Page:Shivaji and His Times.djvu/444

424 reality. This petty jagirdar's son proved himself the irrepressible opponent of the Mughal empire and all its resources. This fact deeply impressed the minds of his contemporaries in India and abroad. Aurangzib was in despair as to how he could subdue Shiva. A significant statement is made in a news- letter of his Court in 1670 that the Emperor read a despatch from the Deccan, recounting some raids of Shiva and then "remained silent." In the inner council of the Court he often anxiously asked whom he should next send against Shivaji, seeing that nearly all his great generals had failed in the Deccan, and Mahabat Khan irreverently replied with a sneer at Abdul Wahab's influence over the Emperor, "No general is necessary. A decree from the Chief Qazi will be sufficient to extinguish Shiva !" The young Persian king, Shah Abbas II., sent a letter taunting Aurangzib, "You call yourself a Padishah, but cannot subdue a mere zamindar like Shiva. I am going to India with an army to teach you your business."

To the Hindu world in that age of renewed persecution, Shivaji appeared as the star of a new hope, the protector of the ritualistic paint-mark (Maty on the forehead of Hindus, and the saviour of Brahmans. (Bhushan's poems.) His Court and his son's became the rallying-point of the opposition to Aurangzib. The two rivals were both supermen, but contrasts in character.