Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 110

100
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(MAY, 1929
iinportance, so long as the metrical swing is not dis. turbed, and for a similar reason, within moderation, the number of syllables allowed between each stress ig a variable quantity. The most important stresses are those at the end of each line. The first and third lines of each verse have throughout feminine endings, while the second and fourth lines have masculine endings. Sir George proposes to deal with this interesting subject of Kashmiri metre in his forthcoming edition of the Ramdvaldra-carita. The translation has been made in a somewhat archaio style which may be regarded as appropriate to the age of the story. Foot-notes have been added where required to elucidate allusions in the text. The work bears the impress of the scholarly hand of the author.
C.E.A. W. OLDHAM. MILITARY SYSTEM OF THE MARATHAS, with a brief
account of their Maritime Activities, by SURENDRANATH SEN. Calcutta, 1928.
It is not possible to review this important volume of deep research in the space available in this Journal, and the present notice must confine itself to a statement that not only have Maratha sources been uti. lised, but much of the unpublished English, French and Portuguese records as well. The work has been thoroughly and systematically performed in such a manner as to compel the attention of the reader to Dr. Surendranath Sen's conclusions, to which the special attention of all students is heroin drawn.
The political point that most exercises Dr. Sen is the sudden rise of the Marathas to prominence about 1620, and their equally sudden collapse about 1800, and his examination of the causes of both is well worth the earnest attention of even expert enquirers. His general conclusions as to the fall of the Maratha military power-which it may be remarked are not at all those that have been hitherto put usually forward-are firstly, & revival of the feudalism that Sivaji had discouraged and 80 save his army from disunion and dissension; secondly the use of personal aggrandisement as a principle which brought about the denationalisation of the army; and thirdly, failure on the part of the Maratha leaders to keep pace with scientific progress. In fact, the Maratha Army became in time a weapon inferior to that of the European trained and led Indian armies opposed to it. We see nothing here, 88 of old, of the influence of caste, neglect of civil government, discouragement of trade, industry, agriculture and commerce, or of the national policy of aggression and tortuous diplomacy. This omis. sion is more than remarkable and makes the book on that account alone worthy of serious study.
Dr. Sen devotes a long chapter (pp. 28-53) to chauth and sardeshmukhi, the terrible fiscal demands, which, as he says, "have been invariably associated with the Marathas as an appropriate expression of their predatory genius." He shows, however, that chauth nominally a tax of one quarter of the revenue was not an invention of Sivaji, as it has usually been held to be, and his remarks on the whole subject are illuminating and of the greatest interest.
The most novel parts of Dr. Sen's book are in the chapters on the Maratha Navy, which are worthy of the closest examination, as they deal with a bypath of history difficult to traverse ; and he is to be congratulated on a clear and consecutive stato. ment of a most complicated story. Ho considers, with a great wealth of research into obscure documente, the whole tale of the Maratha Navy from its commencement under Sivaji to its development successively under the Angrias, the Savants and the Peshwas, and its final disappearance after a not long existence. He tells the story, too. in such a way that the various leaders appear severally before us as living characters in a natural sequence of men and events. This is no mean achievement, as any one who like the present writer-has tried to un. ravel this very tangled skein, can appreciate.
Dr. Sen dives into the vexed question of piracy versus privateering and assertion of so vereignty of the Bea, with a view to showing that the Maratha seamen were no pirates, though they of course were always held to be such by their opponents, the European sai lors of their time. What he has to say here has much force and should be carefully weighed by students.
Finally, Dr. Sen does not hesitate to draw conclu - sions on the result of his studies as to the merits and demerits of the Marathas as a military and naval power. Some of the conclusions are not flattering to them and will no doubt be resented in Bombay, but that is not to say that his remarks are ill-founded or otherwise than fairly stated. The whole book is valuable in the highest sense and a good instance of fair-minded research
R. C. TEMPLE. PRATAP SINGEA, & Memoir of the Great Maharana
of Mewar, by Prof. SATISCHANDRA MITRA of Daulatpur, and PROF. D. N. GHOSH of Delhi (formerly of Daulatpur): with a foreword by LORD RONALDSHAY. Calcutta, 1928.
A good many years ago Professor Satischandra Mitra "published an account of the life of Rana Pratap Singha in Bengali, based entirely on Tod's Rajasthan." That account must therefore have been largely a puro romance, and it would be difficult to quarrel with an Indian writer for that reason. Since then he has completed a revised version in English in collaboration with Professor D. N. Ghosh. In this revised account he has endeavoured to take advantage of the research of recent studente of Indian history. All this is as it should be, and if the Professor has fallen into the clutches of romance at times, he has after all only shared the fate of European as well as Indian authors who have dived into such a history as that of the Rajputs. With this reservation, it may be said that this new version of the story of the heroic struggles of the Mewar Rajputs under Pratap Singh against the Mughals of Akbar's time is a great advance on those previonsly available. The illustrations, however, are much poorer than many that adorn earlier editions of the romance, notably that of Tod himself.
R. C. TEMPLE.