-i-Alamgir-Sani are used for Ghazi-ud- din's acts, especially the assassinations of the Emperor and others. Tarikh-i- Ibrahim Khan and Nigar-namah practically copy their accounts of the Panipat battle from Kashiraj. But Shamlu was present on the battle-field as a servant of Shah Pasand Khan who commanded the left wing of Abdali's army. His figures are inflated no doubt but certain casual references of his are helpful in deciding a few controversial points. Though both Kashiraj and Shamlu were eye-witnesses, present on the battle-field during the battle, both could see only a corner of the battle, and that which was least engaged, in the first half of the day. But Shamlu knew much more of the Abdali side than Kashiraj from the inside, just as Kashiraj naturally knew more of the Maratha side. Shamlu's remark that Ahmad Shah drove away the Shindes from the banks of the river Attock and pursued them as far as Burya and Sarangpur (p. 146) is helpful in pointing out the farthest line of Maratha advance in the Panjab. It had not stopped at the Chinab as Sir Jadunath says,¹⁵ but had reached the Indus itself as can now be proved by other contemporary material. Shamlu also gives the account of the precarious passage of Abdali's army across the Jamuna by the Budhia Ghat to Sarangpur, which is also so written in Marathi papers, while later on it somehow has assumed the form of Saharanpur, which it retains today. This is one of the instances where bad pronunciation and in- correct writing has changed a purely Hindu name into a Muslim-looking one. Shamlu's account of the battle which ensued before crossing, corroborates the account in Bhau Sahebanchi Bakhar. He also gives the behaviour of the Abdali troops when they entered Delhi after defeating Dattaji Shinde. They looted it, notwithstanding the fact that they had come to protect the city from the Marathas and even the earnest intercession of Malika-i-Zamani who was the chief instigator of Ahmad Shah in calling him to India was not able to stop it. Shamlu's account of Ahmad Shah's cantonment at Anupshahar is useful in visualizing the difficulties in the Doab. His account of the patrol round the Maratha camp and cutting off of Maratha parties bringing cash from Delhi, corroborates the Marathi chronicles. But Shamlu is most useful in deciding the beginning of the battle and falsifying Kashiraj in his palpably untrue state- ment that just before the battle in the early hours of the morning a Maratha valet of Bhau came with the last chit. Shamlu states that Ahmad Shah, after noticing "clouds of dust ascended upto heaven" ordered Shah Pasand Khan to go forth and ascertain the cause thereof. He rode through the plain between Abdali's camp and the Maratha camp by an unfrequented path and took "four hours to advance half a kos." As Shamlu was accompanying Shah Pasand Khan, there is no cause to suspect his statement as untrue though written after thirty-five years, because no man would forget such an event ¹⁵ Fall 2.76.

on such a day $^{16}$ Shamlu's account of Ahmad Shah's arrangement of his army also supplies a clue in correctly visualizing the battle array, which seems to differ a little from Kashiraj's account The last important point made clear from Shamlu's account is the fact of Ahmad Shah's apprehension in the first half of the day that "he would not be able to with stand" the impetuous Maratha attack led by Bhau on the Abdali centre, and his despatch of a person "to mount the ladies of his household on fleet steeds and keep them ready for any eventualities That shows that Ahmad Shah was not at all sure of certain victory as made out by later historians and com mentators Incidentally it shows Ahmad Shah's wisdom and precaution against any mishap Shamlu openly says that "by Ahmad Sultan's good for tune one Zamburak ball struck Vishwasrao on the forehead and another hit Bhau on the side," meaning thereby that good fortune and accidents had not a little to do with the Maratha defeat Shamlu also corroborates the fact of the Maratha army's sudden desertion from the battle field and the stampede which followed Shah Pasand Khan received the news of this central struggle through couriers (p 154), which again shows the distance separating the various divisions on the battle field Shah Pasand Khan had not possibly moved much from his original place in the battle array and charged Malharrao and Janakoji only after knowing the defeat of the centre Shamlu only shows that they fled, though Malharrao fled westwards and Janakoji eastwards Sham- lu's account of the Maratha camp after the battle when 30,000 matchlockmen were so struck with terror and consternation that they would not lift their hand to strike anybody who came amidst them for loot, is most illuminative of the psychic effect of defeat We think that the Marathas had exhausted their ammunition and hence were helpless to do anything They were only putting on a bold face to conceal their deficiency Shamlu also notes that a Maratha chief had been stationed in hindmost rank of their army and was later on seen fleeing towards the south side with six or seven thousand horse, and would not meet even "three individuals," but ran away pell-mell "at the mere firing of the guns and took another direction," shows that Bhau had not, as assumed by Sir Jadunath, left his camp unprotected in the last resort He had prop- erly arranged everything, but everything went astray as luck would have it Altogether we do not think of Shamlu as a worthless witness as Sir Jadunath seems to think, and have fully utilised his account for what it is worth As Shamlu was in the latter part of his life living in India, he had ample oppor- tunities of conversing with other survivors from the field and of refreshing his memory of the Panipat battle field That he had not lost interest in the af- fairs of the Marathas is clear from his mention of Shah Alam's return to Delhi in the company of the Marathas, and his anecdotes about Mahadaji Shinde's lameness and the skeletons of the Maratha horses at the caravanserai of Sone pat—incidents which he only relates 31 Sayyid Nuruddin Hasan Khan's Life of Najib-ud-daulah, transla- tion by Sir Jadunath SARKAR in the Islamic Culture, 1933, presents one view of the life of this unscrupulous and mischievous man in Indian history Najib $^{16}$ ELLIOT 8.152.