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80 all assert that it was Afzal. These genuine old historians never shrink from charging Shivaji with murder or treachery whenever they know him to be really guilty. They wrote long before Grant Duff's book had roused public indignation against Shivaji's alleged murder of an invited guest. It is, therefore, impossible to contend that the story of Afzal having struck the first blow was an invention of the modern Marathas after English education had wakened their conscience to the enormity of pre-meditated political murders. Sabhasad (1694) and Chitnis (1810) at least Cannot be suspected of any design to whitewash their hero's character by falsifying history. In saying that Afzal struck the first blow, they truly record a genuine old tradition and not a modern nationalist invention.

The point is further supported by Shivaji's letter to Ramdas in which he says that he gained strength by uttering the name of his guru while he was feeling himself being strangled in Afzal 's grip. A disembowelled man cannot give his adversary a deadly hug, and therefore Afzal was unwounded when he seized Shivaji in his clasp. But I am not at present sure about the genuineness of this letter. Shivaji's elaborate protection of his person before going to the interview and his placing an ambush round Afzal 's forces cannot be taken as proofs of a treacherous intention. Secret assassination is the favourite weapon of decadent monarchies, and many such murders had taken place in the sultanates